Thai U.M. would think that discussion and debate on capacity development in migration would never be complete, comprehensive and inclusive if they don't include the main actors of human mobility that is to say the migrant themselves. In this context and consistent with the established practice of the IDM and to provide the migrant with the opportunity to make their voice heard and to interact directly with other stakeholders. I'm glad to present this morning this session through which we will listen to interesting self-empowerment stories and to concrete experience of migrant empowering themselves and contributing to capacity development of their fellow migrants and ultimately to their host and origin countries. Yesterday one of our panelists representing the UNICEF Mr. Khan referred to a migrant, a young migrant with the name of Anas Ansar addressing policymakers in a gathering in June. I'm quoting the young migrant said one way of making migration safer and better for young people is to have us part of the discussion that exactly what we are trained and aiming from this session is to make the migrants around me part of the discussion to provide room for interaction discussion with you. I'm sharing the podium with three distinguished capacity development agents if I may say so. First there Mr. Jibril Diallo who serves the African Renaissance and Daspora Network ARDN as president and chief executive officer. In this role Dr. Diallo leads the ARDN global pathway to solutions initiative which aims to popularize the United Nations sustainable development goals and spread the goodwill of the United Nations in close consultation and collaboration with partners including the office of deputy secretary general of the United Nations. Then I have on my left Ms. Zrinka Braulu who is the CEO of Migrant Organize a grassroots national organization that provides shared organizing platform for migrants and refugees to connect, build, come and ground and grow their power. Ms. Zrinka is a refugee from Sarajevo where she was a journalist and where she worked with leading war correspondent in the 19th. She served as commissioner on the independent asylum commission the most comprehensive review of the UK protection system. Last but not least on my right Ms. Lucia Broula who is the founder of the executive director of the NGO prevention Madalena's in Switzerland which promote actions related to domestic violence sexual harassment and sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Lucia Amelia was a victim of human trafficking when she was 20 years old coming from Brazil to Switzerland when she believed she was signing a contract to be an artist her own experience was her inspiration to create Madalena's and work with support information and prevention prevention related to human trafficking. Lucia Amelia is also a multi-talented artist awarded nationally and internationally for her literature work. Without much ado and after we'll come in my panelist I will hand over the floor to Dr. Jibri Diallo to lead us through what I hope would be an interactive discussion. Mr. Diallo you have the floor. Thank you very much. It's an honor to be here and help to have as much of an interaction with you all as possible because our goal in the time to come is to see how we can have perspectives how we can have lessons that are learned that can help you member states that can help you representatives of social civil society organizations to move forward in terms of the interconnection between the actors the actresses in the field and you the member states. We have two the way forward is as follows one we will have our two panelists share their perspectives as to how they came about being where they are as migrants what are the challenges what are the difficulties that being faced with how did they manage to overcome those difficulties what role do they see you especially a member states could play and then also what is the interconnection with the work that I am doing in terms of giving us this kind of space so we will maybe start with you and then go on to go ahead please thank you very much I will try to do the riskiest thing and that is to use a clicker and a PowerPoint and we'll see how that works. Good morning everyone I'm delighted to be here and very aware of my privilege today and to be here and to have a voice in this meeting in the city and this and have this platform. I'm chief executive of migrants organized which is based in London with ambitious of becoming international force we do do work across United Kingdom and also visit other countries and cities and provide training and share our experiences so that's what I'd like to do in next ten minutes and for the rest of the session. There we go challenge is it so I was born in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina many many years ago and when I was a teenager I danced in winter Olympics opening ceremony so I'm somewhere there in the middle circle and I'm still very emotional and tearful every time I see any Olympic ceremony because it reminds me of the best that we can do as a world together and I had a very happy childhood and that happy childhood became this just eight years after the Olympics and this is my street this is where my mom still lives and some of you who are as young as I am will remember that there was a terrible war in my country and lots of destruction I was a young journalist and I ended up working with international war correspondence because I spoke English and they helped me leave in 1993 and this year is something that I call my flip year which means that I was 25 years living in Bosnia and now I'm 25 years living in London and so I'm half and half but from now on if I stay in London I'm gonna be slightly more British than I am Bosnian at least in terms of timeline when I first came to Britain I was completely unaware of what I call the unwelcome committee which is the tabloid press and I wasn't aware of how migrants and refugees are portrayed and understood because I had this confidence about not having done anything wrong and leaving the country that's being torn apart and the city that was under the siege and not so much that I had a sense of entitlement but I I hope that world understood and perhaps because I was a journalist I thought that people are watching the news but tabloid press was putting a completely different spin on that experience and and that was really difficult to understand and over the years that got worse and a couple of years ago the Migration Observatory at Oxford University has done a study they looked at 43 million words in in British newspapers and what they found is that the term is commonly associated with the term migrant was illegal and and that's how public conversation was being conducted fortunately that is not the only public conversation that's happening in the United Kingdom and that's what I do and that's where where migrants organized come comes in there is this whole welcome movement that is largely invisible in newspapers because people who do good work do it quietly and good news is not news and that's part of the problem so I understand it as my mission as a recovering journalist to take on that challenge so in London and across United Kingdom what we do we try to provide spaces with migrants and refugees work together with British citizens and all other immigrants on welcoming and creating welcoming spaces so what we do a lot of the time is we listen to people because people with experiences usually are the ones who will have the seeds of what the solutions are so we listen what are the experiences of migrants and four doctors walked into my office 10 years ago and they said we need to pass this really difficult exams to be doctors seven years later we ended up supporting three and a half thousand doctors and dentists from 98 countries by organizing training for them to pass these very difficult exams to work as doctors and they're now working in our national health service which is fantastic and more importantly for our government they're paying taxes quite a lot another way of celebrating and changing the narrative is to recognize people who do fantastic work in the community so we have set up women on the move awards and every year in the Royal Festival Hall another very important cultural space the nation nominates women migrant and refugee women that they know who are doing fantastic work in the community these two women who won the award of both working in charities the young woman is going to be a doctor they've both been trafficked and these are stories that are really inspiring other people because they're not stories of victimhood they're stories of resilience and then we make sure that they get platform in the press we're big on Netflix this is Bashar who's one of our Syrian refugees who's just got his first job after he got papers we also work with celebrities and artists making sure that they use their voices to amplify the stories in a positive way and the young woman is now in this picture is now working for mayor of London we work with businesses this is a big campaign by jigsaw fashion label for which they won advertising award which they splash all over London underground proclaiming that immigration is good and why not and we also work with Ben and Jerry ice cream he produced this refugees welcome pint of ice cream and all the donation went went international rescue committee we do this work only because we have hundreds of volunteers last year we had 236 volunteers who mentor people English go to doctor appointments with them and as a result we were given Queens voluntary service award which is the highest recognition in United Kingdom you can get for voluntary service we work with churches faith groups where they raised funding for us we've just become a community sponsors this is a group of staff at Amnesty International who raised 40,000 pounds and our first family is coming on community sponsorship from Iraq on a 6th of November and they're super excited to be welcoming them the most important element of integration work that we do is not only economic culture and social integration but also civic integration and that is the recognition of the fact that we were citizens somewhere else so we can continue being citizens in our receiving countries so we had lots of elections in United Kingdom in the last couple of