What has been your experience with experiences with friendships and relationships and what barriers have kind of come up that have prevented you from moving forward in these areas? I can't really speak much for relationships, in terms of friendships it's incredibly difficult for me to make friends. That's partly because of my autism, well that is actually all to do with my autism. Trying to find people with similar interests is always difficult and it's not something that's like the stuff that I enjoy doing, the stuff that interests me, it's not easily researchable online because it's sort of hidden away on Facebook or it's hidden away as an advertisement on Meetup or something like that. But I mean I have one friend and I've known this friend now for years and I still speak to him and he's still happy to speak to me, but I can't rely on that one friend so it would be nice to have other friends because when you have other friends, those people back you up, those people give you positive reinforcement so that if you're being pressured by your parents, if your parents are having a go at you all the time, then at least you have someone who's maybe on your side or you have a different point of view as well. It's not just about being on your side, it's about having a different point of view and people who look at you in different ways is always better than people that look at you just one way and I think criticism is good, I think in moderation and I think positivity is good also in moderation and at the moment I'm getting a lot of criticism and no positivity because it's a lot easier to criticize me than it is to be positive towards me because if you asked, I mean this is secret but if you asked my parents or my sister what are the positive things about me, there'd be hard press to find good things to say about me. If you ask them negative things, they have loads of things that I'm not good at or problems that they have with me. That's not very nice at all. It's one of those things where they're very honest about, they're not trying to be mean about it, it's their honest opinion, they're not interested in my interests as well, so that is where some of that lack of positivity comes because they don't value my interests. Sure, I know that particularly like as I said with that kind of post, kind of 18 age, when we are in school we have pretty much all of our social interaction or opportunities for social interaction kind of laid out for us is not always the best and easiest and there's a lot of bullying and difficult situations at school but it is kind of set up like that. And particularly for me when I went off to university, I quickly found out that if I wanted to make friends, I needed to like find them, I needed to go out and find friends and chat to people and it was something that I really struggled with at the time and it took me a long time actually to feel comfortable with kind of approaching people or talking to people or even going to events in groups and finding friends. So it's definitely like a very unsupported aspect of things but I know that someone in my own life, someone that I know had quite a lot of success going to, there's this place called like Andy's Man Club. I think they have a few places around the UK which is basic an opportunity for men to kind of meet up and have a chat and talk about like mental health aspects of things, like things to do with their life, things that they're struggling with and the person I'm talking about is autistic and they've found that to be really, really, really great for them. But it's kind of like, it's not set out for you. It's not like after school, they can be like, hey, let's help you sort your social stuff out for the time after school or, you know, this is the path that you're going to take down for going through work and there's not really much of that. And I think that's really a tough part of life that I think it's taken me a long time to really get a grasp of and understand how to navigate, you know? Well, I've tried to, I've tried to do, as you say, try to find groups to be involved with and try to make friends and stuff like that. But it's, it's kind of difficult because it's so easy to feel left out all the time. And I tried to go to London Film and Comic Con, for instance. Oh, nice. And I, my friends stopped going with me because he gets bored of like the repetition of going every year, unless there's someone that he really wants to see. He doesn't want to do it with me, right? He doesn't want to go there with me, right? But that's kind of like your, your kind of yearly kind of routine thing that you like to go to. But the thing is, is you think you make loads of people, because everyone there is like, mind you, you think you'll make loads of friends, but I don't make, I don't make any friends when I'm there. There'll be a couple of people that I get into conversations with. But for the most part, if you go to something like London Film and Comic Con, it's, it's, it's kind of, everyone kind of keeps their own little groups. No one wants to mingle. There's no one, there's no one by themselves. I think, I think now nine out of 10 times, there's no one by themselves. And, and so I, and, and, and it's a huge effort for me to go to London Film and Comic Con.  