Amen. So keep your place there in Exodus chapter number 13. So this morning we're going to look at one of the words that keeps coming up over and over in Exodus chapter 13. The title of the sermon this morning, we're going to look at this word and we're going to kind of find out why this word is so important, what God means by this word. And of course we'll apply that to what it means for us today. But the title of the sermon this morning is the first. So you see this word first keep coming up again and again in Exodus chapter number 13. If you're there look down at verse number 12. We're going to look at this idea of the first, why this word keeps coming up. We're going to look at many other places in the Bible where the Bible talks about the first and see why God wants the first. What is this about? What does it matter? And we're going to study this this morning and then we're going to apply it to what it means for us today. Look down at Exodus chapter 13 and verse number 12. So Moses is talking to the children of Israel here. He's explaining to them things that now they've been brought out of Egypt. He's explaining to them things that they need to be doing. And he goes into a very specific set of commandments here in verse number 12 where he says that thou shalt set apart unto the Lord all that openeth the matrix and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast, the males shall be the lords. So he's talking about every firstborn male livestock of whatever they have is to be the lords. Look at verse number 13.  Look at verse number 14. And it shall be when thy son asked thee in time come saying what is this that thou shalt say unto them by strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt from the house of bondage. So what he's saying here is that giving the firstling to the Lord is picturing what the Lord did for them coming out of Egypt and it came to pass when Pharaoh would hardly let us go that the Lord slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all that openeth the matrix being males but all the firstborn of my children I redeem and we're going to get to the children part here in just a couple of minutes. But what he's saying is that this pictures what God did getting them out of Egypt saying why when the children asked you why are we giving all the firstborn of the livestock to the Lord you're to tell them the story about how God you know at the very last plank he killed all the firstborn of the land other than the children of the nation of Israel of course but it wasn't just the firstborn sons it was the firstborn of all the livestock of the land as well. And that was a very important picture but right away Moses is saying just on the surface we're going to go below the surface this morning but he's saying just on the surface when your children ask you why we're doing this you're going to tell them the story about how the God brought us out of Egypt through these great plagues and these great miracles. But go back to Genesis chapter 4 if you would and look at verse number 4. So the firstborn this firstling giving to the Lord this is not something new. This was like this from the beginning if you look at Genesis chapter 4 in verse number 4 and you remember the sacrifices brought by Cain and by Abel of course not to get into that story but Abel brought a favorable sacrifice to the Lord but there's something that's interesting about that sacrifice not only was it a blood sacrifice was it from his flock but look at what it says in verse number 4 it says and Abel he also brought of the what of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof and the Lord had respect under Abel and to his offering so he didn't just bring a lamb to the Lord it was a firstling meaning it was a firstborn lamb turned to Leviticus chapter number 19 so there's definitely something look that was before that was before Egypt so in Exodus chapter 13 the children are to be when they ask about the first the firstlings and why we're giving the firstlings that children were there to use that as a reminder to the children which is look it's it's a great reminder you know to always remember what the Lord did for you you know if you ever have in your family if you ever have blessings in your family you ever have the Lord really do something for your family this is a good model right here that you should you should make sure that the children remember this you should tell your children when they're older you know we were blessed this way when you were younger and the Lord really did some great things for us when we were younger you should find ways you should find milestones in your family to remind the children of those blessings that God has brought upon you and look God's going to bring blessings upon you in your life and that's kind of a sub point of the sermon this morning but the point is there's a deeper meaning because even before the exodus before they were brought out of Egypt Abel was giving the firstlings to the Lord so that's what we're studying this morning why is that why is that look at Leviticus chapter 19 look at verse number 23 now I mean it's not just animals either it's not just the firstlings of the flock and the cattle and all these things look at verse 19 or verse number 23 I'm sorry of Leviticus chapter number 19 the Bible says when you should come into the land you should have planted all manner of trees for food you shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised three years shall it be uncircumcised unto you it shall not be eaten of uncircumcised that's a picture of it's not to be touched it's not to be taken now what it's talking about is going in and planting going in and planting fruit trees and I've often wondered this and I've asked some of our agricultural church members how this works because you see new orchards and you see them put in trees in the orchards and I just think to myself as kind of an agricultural reminded person like how long is it take those trees to produce you know how long I mean after you you tear out trees and then you have to plant new trees and then you just have to wait several years I would think I don't even know I'm gonna guess what it is from what the Bible says here I bet you this matches almost exactly what the actual real thing that happens even today is but I've often thought you know you have to go several years without having any production on that land and land's expensive and you're still paying for the land and but look at what the Bible says here the Bible says that for the at least for the first three years you're not to take any fruit off of that land you're like man three whole years I had to have this land empty and not empty but just it's not saying there's no fruit there and say you can't touch the fruit look at verse number verse number 24 again the fourth year in the fourth year we're gonna get some fruit and here we go all right in the fourth year all the fruit there shall be holy to praise the Lord with all so saying once that tree grows up and starts producing fruit in that fourth year you can't have any of that that all goes to the Lord so that first it's literally the first fruit of that tree the Lord gets and then you don't get any fruit off that tree or out of that orchard until the fifth year look at the next verse it says in the fifth year shall you eat the fruit thereof that it may yield unto you the increase thereof I am the Lord your God five years you have to go before you can get fruit out of these trees you're like what in the world but the point is just like the flocks and just like the herds God gets the first God demands the first turn to Proverbs chapter 3 it's like this with everything it doesn't matter how many things we go and look at God demands the first and that's what we're gonna look at this morning look at Proverbs chapter 3 look at verse number 9 Proverbs chapter 3 and look at verse number 9 the Bible says in Proverbs 3 9 it says honor the Lord with thy substance you're like all right that I get that and what this isn't a tithing sermon this is about the first why the first but look what he says honor the Lord with thy substance yeah I get that I know what the Bible teaches about that but it says this it says and with the first fruits of all thine increase so shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine so we get a kind of an additional piece of information there in verse number 10 it's saying again it's saying all of your increase is is to you know you know we understand that you know we're to tithe and that's an actual 10% of your increase but it's saying no the first fruits that's an additional characteristic on top of that increase but then it says if you do this your barns will just be bursting your barns because God demands it and he's saying if you do this look it seems kind of anti you know counterintuitive to us that we have to give God all the first things that we have in our increase our flocks our orchards our fruits and just anything that we increase in but he wants the first and these things then you're not going to have any troubles you're going to have any problems your barns would just be bursting look at numbers chapter 3 numbers chapter 3 the Levitical priesthood was also taking first fruits if if you would and it's it's talking about the actual sons of the nation of Israel look at numbers chapter 3 and look at verse number 12 so even your the children of the nation of Israel were to you know be part of the first fruits given to the Lord look at numbers chapter 3 and look at verse number 12 so you just see this this this this methodology that God is using that I want the first I want the first I want the first look at verse number 12 of numbers chapter 3 the Bible says and I behold I have taken the Levites from among the children of Israel instead of all the firstborn that opened the matrix amongst the children of Israel therefore the Levites shall be mine because all the firstborn of mine instead of instead of all the firstborn that opened the matrix from among the children because all the firstborn are mine for on the day that I smote the firstborn in the land of Egypt I hallowed unto me all the firstborn in Israel both man and beast mine shall they be I am the Lord so this is where the Levitical priesthood came from this is where the priest the men again men this is where the priest came from they were the firstborn sons of the children of Israel again just showing us that the first goes to God God demands it turn to 2nd Chronicles chapter number 31 2nd Chronicles