Hello everybody, welcome to ad week together. This is our daily live show at ad week where we are bringing together our staff members with our readers and with our viewers every day at one o'clock Eastern time here in the US. I see that we've got people tuning in from the Netherlands from India, from Portland, from Seoul, from Amsterdam. So thank you all for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Today we're going to be talking about a few interesting things. We have a staff member here today, Co-im, who is our department's editor. You also might know her as the voice, as the co-host of our podcast. Yeah, that's probably an ad which comes out weekly. And I think a new episode just dropped today. Co, thank you so much for being with us. Yeah, it's really nice to be with you and with the ad week community. I'm here in Seoul. Yes. So yeah, Co has such an interesting perspective, not just as an ad week editor, but also she made the decision recently to go to South Korea to be with family. She also is a certified yoga instructor and very kind of connected with the wellness phase. So we're going to be talking about a couple of things today. One is an inside view from South Korea, which I'm really curious to hear from you, Co, about how things are playing out there compared with your experience in New York. And then we're going to dive into how the coronavirus is affecting the wellness industry. And I think there's some good news, bad news there, right? So Co, for starters, can you just tell us a bit more? I know that it was a big decision for you to take the flight back to South Korea, just with some of the risks of traveling these days.  Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I had to address a personal family matter. So it wasn't an easy decision to make, like you said. And I really weighed the risk of getting on a plane, going through multiple airports. But I also knew that I was coming home to family and that South Korea is in a relatively good state in terms of flattening its curve. So I was very vigilant about traveling, had my mask on, had Lysol air sprays, and wiping everything down. And when I left New York, we were just really starting to do the social distancing, maybe doing one day on, one day off of going into work. But it feels like it was a little too late, as we probably all can feel and read about. And here, strangely enough, restaurants are still open. People still go to the store without feeling any hysteria. They go to the pharmacy and wait in line when it's their turn, depending on their birth year. And you can see in this photo that they're not necessarily socially distancing, but they're all wearing masks. And that's kind of been part of the culture in Korea, this idea of cleanliness and community and really thinking about what is my place in the world. So people are being very responsible. You're not going to see people hosting parties. We have sanitizers in private office buildings and also sanitizers in public streets. So there's no shortage of materials that people need. There's no hysteria. There's no price mark. I was able to order a couple of extra that you see over my right shoulder on Korea's version of Amazon coupon. And it came within days. So you don't see people hoarding and stocking up the way that they are in the US? No. In the storefronts, you see packs and packs of toilet paper, but nobody's really taking them because they're just kind of going about their day normally. It's a weird sense of normalcy here. It's not really a new normal. It's just an adjusted normal. And I go to the store with my grandma and there's plenty of food, fresh food. We're not having to kind of eat out of cans, but there is a lot of delivery. So there is, I don't see a lot of people on the buses and in the streets as much, but people are out and about. And where, can you give our viewers a sense of where South Korea is on the coronavirus curve in relation to the US? Because this is my understanding that it was one of the first countries that really was hit hard with this. Yes, one of the countries that was hit hard, but also responded very quickly. So what a lot of experts point to was South Korea is very kind of rigid testing and giving information very directly. So maybe they saw more cases early on, but it was also because they were testing an enormous amount of people, even if you were kind of asymptomatic. When I traveled here, before I left the airport, I had to go through a whole system of downloading a government issued app in which I have to self-diagnose and report any symptoms every day. So this calls to, and I recommend it to take a test. And I wanna just throw this out for our viewers who are watching on LinkedIn Live as well as Facebook. If you have any questions for Co, please feel free to drop them in the comments and I'll try to pick one out to ask her. So Co, I wanna ask you a little bit about that. You just this past week took a coronavirus test, right? You went through, I think a walk up or drive through clinic. And can you tell me what that process was like? It was very easy. My doctor friends back home in New York said that it would be a lot easier for me to get access here and they were right. I was called and recommended to take a test, but also people who come to Korea after the 25th are kind of required to take the test. Either way, I went to the neighborhood clinic here. The neighborhood I'm in is like the Jersey city of Seoul's like Manhattan. So I went to the neighborhood clinic. I was told that it would take an hour. It took 20 minutes for me to get swapped in the nose and the mouth. All I had to do was show my passport, give them all my essential information. And then they said results up to two days, but I actually got a text message on a Sunday about 12 hours later. This is the text message that I got saying that I am negative, but to continue to wash my hands, cover my cough and also wear a mask. And I imagine that was a relief again after traveling to get that news. Yes. I mean, even just taking the test felt good because a lot of people are in limbo in the US. I was like, do I have it? Do I not? Am I asymptomatic in carrying it and potentially giving it to my grandmother or my sick dad? So it was a huge relief for me to get negative results. The only time where you're like, oh, I feel good being negative. Yeah, exactly. I know it's interesting here in the US we have a coworker who was able to drive up and take a test for them and their family. And this person lives in the South and it was very easy, kind of like what you described. But then I have family in LA and then also here in New York who may have really strong symptoms but can't get a test because there's a shortage. So it's interesting how the testing is so different depending on where you are, but congrats on getting that result. I hear that it's a lot of peace of mind when you're able to actually take the test and know one way or the other, right? Yeah, it's interesting. And it's a lot more, a peace of mind. Exactly. A peace of mind. And you mentioned this too, that once you landed in South Korea you were asked to download an app and you've been logging your symptoms every day. Is that the case for everybody or just for people coming from New York? I believe it's the case for everybody. My brother came in from Guam as well and you get a little kind of paper certificate that says you've been successfully quarantined at the airport. They check your temperature at the airport. If I come back to the US, I'm only given the option of a possible screening and I wish that there were more measures in place already so that we don't have to keep backtracking. And did businesses ever close there or have they stayed open the whole time? So restaurants never fully closed. Shops are still open, mallers to open. Again, not a lot of people go out. This is a Starbucks that young people go to and they sit relatively distant from each other unless they know each other. Schools are closed. So my cousin is finishing her college degree online and they probably will extend that school is being closed. My uncle works at the airport. His hours are being reduced but I think at least there's some movement happening here and you don't hear about drastic massive changes. Yeah, I wanna pivot and talk a bit about the wellness industry.  You've also done some really fantastic live meditations for our readers in recent days and weeks. I know you ended today's podcast with a meditation. What can you tell me about how the wellness industry is faring and adapting at this time? Yeah, so I'm a very community-oriented person so it kind of saddens me that we can't be together in person. However, technology is offering an alternative. So just in the way that a lot of conferences or meetings are now held over Zoom, a lot of yoga teachers and meditation teachers are turning to video conference platforms. We're seeing that a lot of people are downloading and using meditation apps to try to gain some sense of regularity and have some space. So the story that Diana Pearl wrote, she also mentioned that Headspace, for example, is letting in healthcare workers have access to their app for free. There are other platforms like PopSugar are breaking news reported. Kitty Lundstrom wrote about how they fast-tracked their new fitness app called Active by PopSugar so that people could have classes that they would normally go to the gym for. So a lot of people are able to turn to these resources even within the agency world, the agency culture is changing and Havas New York, Eric Oster just wrote a story about how they're going to be through an app on the mobile phone, not only going to providing a meditation, but also Kundalini yoga on Instagram Live every day, which I think is a tremendous resource, especially when it comes from the company overview and knowing that, okay, we're in this for the long run and we also need this right now. Yeah. It is interesting to see. And tomorrow we're actually gonna talk about this a bit more just agency culture and agency life right now in the time of Corona. And it is interesting to see corporations turn their attention to these sort of wellness apps and resources. I was just talking to our CEO at Adweek this morning whose wife is a corporate wellness instructor and they were worried that her business would suffer with so many people going remote, but the opposite has been the case. It's grown threefold because businesses are really recognizing the need for employees sort of mental, emotional, physical well-being in order to keep doing their jobs well. I think it's interesting you mentioned Headspace and the story that Diana Pearl wrote because some interesting things came out of that. One is that Headspace let us know that they have a meditation called stressed and that that was downloaded 13 times more than the previous 30 days. And so you can just watching some of this data you can kind of get a sense of the public mood. Also, I think they were really smart in pivoting their content. They created a new series called Weathering the Storm that's purely to help people get through Coronavirus and they're looking into creating resources for kids and sort of explaining to kids what's going on and helping them not feel so anxious about it. So it's, I think it's neat to see how quickly people have been able to create content to fill that need. Another thing that came up too is just the tone that we're seeing in communications from the wellness industry. There's an app called Breathe with three E's that we talked to their marketing director who said that they're really trying to keep an optimistic tone. I'm wondering what you're seeing there. You probably get a lot of emails from different studios. How do you feel it's being handled? What's the best approach on the marketing front in terms of how you talk to your customers right now? You mentioned how a lot of companies are providing for their communities including our own, we're trying to figure out what to do. And I think once that voice comes from a place of and I wanna switch this because