It's, it's a real hurdle for me. It's, it's definitely hard to, to, to kind of form those friendships and particularly something that, that's hard for me is maintaining friendships. Like I'm quite good at like meeting people and talking to new people. But I think just like the intricacies of, you know, how, how people are in terms of like texting and, you know, having to maintain things and having to organize things. I think that's something that I really struggle with. And, and also to be honest, the majority of people that I'm friends with and people that I know, they tend to be not in my physical vicinity, like they tend to be people that I know online. And although that's, you know, although it's good to connect with people who are kind of like-minded and they may be autistic themselves, it's still like, I feel like it's quite important for me to kind of get outside and get and go and do things with friends and things of that nature. Have you had, have you had much success with like making friends online? Like, have you, have you joined any kind of groups or? Yeah, there's one group that I, well, there's a YouTuber who he's a, he's a former, where he's a former director, but he's, he's editor and producer. He has a YouTube channel where he does a podcast about films and TV and kind of like the sort of sidestime. So his, his name is Robert Meyer Burnett. And he owns the, he owns the kind of the Burnett work, as he calls it. And it's Robert Meyer Burnett. And he has a YouTube channel where he does podcasts, and he has all these different podcasts that he's set up by with different people who have worked, who are working on those podcasts about various corners of kind of geek fandom and stuff like that. Sure, sure. I suppose I'm, I'm meaning like, like chatting groups, like online, like zoom, like peer support meetings or like group meetings that people do online or particular servers in Discord or, you know, and anything like that. And it could, could also be through things like social media, like, particularly, I know a lot of people who have found, you know, friends and people to talk to, you know, they're kind of lonely and kind of isolated in their, their own country and they talk to other people online, who are, who are also autistic and they find that to be quite good, quite transformative for them. Well, I've, I am part of many different Discord groups and Twitter pages and social media pages of forums and stuff like that. So I've met people and people do know me. I haven't, I'm not with any specific autism groups of any kind in that sense. What I have done, what I have done is every Tuesday, or every yeah, every Tuesday, I go to a meetup group for autistic people at Nice. So in Wimbledon, it's called the Sunshine Recovery Cafe. And it is where people sort of talk about their week, how their week has gone. And we kind of chat about, we chat about funded by the NHS. Yes, yes, yes. And it's, it's, it's, I think for me in the long run, I feel that this is better than speaking online as a faceless person. I'd rather people get to know me in person than just, than just typing away hidden behind a computer. True, true, very true. I get that. Like, as I said, it's something that I feel particularly at the moment, you know, trying to find people to do stuff with and like, go out and have a coffee with and stuff like that. It's, it can be hard. Yeah. And plus, there's no one local to me as well. Anyone that I've sort of interacted with online, there isn't anyone really local to me. So it's, it would be impossible to meet up with that particular person anyway. So sure.


Chevy Chevy Well enjoying the quarantine life here We got the Franks and the wife right over here And we're at home right now my truck is in the shop for now I'm gonna be continuing to work for as long as they need us to deliver freight and I'm as far as I know healthy. I don't have any issues with my lungs or Don't smoke but my wife Britt on the other hand Does have asthma and a pre-existing condition. It's actually pretty bad, too I used to have when I was younger I guess actually the doctor thought I had asthma for a little bit But I think that diagnosis was cleared as I grew older people I grew out of childhood asthma and then I was a smoker Like not many of you know about that, but I was a smoker for 11 years and I gave myself a doll to asthma I quit almost six years ago now well before I met Josh But I was an idiot and I gave myself a condition and now I am not growing out of that condition In fact this morning I had to use my inhaler because I had some asthma issues when I woke up Don't smoke people don't smoke glad she quit not only does it smell disgusting, but It's really expensive and it will kill you And it also puts you at risk when pandemics sweep across the world and Honestly, if she was still smoking when I had met her we probably wouldn't be married right now That was a