chapter number 31 I mean just in general this comes up all over the Bible both in the Old Testament and also you're going to see in the New Testament this morning as well look at 2nd Chronicles chapter 31 and look at verse number 5 2nd Chronicles chapter 31 and verse number 5 just in general the Bible says this in 2nd Chronicles 31 verse number 5 it says and as soon as the commandment came abroad the children of Israel brought in abundance the first fruits of corn wine oil and honey and of all the increase of the field and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly so again they tithed of all these things I mean what things everything that they increased with it could be honey oil whatever their business was whatever their whatever their farm was producing whatever their vocation was they tied that that's a 10% part of it but again it was the first fruits it was the first of it look at Exodus chapter 22 go to Exodus chapter 22 and notice look you say why not just a simple percentage that's kind of the point of the sermon this morning why not just why not just a simple percentage just like 10% and done but that's what we're going to look at this morning look at Exodus chapter 22 in verse number 21 29 we'll look at one more verse I could just keep going to verse and verse and verse about this by the way Exodus 22 29 the Bible says thou shalt not delay to offer of the of the first of thy ripe fruits and of thy liquors the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me so have I convinced you that the first is important the first is important we could go to many many more verses about this the first of what the first of everything God took that he made the Levitical priesthood out of the firstborn of the children of the nation of Israel and then the first born the first fruits of any increase went to the Lord up to up to 10% so the question is this morning why not just a simple percentage why not just 10% whatever because look isn't it true that if I give the Lord the first lamb that I have for the year or the first of my livestock that might not necessarily be the best one it's just the first one you know so the the best one look I've had many many lambs and and you know there's there's lambs that are better than others I'm sorry there's some that are just stronger and just have better genetics and and look better and are healthier than others and it may not be the first one so why does it have to be the first is the question and to understand this you kind of have to think about economics for just a second all right so in economics you have these laws right you have this economic law of like supply and demand right and then you have a law called there's a law in economics called the law of diminishing returns and you take these two things together what you'll see is this and I'm going to show you this from the Bible as well as a matter of fact turn to James chapter 2 as I'm explaining this but when you look at economics and you think about you know supply and demand and you think about the law of diminishing returns supply and demand works like this supply and demand works like this when there is no supply the demand is very high so something that has very little supply is very valuable very expensive and as the supply gets to be more and more and more that item or whatever it is becomes less and less valuable and this is why God is demanding the first from us because just think about it we're gonna have some pizza tonight right we're not some pizza tonight and you know if you're just like I'm not gonna eat lunch today I'm not gonna eat lunch today and I'm really gonna look forward to me and Ed's pizza tonight and it's gonna be great guess what the most valuable piece of pizza is gonna be for you that first piece and then that second piece is probably still pretty valuable but not quite as valuable as the first one right and then for some of you guys it's gonna be like the fourth and fifth piece and then maybe the sixth piece but then like that sixth piece is gonna be like this isn't really that valuable to me why am I even eating this whereas that first piece was the most valuable piece this is why God demands the first look at James chapter 2 James chapter 2 one of the most misunderstood chapters in the entire Bible there's an interesting part of James chapter 2 where there's somebody that is in need and I want to kind of apply this theory of economics to this part in James chapter 2 but James chapter 2 the whole chapter is all about you know you being profitable to as a Christian it's talking about what good is your faith if you just say stuff and you don't do anything there's James chapter 2 right there in a phrase okay what good are you what good is your faith it's it's dead faith look you're saved but it's just it's not doing anything for anybody if you're like hey I just I really hope that gets better for you you know have a nice day you don't do anything look at verse number of verse number 14 of James chapter 2 verse number 14 the Bible says what does it profit my brethren though a man say he had faith and have not works can save him now look at verse 15 it says now gives us an example here if a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food so here's somebody that's really in trouble like for real this person doesn't have any clothes they're probably cold they don't have any food they're starving and they are your brother and sister they are your brother or sister and we just think of a it's ill we can't even wrap our heads around that in the United States today you know because you know even even the poorest of us are you know have all the food that they could possibly want but look at verse 16 it says and one of you say to them depart in peace and be warmed and filled not withstanding you give them not those things which are needful to the body what does it profit not withstanding means but you don't do anything it's saying you see a brother and sister who starving and has no clothes they're freezing they're out in the cold they're out in North Dakota in the cold and you just like you open your door and you're like man that's rough brother that's rough I really hope you feel better slam the door in their face it's saying you're no good to them so applying that to our our theory and what God is telling us this morning let me just apply that on top of the story and say look if you had a brother and sister or sister that it was in that type of situation and even a coat in your closet but you paid a hundred bucks for that coat and it was a nice coat and you're just like you see your brother out there and freezing in the snow and you have that nice coat you know that you paid a hundred dollars for you're just like I hope you get some clothes man and you shut the door on them that person has very little value to you that person that brother sister even though you may say oh I love brother Joe I love brother Joe so much you know I just I mean I just my heart just swells when I even think about my brothers and sisters in Christ but it's not worth a hundred dollar coat to you that person that person actually has very little actual value to you and say you had you know you only had one coat that coat was probably even more valuable to you but what it is showing is that if you are unwilling to give something that is valuable to someone they have less than whatever that value is to you you weigh those two things you say coat more valuable than my brother that's what James chapter 2 is explaining think about a few I mean this isn't a you know kind of a stretch but think about if a husband would sit down at the dinner table with his family and he would he would put all the food on his plate and he would say you know what family I love you and and kids I love you guys and I love love you to his wife and then he would say to his family he would say you can have whatever I don't eat I'm gonna eat everything I possibly can and then whatever's left over if there's anything you can have the rest you know what what you're saying is those other people in your family have very little value to you but if somebody was to say oh no wife and children eat first and if there's not enough and you have you know what that that person is saying look we when we eat pizza tonight we're gonna do we always do the ladies and the children are gonna go first you know what we're saying though you know we're saying we're not saying that they're they're better than us or that they're you know anything like that we're saying that we value them we're saying that we put a lot of value on the ladies and on the children that's what we are saying if we don't give them the first things somebody that you wouldn't give the first things to you value that first thing more than you value them this is what God is trying to do for us when he puts this extra characteristic on the things that we give to him he's trying to keep him in the proper place in our lives I mean we can't go and just you know give the Lord the sixth or seventh piece and say oh yeah Lord but I value you ultimately if we did that and this is God is such a great manager over us all we have to do is listen if we did that and we gave God the sixth or the seventh you're God's just like I just want 10% but I want I want one of the good ones you know we do we'd have 10 lambs 20 lambs and then we'd like we go when we do all our business and then you know we'd have some sickly thing oh Lord you could have that one that's what we would do and that's what God is trying to prevent when he demands the first ultimately God is trying to stop us from devaluing him is what he is trying to do now apply this to the things that God wants because what are we talking about here we're talking about we're talking about blessings really all these things we're talking about productivity whether it come from your flock your family your even even money he's talking about the first fruits look God wants the good things we're talking about the blessings in our lives here I mean he's talking about but here's the thing does he really need it does he really need it look I get that there's a practical reason for all these things in the Bible that the Levitical priests they needed to eat you know the church needs to function I get that but that is not the main reason God is demanding the first the main reason that he's demanding the first is because he knows God knows that the first is always going to be the one that you want the most always and he knows that if you are willing to give him the most valuable