authenticity is used so much but right now I think the tone of generosity is key. And when grief is optimistic, that's great. I think just in the same way that I think it's wonderful that all kinds of yoga are offered and I have my preferred, I have my knowledge. It's the same thing with tone. Some people might want a more realistic tone. So one of my teachers on Instagram Live really talks honestly about how this is a trauma. This is a collective trauma, individual trauma. It's okay if you're hurting. It's okay if you don't feel great. Other people might need a little cheerleader for their day. So without I think pivoting too far and seeming like you're trying to fish for too much and having the view that we're as a PSA I think is more of what we're seeing right now and what's working deep. Do you think, is there, how effective can wellness classes be when it's delivered purely digitally? Is there something lost in not having the physical space? So when you're practicing together, there's the human element of oxytocin and touch and adjustments if they're welcome but there is still this feeling of community that you can tap into. And once your brainwaves get to a lower level and once your parasympathetic nervous system is still calmed with somebody's voice or music or whatever movement it is, it can still be effective. Of course, I miss being around people. I'm sure a lot of us do, but there are still ways to feel like we're together, especially I think in live classes, you still feel like you're not catching them at a later date or you're really with them in a virtual room. Yeah, and I've noticed a lot of stories have come out across the country and I'm sure globally in the last couple of days about gyms and fitness studios and yoga studios just streaming their classes for free and actually opening up these classes that might have been quite pricey and just putting them out there. I wonder if you think that there is a long-term opportunity here if it might be introducing people to this space who will stay connected even after the pandemic passes. Right, so as long as they're still paying their instructors, I'm on board with this. You give people access to say the Peloton app for 90 days. You're going to have a connection with all the teachers.  Now, when you do that conversion is going to be interesting, right? So are you trying to pump it up at the beginning and seeming insensitive? But I think for most of the brands, they're really the fitness brands, they're really seeing this as a win-win opportunity, really being able to showcase what wellness can do for you but also being able to reach a wider base and hopefully a larger customer base for them in the long run. Yeah, and I have an interesting question from one of our viewers on LinkedIn. It's Isabelle Bernier. Apologies if I butchered that name. But she says, how about massage therapists, osteopaths, physical therapists, those who touch as such an important part of what they do? I wonder if you've seen anything there if they have any recourse. I haven't been able to speak to many massage therapists but I will say Reiki healers. You can still do that virtually or over technology. So Reiki is this kind of energetic healing. So I think unfortunately for those massages, facials, the physical self-care of haircuts and manicures pedicures are going to kind of be on pause for a while, but this is also an opportunity for us to get really in touch with ourselves and maybe do self-massage or try putting on a manicure or letting your hair go and letting your hair down for a while. That's kind of what I have to say. Yeah, absolutely. And just a couple of comments I'll share. Jason Hakes said generosity is so needed right now, really great advice. And then Sean Sean Lee said that acknowledging all the feelings and thoughts we have is the first step into accepting what's so. And I think that's a big thing too, that dovetails with business is the long, if you're leading a business, the longer you're in denial, the longer you're waiting to actually adapt and move forward. So I think it's so important personally and professionally to kind of get in touch with those feelings so you can accept what is and then be really smart about how to move forward. So Co to end, I would really love, we always share a bit of advice at the end of this show and I'd really love to, I'd love for you to share a piece of wellness advice, maybe something that has helped you sort of stay well and centered during all this or a resource that our viewers could use. Yeah, thank you again to all our viewers who are tuning in and I really do hope you're well. Going back to the idea of accepting what's happening, whatever is happening, one thing that's helped me is a mantra or a phrase that's helped grounding and anchoring me and right now my mantra is okay. I talk with my therapist via Zoom and I came up with this mantra over our session and it's radical acceptance like okay, this is happening, now what? This is happening, so what? This is happening, okay. So I love that for myself right now, if there's something that appeals to you, stick with it and if it stops working, then you can switch. There's no right or wrong way right now. You're doing what you can with the resources that you have and my resource for myself right now is my movement practice, my Instagram live and then this mantra of okay. I love that, Co. And I'll share what's been working for me. One is I'll say that with, I'm a calm app subscriber, I've subscribed to them for years, but actually this week I made the decision to subscribe to Headspace as well, another meditation app that we mentioned just because I figured with all the money I'm saving on cooking at home and not getting my lunches at work every day, I can afford to spend a little more on wellness and also an app that's been an unexpected tool for me has been WhatsApp and a few friends of mine in the neighborhood started a WhatsApp group called Brooklyn Moms in Quarantine and it's just a place for us to share resources for working while keeping our kids engaged and just a chance to check in with each other. And so I think finding different ways to stay in community all day long is really important. It's definitely helped me. So anyway, so speaking of community, thank you all for joining Co and I today. We really appreciate it. Co, I appreciate you. When you held up your phone, I could see the time was 211 a.m. So, so I really appreciate you staying up late. I want you to go to bed right now, get some sleep and we'll look forward to seeing you back in New York really soon. We filmed a lot of great episodes last week that I think are still really timely. So you can find other episodes at adweek.com slash together. We have episodes devoted to retail, to the streaming industry, to the publishing industry. So check those out and then tomorrow join us again at one o'clock Eastern time here in the U.S. 2 a.m. in South Korea and we're gonna have our agencies editor, Doug Zanger joining us from Portland. He's gonna be speaking with Maria Skelefi. She is the head of learning and development at mother at that agency. And so they're gonna be talking all about agency culture and the jobs outlook right now. So don't miss that one. Thanks again for being with us and I hope that you all have a great day. Bye.


The DNR says anglers on Malak's lake will be limited to one walleye this winter fishing season. The regulations will allow for one walleye between 19 and 21 inches or one longer than 28 inches. The winter walleye season begins December 1st and runs through February 26th. The limit was set after tribal and DNR biologists met Tuesday to evaluate the walleye population. DNR fisheries chief Don Pierre says the winter regulation allows Malak's anglers to catch and keep walleye while also allowing for the continued protection of walleye that will be the lake's future spawners. The winter regulations also allow five northern pike per angler. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


If you are selling on eBay and you are not implementing these three easy strategies, you're just leaving profits on the floor. And I know that even the most professional sellers are not implementing this or not doing that right. Short intro and we are starting. Hello everybody! So I'm recording this video after a call with one of our big sellers on AutoDS, a seller with over 2,000 listings on his eBay stores. This seller didn't know about these strategies and I checked it with some other sellers and they also didn't implement all these three strategies or part of them. So I decided to record this video because it's critical and these steps are so easy to implement that it's a waste of profits if you don't do that. So let's begin. Step number one. There is something on eBay which called a best offer. Best offer is something where you can give to your buyers an option to offer their best price for your product and then after they offer it you can decline the offer or approve. Now you can do that automatically. You can just apply a rule to your listings on your listings where if the buyer puts an offer which is higher than the limit that you offer it will be automatically declined or approved. So let's see how to implement it.  I will choose all my listings, click on sell it faster and click add best offer. It will show me all of the listings that are eligible for a best offer option. Mostly it will be most all of your listings. Now I will click here automatically accept offers at least percentage off. So I will put here five and automatically decline if it's less than five. Now what does it mean? As dropshippers we always know what are profit margins. For example for me I know that all of my listings will start from 10% in profits for any of my listings and that's what I will put here. I will put here five percent. Now I will click add best offer and it will put the best offer for all of my listings. Now if the buyer will offer a price which is better than five percent off for example if they will put four percent discount for their best offer it will be approved automatically. If it will be less than four percent for example if the buyer will put 10% discount the offer will be declined automatically. Now there is a bug on eBay that it will write there was a problem adding best offer it's fine don't worry the offer was still applied how to test it just open any of your listings and you will see here the best offer option and the make offer button. If you see that it means that the offer was applied automatically and now any of your buyers will be able to put their best offer here. Tip number two this one may sound very basic for you but a lot of sellers are not doing that and there is one requirement for this one and the requirement is that you will have enough limits in your store. If you don't have just call eBay and ask for more limits it's even better to put more listings with higher quantity than one than put more listings with quantity one. When it is relevant it's relevant if your store limits are not used and you can still list more products in your eBay store because each quantity of each product will count as another listing. So let's see what does it mean. I recommend you always to work with quantity more than one in your listings if you have eBay limits. How to implement it in AutoDS let's start from that and after that I will show you the strategy number three which will use the quantity of your listings to upsell for your buyers and sell for them more than one listing more than one quantity of any of your listings. So let's see how it works. I will go to AutoDS I will click on the monitors page then I will go to the relevant supplier settings in my case it's Amazon settings I will edit it and here under the quantity to raise two I will put in my case for example five you can even put two three or any other number that you want and I will click apply. The next step here will be to go to the orders monitor and change the quantity to raise two also to five because after the product sold I will always want to back it to put it back to the