years and we started this initiative called promote the migrant vote where migrants and refugees even if they cannot vote organized events in which they can have conversations with people who are voting to bring down stigma to change stereotypes to challenge fake news this is young Vic theater who declared they declared themselves to be the theater of sanctuary and if you went to go and see the show you could register to vote so we work on a campaign together with them these are my colleagues going out and encouraging people to register to vote we work with authorities local authorities London national government cities across Europe this is our mayor of London and when he was campaigning we asked him if you're elected will you give us a deputy mayor for integration and he said yes I will so we send a member of staff on secondment and as a result we now have integration strategy for London called all of us where our voices were presented and then the reason why I love compact this particular compact is because it has a very inclusive positive and progressive language that helps us do that kind of work locally and this is a local authority in Haringey in north London which has started a movement called Haringey welcome and we work with young people and children in schools who produce posters but more importantly we work with local authority and they're looking at their practices as as to how they can be more inclusive and reduce the barriers for people who are coming to the country and of course all of this needs to be fun because the shortest distance between two people is laughter and of course we use a lot of art in what we do and we have a poetry workshop and we publish part trees and that's how we teach English as well so because he couldn't be here today and because it's my job to platform some of these voices I brought to you a poem about belonging that the 11-year-old Sultan wrote in our poetry club and it's only one minute and I thought I would end on that note and share that poem with you right now Lucia Amelia Broula you have an experience coming from Brazil resident in Switzerland perhaps you can also share with us your perspective I would like to thank you for being here today and I would also like to thank you all for being here this morning it's difficult to speak I tremble I have the body that jumps but I am alive and I am there I am very happy to be here and share my life experience I was born in Sao Paulo south of Brazil today I am 51 years old and I would like to tell you my story I lived 30 years ago I was a teenager 17 to 18 years old I imagined that emigré who emigré was synonymous with enrichment, instant enrichment of independence and financial stability. Today at 51 years old after my own experience I have the conclusion that living in a foreign country was not synonymous with wealth, good life, good work. Living in a foreign country is synonymous with struggle, hard work, sacrifice, solitude, courage, integration, adaptation and we have to reinvent ourselves every day. Far from our country of origin we have to renounce a lot of things, to sacrifice ourselves for others in order to have a better life than the one we thought was not good where we lived. However, for a young girl with a head full of dreams and little information about international migration it is impossible to clarify things. Every person who has an adventure outside of his own country does not question the difficulties he will face. He has only one objective in mind that his dreams must be realized. When I left Brazil with a contract to work as an artist in Switzerland I did not know that my nightmare had only started. Young people like me have entered the country by putting hope into an artistic contract for eight months. We waited for the prostitution and the forced consumption of drugs, the humility of all these forms and the different demands of the employer, the emotional use caused by the nostalgia of the country, the nostalgia of loved ones, the difficulty with the language, the climate and gastronomic adaptation, solitude, daily sufferings and the main causes of suicide, of depression among young artists. Deshumanité signifies the absence of humanity, atrocity, cruelty, the element that I use to describe the reserve treatments I speak of 30 years ago, the artists of Carbaré in Switzerland, from Morocco, from Brazil, from Thailand, from Africa. I knew. I witnessed the critical situation of colleagues who were savagely beaten up by the owners of Carbaré or by the clients. There were many cases of deaths. We received news of the artists who died in the rooms, in the streets, in the forests, bodies found in the woods. And the cause of death was reported as suicide or overdose, but we knew that it was the punishment for the disobedience. Many mothers cry until today for their daughter. Nationalities are different, but the cries are universal. By telling this story here at the UNO, I realize that 30 years have passed. My involvement with the themes of sexual abuse, sexual exploration of children, the treatment of human beings and domestic violence has been so intense over the last seven years that I founded the UNG Prevention of Madalena to react to preventive treatment in order to prevent young people like me, young people from my country, are wrong to follow the same paths as me. With the Madalena, we have a preventive work by visiting schools, an important information to the students who are at risk of receiving proposals from foreign workers without knowing if the source of work is reliable. Our UNG wishes to encourage women, young students, women and men in general to achieve their studies and try to invest in professional training that allows them to sell and live in Brazil. Immigrate, yes, but with the proper preparation. I know that the fight is serious and we will win our fight only if we use education, culture and literature as weapons. Thank you. The two statements are supposed to be snapshots into experiences that migrants have in the individual communities. Within the framework of the theme of this conference, how do we strengthen partnerships? How do we go from these perspectives into like a zoom lens kind of style? And from where I sit, my organization, we are present in 80 countries and we try to see how we go from this to enter into the broader picture of connecting migrants with SDGs. And as I mentioned yesterday, we're using three entry points because if you take my own continent of origin, Africa, I'm a national of Senegal, most of the people who are candidates to living the African continent are young people. So what programs do we do in order to make it worth their while for the youth not to vote with their own feet in order to leave the continent and go to what they think would be the El Dorado, that kind of pull and push kind of factor. So we're pushing to establish right now an SDGs youth core, volunteer youth core and some of you governments here present are supporting our initiatives in that connection at two levels. One, many of the African countries have voluntary work on associations. So how do we do exchange programs through those work on associations? And then two, yesterday in the discussions when the eDiaspora was mentioned during the lunch break, a lot of experience were shared about how immigrants from where they are can contribute their knowledge to their countries of origin at two levels. One, being physically present in the countries of origin and examples were mentioned. I mentioned that when I was director of communications of UNDP, we had a major program which is still going on called TOCTEN, transfer of knowledge among expatriate nationals. But then the immigrants were established in countries where they cannot necessarily move physically to be in their countries of origin. But now with the modern media, with technology, they can give so much of their own time from where they are. So that within that framework, we have the short term and the medium and long term initiative regarding the youth. I'd very much like to hear from you all in terms of your perspectives on how you can meaningfully engage the youth. Because I am a first generation literate, my parents have not been to school. I cannot go back to my hometown and say to the youth, you should stay where you are, you should not go to Europe. How about yourself?  So that it has to take more than being a professor or lecturer talking to the youth. It has to be worth their own while in their own terms. Second point is one of the biggest challenges that we have right now in Africa is really the restlessness in higher education. That's where you have a lot of the strikes. That's where you have a lot of programs. So we have an SDGs university initiative that is having partnerships between African universities and universities in particular in the United States. 350 universities historically black and are willing to do this program. This has been going on for 10 years. And within that framework, as you know, there are three types of universities in the continent. The well-established universities which draw a lot of the resources. But then you have new universities and then you have rural universities. And the idea is to leave no university behind. But then when you're talking about universities, you have to also go down and make sure that early childhood, primary and secondary education are taken care of. So we're taking universities as low-hunging fruit. But then we go down to secondary education. The third and final point I always mention to my friend that the mayor or the governor are the first points of contact for the populations so that we've had experience. And I'm very, very grateful to IAM to enable us to share our experience. We have an organization called the Global Alliance of Mayors and Leaders from Africa and of African descent, which is the largest organization of mayors of color that has been fostering this relationship between Africa and people of African descent. So when you take those three points, the youth, education, local governance, then you wrap them around through two languages, sport and culture. Then that enables you to move forward and try to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals by 2030, working with the United Nations system, working with you, our governments, our representatives, working with civil society organizations.