thing that you will keep him in the proper place in your life I mean it's really a great piece of management from the Lord even though we may look at like all he wants the first of everything but he's trying to keep himself in the right place it look it's about God's position in your life that's what it's about it's protection for you turn to Matthew chapter 6 turn to Matthew chapter number 6 you know the funny thing about Christians and you know even the funny thing about like mature Christians because I mean I bring up alcohol and drugs a lot but in a church like this I would doubt look and it's not that it can't happen but I would doubt that there's a lot of people in this church struggling with alcohol and drugs but the funny thing about mature Christians one of the things that can really sneak up on mature Christians is the good things it's the good things in your life and God is trying to protect us from the good things actually hurting us and you're like what are you talking about what are you talking about look think about the good things in your life think about it I mean think about a new child these are things that you know that that a mature Christian even a mature Christian needs to be aware of these things can they can be a danger you say in what way they can be a danger in knocking God off that first pedestal you have to make sure that look I mean you have transitions in life you have a mom that has a new baby and she's just never seen again you know me you have to keep the Lord first in your life it's the good things a man gets a new job a huge blessing some great new job and all of a sudden the Lord's no longer first in his life look these are things that are real dangers to Christians good things good things don't be a Christian it's a sad thing when you see a Christian that can't take a blessing that is a truly sad thing I mean see Solomon see the book of Ecclesiastes he wrote it so you can take a blessing because here was a man who was blessed almost infinitely in his life and he used every single one of those blessings to basically knock the Lord off the pedestal that number one pedestal in his life God demands the first it keeps him where he should be so here's a here's a good methodology for you look here look at the church look at the church look we are thriving I mean amen that is a huge blessing but that no matter how many activities no matter how many blessings that we have the the gospel of Jesus Christ always has to be first here always no matter what a good methodology in your life is this to make sure that you don't slip up and and take the good things and let them knock the Lord out of the first position in your life a good methodology is no matter what's going on in your life if you're confused about something changing for the good or for the bad by the way just double down on putting the Lord first in your life let me give you an example we're thriving right now we're doing great right now I just constantly remind myself in situations like that when things get more busy things get more hectic we need to just double down on what's going on we just need to double down on the gospel we need to double down on you know getting people saved we need to double down on building up soul winners we need to double down on making more connections with people look the first year of this ministry we were not doing great it was I mean things were chaotic and things were confusing and I remember sitting down with my family and just being like you know what's going on here and what should we do you know going forward and we're just discussing this and the whole family and myself together you know we decided we should do let's start a new soul winning time why because we just double down that's why we just double down let's just make sure let's just make sure that God knows that the gospel is first here no matter what is going on so it's something is changing in your lives you know whether it's going up or going down just double down on making the Lord first I don't know why this is happening I don't know what's going on double down make the Lord first and everything will be fine turn to Psalm chapter 5 or actually you're in Matthew chapter 6 I'm sorry I mean the Bible tells us this it says seek ye first it's talking about don't worry about all these other things don't worry about you know clothing and food and all these things it says seek ye first there's that word again seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and what all these things shall be added unto you saying the Lord is always first seek the kingdom of God first seek what God wants from you first and all these other things will take care of themselves look whether bad things are happening or good things are happening this works always keep God first look at Psalm chapter 5 look at the front of your bulletin I said to my wife yesterday we went out soul winning yesterday and I and I ran into this guy out soul winning yesterday and you know he just he didn't make any sense he didn't make any sense it was he was an older man and he was just it was very clear that he no longer had the ability to and he was all wrapped up in weird doctrines and things like that and but that aside that aside it was very clear that he no longer had the capacity to hear and and listen to and and believe the gospel he just it just I said to my wife yesterday I mean here's another one for you here's another one to appreciate and double down on but and think about the first in your life but I said to my wife yesterday and I meant it literally I said to her I was like I'm glad that I have a functioning brain and and that it works I mean I didn't mean like oh I'm glad I'm so smart I just meant like I'm I'm glad my brain works I'm glad you know my my I'm glad I can think about things look at Psalm 5 3 look at Psalm 5 3 my voice shall hear shall thou hear in the morning you know the Psalmist David is saying here God you're gonna hear my voice when right away in the morning oh Lord in the morning will I direct my prayer into the and I will look up you know this is something that is super valuable you know the Lord God here's a really good way to keep the Lord first in your life by doing something daily you should get in your Bible and you should do praying early in the morning you say why because look I know we've got some seriously productive people in this church and here's what happens to you here's what's gonna happen you're gonna get up in the morning and be like yeah I'm gonna read my Bible and maybe you've even got a time set at six o'clock or whatever to do your Bible reading and all those different things but here's gonna happen you're just gonna like you're gonna grind through the day and things are gonna pop up like they always pop up every single day and you're gonna be attacking this problem and tackling this problem and fixing this for these people and handling this for these people over here and guess what even if you do get to that six o'clock Bible reading time your mind is gone your mind if it's if it's like mine it's somewhere else at that point you ever read like three chapters in the Bible and you were thinking about something else the whole time that's what not how you want to read your Bible this is why you read your Bible early in the morning here's what I do on Monday mornings so Sunday my big day you know I've got a preach two sermons I've got a you know come to church and it's just a it's a huge long day you know as a pastor and I'm wiped out by the end of by the end of Sunday night I'm wiped out in a good way but I'm wiped out I do not write anything on Mondays but you know what I do on Monday morning I read whatever chapter we are gonna be studying I don't care if I've read it a hundred times I read whatever chapter we're gonna study on Wednesday night I read it through sometimes I read it through twice why do I do that I read it through first thing Monday morning before I go anywhere I read through it once sometimes two times why so I can get it bouncing around up here that's why so I can direct so I can direct and I told many of you I can't write a sermon I can't sit down and write a sermon in one day I gotta read it and I gotta bounce it around a little bit but the point is this it's so five three get those thoughts bouncing in the right direction every single morning get that that'll keep the Lord first in your life during that day get read yourself some Bible and start pondering on the Word of God as you go to work as you're doing your things during the day start look give your first thoughts to the Lord that's what the psalmist is saying in Psalm chapter 5 otherwise that look the day just takes over and the busy life just takes over we have to give our first Matthew 2016 talks about us becoming the first it says so the last show the first and the first last for many be called but few chosen look if you don't give the Lord your first you will become the first this is the problem in our lives so look you say like I don't know pastor turn to Colossians chapter 1 you're like God first seems pretty demanding you know I mean doesn't you know why can't I just give him the my ties for the increase but here's the irony the whole thing everything God does is for our benefit everything that God does is for our benefit turn to Colossians chapter number one God is doing us a favor by making sure that we keep him first with all these rules in the Bible now here's the irony and I just think about your children for a minute I mean this is a big one right people have kids and like it's their kids and forget everything else their kids are the first in line their kids are the first this anything happens with their kids involved and it's everybody else's fault everybody else's kids fault that what they're doing is they're putting their children first you see what you shouldn't you put your children first here's the irony of this whole thing if you don't put God first and instead you put your children first it's bad for your children you ever met a kid who was raised to think that he was the only one that existed on the planet this is people that just spoil their kids I've seen kids spoiled up until the time they're 18 years old and then they hit the world and guess what the world gives them a big boot in the face it's like hey you're not first buddy who taught you that because they're not they're gonna get to work and they're gonna get out in the world and they're gonna have a family they're gonna realize that if they are first it's spells disaster so