same quantity that it was before. Now what I will do is that I will implement another strategy and this is the strategy number three to sell more from this quantity of my products. So the first strategy was to give our buyers the option to put the best offer for our listings the second one was to give them the opportunity to buy more than one from each of our products and this one is critical because I see in my stores a lot of buyers who buy even without the third strategy more than one of my products you can always see in your orders page after you implement it how many buyers will go to your listings and buy two three five quantity of your products especially now when the holidays are coming and people will buy gifts to the people that they want to give them gifts and maybe they will buy more than one for more than one person. So let's see how we can implement the strategy number three and give our buyers the willing to buy more than one of our products. So what we will do is that we will give them a discount for buying more than one let's see how to do that. I will go to manage active listings and then I will click here on the marketing I will go to promotions at the top I will click on create promotion and volume pricing volume pricing means that if someone will buy more than one of our listings of our products they will be able to get a discount so let's see how it works offer name it's just volume pricing and here for one we will not give them a discount for sure for two we will give them five percent discount basically that's what eBay recommends so if eBay recommends us to give five percent discount it means that usually this what works the best on our buyers then for three we will put here six percent and for four we will put eight percent discount for example now something important here you need to calculate that it's still a profitable for you after the break event and all of the expenses because remember the profits that you put on auto DS are after the break event and after all of the expenses so it means that five percent from the final price will not be five percent profit that you put on auto DS so make the calculation and make sure that you are not losing money by the way this is super relevant also for the first technique that I showed you in this video now after that what we'll do is that we will just put here on the date range to start now and to finish on it doesn't matter when so I will just put a month from now or even two months from now then what you will do here is to click on lunch it will ask you to add inventory so click add inventory click on create rules all inventory here price up to unlimited price and we just put here the maximum from zero to the maximum and I will click here on save and review the next step will be to click lunch and boom our promotion is ready and running I'm going now to the selling again because I want to test out that this rule really worked well so I'll go to listings I will open any of my listings for example this one and what I can see here is that we can see here the volume pricing now something very important don't forget that you need a quantity that is over than one more than one because otherwise the volume pricing will not be visible for your buyers because they will not be able to buy more than one quantity of your products these strategies are strategies that I really recommend to everyone to implement in their stores because they will increase your sales a lot and you will see that also it works perfectly with the monitoring when you put the pricing with a discount by percent and not by dollars because this way even if the price is changed on your supplier site it will be changed on your ebay store and the volume pricing will be also changed according to the price changing because it's by percentage I hope that you like this video and that you will implement this as soon as possible and you will see the results the holidays are here and we created some super interesting articles for you that you can find below this video don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel like this video share it with other dropshippers or ebay sellers to help them improve their sales and ask us anything that you want in the comment section on youtube and they promise you that we will go and answer any of your questions I'm doing it every day see you in the next videos bye bye


Thank you. So on Sunday, I was preparing the exercise sheet. It was like 10 PM. And I had to put labels as easy, medium, or hard. So I fell for that trick. I shouldn't have. So everything was hard. Really think about it. Like, the first time you meet some mathematical topic, it's hard. There is no way around, right? So I wanted to start this lecture by discussing a little bit the exercise that I saw you yesterday, very fast, just to show the rule was don't write any formal proof. And I will not write any formal proof. But I will just tell to the good people that you are who worked hard on some exercises. I'll just tell my spin on it. But OK, probably you all looked at the first one. I don't know if you have the exercise sheet with you. I'm reading it out loud. Show that SL2R acts transitively on the set of unordered triples of r union infinity. So I should say, yeah. Let me, oh, something disappeared. Yeah, so let's see that. So we have a few matrices that we prefer here. We have those ones. Those ones, this one, I suppose, and this one. And one should do using only that, actually, because anyway, that's enough to have everything that is interesting. So I draw the picture. I take a, b, c. And I want to put them to minus 1, 1 infinity. So I first use this one, which is the translation. So that b is now at 0, or c is now at 0, anyway. So then I use this one, which takes 0 to infinity. Oh, I'm happy now. So using this one and this one in order, I'm taking some of those three points to infinity. Now using this one again, which is fixing infinity, I'm taking the two others so that they are centered at 0. And now using this one, which is a dilatation, I'm just pushing them apart until I reach minus 1, 1. So this shows that I can reach from any triple. I can reach minus 1, 1 infinity. Good. And after that, there was a question about how the ideal triangle, minus 1, 1 infinity, was delta thin in the sense that any side was in the sum delta neighborhood of the two other side. And I know that some people are really attached to find the optimal value of delta. And I should say I don't care the optimal value of delta here. So for someone like me who doesn't want to do any computation and who doesn't care about the optimal value of delta, I cut the triangle in three parts above some parts here, where it is easy to see using the explicit metric, which is divided by the height. That distance from there to there is small. But now I can just say that this point is in the orbit of that point. So there is a cutoff here from which the sides are close to each other. And same here because of the group action. So I'm left with something here when I need to check whether those three sides are at bounded distance from each other. This is a compact situation. Of course, they are at bounded distance for each other. So there is some delta. And if you like, you can compute the optimal delta, which is something like I don't remember log of 2, log of 3, something like that. And now if I want to do that for all triangles, well, I take an arbitrary triangle. OK, can I draw that? Well, as I say, I can certainly put this side by isometry on the vertical here. So now what is the picture of it? I have an arbitrary triangle whose one side is vertical here. And the two other sides are something like I don't know. Really, I don't know. OK. So they are the whole triangle fits in this one. Is that correct? Yeah, I think it is. This one we know is delta thin. So there is no room inside. So the whole triangle has to be. OK, what was next? Zn is quasi-isometric to Rn, an explicit quasi-isometry. Then the integral part of, oh, sorry. That version was, Mr. Moussa, what was that? Yeah, there are two versions of it. Rn, qi, to Zn, which is a stronger version of the exercise. So show quasi-isometry for Rn to Zn. Well, if I take a tupper, I can certainly look at the integral parts of each of them and see where it goes. OK, let's now check that it's good. I suppose it was. So show that I'm just scrolling through the exercises and it's not official formal solutions, as you understand. Show that two paragraphs about finite generating set are quasi-isometric. Well, so there is a word metric associated to S1, a word metric associated to S2. And a good idea is to check what is the maximal value of the word metric of S1 for elements of S2. So look at max for S in S2 of the word metric dS1 from 1 to S. That's one way to control it. And the other way is replacing the two roles. And that tells you how to send one edge here. What is the length of the path there? And then when you know what is the maximal factor, you're basically done from one way to the other. And from the other way to the one. That's not English, but write a proof of Schwartz Milnor Lemma when you have time. Let G be a finitely generated group so that if H is finite index subgroup of G, then it is quasi-isometric to G. That's already exercise four. So H, finite index in G. Well, H acts on the calligraph of G by isometries, left translation, properly discontinued G. It's just a subgroup, so freely, actually. And with finitely many orbits, so co-compactly. So we know that it means that H is finitely generated and quasi-isometric to the space on which it acts. They use that all finitely generated non-imbellion free groups are quasi-isometric to each other. So a free group of rank K is a fundamental group of the rows with K petals, meaning the graph with one vertex and K edges. So what do I want to say? The free group of rank 2 is a fundamental group of this simple thing. And now if I want to find finite index subgroups, that means I want to find finite covers of this topological space. But there are easy finite covers that I should ban the word easy from my vocabulary from now on. Because what is hard two minutes ago is now easy once you understand it. And I should have used colors to show the covering. This is sent to that as an unfold cover. And this is sent to that each time. OK. Now this is a rank whatever free group which corresponds to a finite cover of the rows of two petals. So it's finite index subgroup of F2. So if you never saw that, it means that all three groups, non-imbellion free groups, can be seen as finite index subgroups of rank 2. So they are all quasi-isometric to each other. On the contrary, it shows that z squared is not quasi-isometric to z cubed. And I think that the right way to see that is to know in advance that the growth function is a quasi-isometric invariant. And check that they do not have same growth function. The growth function say how fast that the ball of radius r in the kilogram of this group grow. So in one situation it's quadratic and the other it's cubic. And this property is preserved by quasi-isometry. So they are not quasi-isometric. Do you know all that free group? Other than this one, no. I don't know. Well, maybe I know other proofs, but not element. Doesn't mean that the number is known. OK. OK, that's it for the, if you allow me, that's it for the sketch of the exercise. OK, so let me resume then what I was saying last time. Maybe I should just erase everything here. So last time I was speaking yesterday, I was speaking about hyperbolic groups and relatively hyperbolic groups. And with two definitions of relatively hyperbolic groups, one using hyperbolic fine graphs, so angularly locally finite graphs. And the other one using proper, so yeah, proper.  