Over the past seven years, government has invested over $12 trillion, that's about $26.5 billion in military assets, expanded the armed forces and focused on degrading violent extremist groups in the northeast of the region. However, public safety and security in Nigeria are still in a bad place. Joining us to discuss this evening is Charles Llew, a political analyst. We're going to be looking at the campaign promises of the different presidential aspirants, and of course what they have to say about security. Mr Ohto, it's so good to have you join us. Happy New Year. I wish you the best. Thank you so much for having me. Great. Now obviously you are in the part of the country where there seems to be a lot of heat when it comes to violence, whether it be electoral violence or insecurity, ethnic uprisings, et cetera, et cetera, especially in emo states. There's been a lot of burning of INEC facilities, killing, kidnapping, et cetera, et cetera. It seems to be an ending. The people obviously are looking to government, and when I talk about government, they were looking at governments at state and federal levels. But what seems to be the body language of these are leaders in terms of the insecurity that we're facing as a country? Thank you very much. I'm glad you mentioned the fact that we are no longer looking up to the government that is at the centre at the moment whom we ought to have been looking towards till at least May 29, 2023 when they would have ended up. The fact is simple. The government has chosen to believe what it wants to believe. It has also chosen to act the way it wants to act. It has chosen to believe the actions and actions towards security or the insecurity in the country at large, but particularly the scientists, is deliberate. How do I know? If you will take a casual look at the promises of the government on security, during your news review you mentioned very succinctly that over 12 trillion era has been spent on tackling the security challenges in the country. That is about the largest budget any government will offer or provide or propose for fighting insecurity since the return of democracy in 1999. The government we need took off from 2015 with the promise to wrestle to the ground. The very pertinent security challenge we had in the country then was certainly only because that is the most important part of the country. And today the government by its actions and actions have multiplied the security situation. When I said it has multiplied, I mean the government has deliberate about it. For instance, my last step today is Monday. I just came back from the trip. It was difficult to make that trip as proposed simply because there are rumours about sit at home. So people when I wake up in the south is to say, look, today people are not going to anywhere. They are not going about their normal business. And you see who glows hijacked the situation to unleash mehemi. So what would have happened? We have been talking about a Monday sit at home in the south as it is today for instance. If the government had not held on the kind of pressure they had caused, even against the cost of the land. The answer is applied, no. You move away from the case in the south. You move to the other parts of the country where the incidence of kidnappings there and there, even the heading of the local measurement of emo states. This has become like... Criminality has been taken to a whole new level. What is this issue? The challenge is simply because the youths are angry at the unemployment rate has increased from the figure it was about 2015 to an unimaginable level. I don't want to put the MBS figures because they are scary. But the realities we are facing in the country. So the security situation in the country today or the insecurity plug-in idea today is directly proportional or cost by the actions and the actions of the government. The inability to provide the jobs that they promised the youths. The inability to meet up with the expectations of the population. It's increasing the restiveness in the country generally. And that is where we are today, is it clear? I'm most curious because you see we talk about the statistics that have been rolled out. I remember just at the close of 2022 I ran through some of the events. The major events that happened in 2022 and surprisingly from January through to December. In fact the year started on a very rough note where we had killings and slaughtering and massacres all the way down to the end. I mean the only good thing that we could have positively pointed to was the passing of the PIB, the electoral act and of course the young lady Tobias Mousson who broke a 16-year-old world record. Apart from that, all that we recorded in this country was one mayhem, one violence, one killing, one negativity after the other. And it makes me wonder where we all as Nigerians come in here because yes the box stops at the table of our governors, presidents, our legislators but how well have we held our own as the people who seem to be victims of these perpetration of violence or killings? What are we doing to make sure that our leaders are accountable to us as opposed to just talking about it and reeling out these statistics? Thank you very much. The answer from my end as I've watched over the past nearly eight years of the border administration, the answer from my end is simple. We are doing nothing and absolutely nothing. Why? Because some of this security and intelligence mayhem, you will agree that they have been forecasted. They attack only K-Ga of the K-Ga machine in the Nemo State Forestry. Some people have boasted about it publicly. Some of these incidents were foreclosed. The claim of Reverend Father Ashe in Cardona State Forestry is something that is foretold. This is a man who had been in the past couple of years been haunted by bandits, by a man of armed militia. That's because he's sticking to a fate. What have we done? What the security agencies do by time is to react to the circumstances, not to be productive about them. It mayhem, when you just suppose all of this with the fact that the Northern Hegemonie, Hegemonie as it were, particularly the Fullerney Hegemonie, the Fullerney leaders who are piloting their first of this country as it were now, have stopped their guns, they have stopped their guns to say, look, that the IGP must be retained. You must have heard the news headlines yesterday, even today, that the Police Service Commission is saying they are not aware of the attention of the tenor of the IGP. This are... Mr Ocho, are you there? Incidents. I think there was a connection problem with you. Can you hear me? I can hear you. I think these are clear cut incidents where the President should have tried to reduce his image and rescue the country from further security damage by just accent the IGP, Isma Mbobar Ahmed, whose tenor has aspired to step aside. His tenor has aspired to stand in his stay in office. Is it on what grounds? Has he performed? The answer is downright no. The Police, as it were, which is the basic... The security front room, according to the Constitution, rests quietly on the federal government, because we are not operating state police as it were. It's still has quiet not only on the federal government, the President, it's still has quiet on the IGP. The question is, what has the Secretary of Police done about all the security students' breaches that have been reported across the country? Campaigns have started, Marianne. As we speak, I am in a point, that part of the country is where people that are perceived not to be spokespersons of government cannot campaign. And they have been pockets of incident of violence. Not one, not two. All the people are on the daily basis. Many petitions, several petitions have been reached into the IGP. Why is the IGP not deploying the Commissioner of Police in a point, in a time like this? Because the Commissioner of Police is simply a full animal like in death. And that is why these things are the way they are in the state and the country at large. So you're telling me that the reason why we're having these problems is because ethnicity has found its way into security? I'm trying to understand this. What does where the IGP come from or where the Commissioner of Police comes from have to do with how security issues are being handled within the state? What does that have to do with anything? It has so much to do. I've heard that the government of Ebonian Forest has posted several publicly that as far as the IGP is there, the CP can not be removed. So those of us who are Ebonians, who are much across the states, who have tested the rights, who have spoken up about the activities of Ebonian Forest. We are wondering what is so difficult about bringing in a CP from another state. There was a time, you must have heard in the news, that a CP from Canada was to be redeployed to Ebonian. You must have heard the news. A few days after the plan was pushed, the CP was retained. So when political actors act like this, they are actually in contact with the security authorities and that was clearly on the IGP. So what we have done is political patronage. We patronize people because they are from our plans. We patronize people not on the basis of competence