teaching your kids putting your kids on these pedestals that that they're the first it's a disaster for your kids it's bad for them I mean look even family first I mean you hear the people like you know family country I mean all the different orders of different things that people come up with you know everyone's like family first no God first if you say family first it's literally bad for your bad for your family I'm talking all of your family I'm talking about if I say all my family first no matter what look I'm gonna have family that saved family that's not I'm gonna have saved members of my family that probably aren't doing the right things all that if I put family first I'm gonna abandon the Lord is what's gonna happen family first is bad for your family look this is where this is where male leadership really comes in in the family right here because guess what it is God first in your family it is God first when it comes to raising your children it is God first not emotion first it is God first not other people's feelings first I'm gonna tell you right now that I know for a fact that your wife is more sensitive than you are and that's a good thing that's a good thing that's a good balance but when it comes to leadership of the family look folks God first is gonna ruffle some feathers God first is gonna straight up make people angry with you God first is gonna mean you're gonna have to have some uncomfortable situations uncomfortable conversations with people in your life people that you may love in your life but God first is gonna upset people and look that just takes somebody that's just gonna be like you know what God is first and this is an uncomfortable conversation but God is first and this has to happen done this is where men need to put some pants on and they delete their families keep God on top in their families look it's it's a real battle look I've been there I get it I get it it's a real struggle and just it's not make everybody happy first it's God first it's God first and that means your children will be taken care of that means your children will be safe there's a lot of danger out there if you don't keep God first there's a lot of people that want to physically and mentally and spiritually damage and destroy your family it's as serious as a heart attack for the Christian today but as long as you are just willing to just put God first and look I'll be as nice as I possibly can but God is first in my family and nothing gets in front of that and if I got to have some conversation with people face-to-face I got to have some conversation with people over the phone that are just uncomfortable look if you're a man and you can't handle confrontation you're gonna have a difficult time leading a family you know so easy in our lives things are so easy in our lives last night there's just no struggle anymore there's no struggle if I struggle with anything I got to get some gadget that makes the struggle stop if I get upset over anything I got a you know I mean someone will give me a pill makes me not upset anymore look confrontation is going to be part of leading a family in this Christian life in this circus that we're living in you better just I mean look don't go out there and be some confrontational jerk that's not what I'm saying but when it comes to the point where and look you need to be a mature Christian to realize like you know I'm gonna be as nice as I possibly can I want to be as loving as I possibly can I want to show people a strong Christian testimony but there's a line where they're trying to push God off the pedestal for my family for my wife for my children and that is the line that you must hold at all costs that's what it comes down to are you in Colossians chapter 1 did I have you turn there I don't know there seems pretty demanding that we give God the first but look at Colossians chapter 1 in verse number 12 Colossians chapter 1 in verse number 12 the Bible says giving thanks unto the Father which had made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance in the saints of the saints in light who had delivered us from the power of darkness so I mean God's kind of explaining our salvation here he's saying you inherited this thing did you work for something you inherit now like somebody else did the work for it and they just gave it to you right we were made we were when we got saved we were made in we were made like receivers of this free gift of the saints in light who deliver us from the power of darkness has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins who is the image of the invisible God look at this the firstborn of every creature for by him or all things created Jesus created the universe Jesus created everything Jesus is the literal creator that are in heaven that are in earth visible and invisible whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him he created the principalities and the powers think about that I mean all these you know the the tools that are being used by Satan to just you know drive the darkness of this world Jesus created everybody no matter what they turn out to be and he is before all things and by him all things consist Jesus was before all things so what I'm trying to get you to see here turn to Romans chapter 8 is that God gave us his first fruits in Romans chapter 8 verse 23 the Bible says and not only they but ourselves also which have God gave us Jesus who is the first fruits of all creation God gave us his fruits and then when we get saved we get more first fruits look at verse number 23 of Romans 8 and not only they but ourselves also which have the what the first fruits of the Spirit even we ourselves grown within ourselves waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body my body is not redeemed right now my body is not glorified right now but God has given me the first fruits of the Holy Spirit does that mean I can't get more of the Holy Spirit no no I could follow I can walk in the Spirit and I can be filled with the Holy Spirit but God when I trusted on the first fruits of his son gave you and me he sealed us with this down payment of the Holy Spirit which he saying is the first fruits of your spirit you're never going to be unsaved and even if you just never walk at all in the Spirit you don't do a thing that God wants you to do in your life you take that salvation you keep it to yourself you show no profit to anyone else you still have that first fruits of the Spirit he still gave it to you he's not going to take it away so God gave you the first fruits he gave you the first fruits of Jesus that allows you to be saved it allows you to inherit that and he gave you the first fruits of the Spirit to keep you saved to seal you like all but I don't want to give them the first fruits of of my corn or whatever I mean seems pretty silly right now we have the first fruits of the Spirit but if we want more we can have more you get that I mean doesn't get any better than this seriously I mean happy Sunday I mean not only are you saved but if you decide to actually walk in the Spirit God will give you more of the Spirit God will allow you to turn you know your life that you feel like is meaningless into into this great thing as the Spirit fills you and works through you you're like I'm weak I'm slow every single great person in the Bible said that Moses is like I can't talk he's the greatest man that ever is recorded in the Bible why because God filled him with the Spirit and God used him to do great things but we all have whether you choose to do anything with Christian life or do something wonderful with your Christian life you still have the first fruits you still have that it just makes no sense God gives us all these things and then we give God what's left over with our time with our efforts with our thoughts we should be giving God the first every single day in our lives God demands the first because he first gave us the first what's power heads and have a word


and welcome. This is Melissa Armo with the Stock Swoosh and I'm doing the year-to-date results for the Stock Swoosh Show live trading room again so far this year from January start of the year up through today. Today is April 11th hard to believe we're almost halfway through April. Our stats so far this year 318,190 in the room results with an average risk of $3,000 per trade. These are day trades. These are not options. These are margin trades. You would need a margin account to do these trades. We're going to go over the stats. If you have questions, you can email me at Melissa the Stock Swoosh.com. You can call me at 929-3200 Gap. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or Skype. So great news. Tomorrow is the start of earning season. Earning season is a great time to trade. Again, the banks start at earning season and it's going to be a wild one, people. We've seen a lot of volatility in the last couple of days and it's not going to end today. So again, earning season is a good time to trade. Why? You get a lot of big moves. You get a lot of gaps and I focus on gaps. For those of you that don't know what I do, I'm mostly short and I always, always do gaps. Have you been thinking about trading the stock market and you've been wanting to do this and you've been dreaming about working for yourself. You can become independent and work for yourself if you trade the stock market, but you have to have a consistent high-winning strategy in order to be successful and make money. So again, what does that mean? It means that you have to win in more trades than you lose. And it's also important, I think, to get support. The support of the live trading room. Again, all these trades in here I call live in the room, the entry, the exit, the stop. Don't trade alone. If you get support, it will help you do so much better, like this little guy in the floaty. Again, having me in the room go through the trades, rate the gaps, call the entries. It really, really helps people, especially when you're trying to figure out what to do. And then of course, I'm there to answer questions as well. So here is fast, fast close to your gap down. Again, what do I do? I look at stocks that are gapping, particularly stocks that are gapping down. So this closed here at one price at four o'clock and then opened at another price at 9.30 this morning. Open rallied, dropped. I was long, long out of this. Didn't get this all the way down. But it is interesting. This continued past the point that I exited the trade. Entry was 72, shares was 2000, risk was 3,200, exit was 70, 85. Again, this