By opposition to this one, which is not locally finite as a graph usually, proper hyperbolic space with invariant system of four balls. And I found that, OK, I didn't check that. I think so. Is that the picture in the poster? Yeah. Yeah, so and oh yeah, we all have it on our badge. A picture of a hyperbolic space with an invariant system of four balls, so I'm very flattered too. I struggled with the technical definition of horrible yesterday. You remember that it was virtually impossible to apprehend in two minutes. That's really hidden here is a point at infinity, some ray that I don't even want to draw it, but OK, let me draw a ray pointing directly at that point. And on the ray, I take larger and larger balls, et cetera, take the union, and that's a horrible. That's horizon, I suppose. OK, so much better way to explain what it is. So I erase construction drawing.  Non-hyperbolic subgroup or parabolic subgroup will fix one point at infinity, and its conjugate fix another point at infinity. So this will be fixed by P, and this one will be fixed by, well, a conjugate of P, G, P, G. And what's the morality of this situation? In both cases, it says the same thing, but in different languages. I want to say what it says. Here we see that the conjugate of P fix convex sets in my hyperbolic space that maybe sometimes are close to each other, not for very long. If I travel inside my convex set, I must dive through the point at infinity and here through another point at infinity, so very far away from the part. So the thing fixed by P and the conjugate of P have virtually nothing to do with each other. Like in a free product, in a free product A star, blah, blah. The conjugates of A have nothing to do with A. And so I was saying this is visible in the picture. I tried to make it visible. This is also visible with a finest condition that says that when I have a cone point over a coset and I choose an edge E, well, I can only come back to this coset in bounded time in finitely many ways, serious ways. Of course, I could do crazy things. Come back without saying it, go somewhere else, come back. But that's not what I want. If I want just a simple loop, only finitely many possibilities. That's the definition of fineness. Only finitely many other edges with given angle. So let's have an example that I discussed with some of you yesterday of a cone of graph that is not fine. And that very easy that counter example, z square, or z plus z, in which the second factor will be P. So here is the first factor. Here is the second factor. And of course, well, you all know z plus z. And what do I have to do? I have to cone off the coset of the second factor. So the vertical lines. Coneing off the vertical lines means that I have just the horizontal lines remaining, well, infinitely many. And slices here that are all conned off by some special vertex. And since there are infinitely many, you see that cycles of length 6 from here going down to the horizontal, going right, going up. I have infinitely many paths of length 3 that come back. So it's not fine. It's not fine because cosets remain parallel to each other. Because conjugates intersect. This is ultimately the reason. So it's not fine, and there is no hope to have conjugates well separated like that. OK. So let me move on now. And I wanted to talk to you about a theorem about relatively hyperbolic groups that tells you somehow that you're never that far from hyperbolic groups when you are in a relatively hyperbolic group. That's a dense feeling theorem. So a little bit of historical commons here. So what is dense feeling or dense surgery? To begin with, it has to do with three manifolds. So if you have a three manifold where the boundary is a torus, so for example, think about a knot complement. But instead of removing just the knot, you removed a small neighborhood of a knot. That was dense motivation. Three manifold whose boundary is a torus that you can be tempted to fill in the torus by a solid torus. Solid torus is just the disk times circle. So I don't know how to draw it. Maybe suggesting that this is full. So the solid torus has a torus as boundary. Your manifold M has a torus as boundary. Maybe you want to glue the torus on the torus to fill the hole. And then you realize there are many ways to do it. You have to choose how you glue some framing to some framing here. And if you think a little bit about it, what is important is the slope of the meridian in the framing of your torus. That's a homotopy equivalent invariant. So yeah, that's a dense feeling. Choose a slope in T. Glue the solid T so that the meridian goes on the slope. And much later, Thurston, who was interested in hyperbolic manifolds. But this is just topological, right? If Thurston was interested in hyperbolic manifolds, among other things, I suppose, prove the following. That there are only finitely many slopes that give you something weird. Other than that, all other slopes will give you a compact hyperbolic manifold. Did I say an assumption here? No. So there is missing assumption. So I say that again, Thurston. So if you start with m, complete hyperbolic manifold, well, yeah, finite volume, hyperbolic manifold with one cusp of dimension 3, for all but finitely many slopes, the result of what you glue, so is a compact three manifold. This is just topological. But not any compact three manifold. It's a hyperbolic compact manifold. Is the statement clear? Because I had to say it twice the first time this part was missing. Is the statement clear? So you start with a hyperbolic knot complement. You remove a little bit more than just the knot itself to get a full torus. You glue a solid torus along a complicated slope. And then you get a hyperbolic manifold again. Well, there is a statement in the group theory saying this in the realm of relatively hyperbolic groups. So the theorem, which is due to Ossin, there is no other version by Groves and Manning, is the following, is an adaptation of this setting. So if G is hyperbolic, is there a question? There is a missing word. Yeah, so m union st glued on the slope. So I should have said choose a slope. And let me write it like that. This means st glued on m such that little m goes on the slope s. If G is hyperbolic relatively to p, there exists a finite set, f, I call it, inside p minus the identity such that for all normal subgroup of p avoiding f, the group G quotiented by the normal closure of n in G contains the faithful image of p mod n. n is hyperbolic, relatively to p mod n. OK, is this really the same? So G would be for the fundamental group of m, hyperbolic relatively to z squared. There is a finite set in z squared minus the identity such that whenever I take a cyclic subgroup of z squared killing a slope not enough, then the group, the quotient, is hyperbolic relative to z squared mod some cyclic group here. That has to be virtually cyclic, actually, to get a manifold. So hyperbolic relatively to z means hyperbolic. So it tells the result of Thurston at the level of fundamental groups. Of course, to have a true hyperbolic structure on the manifold, it's another story. But at the level of fundamental groups, it gives the den-feeling theorem. So it says also that assume, for instance, that p is residually finite and choose n to be finite index normal subgroup. So blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, relatively to p mod n, relatively to a finite group. So it says that G mod n will be hyperbolic. So if G is, again, if G is, too many long words, if G is residually finite and if n is deep enough finite index subgroup, then the result is hyperbolic. So I'd like to see it as we are nowhere near, we are nowhere far from hyperbolic groups in this setting. You said it's possible to write this to z. Yeah, there is, yeah. So the respect that I use twice in two sentences, so it's fair that I addressed. If G is hyperbolic relatively to p and p is hyperbolic, then G is hyperbolic. I believe the first time this fact is due to Ossian in this level of generality. So I'd like to sketch a proof of the den-feeling theorem of the theorem. And it's using so-called rotating families. But I will say what's going on. So take x to be one of two favorite spaces for G. And I will take the model with horribles. How do they say? OK, the proper hyperbolic space. So the model with invariant horribles for G relative to p. So this is this picture. Maybe I'll do it again. OK, all those horribles are in one single orbit of the one preserved by p. And for some, OK, I will deal with quantifier later. I will try to say what I want to do and see what's going with quantifier and the order later. I will choose a system, a much deeper system of horribles. So we'll see what much deeper means. While they are still convex, they are still preserved by the conjugates of p, it's just they're much farther away from each other. Much farther away from each other. And I will cone them off. I will remove them and replace them by a coning off. So here I have a new vertex. And now it's coning here. The advantage of doing that is about angles. So when you are at point of infinity, p acts on the whole sphere by turning the whole sphere, but it fixes the point. And so it permutes all the geodesics that go to this point. So it indeed does some kind of rotation on the whole sphere. But if there is any angle on it, it's 0, always 0. Because any rotation deep enough, close enough to the point at infinity, will do almost nothing. If you think about it in the upper half plane, the matrix 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1 million, 0, 1, it's just translating a lot on the whole sphere. But if you are ready to move up, it's translating almost nothing. So angle of rotation would be 0 in the yellow rubles. But in the blue, just coning off, well, it's something. It's non-zero of some angle. And now if I have sufficient resolution, finiteness, or if I am free to choose n as deep as I want, I can choose n so that for this rotation, it turns with large angles. Oh yes, VP will be this one, the new vertex that used to cone off the orosphere fixed by P. What do you mean by rotation in the general algorithm? So first, it's an elliptic element. But now I have also this concept of angles that I defined previously, that the angle between two edges would be the length of the smallest path going to their endpoints without going through the apex. So this elliptic element, I can say that, OK, it's a little bit abusive, probably to say it's a rotation. I don't know. But I'll finish this sentence to make it, to give some sense to that, that it fixes VP and it sends every edge to another edge that has a large angle with it. And I don't know how to call a transformation that fixes a point and make a large angle between edges, but rotation, I don't know. Is it fair? So that any element, any non-trivial element, sends any edge adjacent to VP to an edge making a large angle. OK. Picture zooming in to this VP, which is way too small here. This is calling off the orosphere somewhere here. And I hollow only elements in N, then I turn a lot along this orosphere. OK. And the main claim. Sorry, so the edges connect VP to the geodesics with N point P. Is that right? What are the edges here? So the edges will be, yeah, they connect this new vertex VP to an orbit, a P orbit, in the yellow orosphere. It doesn't have a name. I should say it's yellow HP. Do you want to test the horosphere or the horosphere? The horosphere. The horosphere. Because if I was to cone off the whole orobol, maybe that's what is written, cone them off. So only the orosphere. Thank you. If I was to cone off the entire horobol, for every N, I would find some edge, which is small angle. The same problem that the original orobol. But the horosphere is not fixed by P, is it? You look at the geodesics, which are? Yeah. The horobol is more or less the boundary of the orosphere. It's more or less the boundary of the orobol. The orobol is fixed by P. So the orosphere is preserved by P either. This is the small one, it's fixed by N. It's preserved by P. OK. One second. The yellow orobol is preserved by P. The yellow orosphere is preserved by P as well, as boundary of something preserved by P. And being preserved by P, it's preserved by N. And I take a P orbit in it, and I cone off the P orbit. So this is. The horobol is fixed. Does it mean that P is metaparabolic elements? Yes. Well, OK. Formally, no. I