but on the basis of what we stand to gain as individuals. That is why it is a criticism in this country that it is not going to improve even as we go into the election. Talking about the elections. Let's look at the different political, the presidential candidates, some of the front line runners. Let's start with the APC. Now, Tynabull's manifesto builds on the APC successes at the national level. I am wondering what those are. He proposes, I want to quote his manifesto directly, he proposes extending the ongoing security sector reforms by redefining Nigeria's military doctrine 1 and he also wants to upgrade weapons systems to establish anti-terrorist battalions, improve soldiers' wealth and revitalize the forest and border guards. Quickly, let's look at all those things that are put out. How does this address the problem that we have right now in the interim? If he were to be president today and these are the steps that he wants to take in addressing insecurity, what does that change? There is no sentiment, my dear sister, but the fact that, apart from the incoherency and inability to pin down issues, so specifics, in the very, very vague manifesto of the APC presidential candidate Bola Mair. The fact remains that the APC as it were the APC president as it were has no blueprint of his own. That is the truth. If you read what he has proposed on security, people have been questioning how many police officers are you going to recruit? Are you just telling us you're going to get some 1,000 soldiers and feed them with agbado and cassava and all of that? In specifics, what are you going to do to abandon even the issue of state police officers? He's not talking about it. He's not talking about the fact that, look, the police service commission as it were has become so handicapped that you could imagine where the president and commander is chief. We know it is his constitutional duties and right to extend the tenor of the CP-12, the tenor of the inspirational police. But then it must be on the basis of what is fair, what is just, what is acceptable, what is civil, called, competence and capability. What has the IGP done and achieved in the last couple of years? Mr Abola Mair Tnubu is talking about building on the security accession that is in place. I want him to know that there is nothing in place. OK, let's quickly go to, let's quickly, because we don't have time, let's quickly run through. Yeah, let's quickly run through Atikus and then, of course, that of Pete Arby. For the PDP, which is a former vice-president at Atikua Bulwka, his manifesto was very scant in detail and lacked a lot of action plan against banditry terrorism and kidnapping. It also didn't really necessarily talk a lot about Nigeria's primary national security threats. However, it does make some bold commitments. I'd like to put you through it. Atikua has promised to increase the size of the police force by more than 70% in line with the international standards. He has also said that he's going to commit to strategic engagement with state and non-state actors to remove policing from exclusive, that's the federal, to the concurrent federal and sub-national lists. Overall, Atikua is saying that in his proposal he's going to do a lot in terms of bundling our police. But is that enough? Again, if we were to give him the mandate right now, what will it change? For me, absolutely nothing. We change. But the man has said that he's going to increase policing by 70%. In bundling the inside, he will abandon the security architecture in the country, which is he's going to make state police a possibility. Just these compromises, they are good. They are fine proposals. But my guess is that we should continue to raise these candidates by their antecedents. What has Atikua done even in the past couple of years? That's a few months ago, a few months ago or about a year ago. We know about how the border was slaughtered and how Atikua rushed to delete his tweets condemning the killing of the border by jihadist full-animal Muslims in Sokotys. The truth is that based on Atikua's artistic anybody, any Nigerian who is believing the proposals he has made on security is living analysis in a wonderland and the person will be presently disappointed. We've seen the innocence of these persons regarding the safety and security of Nigerians as it were generally. For me, it is all good in paper that Atikua doesn't have the political will. He doesn't have the political will to act as he proposes. Finally, because I have just a minute let's look at Peter Albee's manifesto. The Labour Party's alternative is to blend security and national cohesion and inclusive governance as their theme. It raises a lot of questions about the aggrasp of the severity of Nigeria's security world. Albee actually acknowledges banditry, terrorism and organized crimes as central to Nigeria's security but his most significant commitment is to extensive reform of Nigeria's police to allow all sub-national units to establish and control on also their policing teams. Other proposals, again, like others, are vague and indistinguishable from the current government's policies. Again, the three candidates do agree that Nigeria has multi-dimensional threats to statehood and propose different interventions but then most of these interventions seem vague to us. Again, if this is the major problem that Nigeria is facing in security and, of course, on the other side, we have corruption and all kinds of other problems, how are we certain that these people will be able to solve our problems on any level? Well, on the put of this manifesto, I'm a bit not excited but realistic to say that I'm not also impressed by his proposal on security. You know, when these candidates are talking and they are not giving us exact figures, they all keep us in the deck. Yes, Obi has promised a reform, a general security reform in the Nigerian police force and security on bonding and all of that. These are very beautiful proposals by my dear sister but the truth also remains that at no instance have we seen the specifics even in the campaigns. The public campaigns and public rallies that are going on across the statistics of the country has more or less been not very far from the not too far from the utilitarian of jobs. We expected that these candidates, as they have visited the North East, make specific promises on how they will intend to tackle Boko Haram as different from the kidnapping for ransom and rampart killings that is going on in the South East. I don't know if you understand me. Yes. One also expected that these other candidates should be able to extrapolate the different issues surrounding the security in Nigeria and be able to address them region by region, zone by zone and then even step by state because there are peculiarities in Imo and therefore in Forestas Ebu Baku is terrorising people. They are not being so iranam brun and they are looking. How are you going to address that if you become the president? I think this is a conversation that we have to have again. Unfortunately, time is not on our side. But then of course, as people, we have to ask these questions. We have to be certain that they are able to tell us how they're going to go about it and not just tell us something that is a bit blanket and vague. But I want to say thank you. Charles O'Too is a political analyst and he joined us live from Ibu. Thank you so much for speaking with us tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Well, that's it on plus politics tonight. But before I go quickly, I would like to give you my take. Here's my take. Clarity is such an understated feature that is non-existent in our politics. That is not to be mistaken for accountability. Now, we talk about lack of accountability from our politicians because their time in office seems to be one complicated magic trick that no one is paid to watch. It's not entertaining and it leaves us feeling so exhausted at the end of the attention. The great magicians actually convince you to look in one direction while the trick is going on elsewhere. Now, when it comes to governance at the very list, you know, the application phase of seeking the job, what we need is and what we deserve is clarity. Remember back in school when your maths teacher would demand that you show your work for the solution to the completed equations? Well, that is the same that is required here. Having politicians who may not be experts on security or, in our case, in security come out with platforms that is anything but clear on how they intend to solve the biggest issue of our national or state of affairs is purely unacceptable. They have the luxury of handpicking a team of professionals they intend to go into office with and consult experts on academics who can draft recommendations and reports on the issues that we face. Now, without clarity on this basic homework that they are allowed to have others do for them, how audacious must they come for a job interview when they are so unprepared? So ask yourself the next time you want to vote for a person or you are trying to fight and lose your head over a politician. How ready are these guys to lead us into the future that we want? I am Mary Annacol. Thank you for watching. Good night.