ended up going down this morning's low. I think it was 69, 30 or 40 or something. The last time I looked at it, profit for me was 2,300. It was a nice trade. Again, I like to get in and out of trades fast. And that is what we did. Here you see it. Get the drop, boom. So again, got in, got out, got the short, boom, done. And again, if you wanted to hold this, you could have held it. Oh, here it is. Here it is where it was around, looks like 10 o'clock, 10.15-ish came down in here. So stats for the year, number of trades was 92, number of winners 59, 31 losers, two break even, win ratio for the year so far 66%. Again, earnings season starts tomorrow. I prefer to do one trade a day. I did also call KMX today, but I didn't do it. Some people did KMX and fast. And so they actually had a better day than me because I only did one trade. I prefer to do one trade. If I'm doing two things, it's usually because the first trade got stopped. It's rare that I would go after two things at the same time. But again, today you could have, they both worked. So we started out, the year was closed in January second, then I did the spy on the third, worked nice trade, good start to the year. Then we did Apple in the fourth, we did spy. That was a great trade on January 5th, 4500 profit. Sometimes I'll do a retake. We did a retake in BA. So if the first trade stops, I'd take it again. That's what we did here. And sometimes I do an add. That's an advanced trader concept. I teach more in the entry class, but if I call it in the room and call it out, you can do it. On the ninth, we did BA again. BA was like the gap of the year so far, to be honest with you. No trade trades on January 10th, the 11th, we did BA and Tessa. This was the day I did two things. JPM was a nice trade on January 12th, January 15th was closed. Tessa was a good trade. That was a winner on the 16th, 17th was off. 18th, we did CBS, which was 3000 profit and a massive trade in DFS. This is Discover, really, really big one on that day, over 19,000. And again, this is into the start of earnings season back in January. Then we did Baidu that lost. Tessa was a winner in the 19th. Then we did Baidu again. Just couldn't get that one going there. That was on the 22nd. Divinio was a loser, Guild won and Tessa was a big winner on the 22nd. MMM was a winner, 5100 on the 23rd. We did TXN was a winner, 2700. The 25th was Tessa was another winner. We've done Tessa a lot this year. That's another really big one we had. INTC, we did was a winner on the 26th. No trades on the 29th. So say I get up in the morning and I rate everything I can find and see. If nothing rates 20 points or more per my system, then I'm not going to trade. Again, follow the rules. Follow the rating system. Go with the gap rating. 30th was BA and UPS, two winners. The 31st, Tessa lost. Google was a big winner on the 31st. QCOM lost. BA, another big winner on February 1st. And February 2nd was Amazon, which was a nice winner there. That was to start off February. Again, there's four quarterly earnings seasons a year. We're starting again, the next quarter, which is tomorrow, and it's going to last pretty much into the end of May. And then in between the earnings seasons, there are gaps. There are gaps for lots of reasons. There are news gaps. There are sector gaps. There are gaps that go gap with the market for economic reasons or data like this morning and yesterday, the market gap. So there are many, many things to do throughout the whole season, but the most profitable time to trade, we get the biggest moves in stocks is earnings season, which again, like I said, for this quarter is starting tomorrow. February 5th, BA lost. Tessa was a big winner.   Apple lost. Tessa was a break, even a small winner in the Q's. That was a tough day for me. You can tell the days where I have good days and the days that I have harder days, because I do less trades. Babel lost. Guild was a winner. Two good trades and snap. That was February 7th. Win was a winner. Nice trade in PayPal, 47.50 on the eighth. Off in the ninth, no trades on the 12th. Tessa was a winner and big one in BA on the 13th. Spy lost and then a big winner on the spy on the 13th. This was February. MGM was a good one on the 14th. TWLO was a winner on the 15th. Then we had Cisco lost. Roku was a winner on the 16th. Close for the 19th. Tessa was a winner.  PANW was a winner on the 21st. Etsy was a winner.  RIVN was a winner. On the 22nd, Square was a winner. And Amazon was a break-even on the 26th. Then on the 27th, BA lost. Then eBay was a really, really good winner. I remember that one. 5810 and eBay the 28th. 29th, it was Leap Day, QQQ's lost. Amazon was a big winner on the 29th. No trades on March 1st. WDA won. 2900. Target, we had to do twice. First trade stop, we did a retake. Target was a good one then. Just took a while to go. March 6th was JWN 2700. Then again, we just were hit and hit and hit in March 7th CN1. Marvell won. BA won on the 11th. The 12th BA was another winner. DLTR won. Tessa won. Apple won on the 15th. Another winner. Then the 18th was Google was a winner. No trades on the 19th. Apple was a loser on the 20th. The QQQ's lost on the 21st. And so did Amazon. Close then. I took off for Easter. Tessa lost on both of these trades in the second. Tessa lost. Then again in the third. And INTC was a massive, massive winner in the third. No trades April 4th. Tessa lost. The second trade worked really well. It was Friday. Marvell won Friday when it fell off a cliff. Amazon lost on April 8th. Then we took another Amazon that lost. Small winner in Apple. Then Apple lost on the 9th. BA lost. Big BA winner then. That was again when that timed. That was Tuesday. Then I had a webinar the 10th off and fast was today. So again, it's all about determining your risk and how much risk you want to take.  So if I say 50 by 90, okay, that could be 40 cents or it could be a dollar 40. You have to know what stock I'm doing. So again, say 40 cents. If it's 40 cents, if you take 2,000 shares, you'd be risking what? 800 dollars. And again, if it goes 40 cents and you're doubling your money, you're doubling your profit, you're turning it over once. So you'd be risking 800 and you'd be making 800 or you'd be risking 800 and making 1,000 if it went 80 cents. Or you could go $1.20 and then you'd be making three times the amount, for example, of what you risk. So I'm trying to turn it over once of whatever I get. If I'm risking 20 cents, I'm trying to get 20 cents. If I'm risking a dollar, I'm trying to get a dollar. And again, most of the stocks that we do, we never ever do any penny stocks or really cheap stocks under a dollar. Rarely I would do anything under $5 but I'm not saying I never will. Most of the stocks we do are probably within the $15 range to maybe $100 range. But I mean, you really have to look at what you do and say, okay, I have this much money. I'm going to do this many trades per work. I'm going to do this many trades per day. And again, you can see I really don't do that many trades. That's one of the reasons it's efficient and active to be in the room with me and really so much of an asset because it's not hard to follow me because I don't do that many things. Like I told you today, I called the fast and you could have just done it. And that's it. And again, I mentioned KMX and I looked at it and then I gave the numbers. It was too late, I thought for me to do it, but some people did it on their own and they did it late and it went and it worked. And that would fall for Cliff today too. So can you trade with a beginner risk? The answer is yes, you have to take your account like I said and back it up and divide the number of trades you want to take. You certainly could trade with a prop account on margin. If you want to set up the type of account, find out an investigative prop place and again, you could risk $100 a trade, $200 a trade, whatever works for you. There are people though that just prefer flat out prefer to do options. And if this sounds like you, you can do options. Now there's some people in the room that aren't doing the trades I call on margin.  So that is up to you. But again, the training room, the live room is a day trade room where I'm calling the trades on margin. The options, I have a newsletter for that. That's separate, that goes to your email and yes, you could sign up for that too. So if you're thinking about trading and you want to do it and even trying to think about it for a long, long time, it's got to be something that you're committed to, something that you really want to do, something that you can say, I can see my future that's going to be different than my life right now. And I want things to be better and I want to have more money coming in because again, we've talked about this, things are out of your control that have to do with interest, rates, the economy and inflation. You're never going to be able to predict or control those things. The best thing you can do is take care of yourself and your own life and your own finances and your own family. So if you're interested in learning what I do, you could take my class, it's called the Golden Gap course. You must take this class to have eligibility to join the live trading room and then you can join after the class. If you want to sign up for the class now and pay for the April class, you will be able then to join the room. If in fact, that's something that you want to do because the class isn't until the end of the month. Then you could start trading tomorrow. Then you could start trading Monday and you could start getting the earnings right now. Next week's a huge week actually for earnings and the overall market. So the Golden Gap course is April 27th, the 28th, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time. Class of the class is $69.99. You could be anywhere in the world and take it. Class is online. Again, you can sign up and trade the U.S. stock market from anywhere in the world. If you want to do the Combo, the Combo is $74.99, which gets you the Golden Gap course and the Trends course, okay, together. Again, class is online. You don't want to miss this. Think about it. If you're interested in signing up, you must email me for sign up forms. You can not sign up through the website. You must email me for the forms. And again, I will allow people to join, sign up, pay for the class now, and start trading as soon as they join and get in the room. Any questions, email me at Melissa at thestocksquish.com, looking forward to a continued good month and good year for 2024.