would like to think it is made of parabolic elements. There could be some elliptic elements in P as well. There could be some elliptic elements in P as well. But they fix the point at infinity. So, yeah. Imagine there is a finite normal subgroup fixing everything in the picture. Its elements are elliptic, because they fix points inside the space. But they belong to the group P. But as individualizometries, they are not parabolic. They are elliptic. Yeah? We're working to such end. OK. In general, you cannot. In general, you cannot. If your group is relatively finite, then you can. The action of P on the horosphere is proper, because in the complement of the horobol, the action of G is properly discontinuous. So if you are allowed to say, OK, there exist finite index subgroups as deep as I want, then you may say, I choose a finite index subgroup so that there is no small element in this proper action. But in general, you cannot do that. In general, you don't know if there is any finite index subgroup. Yeah? Did we assume that P contains no box of atomic elements? How do we know if someone had parabolic elements? I mean, parabolic elliptic. So P is assumed to fix the point at infinity of the horobol. And indeed, it will not have an atomic element. OK. Yeah, so what I'd like to recover where I was together with you. Oh, yes. I was here. So we choose n. Oh, I understand why it was a question. Are we allowed to choose n? We take n, if possible. Such that any non-trivial, OK. But now, so choose if possible. And now the main claim that makes everything work, and I explain quickly why, that now if I do, if I look at the quotient of the space, not of the group but of the space, I need a name for this space. So let's call the x dot the condoff space. So the final space, the condoff. So x minus yellow horobols union the condoff. I hope this is clear. This is catchy. So this is the result of all the construction. I take x. I remove the yellow horobols. I take the condoff of the horosphere. So the main claim is that the quotient of this space by the transformation induced by conjugates of n is a local isometry away from where it is not and where it is not is on the vertices. So of course, the rotation is not a local isometry at the vertices because it's folding something on the vertices. It's turning these two edges into a single one because they are in the same orbit. But everywhere else, it is a local isometry. And let me just sketch why. But this requires an argument. It's just an illustration of what's happening. And I have no time to develop the entire argument because I want to also make the conclusion. But when you take a convex and you make a rotation of very large angle around one point, then you have the image of the convex. It's another convex. And I claim that they are disjoint. They are disjoint because what if they were not disjoint? That means that I have this element and this element joined by this rotation. So here I have a path between them that avoids the cone point. But this is in the image of this one. So this element is realized by an element in N. So let me see what it does here. It does some rotation with a path that does not go through there. So it has to bond the angle. The angle is bounded by the length of this path. And we're working a little bit more. We realize that the angle cannot be as large as we wanted it to be. And finally, what to do with that? It's a localizometry away from the vertices Vp. And there is a general local to global principle in all the hyperbolic geometry around it. It says the following. So the question space locally will look like x dot. So it will locally be hyperbolic, Gromov hyperbolic. Sorry, but every space is locally Gromov hyperbolic. What do you do with that? Yeah, OK. I said I will do it with quantifier later to say how the quantifier comes into the picture. And maybe I will not have time to do that. But I will try to go through that. Stick with me for one minute and then I'll come back to that. So it's locally Gromov hyperbolic. Moreover, it comes from a space that can be thought as simply connected or throwing in the right cells could have been simply connected to begin with. And so you question it by elliptic element. So you keep this property. So it's still coarsely, so at large scale, simply connected. And there you have a difficult theorem. Carton-Adamar, but for Gromov hyperbolic spaces. So Carton-Adamar Gromov theorem that tells you that with good quantifiers, this implies that it is indeed globally hyperbolic. So here I state with good quantifier. So if a space is simply connected, let me state it like that. Let's say there. And 10 to the 7 delta locally delta hyperbolic, then it is 300 delta hyperbolic. And if you ask me, those constants are not so interesting, except that they are constructive. But I would have been happy with there exists L, such that, blah, blah. Now I can go back and see what's going on in the argument. I want these to hold for spaces of size 10 to the 7 delta. So I want the apices to be at least that apart. So now I can say what it means to take deep yellow horribles, so that apices are much, much more apart than this constant. Now I can say what it means for H to have large rotation, because I could not say it before knowing what were the yellow horribles. And so the N having a large rotation means on this faraway robot having rotation that assure that this argument will hold, that rotating this amount will put convex subset on this joint convex subset. And now I can say what is F in the theorem. F will be all the elements that I need to avoid to be sure that N does that. So it was a bit fast. I don't know if it cleared your question. But of course I'm not claiming that I'm using this theorem for space that I, like, won locally. We moved the rotation points far apart in order to have sufficiently room to have this locale pebble city. OK, thank you. I'll stop there.


Exodus chapter 34 verses 1 through 8. I'm going to read those eight verses. Actually, I'm going to read verses 1 through 9 for the sake of context. As it says there, verse 1, chapter 34 of Exodus. And the Lord said to Moses, cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets of the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. So be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself to me there on the top of the mountain. And no man shall come up with you and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain. Let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain. So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him. And he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. Now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. And the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and bounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. So Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Then he said, If now I have found grace in your sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray, go among us, even though we are a stiff-necked people and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as your inheritance. Most people have an opinion about who God is, what God is like, and whether he exists or not. And what I kind of find that when it comes to belief, your belief or your disbelief in God will have drastic effects on how you live your life on this side of heaven. In essence, what you believe will determine how you behave. What you believe will determine your priorities in this life, how you view God, whether you believe in God or your disbelief in the Creator, in God. You know, I read recently that 89% of Americans say they believe in God. That's a pretty high percentage, don't you think? 89%. But the question that comes to my mind is what do they mean by that? 89% of Americans. That's a lot of people claiming that they have belief in God. Well, as I did some research, I found that that whole 89% actually translates into this, that nine in ten Americans believe in a higher power but only a slim majority believe in God as described in the Bible. That is why it's such a high percentage because you can go down to a store and you can ask perhaps a stranger that's in line and just simply ask him, do you believe in God? Most, I guarantee you that most of the time when you ask a stranger, they're going to tell you, yes, I believe in God. But the thing is this is what is their definition about God? What do they believe who God is? What's their understanding of God? And so, the majority of people in our states most likely believe in God but, however, their understanding of God is not as described in the Bible and that's what I want to look at this morning. I want to look at the question. I want to answer the question, who is God? That is a great question. In fact, that is a great question to start a conversation with somebody that you're trying to evangelize and witness. You simply ask him, hey, who is God? And they'll either say, I don't believe in God or they'll tell you, well, this is who I believe God is. We come to this section here in Exodus chapter 34 and this actually started way back in chapter 33 of Exodus where Moses in verse 18 of chapter 33 says this to God. He requested, Lord, show me your glory. To understand that, we have to kind of go back a little bit of the history of the nation of Israel. When God chose the nation of Israel, the Hebrews, the Israelites, he chose them because he wanted to set them apart and to be different than all the other pagan nations. You've got to understand that throughout the Old Testament, paganism was the norm in the culture and the society. Everybody had a deity they worshiped. They worshiped the gods of the weather, of the storm, of the rain and all of this stuff. So they had a variety of different gods. So to be an atheist during the time of the Old Testament, you'd be the weird one.  I'm going to show them through them that I am the real God and all the other gods are false. So God began to work in the life of this nation. And God started with this nation and his heart, his desire was a theocracy, one nation under God. That's what he wanted from the beginning. And so he led them himself. He provided for them throughout the wilderness. He took care of them. It was just one nation under God. But then the Israelites rebelled against God and they said, we don't want a theocracy. We want kings. We want people to lead us. And that's when God says, you want a king, then I'm going to give you your very first one by the name of Saul. Remember Saul? He was a maniac. He's a crazy guy. And so the children of Israel went under kings and they went through that. And then even through that, they rebelled against kings. They rebelled against the prophets. So they couldn't be under God. They didn't want God. Then they got given, they gave him, God gave them a monarchy. They became a nation under kings and they rebelled against that. And then what happened?  And it became an anarchy, a nation without any ruler. That's pretty scary. Would you move to a country where there's no ruler? The Bible says in the Book of Judges that one of the darkest histories in the life of Israel, that everyone did what was right in their own eyes.  We're kind of like heading there, aren't we, in our world today, right? It's like what feels right is right to me. What just seems okay is my truth and whatnot. That's moral relativism. What's true for you is true for you. What's true for me is true for me. Leave me alone, right? That's the way it is today. Well, you see, we see that God wanted to establish a covenant with the nation of Israel. And back in chapter 20 of Exodus, God laid out the Ten Commandments. He spoke the commandments to the people. They freaked out, rumbles, thunder, all this stuff up in the Mount Sinai. And then what happened then? God called Moses back up and he wanted to ratify these commandments. So he had them put together these tablets and all of that. And then when Moses was up there for 40 days and 40 nights, getting this revelation from God, establishing this law, this covenant, then God says, there are people down below. My people are kind of having a party. There's things going on. I think you need to go back down.  