I have a sister that's in hospital right now just found out she has stage 4 pancreatic cancer and I saw her just a few weeks ago on Father's Day and she seemed fine. So we cannot boast about tomorrow. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, right? So as I was thinking about her, probably doesn't have a lot of time left. So anyway, ladies make every day count for eternity, right? We want our life to be for the Lord. All right, well I am looking forward to being here. It's a little more crowded than last year. So I don't know how we can squeeze very more in, but it is good to be here among friends and I got to meet some of you that I've either been discipling on the phone or I've talked to or emailed and you came up to the table and said, hey, I'm that person. So thank you.  I know what Paul says when he says, I long to see you face to face that I may impart some spiritual gift unto you. So all those times he was in prison, yet long to see the people face to face. There is something different about face to face, isn't it?  That's about what it is, right? And being face to face is glorious and wonderful. So our dear sister Karen has already mentioned our theme this weekend is lessons learned taken from Romans 15.4, which says whatever things were written in earlier times were written for our learning that we through the patient and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. And so I hope that's what happens this weekend. I hope that you will be filled with comfort, but also admonishment. These sisters that we're going to be looking at also have some lessons learned for us that will be in the form of admonition. Beware, you don't want to be like her in some areas. We want to be like some of them, but some of them we don't want to follow. So, right? So first of all, we're going to consider Eve. She was the seduced sister. And you might have thought, well, that's kind of a strong term, but not really. When you think of what Paul tells Timothy in 1st Timothy 4, he says, now the spirit speaks expressly in the latter time. Some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons. And so we know that anything that is not of God is of the devil. And we know that it was the serpent who what deceived her. He wholly seduced her and not in a moral way, but in a biblical way. So we're going to consider her first. And then after our break, we're going to look at our submissive sister, Sarah. And look at 1st Peter 3 and what does a submissive woman look like? What attitudes and characteristics should we possess? And I didn't get the little acrostic to Karen in time, but the Lord helped me to put that in the acrostic submit. Everything's in an acrostic tonight, right? So you have no excuses for not remembering these lessons that you have to learn because they're very skilled in acrostic. So we have Eve, we have submit, and then tomorrow morning we're, I hope none of you are like Yodia and Cyndiqui, the squabbling sisters. They were squabbling so much so that Paul has to tell the whole church at Philippi to get together and help these women. And so ladies, we're not exempt from disagreements, but we need to learn to get along with one another. And so we, in the form of the acrostic squabbling, I'm going to give you some tips on how to avoid squabbles. So when you go home tomorrow and see your husband, you'll never squabble again, right? Then after that, one of the lessons Karen asked me last night at a dinner we had, which lesson had really impacted me. And I think the steadfast sister, the Shunamite woman, when she had just found out her son had died and we see the steadfastness of this woman during a very difficult trial. And so for me, it was a really blessing to go through that lesson, the Shunamite woman. And so we're going to look at the acrostic steadfast. What can we learn from our steadfast sister? And then last but not least, tomorrow afternoon, we're going to look at Dorcas. She might call her Tabitha, Tabitha who was called Dorcas.  And so she's our serving sister. Remember when she died, all the women came around.  And so she must have been some woman. And so we're going to look at her tomorrow. And we're going to look at our serving sister and we'll have a little acrostic works because ladies, that's what service to the Lord is, right? We are ordained before the foundation of the world for good works. Every one of you in this room who has made Jesus, Lord of your life, you have works to do that God has foreordained for you to do. And so I hope that you are doing those. And if not, well, then maybe after our final lesson, you'll discover what your spiritual gifts are and use those for the glory of God. That would be my desire. And I know it's the Lord's desire for you. So for tonight, I just want to give you a full warning before we get started. You're going to need your Bible this weekend. And we're going to be going a little bit of everywhere. I'm in fact Debbie said, I'm kind of interested in hearing this. She travels, you know, we've traveled for over 20 years together. And she goes, I'm kind of interested in this weekend because I'm not used to you doing more topical things. You know, you just kind of go through a couple of passages in scripture. We're going to go through the scriptures, but it's going to be a little bit different than at least what she's accustomed to. So have your Bible ready. And I hope that you're ready to get into God's word and learn some lessons. So for our first session, you will probably need to go ahead and turn to Genesis where we find our seduced sister Eve. And we're going to consider three, three lessons, three principles we can learn from her in the acrostic Eve Eve, but before we get started, let's pray and give this time to the Lord, Oh, Father, in heaven, we come to you with hearts full of thankfulness.  Lord, we are so thankful that you have saved us. That you have called us out of darkness into light. We thank you that even though our mother Eve was seduced, totally seduced by the evil one that you, Lord, in your graciousness and your kindness, you sent us a savior to save us from our sins. Lord, even though sin entered into the world by one man, Adam, Father, even so, there is by your son, Jesus Christ, we have been saved from sin. I do pray, Oh, Father, that as we open your word this evening, that you will give us insight and wisdom. I pray that you will give us understanding. I pray that we will be warned from this sister and Lord as to how avoid the deploys of the evil one. And Father, I pray that you would remove the difficulties, the distractions, the travels of the day, the discouragements of the day, the problems of the day, Lord, so that we can do what is really necessary. And that is to sit at your feet, to learn, to worship, to fellowship with like-minded sisters in Christ. And so, Father, we give this time to you for your glory. May you be seen. May you be lifted up. May Christ be the one that is preeminently worshiped this weekend and no woman, Lord, only Christ alone. And it's in his name, I pray. Amen. Well, imagine this. Imagine living in a world where there is no sin. Sounds great, doesn't it? Imagine living in a world where no one gets sick. There's no such thing as a COVID pandemic. Imagine that. Imagine a world where no one gets murdered. There's no rapes. There's no robberies.  There's no physical abuse, not even verbal abuse. There's no strife, anger, jealousy, no envy. Imagine a world like that. That'd be pretty good, huh? Imagine a world where even the animal world all gets along with each other, you know, dogs and cats, and they all get along. And in fact, even humans get along with the animals, and the animals get along with the humans. That'd be pretty good, right? Don't have to worry about the lions and the snakes attacking you. And imagine a world where every human being is an intimate communion with their creator, with God. There's never any separation from him. We can always communicate with him. We have constant fellowship with him and enjoyment with our creator. Imagine this. Wouldn't that be great? Ladies, this was the world before sin. This was the world before sin.  It's hard for us to imagine this world, isn't it? Because as we sit here tonight in the year 2021, we open up the news or we open it up on our phone or turn on the television, and we don't see a world like this, do we? In fact, we see now, according to what I just read, the crime rate in the United States, it's the worst it's ever been in its history. Some states are up 400%. So we see not only robberies and rapes and all those things, murders, but we're seeing an increase in them. And even Florida, the beautiful state of Florida, just had a condo that completely collapsed. Those are the kinds of things we read and we're reading about immigrants from other countries flowing in at all time high and many of those are convicted felons. Far from a perfect world, isn't it? We could go on and on and what's going on in the news. But ladies, the world we live in now was not the world that God created. This was not the world that God intended for his children to enjoy. And so for us to understand what happened there in the garden, what happened to Eve when she was wholly seduced and the things that we can learn from her, we need to look in the beginning. So I hope you have your Bibles open to Genesis one because we're gonna look at our mother Eve, the mother of all living and see three principles we can learn from her. In Genesis chapter one, you know what it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void and darkness was on the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And remember God said, let there be light and there was light. And so God divided, remember the light from the darkness and then he also divided the permanence from the heavens and he made the earth. And remember he called the earth or the land earth and the gathering together of the seas. He called the seas, the gathering of the waters. He called the seas and I'm not gonna read all of it but another thing God made, he made two great lights, the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. So he's making all these things. He gives light, he gives darkness, he gives two lights, one to rule the day, one to rule the night. And he's making all these things and then he creates the animal world, every living creature, the fowls of the air, the fish of the sea, everything that moves on the earth. He creates all these living beings and he blessed them and said be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the seas. And so after God had made all these things, he spoke, there was light. He spoke, there were animals. He spoke all these things into existence and he divided the land from the seas, from the earth, from the heavens. And then after all this, he said let us make man in our image, our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl, over the air and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth. They will have, they will be able to rule these animals. And so God created man in his own image and the image of God created he them. Male and female, he created them and he blessed them. And what did he tell them? Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In fact it says at the end of chapter one and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was good, right? It was good. This was man, an amazing, beautiful place to live in. Everything was going great. And then in chapter two, verse seven, we see the Lord God form man out of the dust of ground, breathe into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. And he planted a garden, eastward and in Eden and he put the man there whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord made every tree to go that is pleasant to the sight and good for the food. The tree of life in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Look at verse 16, this is very important.  And the Lord God said, it's not good for man to be alone I will make a helper for him. And so out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the air, the field and every bird and brought them to Adam to see what Adam would call him whatever Adam called him, that was their name and he gave names to all the animals. And look at verse 21, the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall in Adam and he slept and he took one of his ribs, closed up the flesh in its place and then the rib which the Lord God had taken for man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And Adam said, what? This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because why? She was taken out of man and here we see a principle therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave as to his wife and the two will be made one flesh. And it says the man and woman were both naked and they were not ashamed. Now, as I mentioned, you have an outline there before you and as we're gonna study Eve tonight we're gonna see three aspects regarding her life. And as I said, they're an easy acrostic for you to remember, three lessons learned, EVE. The first thing we know about Eve is the first E on your acrostic obviously that's not too hard to figure out, right? She had extraordinary beauty, extraordinary beauty. Ladies, think about it. Eve is different than any woman that has ever lived. You know why? She was not birthed from a human mother. Everyone of you in here has a mother. Every woman we're gonna study this weekend has a mother. Everyone in the Bible except Eve. In fact, it's interesting her Hebrew name means giver of life, giver of life. And Eve was extraordinary in every way.  Her beauty must have been unsurpassed.  Now, I don't know that to be a fact. It doesn't say in the text, but it could be. But ladies, imagine how she must have been. She was perfect before the fall. Perfect beauty, perfect charm, perfect grace, perfect strength, perfect femininity, perfect wife. You know, who wouldn't want a wife like Eve, right? And what do we know about her from scripture? Well, we know she was made from Adam. In fact, the word made literally means God built a woman. God built a woman. And he did this by what? Causing a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he took a rib from his side to form her. Now, at this time Eve isn't given a name. She's just called woman. Some people say, whoa, man. Whoa, man. Maybe that was her name. Whoa, man. What is this creature? And that's what her husband calls her before her sin. So she was perfect in every way and she complimented Adam in every way. She was his companion. She was his helper. And may I stop and say here that being your husband's helper does not mean as some has taken it to mean that all you do is have his babies and darn his socks. That's an old word, you know, mend his sock. Who does that anymore? When I was growing up, my mother actually, you know, instead of throwing the socks in the trash, she actually, what they called, darn them, you know, put them together. Those are part of our God given role. But ladies, Eve was made to help Adam emotionally, spiritually, and physically. In fact, someone asked my husband one time, who holds you accountable? And he said, are you kidding? Do you know my wife? And he didn't mean that in a derogatory way. He's thankful. And so Eve would have, you know, spiritually been connected to her husband. And so she helped him physically, spiritually, emotionally. And may I say, you as a wife should be your husband's biggest accountability partner. You know him better than anyone except the Lord. And so we'll talk about that more in lessons to come yet. She was to help Adam in his walk with God. She's not to be his mother. She's not to be his holy spirit, but she is to help him. And he is to help her. And so ladies, the spiritual aspect of their relationship would become very vital after their sin. Sin separated them, right? From God. And the perfect relationship that they had with him. One man brings out four crucial truths that I think are very important regarding Eve's creation that we would do well to mention. Number one, and I think we need to keep this in mind, Eve was equal with Adam. She was equal. Just as the father and the son are equal, Adam and Eve were equal. They have different roles. And I hope you understand your role as a woman. Matthew Henry said this, the woman was made out of a rib out of the side of Adam, not made out of his head to rule over him, nor of his feet to be trampled upon him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected and near his heart to be beloved, end of quote. And ladies, even as we come to the New Testament, we see in Galatians 3.28 where Paul says, in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek slave or free male or female. We are all one in Christ Jesus. And so Adam and Eve before God are created equal. Secondly, I think the important thing to remember is Eve reminds us that there should be unity in a marriage. Ladies, when you get married, you are not in a covenant relationship with your children.  I remember when our 13, well, she's not 13 now, she's gonna be 41 next Sunday. But when she was 13, and she told her father no, she'd never told her father no. And he looked at me and he goes, what do we do now? She just told me no. And I said, I don't know. So he sent her to her room and we talked and she came downstairs and he says, you got three days. You can abide by the rules of this home or see ya.  Now thankfully the Lord broke her, she repented and she came to faith in Christ and now we're the best of friends. So that was a good deal. But Eve shows us that that's what God intended. Unity is ideal in marriage. And ladies, your relationship with your husband should be above all relationships. That's why he says in here, for this reason, for this cause shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave to his wife glued. The Hebrew word is glued. She'd be glued to his wife and they are one flesh. Thirdly, her creation is an illustration of how deep and meaningful the husband and wife relationship is intended to be. And then lastly, her creation is an important lesson for us in the role of women. Ladies, we need to remember the order of creation. This is very important. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, man is not made from the woman but woman for the man. Man was not created for the woman but the woman for the man. And he says in chapter 11 verse three, I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ and the head of woman is man and the head of Christ is God. There's an order to creation and why am I bringing this out? Because we would do well to take heed to that because in our age, women more and more are trying to take control. They're trying to rule and not just in the church but in government and all aspects of life. And ladies, we would do well to remember the order of creation. So what can we learn from here? Extraordinary beauty. What is the principle here? What does the Bible say, right? That's why I say, what does the Bible say? Well, I'll tell you what the Bible says. Charm is deceptive and beauty is what? Vain. But a woman who fears the Lord, she will be praised. Says in 1 Samuel, man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the what? The heart. Ladies, listen very carefully because we live in an age of narcissism. People glaring at themselves in the mirror of time, how beautiful they are and we're obsessed with ourselves, we're obsessed with our bodies, we're obsessed with that. Outward beauty is vain. It's vain. Fearing God is the virtue that God is looking for. In fact, in the next lesson we're gonna see, right? He's looking for that attitude of a meek and quiet spirit which is precious in the sight of God. And so we need to be very careful. Eve obviously did not fear God, did she? She didn't fear him. She might have been a beautiful creature, maybe the most beautiful woman in all the world but she did not fear God. She disobeyed him. So all was perfect, perfect woman, perfect helper, perfect companion and then something happened and it wasn't perfect. Eve, when this is your V, she was very, very deceived. She was very, very deceived. Look at verse chapter three. Now the serpent one more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of the tree of the garden and by the way, when it says, when the serpent said to the woman, the Hebrew there is, he said to the woman being alone. In other words, she was alone. Adam was not with her. So he said to the woman, has God indeed said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?   