Don't don't commit treason Hi, you've reached Steven Selly. Sorry. I can't get to the phone right now I'm either on the other line or I just plain old missed it either way. Thank you for calling and leave me a message I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Thank you Laughing at the people who just kind of tuned in and be like what we what did I what what's happening if they're listening on audio? Am I on the phone?  I actually love voicemails. I love leaving them.  I'll call you back if you need me really badly call my agent which I don't have yet But I'm working on it.  Isaiah went bonkers in the gym that boy that that dunk that 360 over bro Was insane because he never tried it and then the fact you're gonna try to jump over someone and spin is insane And if you watch his video, I don't think I have all the attempts. Do I know I don't have the all the attempts He's got the attempts. He went for yeah, so check out Isaiah's video. He morning Vince I just got your text on my computer if you're listening if he He tried it once not even close then he tried it once and got his leg over without the ball And it was just like well I said to myself he can get it cuz I was like well I've never said he already got it over then he like got one close to the rim Then he background it was just crazy and he got it in like five six tries. He's seriously incredible I'm still mind blown by that dunk so happy for the boy. It was insane Does he ever pass to me in game?  He knows I'm trying to make content. Yes Does he help me out? No, did I berate him for it? Yes. Was I kidding? Yes. Do I love him? Yes, is his hair too red doesn't matter when you're jumping to the Sun you can match it Does it matter? What's good dunk life daily episode 33? I Looked over here for some reason like I'm looking at the number. Is it 33? I think it's 33 happy Tuesday I try to do topic Tuesday I always think of it every Tuesday used to do it on my Instagram topic Tuesday and come up with some Stupid words that start with T, but I have the paradox of choice. I always think of the same five words I think of telecom the whale that passed away. Sadly. I think of trachea. I think of turmoil. What else I think of Those are like the four. I can't think of any others I ever I think of T words to say I can't think think is another one But I like the the hard T sound bro I literally can never think of more T words and I'm just gonna give up because it's like I think there's too Many words a paradox of choice. Anyway, what did I want to talk about today? Probably nothing tips tips Tuesday I wanted to do I thought of another thing for tips. I need your input to I was thinking maybe energy tips because I got Loads of it, bro. I was thinking maybe I'll do some tips But I already just learned from doing my five my top five dunk tips that I did not enjoy doing that Five days straight, you know, sometimes I just want to yell and practice my fake voicemails on here You know, so it's hard for me to do tips So maybe I'll make it in one video or something like that But I figured what's my strength honing on and I when I here's here's a tip for you when you're trying to Create something and you're like because I'm I find myself loving to create things But when I find something that's very true to me I get really excited by it and yes, that happens too often where I have too many things I'm excited by but for example, if I think of like I want to make a Tutorial video another T word of something that I know is important for you guys like something It's like a little bit of a of a stressor because of how much work I have to put into like Edited and screen record and put it all together and make it look nice But when I think of like energy tips and just kind of yelling on here It's like super exciting on a different level because it's just so easy for me and it's so natural and it's my strength So like if I also thought of like writing a goddamn book That's like I the idea of it excites me Oh, I'd have a book with my whole story because I actually started that hint hint It's in my latest program as a bonus if you check it out check out my two week peak program Bro if you want to fucking take off Yeah, there's a little preview of my my little book I'm writing I don't know if it's considered a book, but it's just my story That I wanted to like get in writing, but it's that that's kind of tough for me to do It's tough tough Tuesday to fucking get that done Because writing is not my strong suit.  I don't need dude.  I love robots I got to tell them how much I love them because when they take over they're gonna I'm gonna be on their side, but they're gonna see it since it's inefficient Just be like these people don't need to live and then they'll take us out, but it's it's all good They they won't they'll have the earth we had it for so many years. They can have it. They can have it, you know Oh, let's let's look at some one of my random topics. How about we do that random topics? I wrote down on on my phone Whoa, this is weird Oh, the other thing is that I slept really good check out my latest the latest vlog because After that day yesterday. Oh, I got a new car yesterday. Oh my god I don't want to keep I want to keep it a surprise because I want to make a vlog about it But I don't even know why but it was a stressful day had to get the paperwork done all that type of thing running around all day Back and forth a lot of driving My head was actually like killing me because of stress and like so many different like things happening at once And I was trying to stay healthy too but I don't know enough time and I wanted to get my vlog up and I wanted to do that so many things and But then I slept really good This tonight like deeper than usual. So that's another thing. I'm trying to work on is I've told you this on this podcast before Is that my sleep is like my priority? I got like over seven hours, which is like the main goal I try to get seven and a half and that's after wakefulness because this Fitbit tells me wakefulness I had like 45 minutes I usually have over an hour of wakefulness, which is like how many times you wake up through the night like your your Heartbeat or your conscious level whatever it is.  So I had to just had the like scavenge in my Pantry and I had a lot of little things and I think maybe the carbs might have made me sleep deeper I don't know, but it's definitely something as a nutritionist. I should know no, I'm not certified Yes, I want to be though. That's another thing I want to be is Certified in nutrition. I want to get really good at that To go on to my little dunk journey This is the I like to make this the place where I give all the details of my dunk journey because my dunk vlogs I'd like to keep it to the entertainment a little bit of tips here in there, but Details and what I'm doing. I think are really helpful. I stopped dunking Sunday. I dunked a ton pushed it a lot I felt really good when my hamstring was killing me it was hesitant to jump and so now I'm trying to focus on I just did sleds yesterday pushing because I talked to the flexi bowl over at ATG and he was mentioning just do high rep concentric and Just push Just try to avoid eccentric which because I was doing RDLs Which is like you lean over and it hits the hamstring really hard But that kind of inflames it aggravates it whatever but those actually helped my range of motion at first But now it's like to a point where it doesn't feel like it's helping anymore. I don't feel like it's making any progress I'm kind of stuck. That's why I need to switch things up So I'm going to avoid eccentric and avoid jumping for like at least a week probably and just do high rep Concentric like a sled low weight and just a lot of reps just kind of like pump pump pump It's almost like to me. It seems like I'm very visual So it's almost like the tenons there It's like you're kind of like knocking on it But like from the outside and just like chipping away at it like Injecting little bits of stimulus to like over and over and over again instead of like one big stimulus that overloads it Tiny little stimulus that in the right spots if that makes sense But I'm going to try to get super healthy because I felt so good yesterday. I tried tree 60s I hit one that was like I tried to spin more than usual I almost passed the rim and I dunked with one hand not the best angle for my camera to tell but it felt really cool I'm excited to kind of punch a 360 instead of just get it. I got a two-hand three six two hand three sixty first try That one felt really good.  There was another effing thing I wanted to talk about that I write it down or not oh This is the topic of the day our Cartoons the best in English because I was thinking there's other shows that kind of get popular in other countries But is America in English have the best cinema? I'm a huge movie fan TV show fan Haven't watched too many movies recently Spider-Man was better than I thought it would be the new one It was cool, but like Rick and Morty with their like the words They use and the story lines and the funny voices like you can't really how do you translate that into another language? You know not saying that like it wouldn't translate or but like I don't see any other cartoons that good or that get And getting that big in other country and maybe I just have no clue Maybe I just so underwear, but that's what fascinates me too is like is it how much am I missing out there? That's that good because that show is like one of my favorite things of all time I've told you always sunny is the best comedy of all time F the office. It's a different show I know but it's just the level of it I want always sunny to have that cult following that the office does if not bigger I really and I it started here you guys know it started here speaking of starting here Is that I have this poster one of you guys mentioned to leave this poster up as I because I took I was gonna get a dunk live daily poster for the studio and I'm gonna leave this one up for the OG's.  