He finds the children of Israel in this testable sin, worshiping a golden calf, all promoted by Aaron. Moses is right-hand man. You're like, really? What happened here? See, Aaron was pushed by the peer pressure that the people wanted. They said, you know what? What is it with Moses? He's taken too long. We need our God. And so he caved in to their peer pressure. And then he asked for everybody's earrings that are gold. He asked for all the bling. Everybody bring it in. A big offering came in, right? I find it interesting that people will give to serve their own gods, but they won't give to the real God, the church. It's under the church. And so he molds this golden calf. And then he says, here is your God. And the people start worshiping this golden calf. So when Moses comes and he finds that, the tablets they break. What happened after that? God got angry. And his wrath was against the children of Israel. And Moses begged God in chapters 32, and all the way up to chapter 34, he says, God, show me your glory. Please give us a chance. Forgive the iniquity of your people. And here's where we come to chapter 34 where now God says, OK, I'm going to give you a chance. Get back up to the mountain. But this time, it's just going to be you. And we come to this chapter 34 and notice God instructs Moses. He gives Israel a second chance in verse one of chapter 34. Notice what it says here. He says, to come up to the mountain and there's two tablets once again. And these are the tablets that are now brand new. These are not the same tablets, although the content of it was going to be the same. But he says, cut two tablets of stone, like the first ones. And I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. Kind of reminds them. Remember, you broke those? I find it interesting that the very first time that Moses had these tablets, it was God who cut the tablets. In fact, it was God who did the whole thing. And all of a sudden, now he's telling Moses, you know what? You're going to cut the tablets and bring them up to me. I'm just going to write on them. It says in Exodus 32 verse 16, the tablets were the work of God back in 32. And the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets. It was God who wrote on these tablets. God did not need Moses' input to say, Moses, what do you think I should write on these now? Since the other ones broke and the people rebelled against that. So what should we do? No, it wasn't like that.  Based on my own authority, I'm going to write again the same thing because I want them to stay accountable to what I wrote before. Well, the covenant was an agreement that he made with his people, the Israelites, to keep keeping the law. Moses broke the first ones. And yet we see that God now is telling Moses to get ready to come up. And so we see here the Lord requiring Moses to cut these two and to get back up in the mountain. And notice in verses 2 and 3 what it says here. God says, so be ready in the morning and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai and present yourself to me there on the top of the mountain. In the morning. I'm not a morning person. Are you a morning person? If God said that to me, I'd say, Lord, how about noon? Just let me sleep in. I got a three-year-old. They're waking me up. Daddy, get up. Let's go downstairs and play. No, we don't do that. But God says, get up in the morning. He says it very clearly here. What happens? Look at it. It says there, God sets a boundary. No man shall come up with you. And let no man be seen throughout all the mountain. Let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain. Why? Well, a few reasons here. One is, God wanted to deal with Moses alone. The last time Moses was up on Mount Sinai for 40 days, Joshua was with him. Joshua was right there. And so this time he says, you're not bringing anybody up there, but yourself. And I want you to make sure that no shepherds come near the mountain because that's why these animals would even be close to the mountain because of the shepherds would be taking care of their flocks. So he had to make sure that all those shepherds stayed far away from the mountain. Why? Because there would be a place of holiness. And there's no way that they could have survived. Remember when God would reveal himself up on the mountain. There was thunder, lightning, rumblings. People were far away from Mount Sinai. The awesome view of that must have been scary and crazy that people were scared. The Bible says they were afraid. God was showing himself how powerful, how holy he is. And so he says here, set this boundary. Keep everybody away. Set it apart. And so what happens? Notice it says there, when he said that, Moses immediately went up to the mountain. He wasted no time. And then it says in verse 5, now the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. A cloud. Do you know that a cloud in the Bible is associated with the presence of God? When you see clouds in Scripture, most often you see it associated with the presence of God. Let me give you a few examples here just to show you what I mean. In Exodus 19, we see a cloud in Mount Sinai as God was there presently with Moses. In Exodus chapter 13, verses 21 and 22, God led the children of Israel by a pillar of cloud in the daytime, signifying his presence. In Chronicles 2, Chronicles 7, 2, at Field Solomon's temple, a cloud as God's presence came upon it. In the New Testament, Luke chapter 1, verse 35, it overshadowed Mary at the conception of Jesus. In Acts chapter 1, when Jesus ascended back to the Father, it says that a cloud, he disappeared through a cloud, again associating it with the presence of God. And in Revelation chapter 1, verse 7, it will be present at the return of Jesus. It's very fascinating if you want to do a study on clouds in the Bible. Here we see that God comes down in a cloud. What Moses is about to experience here is a divine visitation of the presence or dwelling of God on earth. This is a spectacular experience. This is something that is dramatic. It's the dramatic self-revelation of God. And God didn't do this often with people. Moses was one who got the privilege to experience such a wonderful thing. But what does this say? This says this to me, that God wants to be known. God wants to be known. God is not trying to hide from people. He wants to reveal himself to you, to me. You see, this is what sets Christianity apart from all the other religions, because all the other religions promote an impersonal God. It's a God that you know, but you kind of don't know.  There's no relationship at all where Christianity is all about a personal God to earth, to establish a relationship with all of us here. And we can know God on a personal level. We can talk to God on a personal level. Isn't that awesome? That's what Christianity is all about. That is why we say having a relationship with God is having that personal relationship with Him. It's a relationship. It's based on that relationship. And here we see that God comes down to Moses and he's showing himself as a personal God. And Moses got what he requested when he said, show me your glory back in Exodus 33, a proclamation of God's name, His character, who He is. God revealed as much of His glory as Moses could possibly take in. Why is that? Because it tells us in Exodus 33, verse 20, God says, you cannot see my face for no man shall see me and live. If God revealed himself 100% to Moses, Moses would have been dead. See, it's not until we get to heaven that we get to see God. We can, as the Bible says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God because we cannot enter into heaven with this fallen body. We have to have a new body that's adaptable to eternity. And so we will see God in heaven, but at this time here, it's through the Holy Spirit that we relate to God because of Jesus Christ. And so here we see that God is revealing himself to Moses but not fully because of that. But notice in verse 6, and this is where it gets very interesting, and the Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord, and he goes on with something that I'll talk to you in a moment. What God proclaimed is of utmost importance here. He's proclaiming to Moses. This means that this experience that Moses had was not a subjective experience. What do I mean by that? What I mean is this, it wasn't a feeling that Moses had this feeling that God was there. It wasn't some kind of emotion that Moses was emotional at the time and he felt the presence of God. What Moses was experiencing was an experience that was objective. It was an experience that he saw, he experienced something not based on feelings. And Christianity is not based on feelings. I'm not a Christian because it just feels right. When I got saved, I didn't come forward because I just felt like, you know what, just something in me just feels right. I just got to do it. It was an objective faith. That's what the Christian faith is. It's an objective faith that puts my faith in Christ, who died on the cross for me. He's the one I'm following. He's the one I know. So Christianity is not based on a burning of a bosom. It's not based on some kind of thing that stirs up in me that says, okay, I think this is true. It's an objective faith. And here we see something cool, is that here God is proclaiming something that is objective, not subjective. Like the burning experience, burning of a bosom experience, Moses saw something. It wasn't a feeling that God was in a bosom. God gave him something to see. And so the Christian faith is an objective faith. And so what happens here? Notice God reveals himself. And what does he say? Notice what he says. He says, the Lord, the Lord God. This is an incredible revelation of God. And the repetition, if you're wondering, God did not stutter here. The repetition of God's name here, some Hebrew scholars believe it's to emphasize his immutability. What does that mean? That God is not, is unchanging. He doesn't change. In other words, like the Bible says, God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is who he's revealing himself to, to Moses. God presents himself as the eternal, unchanging God. And this is who God is. And he doesn't need man to define him or to try to describe him.  He's telling us who he is. And the word Lord here, you see in the Bible, in the Old Testament, you see Lord capital L-O-R-D. This is actually the very name of God, Yahweh. This is actually the I am that I am. This is the name that God revealed himself to, the patriarchs, Isaac, Jacob, Abraham, and also to Moses. This is his promised name. And this name of God, by Jewish tradition, it's too holy to voice, is actually spelled Y-H-W-H, Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. They can't even spell it. It's so holy. This is the name of God, Yahweh. In fact, in the Old Testament, Yahweh occurs 6,519 times. This name is used more than any other name of God, and it was first used in Genesis chapter 2, verse 4. This is God, God's name. Why is this so important? You know why it's important? Because God's name is vital to a proper understanding of God. To a proper understanding of God. You see, knowing God should be the top priority of every human being, especially Christians.  