So when the woman saw the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, a tree desirable to make her wise, she took and she ate it and she gave it to her husband and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were open, they knew they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings and they heard the Lord God walking in the cool of the day and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden and the Lord called Adam and said, where are you? Where are you Adam? He said, I heard your voice in the garden, I was afraid and I hid myself.  God said, have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And what the man said, that woman, that woman, she did it, she gave me that tree and I ate and the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? What have you done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Now ladies, as we think about Eve being deceived, it's interesting to point out, as I mentioned according to the Hebrew, the husband wasn't with her when the serpent beguiled her and this is a principle that we would do well to listen and take heed to as women. If you are married, your husband is a great protection for you spiritually and physically. Had Adam been with her when the serpent tempted her, it may not have happened. Now we know God is sovereign. We don't know what he was doing at this time. He may have been out looking at the animals. He probably wasn't that far away from her. He was probably looking at the animals. Maybe he was still enamored with this beautiful woman and so maybe he was picking flowers. We don't know what he was doing. The text doesn't say. And maybe Eve didn't fully understand the commandment. Maybe if Adam had been there, he would have explained again to her. We can't eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eve, we can't do this. God said if we do this, we're gonna die and I don't know what death is, but it doesn't sound like it's a good deal Eve. So let's not do this.  Let's go here, but it didn't go that way. Eve did not consult her husband with what the serpent said. She did not seek his wisdom and his headship, which God so graciously had put over her. Instead, what'd she do? She listened to the voice of the charmer and believed his lies. Adam disobeyed. Eve was deceived. In fact, do you know what's interesting? The only New Testament passages that we have regarding Eve, two of them, talk about her being deceived. 2 Corinthians 11, 3 Paul says this. Oh, I wish that you would bear with me and a little folly indeed bear with me. I'm jealous over you with godly jealousy, he says. I betrothed you to one husband so that I can present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But he says, I fear, at least just like the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds would be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. And so she's used there as an illustration of being deceived and he's concerned about the church at Corinth, how their minds are being deceived, they're corrupted. And then in 1 Timothy 2 where Paul says, this is the second time, the only second time in the scriptures in the New Testament that Eve has mentioned where Paul says, I do not permit a woman to teach or usurp authority over the man, why? For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and she fell into transgression. Ladies, there is a warning for us as women in these New Testament passages as well as the passage in Genesis chapter three. We are the weaker vessel and I hope that you accept that about yourself. First Peter three is very clear. The wives are the weaker vessel and we are more apt to be deceived than men are. Do you know that the statistics about women being led away by false teachers is astronomical? Women are the primary target and we shouldn't be surprised by that, right? The scriptures tell us that women are easy prey. That's why when I teach and I try earnestly to encourage women, get in the Bible, put away that devotional fluff puff, get into the word. You don't wanna be deceived. Listen, the last year I've probably talked to more women than I've talked to throughout the whole time that I've been doing this that are coming out of false teaching. They've listened to the charmer, the voice of the charmer and false teachers love to prey on women. Paul says in second Timothy, know this in the last times, perilous times will come. Men will be lovers of themselves, covetous boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent fears, traity, headers, high-minded, lovers of pleasure, more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power of it from such turn away and listen to this. For of these sort, these kind of people, we know what they do. They creep into houses and they lead captive, silly women led away with various lusts. Ladies, it behooves us to be women of the scripture. What is gonna keep you from error? What's gonna keep you from being deceived by those doctrines of demons seducing spirits? Eve was deceived. Did God really say? He didn't really say that. Go ahead. You can do it, Eve.  As I mentioned, the statistics, men versus women being led away by false teachers is astronomical. But you know what else? I don't have this as a principle, but it is. She was also discontent, wasn't she? Can you imagine not being content in that world that God had made? But she was discontent. That was another reason she took of the fruit. So Eve believed the lie that if she ate the fruit, she would not die. Her eyes would be open. She would be like God and she would know good from evil. So Eve being very, very deceived takes the advice of the master deceiver. She eats the forbidden fruit and she gives it to her husband, Adam. Paul tells us that this is when sin entered into the world, right? Romans 512, therefore just as by one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin and death spread to all men because all have sin. Now, ladies, I don't know why sin did not enter into the world when Eve partook of the fruit. I don't know. And we cannot draw, do not draw from this passage. Well, women are not accountable for their sin. That is not what the scriptures teach. You are accountable for your sin. But Adam was the head of his household and he's more responsible for stopping the sin.  But he is gonna hold you responsible for your attitude of submission and respect for him. Ladies, Adam could have said, no, Eve, no. You just say, I'm not doing this.  What you just did was wrong and I'm not gonna have any part of it. I believe what God said.  I don't know what death is, but we're gonna die. But Adam wasn't strong enough, was he? Was not strong. Maybe he was still enamored with this absolutely beautiful creature called woman that God had given him. Maybe he couldn't resist her charm. Maybe he couldn't resist her manipulation, which by the way, we as women do have ways we manipulate, right? We do entice our husbands from time to time to do things. And ladies, Eve is a reminder to each of us the responsibility that we bear in enticing our husbands to sin. I know women and I've counseled them. They withhold intimacy, give them the silent treatment, tears, empty throat. If you don't do this, I'm gonna divorce you. Ladies, we cannot do that. We should never manipulate our husbands. So Eve being deceived by the serpent sin and then caused her husband to sin. Eve, particular the forbidden fruit, gave it to her husband. He disobeyed and he ate it. They both sinned, their eyes were open immediately and they knew they were naked. What'd they have to do? Well, when you're naked, you wanna cover yourself up, right? So they made fig leaves and covered themselves.  No, just like he does not look favorably upon your disobedience. And so for our mother Eve, there were given some earthly curses that she would bear as well as she passed them on to us, her daughters, right? So this is the E on your Acrostic, the next E. We can learn from some principles about the earthly curses. Let's read it together, Genesis 3, 14. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you're cursed above all cattle, more than the beast of the field.  And I will put in between you and the woman between her seed and your seed. He will bruise his head and you will bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow in childbirth and conception.  Then he said to Adam, because you've heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat, cursed is the ground for your sake.  Thorns and thistles it's gonna bring for you and you'll eat the herb of the field.  And then Adam called his wife, went from woman to what, Eve? Because she was the mother of all living. Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them and the Lord God said, behold the man has become like one of us to know good and evil. And now at least he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord sent him out of the Garden of Eden to out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So he drove out the man, he placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden and the flaming sword which turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. So what are Eve's earthly curses? What principles can we learn here? Well she got three of them. You might say, well I only see two. I'm gonna give you a third one. Three earthly curses. Number one, very interesting when I was memorizing this several months ago I'd never noticed the multiplied pain in not only childbirth but conception. Conception and childbirth there will be pain and she soon found out even though the scriptures doesn't tell us about the pain she experienced when she delivered Cain and Abel, right? But she soon found out about that pain.  