Yeah, my brain is out there Yeah, so our cartoons the best in In America are there better shows you guys let me know people that are out of the country Do you have amazing cartoons or TV shows or movies that I should check that that would be mind-blowing to me like Inception level and interstellar always sunny like the office those type of like legendary Historic in the cinema world Because I'm I look like Game of Thrones.  I think that's in Mexico, right? Tenno, I don't know but that's cool 1536 Buddhist monks from Kyoto's and Rocky temple set fire to 21 Nietzsche and temples throughout the Kyoto and the Tenbukahoka disturbance. No 1642 Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens discovers Martian solar polar cap, huh? What oh 1942 the Manhattan Project commences under direction Leslie Gross to deliver an atomic bomb Oh my god today in film 1967 Bonnie and Clyde directed by Arthur Penn and starring Warren Betty is released cool 2008 in sports American super swimmer Michael Phelps wins three gold medals all in the record time in the one day in The one day at the Beijing Olympics in the one day who writes like that 200 I am 200 butterfly 400 freestyle relay. Oh Today music 2013 crash my party fourth studio by Luke Bryan. I want to do more movies more film stuff Anything else in film? It's loading Jackie Gleason Tremaine show premieres Hmm anything else cool? No All right. Well, that's it and then now that dunk life or damn checking out some comments from yesterday I'll check the vlog and I'll check also the podcast because the vlog had a lot of views already. Let me see oh Did I hit 30k overnight? Let's see. I'm getting close. Oh my god 4,000 views. Oh my god. Hold on Sorry, sorry How many subscribers in my act because I might have hit 30k overnight if I blew up a little bit 29.8 boys were getting there.  It's great Let's see. Oh, I said I would pick some a winner. I forgot. I've said I would pick a winner Let me put it in the in the thing in the thing. There was one comment I really liked that was really good that I wanted to read Let's see. Oh, this is it G money said you are pushing myself to do things I never wanted to do and I want to thank you for this man I'm 5a 15 years old touched her in for the first time a couple days ago. Thank you That's the best push yourself to do what you can't put that you never thought was possible That's how this whole entire channel started now I just want to pick a winner really quick and then that's the end of the show because I'll read the vlog comments tomorrow or something but I Told somebody I'll give them a free program.   That's gonna be a whole another podcast.  Just fucks it. Oh, oh damn And just act like he's killing it people around me like wait, what am I missing something and that's the psychosis We're talking about okay, we're ending this one strong It got a little wayward in the middle, but that's how we do it.  I don't know how to do this comment Picker random YouTube winner. Come on. Where's that YouTube random comment picker? Here we go. I'm posting the the podcast. I told you I would and YouTube comments There's 29 unique comments the raffle winner is Watch it be G money Gregory saldana, if you don't have a program yet, bro, I got you. I remember that name I'm pretty sure I mentioned you on the podcast.


This article argues that the technology of forming a successful personality of a primary school age pupil should be implemented during media education at primary schools. It also demonstrates the importance of solving problems of success simultaneously with increasing the level of media culture of a pupil, preparing them for lifelong self-realization through partnerships between school children, parents and teachers. Furthermore, it shows the need for the embodiment of the pedagogies of heart and success, and proposes a diagnostic toolkit for assessing the levels of formation of a successful personality among primary school pupils. Additionally, effective forms and methods of education such as creating electronic books, projects rules of success achievement, stories of success, watching movies about successful people with special needs, analyzing media products on the topic of success, and educating parents about the problems of children's success are proposed. Finally, the article discusses the importance of improving the content of textbooks in the context of achieving success, increasing interest in children's periodicals, and suggests that this could help strengthen the Ukrainian state. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Kia ora everyone, maenai Tom, maenai learning specialist at Auckland Museum Kia ora kato, maenai Mandy, maenai digital producer at Auckland Museum So to begin this talk I just want to take you back to three years ago when I was a freshie at Auckland Museum and as part of our induction we actually got taken into the bowels of the museum to see our vast and incredible collection and it completely blew my mind it had been a long held dream to do such a thing but what actually amazed me was the fact that a lot of these objects would not see the light of day for decades and decades Is that not playing? Yeah, so of course digital can help to fill this gap by creating digital surrogates either in the form of photos or photogrammetry which have done an incredible job but what I think has actually been a game changer has actually been 3D printing and scanning Like when you see these kids looking at these objects they have them right up close to their faces and they're watching, seeing every little detail and really interrogating it so yeah, a really important piece of tech Yeah, so one of the struggles or challenges that the learning and engagement team has been actually marrying these objects to a story or many stories and this is what I think Museum in a Box does really, really well because it allows these objects to talk so without further ado we're going to do a quick demo of Museum in a Box A highly prized, beautifully crafted instrument made of a wooden mouthpiece lashed onto a spiralling shell So, I'll just... So the tech behind this is there's 3 important components and that's the NFC sticker which is actually on that putata there you might want to lift it up Tom and then an NFC reader and a small credit card size computer called a raspberry pie so basically what happens is the reader asks the sticker, hey what object are you? and it says, I'm the putata and then that triggers the audio file to actually play and the really cool thing about this tech is it's cheap those boxes are about $500 and each NFC sticker is $0.50 so incredibly accessible so you would have encountered this tech before if you've ever used a transport card like a hop card or a snapper card or ever paid for a beer at Splaw increasingly this tech is being used in the museum and environment and as part of this talk I actually got to research some ways that it's actually being used and one of the cool applications is an exhibition that's actually coming to to Papa in December and that's the Wonderland exhibition so participants get given an NFC enhanced map when they first arrive and they can trigger various digital experiences as they walk round another awesome application is something called the story of a lamp and this was created by the digital agency called Sandpit and so what you can do as part of this experience at the Melbourne Arts Centre is you can go and get an NFC enhanced book and you take it to a lamp and you just put it at the bottom of the lamp and it tells you about the story of the Melbourne Arts Centre so quite a nice kind of pick-a-path and I'll just show you a video of how it actually works Hello? Can you hear me? You can, can't you? Hey, come in a little bit closer I've got a story to tell you Yeah, so some really cool applications on that Oh, there we go So going back to my first question like how can we blow the minds of these young children and in order to do that I needed to ask another question and that is, well, what do they know about our collection? Do they know anything? And so we actually asked some of the kids at a Parnell Primary in Mangafo school what they knew about our collection and as you can see they took the question very, very, very seriously How many objects do you think are stored away in site keeping at the museum? I think like about maybe over 100 would be stored in the museum because the museum is like really big See, I'm maybe 100s maybe? 