As a Christian, and if you're here as a non-Christian, that should be your top priority. Now, the secular world, the non-Christian world, it's a very spiritual world, if you noticed, and there are some prominent, secular people, non-Christians who are in pursuit of knowing God, and there are a lot of intelligent men and women who are not Christians, who are pursuing God, but they come to wrong conclusions about God. I read recently about this woman. Her name was Nancy Abram. She's a philosopher, a very well-known philosopher. She's married to a world-renowned cosmologist, and she wrote a book entitled A God That Could Be Real, Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Planet. And this is what she says. I quote, God is arguably the most powerful concept in the human mind, but there is no single idea of God. Rather, they've been evolving or they've been evolving nonstop for thousands of years. And then she goes on by saying this, there are five things we need to accept to truly understand God. Here they are, five things. One, God could not have existed before the universe. Two, God did not create the universe. Three, God cannot know everything. Four, God cannot intend everything that happens, meaning everything's by chance. And five, God cannot violate the laws of nature. But he did, didn't he? Jesus walked on water, right? He stopped the storm. So we know he can. Her view of God is based on science, matter, and the laws of nature. And she even said, and I quote again, we need to let the universe teach us about God, she says, rather than the other way around.  I mean, she's speaking so authoritative.  And you're thinking, where is she getting her information? I'll tell you one thing, she's not getting it from the Bible. She's not getting it from the Bible. She's speaking with authority, but she's not getting that information from the Bible. This is where, when I see things like this, Romans chapter one verse 22 immediately comes to my mind that says this, professing to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible got into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. That's the secular world for you, right? That's the non-Christian, right? There are a lot of spiritual people today, right? Trying to figure God out. Oprah, I can name more, right? There are a lot of people out there that are having shows and things about God that this is who God is and they are so far out in left field, it's not even funny. We can look at the world and be like, oh, you guys just don't understand God because you're not reading the Bible, but did you know even within evangelicalism, even within evangelical Christian churches, there's a movement that is very dangerous today. And this is something I see when I'm on the Internet, when I'm on social media, when I see a lot of young people eating this stuff up tremendously and what is it? There are churches, leaders that are attempting to redefine God. They are presenting a radical rethinking of God. It's a popular theological trend today. Why is it like this? You know what they're really doing in these so-called preachers of the Bible, why they're trying to redefine God, what they're really doing is they're stealing God's identity. That's what they're doing. I mean, identity theft is one of the biggest criminal activities in our world today. What is that? It's a thief that steals someone's social security number and personal information and misrepresent that person in order to make purchases in their name. How many of you guys here have been victims? Right? I remember one time I was at home and I got a call from our credit card and they said, hey, Mr. Baltidano, there's a family here, or I think it was a family or a person, whatever it was, that they're spending $1,200 on your credit card and they're buying furniture and this and that at this department store. Is it you? Well, at first I had to look for my wife first, right? When I confirmed that she was right next to me, I said, no, it's not me. And they knocked that off, right? We see things happening like this. There's also, which you saw earlier, some churches are trying to promote a Burger King God who says, have it your way. Have it, just have it your way. Right? All sin is acceptable. Love trumps all judgment. The way I live is because that's the life I've chosen and totally oblivious to what the Bible says. I call these really designer gods. These are kind of designer gods. What are designer gods?  These beliefs are a misrepresentation of God. That's called false identity. And even within the church, you have pastors and preachers that are redefining God. Why is that? Why are they going that far? Because they're trying to be cultural relevant. Because the culture is moving so fast that they're saying, we've got to catch up to this culture. We've got to somehow get the millennials. We've got to get the young people. This is the way they're going. This is the way they're thinking. So let's try to somehow reduce God. Let's dumb down God so they can come into our churches and get caught up in this bad theology for the sake of having people come to the church. And then you have this crazy theology that these young people are living with. With this skewed idea, this understanding of God that God allows their sin and God is okay with this and God is okay with that. Listen. If you're there this morning, you're not getting it from the Bible. And that's one thing we have to be very careful as believers is that we have to get our knowledge of God from the Bible. And this is the important thing for us as we see here in the life of Moses that for us to ensure that our understanding of God is accurate lest we slip into false teaching is that we need to go to the Bible to ensure that we have a correct understanding of God. Not Barnes and Nobles' religion section. I haven't done it in a while but I always like to go to Barnes and Nobles because I always like to see what's current, right? There's a lot of authors there that have all these books about spirituality and God and this and that and all of them are all just attempts to understand God outside of the Bible. And so you have pastors, unfortunately, that are getting duped by that trend and they're bringing that into their churches and they're trying to water down the gospel, dumb it down so they can have millennials come into their church. I love young people, trust me. I love young people. But I also see when I go on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, some of these preachers, some of the crazy stuff they quote and then all these young people, amen, God bless you, amen, I love it. And I'm like, hold it! What's going on here? It's scary. You need to know truth and truth is found in Scripture right here.  This is who I am. So who is he? Notice what he says in verse 6. This is who God is. He says, I am merciful, I am gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth. Isn't that interesting? I mean, right now God is revealing himself to Moses after Israel sinned, right?   He didn't say that. What does he say? I am gracious, merciful. Wow, really, God? Listen, guys, out of all the scriptures in the Bible we're trying to say, listen, this chapter 34 of Exodus is the only chapter in the Bible where God is revealing himself in this way. Every time you see a repeat of this is from chapter 34. What is God saying? This is who I am. When I hear people say, oh, God is a terrorist. Your God is really, let's go back to chapter 34 of Exodus. Your God is mean. Your God does this. You're going to allow evil. Really, let's go back to chapter 34. This is where God says, this is who I am. Don't get your information from the media as to who God is. Don't get it from Yahoo. Don't google anything. Always remember Exodus 34. If you want to know who God is, go here. This is exactly what God is doing to Moses and he's saying, I am gracious. Let me define these words for you real quickly here. He says I'm merciful. Your Bible, your translations perhaps has compassion in it. Same word. This word, merciful is from the Hebrew word Raham and what's interesting about this, it's the same root word for the word womb. And so we see here that this word describes the tender love of a mother for the child who came from her womb. What is this saying about God? He's saying this, that God has that compassionate, parent type love for us. That's what it's saying. Listen to what Jesus said in Luke chapter 13, verse 34. You who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you how often I have long to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you would not have none of it. Psalm 103 verse 13. The Psalmist said, just as a father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. The parent type love of God. That's what he's saying. This is who I am, Moses. The second thing, notice he's gracious. This is where we get the names Hannah and the name John. The root means to bend, to be inclined. It means to be inclined to help someone. What is God saying to Moses and to us? He's saying this, God is gracious to us. He is inclined to want to help us. He is inclined to want to help us. This is the sad part of some Christian's lives is that they refuse to receive help from God. They try to do it themselves. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 11 28. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and loathe of heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I wonder how many of you here this morning are carrying a heavy burden. How many of you here this morning walked to the church, heavy-hearted? Have you gone to Jesus and said, Jesus, help me? You know it's an invitation. He says, come to me. He's not going to force himself on you. He says, I'm inviting you to come to me. When you're going through a hard time in your life, listen. Just come to me. It's an invitation. And see, we see that God is gracious. He's inclined to want to help us. Hebrews chapter 4 verse 16 says, let us therefore come boldly and find grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. One of my commentators said this and I want to quote him. He says, God cares when he doesn't even have to care. He cares when he doesn't get anything out of the relationship.  He cares without any ulterior motives. Wow.  We can choose not to care for people, right? When you have the power to care for somebody, you have the power to say yes or no to care for somebody. Aren't you glad God is not like that to you?   We would be devastated, right? Tell me if I can handle it without God. I can live without God. Okay, try it. See where it leads you at the end of life. But we know that God wants to help. He's inclined to help us. The third thing he says, he's long suffering. That word literally means slow to anger. That means he's patient with us. Someone once put it, and I like what he said, he said this, and I quote, God has a long fuse. I think that's a good way of putting it. Do you know people with short fuses? They don't want to be around, right? They hang out with these guys or whatever.  I can't stand this. I don't know when he's going to start just to explode. God is not like that. God doesn't get mad. We mess up when we blow it. God is not like, I can't stand this anymore. I saved you 20 years ago. What's wrong with you? He doesn't do that. We do, right? He says he's long suffering. And I love this one. Notice a bounding in goodness. A bounding. He's a good word. He's a bounding in goodness. That word is translated perhaps in your translation, loving kindness. He said is the Hebrew word. This is one of the most marvelous words in the Hebrew vocabulary. It means to be faithful, to be loyal, to show goodness and mercy. And not because the object deserves it, but because the giver chooses to give it. He says that while you were still sinners, Christ died for you. He didn't have to. He doesn't have to. God is not obligated to show mercy to anyone. Did you know that?  He has no obligation, but he chooses to show those wonderful characteristics as he's showing Moses here. No wonder David said in Psalm 23 verse 6, mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Isn't that awesome? Don't you want those things to follow you instead of the police? Don't you want to be on and look at for God's goodness and grace and having it follow you for the rest of your life? And it follows you. It's unconditional. That's the crazy thing about it. It's unconditional. God is good all the time. And so we see that in goodness here, there's no shortage of God's love. This is the best the Hebrew language has to offer in describing the gracious nature of God. You see, in the Bible, man tries to describe the attributes of God. Sometimes you find them just coming to a dead end and just stopping like Paul did with God. He said this in Romans 11.33. He says, oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.  