My kids are in their 40s now but they're still pain in childbirth. And don't you imagine she was very sorrowful when her son Cain killed his brother Abel. There's still that pain in childbirth. But we all know that if had kids there's pain in childbirth, right? Jesus says in the upper room to the disciples right before he goes to the cross a woman when she is in labor has what? She has sorrow, pain. But as soon as that son's delivered she doesn't remember the pain anymore. But then he says you will have sorrow but I will see you again. So there is pain in childbirth. It's also interesting that after the curses are pronounced Adam changes her name from woman to Eve which is an indication that because of her sin entering into the world she's now the mother of all living. She is the life giver. The second earthly curse she received is one we all know about that those of us that are married the desire to rule our husbands but guess what? They're gonna rule over us. I don't have to give you a lot of detail about that. How many of you this last week wanted to rule your husband? And how many of you lied? All of you. I only saw one hand go up. We have a fleshly desire to control our husbands, right? We do. We want to control. You guys, I'm changing the name of this conference to lying now. So I have to pull out my teaching about lying. We do wanna rule them but they're gonna rule us.  It doesn't get any easier. It might get, you get better at not doing that but you're always gonna have that desire. And then the third curse that is not really mentioned but it is there indirectly she's gonna bear Adam's curse if you think about it of his toil and labor for food for them. Now that the ground is cursed she's gonna bear that curse, why? Because now her husband's gonna have to work long hours in order to bring home food. In fact, we see from the Proverbs 31 woman she even has to participate in that. Remember the Proverbs 31 woman? She stays up late, she gets up early, she considers a field, she buys it. I mean this woman is hard working, right? And so indirectly she does bear a little bit of his curse as well. You know what? Thank God these earthly curses that were pronounced upon this woman they were not, they're not gonna be everlasting. Ladies Revelation 22.3 says when we get to heaven there's gonna be no more curse. Those are all gonna be gone, right? It's gonna be glorious, it's gonna be great. So what can we learn from Eve, the mother of all living, the mother of us all? First thing is extraordinary beauty. She was a woman of extraordinary beauty. Now you might say, well Susan, that doesn't apply to me. I looked in the mirror this morning and let me tell you what I saw was far from extraordinary beauty. So that doesn't even apply to me. Maybe not. Even though none of us in this room, sorry, any of you that are narcissistic, you do not have a perfect body, you do not have perfect looks. You are created in the image of God however. Are you thankful for the earthly body that God has given you? Now you don't have a glorified body yet, but ladies we would be wise not to complain about what we think we need to have in order to be this perfect woman.  He gave you the body he gave you and we need to be thankful for it. God doesn't care about your dress size, he cares about your heart. Man looks on the outward appearance. God looks on your heart. Doesn't care if you're wearing the latest fashions. Doesn't care about your hair. He cares about you being clothed with righteousness. Remember, charm is deceitful, beauty is vain. A woman who fears the Lord, she will be praised. The second thing we learned about her is she's very, very deceived. Are you protecting yourself from being deceived by Satan by seeking advice from your spiritual headship, your head? Could be your husband, could be your father, could be church leadership if you're single? Are you a woman who knows the Word and can be discerning when the charmer comes? Or are you like these gullible women that Paul mentioned in 2 Timothy that are led away by false teachers? Ladies I cannot emphasize again and I will probably emphasize this all weekend. The importance of studying, reading and memorizing the Word. John says that in the last days what false Christ and false prophets, he talks about how they're gonna increase. Jesus talks about it in the Olivet Discourse. False Christ, false prophets are gonna increase. And if possible, deceive via very elect. It's not possible, but they're gonna try to deceive us. We as women do not have the luxury of wasting our life away on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, television, entertainment, and mindless activities. We must be women of the Word. So we will not be swept away into sin. Do not think you are above being tempted by the evil one. Take heed, least you fall, right? Take heed. Thirdly, earthly curses. Eve's sin brought two direct curses to her and one indirect curse. What if Eve had never sinned? What kind of a world would you and I live in today? What if you and I would never sin? What difference would that make in your home, in our world, in the church? Ladies, I would encourage you sometime when you have a little bit of extra reading time in the Word, read Deuteronomy 28, the whole chapter. Look at all the blessings of obedience and the curses for disobedience. That's a great motivation to put off sin. Even though there were these earthly curses pronounced upon Eve, there's also a promise, I love it, when God said to Satan in Genesis 3.15, I will put in between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. What was this? The promise that Eve's seed would bruise the serpent's head. Out of Eve would come eventually what?  Even though Eve sinned grossly, God who is rich in mercy gave her a promise that from her seed would come the one to bruise Satan's head. Ladies, because we too have grossly sinned. Paul says, you know, you who were once dead in trespasses and sins, he's made alive, right? He's made us alive. God who is rich in mercy because of his great love which he has loved us. Even we were dead in our sins has made us alive, right? For by grace have we been saved, right? And he's raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. And he goes on to say, for by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works least anyone should boast. Ladies, Eve sinned just as we also sinned, but God who is rich in mercy can save us from that, right, save us from our sin. If you are like Eve this evening, that is your sin has separated you from God. I would encourage you if you're hiding in guilt and shame because of your sin, there is hope. And the hope is what Christ, he is our only hope, right? And if you have never repented of your sins, if you have never turned away from your evil ways, if you are now separated from God, ladies I would encourage you to believe the gospel that Jesus Christ died for your sins according to the scriptures. And he was buried, he rose again according to the scriptures. And he will come again and he will judge the living and the dead, realize that you're a great sinner and you need a savior. You need a savior, you need Christ. And I would encourage you to repent.  He's faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Eve has some lessons for us, right? She was very deceived, extraordinary beautifully, beautiful and she gave us some earthly curses. Well, imagine this. Imagine living in a world where there's no sin.  Everyone gets along with each other. Animals, humans, everyone's an intimate communion with the Father, no separation from Him, constant companionship, constant fellowship. Imagine this. This was the world before sin. And ladies, for those of you that know Christ, this will be the world that we will one day enjoy with God in heaven. For those of us who know the creator of the universe, heaven awaits us, a world free of sorrow and pain and curses. A place of bliss unknown with not only Eve, the mother of us all, but most importantly, the father of us all, our Lord Jesus Christ and our savior, let's pray. Our Father, we are so grateful for the lessons we can learn from Eve. We know that these things are written for our learning and Lord, how we as women need to learn from her. Some in this room maybe have extraordinary beauty outwardly, but maybe their heart is corrupted with evil. I pray for them. I pray that all of us, Lord, would examine not our outward beauty, but our inward heart to make sure that we are free from corruption and sin. Our consciousnesses are clear before you. I also pray for any in this room tonight, Lord, that are being deceived by the evil one. We know that as the end comes, that there will be more and more doctrines of demons, seducing spirits out there. Paul even mentions forbidding to marry, commanding to abstain from foods even. And Lord, I don't know what there seems like there's new ones every day, but I pray these women would be wise and be in your word so they would not be led away by the evil one. And then Father, I pray that we'd realize just as Eve gave us these curses that are with us, even now, today, pain and childbirth, wanting to rule our husbands, that Lord, our examples to our children when our daughters and our sons see us as mothers sinning, we are passing on poor examples that they too will follow. So Father, I pray that we'd be wise in our decisions, wise in our speech, wise in our conduct, that our conduct would be that that becomes the gospel. So we give the rest of this evening to you and I pray for our fellowship time. And as we come back in a little bit and look at our submissive sister, Sarah, Lord, we pray that we can learn as well from her. Thank you again in Christ's name. Amen.


Welcome to All Hands Update, here's what's happening around your Navy. The future USS Zumwalt pulled into Naval Station Norfolk for a port visit on their three-month journey to its home port in San Diego. Crewed by 147 sailors, Zumwalt is the lead ship of the next generation multi-mission destroyer designed to strengthen the Navy's power projection and sea control. Members of U.S. Naval Hospital Yacowska remuncts the many participants to brave the inclement weather to conduct big rescue Kanagawa 2016 in Japan. The mission of the exercise is to strengthen cooperation and teamwork amongst participating medical teams and bolster the resilience of local communities against natural disasters. The Republic of Korea Navy assisted the USS Decatur in an emergency medical evacuation of a sailor off the Korean Peninsula. Decatur was more than 100 miles from shore and out of range of U.S. air assets. Naval Forces Korea offered assistance transporting the sailor to a hospital to be treated. You can read more about what's happening around your Navy at Navy.mil.