150? I don't know, but there's a lot Maybe about 50 70 170 60 201 209 I'm proud to say we completely broke their noodle and, yeah, we can definitely blow their minds How many objects do you... So they were all wrong and you could completely underestimate the museum We have about one and a half million natural science specimens about over 200,000 human history objects and when we talk about digital and library archives that's somewhere in the millions So it's part of our job in the Learning and Public Programs team to highlight those hidden collections not just the collections themselves but also the connections that they all have too And so we think we're having a really good idea here with the Museum in the Box Who are the people behind Museum in the Box? As Tim was saying, they're a London-based agency and there's only four of them and they work in service to the cultural heritage sector and this is one of them assembling the boxes there So they assembled the boxes on site and actually sent them out to 40 Glam institutions and we were one of the lucky ones Sorry, I forgot this to be part of that, yeah We distributed all around the world and one of the cool things that they did is they created quite a community amongst us So via a Slack channel we could troubleshoot any problems, ask any questions share digital assets or any successes that we had during the pilot programme And they were very much part of the lab themselves So one thing they did is a pop-up exhibition called Seeing Red which was a series of 1970s feminist posters and they had the responses of children via Museum in the Box So a really nice way to kind of create this layered, self-guided participatory experiences So for all of the participants we had to think about how are we going to create fun, engaging, interesting interactive content and we all came across similar questions and one of them was who was going to be our narrator who was going to be the voice that was going to come out of the box would it be a broadcaster, an actor a child a subject matter expert with a centaurian voice There were lots of possibilities but one interesting co-lab was actually done by the people at Museum in the Box and they travelled to the Ezeco Museum in Cape Town and they got Zulu Elders to pick out a series of objects and describe them So these Zulu children had the opportunity to hear from these people who understood these objects, had experienced them and knew their history really well and I don't know if you've heard of the Pacific Collection Access Project but Auckland Museum has been working over a series of years with Pacific knowledge holders to share their knowledge around our Pacific Collection so this would be an absolute sitter for us Another question that came up was what was the subject matter going to be and obviously those objects that were lending themselves to being 3D printed or there were spare specimens or they could be reproduced would be helpful to choosing your subject matter and another thing we had to consider was whether it could be shareable or remixed so could it be shared across from New Zealand and beyond we had tonnes and tonnes of content on this Museum in a Box site so how could we actually share that and remix that and this really came to light with me with this particular piece here at the Canadian Museum and when I saw this I was like wow maybe we have some of these kind of fungi so I instantly emailed the Natural Sciences Team and sure enough we do so potentially we could use some of their content or add to their collection The other question that we had to think about is how are we going to capture our audience like kids are a pretty tough audience and one thing that I learnt when I was watching them is that if you showed a part of an object or a part of a specimen their curiosity was really ignited like when we showed them a whale's tooth a snapper jaw or a shark tooth they just really were excited by those particular objects and I think it required them to actually do the hard work of figuring out what that came from, what specimen that came from or what object that actually came from Personally, one thing I'd really like to do is a series of macro-images because I think this would really ignite their curiosity Can anybody guess what insect this actually is? No, not you! It is, yeah Okay so when we're thinking about using this box we can think about the digital curriculum which is coming next year So the digital curriculum is not just allowing children to use digital technology but it's also to become digitally capable thinkers how do you create content in a digital way So there's going to be a big appetite for this kind of programming come next year So what do we actually do with the museum in the box? We had another, so to speak, museum in the box It's called the Kete Wananga that is brand new to our new learning offer This is a box filled with natural science specimens So in this one it's from the marine environment from the Hauriki Gulf and schools, they can hire this kit and they have it for as long as they want and integrate it in any part of their learning So we thought, okay, why don't we make an underwater themed museum in the box So Tim, can I get you to hold up the shag? So on the shag here it's 3D printed This tells the story of some museum research about the shag and I'm not going to ruin guys' speech later so no spoilers, he'll talk about that later Another one is if you could hold up the ship So Aaron here, my colleague is the voice for the ship So he is a fish living underwater and the sound associated with the NFC sticker is the sound of a ship passing above you if you're living underwater and what effect could that have to the communities living down there Andrew, also another colleague made our Putatada replica of two schools, Mangafo and Parnell So instead of me telling you the feedback we've got some additional footage I would describe the food books as it converts objects into stories and audio Like this little mechanical technology thing I would describe it as like a storytelling box Each item has a sticker on When they put the sticker on this thing it tells you some facts and stuff It's like a podcast, a very short one The bootbox is really fun because it's like having playing and learning combined I really liked the fact that they didn't have an insight into what it was going to be and they had to use a different sense rather than just looking or sitting at a device I like the the conch shell because it looks really interesting and I don't know that much about it I've never seen one before So the box was really positive We're going to do that again right Get down and get up, this is my shell Absolutely, something that the kids have never seen before That opportunity to see Artifacts, to link artifacts to a new kind of learning but then hear about them was something that the kids were really interested in and engaged with One of the things we'd really love to see is this becoming part of an interactive piece of work for the kids where the kids get to experience the objects hear about the objects, link that to their own inquiries and then take that into the next step and be able to perhaps code their own little tag so that they can then take what they've seen from this and then use that as a way of sharing their own learning rather than just purely receiving the information, being able to create and share information through that medium as well as something we'd love to see I'd probably like to see what happened with the tunics or the togas I think I'd want to see what happened to them because I don't know Did they get laundered? I like knowing about the history and I like knowing about history and snakes Something extinct maybe The sound of something extinct because if it's extinct then I've probably never heard it before T-Rex warring because I have no idea what it sounds like I'm pretty sure it would be pretty cool To do something that involves where the kids are from like their cultures so they could almost have an object that relates to them and their culture and then can tell a story whether it's food, history celebration, something or even facts about their country or whatever it is, I think that would be really interesting community within your classroom that you're all sharing something that's really special to use The kids have so many different cultures and so many different influences in their lives that maybe they haven't found out before so actually getting the community in their home to get involved I think that would be really cool to make it really special for each class The greatest benefit twice of this kit in this programme is the availability to our teachers in their classrooms and to our kids being able to access this information without necessarily having to go to the museum and I think when we think about how we want to engage our children and learning every moment counts so the opportunity for the kit to be here and travel to us and our teachers to have time beforehand to experience it and think about how they're going to use it and have wider reaching implications than the traditional model of going to the museum seeing an exhibition and talking about it when we come home I would describe the... Yes, so all in all the kids loved the tech they loved clapping their eyes on these unusual objects and they loved hearing from experts One teacher actually expressly said that he was convinced that the children were bored by his voice so by bringing many voices into the classroom we could instantly engage them and what we found was also really successful was if the teacher primed them so made them make predictions about these objects or asked some questions and as you can see this child has a rather terrifying prediction of the plastic cup One teacher left the box just sitting in his classroom for a week as a tease and he got students to go up and listen to it see if it's changed at all he added some stickers to the box throughout the week and he's like, ooh, it's changing One kid was very curious and decided to email me and I shouldn't have left my business card on top of the box and he didn't get permission to do it so he was so intrigued that he happened to email a stranger which is not very good lucky it's just me, it doesn't matter he got banned from his Chromebook for a week The team at Museum in a Box said they loved the way we explored the medium of sound and we went out of our way in order to scavenge sound, collect sounds, create sounds and now that the pilot has actually finished they've launched a series of kits for small and large organisations so check it out We think it was a really successful pilot the teachers and the students seemed to love it and they loved the idea of making their own collections and also having it in their schools so I think that was great to hear We're definitely going to have it in our programming next year in what capacity, not 100% certain so we do have a demonstration in the aptly named Oceana Room where you can come and try all the museum in the box have a look at the sort of stuff that we've created and we'd really love to see or hear what you think would work in your institution as well so come and see us at the Auckland Museum stall Any questions for Tom or Mandy? Questions I've got lots but I'll ask them later Great, alright, thank you afternoon tea time I think