big deal breaker for me when I was on the on the prowl as they say looking When I was looking for someone to marry and looking for when I was single and You know Checking out the right was on the market ready to mingle there we go other than I'd met her and If she was a smoker it would have honestly been a deal breaker that was one of my nope I am not going to dated a smoker So thank God she quit a long time ago already, but she does have some Lung conditions now so much so that I have to be very careful when I work in our back bedroom back there Because of all the dust from the drywall and all the stuff as I'm renovating back there I'd be very careful to seal off that room so that none of that dust gets into here because I won't even realize it I'll think that I was doing a good job I had the windows open or whatever, but if some of that dust gets out of that room into the house here Her lungs act up right away. I also had a bad bout of pneumonia when I was a kid Around the time of my eighth birthday, so I was going on 23 years But I have some lung damage and my left lung from it, so my lungs don't really function at capacity So I guess I'm not the most vulnerable, but you know, I also have hypothyroid So like that so the smoking may not have caused all these issues because you quit a long time ago already But it didn't help it certainly did not help didn't help if I kept smoking They told me so I was 25 at the time They told me that if I kept smoking because I had a really really really bad asthma attack and I was hospitalize They told me I'd probably be on an oxygen tank by the time I was 30 if I didn't stop now So I stopped three days prior to that because I couldn't breathe three days prior to that So this is scary during a pandemic when a respiratory illness is sweeping across the globe so Her dad today Convinced her to not go into work any longer until this is all over and I completely agreed with him I've been saying the same thing for a little while, but she doesn't she listens to her dad a little bit better You listen to your mom better than you listen to me. Yeah. Well, you're just as guilty my mama's boy What can I say? Yeah, I just sent my manager at work a message and She a hundred percent understood she was a sweetheart about it and yeah, she responded She's got a lot of high-risk people in her family too. She said so she completely understands and the likelihood of us closing anyways is very high so Yeah, all as well. They understood So brit is not going to be leaving the house or the property anyways Uh until this is all over. Uh, she needs groceries or when she needs groceries I'm gonna go before I go out on the road I'm gonna go and make sure she's got enough food and everything that she needs in the house until I get back When I do come back, I'm gonna do the same thing I did. I do when I came back from this trip. I uh, I Go straight into the shower a diesel got a bath as as well Maybe I should leave him at home Just thought of that now as I was talking to you guys. That's sad, but maybe I should leave him at home Just in case and he's an old guy too I don't think pets can get it, but I keep hearing from some people that pets can get it Some people say they can't the experts say that pets can't get it, but they can carry it on their fur and stuff, right? but I I really I don't let like All he does when he gets out of the truck is go for walks that go to the grass I don't think that's a big high risk, but You never know these days right with all these things going on But anyways, she's going to be completely Self isolated and self quarantined in the house here And I'm gonna be going out there and doing my best to be as careful as I can And uh, the worst case scenario, I don't We'll see how bad this gets. I mean if if it gets that bad where I have to be that careful I mean I can sleep in the truck Until this is over You've spent so much time apart in our married lives I don't want it to come to that, but if it had to it had to my buddy Adam Is having issues with his throat right now. They think it's just strep but To protect his wife and his two little girls. He's sleeping in his truck right now Just in case just in case it is something else. He did call in to the doctors. He got some antibiotics for strep and stuff Um, they don't think that it's cope it, but on the off chance that it could be there too He just doesn't want to run the risk He's showing symptoms He's got strep. Oh, he's got strep. Oh Sorry, I missed that But uh, I mean his daughters are very healthy. So is his wife as far as I know None of them have autoimmune diseases But what if this is the way that you find out that someone that you love has an autoimmune disease that hasn't been diagnosed yet You killed them.  I think I'm gonna release this video separately from the vlogs. We're already at like seven minutes here So, uh, you're getting this tonight so I want to let you guys know that we're okay Britt's gonna be okay. She is vulnerable. So if you are praying people Uh, she could use some prayers if you just like to send good thoughts We'll take those two Send hippy vibes Yeah, anything we'll take anything. I know you're all in the same position as us So we're gonna send them right back to you.  