He's just too much. You know that He's giving you chance after chance. He's extending mercy. He's extending grace.  It's overwhelming to understand for the human mind to grasp the character of God. It's hard. We could only grasp just a little bit in what we have here in Scripture. But notice, though, God reveals something to Moses, but he also reveals to Moses something else about who God is. And this is not just that He's gracious. He's loving, but also God is just. Notice what he says in verse 7. Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin by no means clearing the guilty. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. His loving and gracious character does not counsel out His righteousness. He's still a righteous God. He still deals with sin. He still punishes sin. God is the guilty. Do not go unpunished.  He extends mercy. But there's a point where you could exhaust all of that and God steps in and begins to punish sin. Because He isn't a God who just allows things just to go. He's patient. He's lung-suffering. But God does deal with sin. And this is what He's revealing to Moses. God is slow to punish. He gives us chance after chance to get right with Him. But if we refuse to get right with Him, then we will pay for the consequences of our sin. And so what does Moses do at the end? Notice in verse 8. Does Moses get mad at God? No, notice what he says in verse 8. So Moses made haste, bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped. Wow. He didn't say, huh, God, what are you saying? He says, this is too much. He just bowed down and worshiped him. Moses was reminded right here of who God is. He knew that he was not equal to God. He knew that he was the servant and he knew to let God alone be God. This is who he is. You know, Isaiah had a similar reaction to the presence of God. You know, when God revealed himself to him, what did he say? He said to me, for I am undone. I'm a man of unclean lips. When the apostle Paul, when the risen Christ appeared, the apostle on the way to Damascus, what happened? He got knocked off that horse and then the first thing that Paul said was this, who are you, Lord? Who are you, Lord? Maybe that's where you're at this morning. You're saying who is the Lord? Listen, today, this morning, the Lord is coming to Damascus. Another prominent leader in the Bible, his name is Jonah. How many know Jonah? Jonah ran away from God because of his character. The Assyrians were barbaric people. They were crazy. They were horrible. Those that lived in Nineveh. In fact, they say that when the Assyrians were heading into a town and the people of that town found out that they were coming, they were going to commit suicide before they would hit their town because of the torture that would happen under the Assyrians' hands. So I get it, Jonah. I'd say, yeah, let them go to hell, God. They're mean, right? But God says, no. I'm going to have mercy on these guys. I'm going to give them a chance to repent. What did Jonah say? Nope, I'm going the other way. I'm going on a cruise. God, see ya. And then God begins and created a storm and God created a big fish and all these things were happening in the life of Jonah that he finally gave up, right? When he was sucked into that belly of that fish, right? And so what happened after that, then he went and he preached and then there was a revival in the city of Nineveh, in the capital city of Assyria and they got saved. And you would think that Jonah was in the city. He was upset at God. This is what he said to God. Jonah chapter 4 verse 2, really Jonah? Seriously? Could you imagine a Christian like that? Man, he got saved. I can't believe he got saved. He doesn't deserve to go to heaven. You're like, whoa, brother, excuse me. Who made you the judge here? You know what I'm saying? I get it.  There's no way they're going to do that. No way.  Remember? You did? Praise the Lord, right? Jonah was like, no. This is why he didn't want to follow you. God, because you're too good. Listen, God will have mercy on whom he wants to have mercy and he'll be gracious to whom he wants to be gracious to. It's not up to you. It's not up to me. It's not up to us at all. God is who he is. There's a wonderful song. Casting Crowns has this song. It's an old song, Praise You in the Storm. There's a line in the song that I always like and I love it. It goes like this.  God, you are who you are, no matter where I am. In other words, you never change. Because of me going through trials on this side of heaven, because I am mad, you don't change for me. You still stay as God. Steady. Psalm 46.10 says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. This should always be the response of every human heart when confronted with the amazing revelation of God is to bow down and worship him. Instead of questioning God, you just bow down and worship him. This revelation of God forever puts away the idea that there's a bad God in the Old Testament and there's a good God in the New Testament. It crumbles that thought, because there are so many out there that believe in that. Well, how do you know that, Robert? Well, the love and mercy of God is throughout the entire Bible. It doesn't change. And, in fact, to take it a step further, Exodus 34 verses 6 and 7 is a fulfillment in the New Testament in Jesus. Listen to what it says in John 1.14 Speaking of Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and what? Truth. The same God in the Old Testament is the same God in the New Testament. Jesus dwelt. The word dwelt means tabernacle. The tabernacle in the Old Testament was moved around. Jesus Christ's became God's tabernacle on earth as He dwelt among men and women. So what I'm trying to say is this is that the same God of Sinai is the same God of Calvary. Same God. There's no two different Gods in the Old and the New. In Christ we see the visible manifestation of God Himself in the second person of the Trinity. John 1.18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father He has declared Him. We have a wonderful picture of who God is here. A wonderful picture. A beautiful picture of the God of the Bible. Remember Philip's response in the New Testament? He came to Jesus. John 14.8 Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us. Remember that? What did Jesus do? Did He go there's the Father right there. See? He didn't do that, right? What did He say? Listen to this. Have I been with you for so long and yet you have not known me Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say show us the Father? See in Philip's mind he's thinking of the Father the Old Testament God, right? He says show us the Father as it's a different one. He says if you've seen me you've seen the Father. That's deity. That's a proclamation of deity that Jesus Christ is God. In the New Testament Jesus Christ is the dwelling place of God's glory. Everybody saw it. God's self revelation to Moses should be an encouragement to some of you this morning. As I wrap this up here perhaps you're saying to yourself I've messed up. I deserve punishment and in a real sense you do. You deserve punishment. I do deserve punishment too. But listen the good news is this as gracious, merciful, long suffering and ready to parting your sin the God that revealed himself to Moses is the God that has just revealed himself to you here. I don't know where you're at and who you are and what you believe about God perhaps 80% of you here are born again Christians. Perhaps there's a 20% chance here that there are some in here that have no clue whether they know God or not. They don't understand God.  I was always told he was a mean God a God who just did not like people that's not the God of the Bible.  I've invited him to church functions and church and all of that and he tells me you know what Robert I don't want to enter a church what does he mean by that? He's saying that I'm such a sinner that if I walk into church everybody's going to know I'm this big sinner right?


Hey everyone, it's Gabrielle with Oxmer Audit Group here today at Oxmer Toyota for our Facebook use vehicles of the week Now I have picked out three pre-owned vehicles. I wanted to share with you guys So let's go over some details on this first one. Now. This is a 2016. It's a Land Rover range Rover Sport So it's a 3.0 liter v6 does have that supercharged HSE The exterior colors in a white so a few things about this vehicle. It is four-wheel drive Has navigation. There's a sunroof that interior has heated leather seating There is Bluetooth backup camera So there's a clean car fax and this vehicle has an exceptional service history Now that interior color is a tan leather the mileage on here is 32,649 and the price is 40,900 For our second vehicle This is a 2017 Kia cadenza premium that extra your color is called gravity blue Now the vehicle does have 18 inch alloy wheels There is navigation Vehicle does have a panoramic sunroof. There is heated leather seating There is a backup camera vehicle also has Bluetooth now in this one It does have the Harman Kardon premium audio Does have a clean car fax with only one previous owner that interior color you saw was in a black Mileage on this one is thirty three thousand two hundred and forty three. The price is 19,500 and four are last This is a certified pre-owned 2017 Toyota tundra 1794 crew max Extra your color is called an attitude black metallic Now this vehicle has 20 inch alloy wheels. It is four-wheel drive The vehicle is equipped with navigation backup camera This one also has the end-toon premium JBL audio There is a sunroof heated and ventilated leather seating now with that certified pre-owned It does have that clean car fax with one previous owner The mileage on this one is 39,062. The price is 38,700 if you guys have any questions, please feel free to let us know best number is five zero two two one four seven zero eight five you can also Visit our express store on our website oxmortwayota.com I'll make sure to have a link to each one that I just went over in the comments. Thanks everyone We'll see you well soon. Bye


When finding resources for university assignments, you need to consider how credible or trustworthy the source is. But why is it important to use credible sources? Using credible sources in your work means you're providing good evidence for your argument, and builds trust with your readers by demonstrating your own credibility as a writer. So, how can you tell if a source is credible? You should think about the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and bias of the resource. Let's use this citation for a journal article as an example. First, look at the currency of the source. When was it published? If you need information on a current topic, or based on the latest research, make sure it was published recently. Next, consider the relevance of the source. What is the topic of the source? Does it have information that you need? For journal articles, the abstract tells you the main ideas of the article. You also need to consider the authority, the author or creator of the source. The author can be a news reporter, academic scholar, an organisation such as the Australian Government, or even your next door neighbour. Consider their credentials. Are they respected in their field? Whose interests could they represent? If you can't tell who created the resource, you might want to look elsewhere. Next, think about the accuracy of the information in a resource. Does the author provide evidence for their claims? Does the writing use more facts or opinion? Are the sources properly referenced? Finally, it's important to think about the bias of a resource. Why was it created? Is the author trying to convince you of their opinion, or trying to sell you something? Did they receive funding from a corporation to conduct the research? These factors could make the resource more biased and less objective. Considering the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy and bias of a source will help ensure your work is well researched. Evaluating information can be challenging. Ask a librarian if you need help.