I make jokes about this.  It was I just thought it was hilarious but some people got Sort of rightly obsessed that I'm sort of making jokes in a Tough time in the world. I'm trying to lighten the mood a little bit I think that uh, a good chuckle is good for everybody And that uh, he's like this all the time.  So if I'm making jokes and stuff It's not that I'm not taking this pandemic serious. I'm just It's just laughing makes people feel good. It it spreads a little bit of joy and hope in dark times. So just Know that when I'm joking like you don't have to lecture me about Taking this serious.   I'll ask check the the global death count in the world an hour ago And an hour ago there was oh, it's not gonna show me 23,028 deaths Now an hour later I'm just gonna wait for it to load up here There's 23,079 deaths worldwide and over 500,000 cases and you can go to the worldometer.com worldometers.info just go on to google and Type in COVID-19 global numbers and it'll tell you the global reported numbers right now and it's it's going up like crazy So if it's not affecting you yet, and you think it's not that big a deal, it'll get to you Believe me, it'll get to you It's gonna get to all of us in one way or another through a family member or through someone, you know like just today in the u.s. Or The Italy is just about at the same number of cases as china right now And it looks like the u.s. Is gonna go past both of them very quickly there's been Hundreds and hundreds of deaths like almost every hour. So it's something serious. So What I'm making jokes just know that I know what's going on And we are personally affected by it as well, but we are very lucky I mean, I'm not You know taking for granted how lucky we are We have this great big property that we can walk around on I feel for those who are stuck in a tiny Little like $3,000 a month bachelor pad with a window instead of a balcony right now It's gotta be brilliant.  You must be going nuts Oh my gosh, yeah, we're fortunate enough to live in well We live in the least affected province of canada in manitoba You know property values are pretty low here or they were I don't know what this whole crisis is gonna do to it But we were fortunate enough to get into this for a really low price And our government is offering us Help through this as well A lot of subsidy our banks up here in canada are offering six month mortgage deferrals if that's what it comes to There's a lot of help coming our way We're very fortunate to live in the country that we do even though we don't agree with the leaders all the time When it comes down to it We're still living in one of the greatest countries of the world and we're glad that we have all the support Because I'm sure many countries out there don't have that don't have that ability to help their citizens like that So I'm thankful for that So All the bickering aside and everything when it comes down to a global pandemic. I mean it's it's time to come together and just Like hold them accountable. Don't let them go crazy, but Someone's got to lead us through this We're at 12 minutes right now. I figured I was just gonna give you uh I was gonna make a little vlog clip I was gonna start the vlog for today But my vlogs are a few days behind and we're already at 12 minutes here So that would be a whole vlog in itself So I'll just release this to you today the same day. So we recorded this Probably a couple of hours before you're watching it if you're watching it right when it's released Uh, I don't know what else to tell you guys We're we don't know any more than you do. We're in the same boat as you Yeah, they're all sleeping. I hope I hope we didn't put you to sleep What a boring video Boring Talk about nothing else but this for weeks now. I know and this is all you're hearing So I should let you know since this is a separate video I'm gonna try to make my vlogs from here on out talk about other things other than the virus Maybe we'll mention it here and there a little bit But I saw your comments in my last video a few of you were like, well, this is all we're hearing everywhere We go, you know, we turn on youtube and then you're talking about it too And it's just we can't get away from it. So I'll try to uh, give you guys something Uh to watch to entertain you Light in the mood light in the mood that isn't virus related in my coming vlogs. We'll try to do that Okay, I can't promise it'll be a hundred percent because it's If we run out of stuff, we'll just show you the dogs. Yeah, we've got four great specimens Yeah But But we're still healthy and we're gonna keep it that way and I hope you're healthy and you're gonna keep it that way Please take this whole pandemic serious if you haven't already Just do some research and just know it's going to affect you in one way or another eventually someone you know is probably going to Know somebody it's it's going to affect you You're not invincible Please stay home as much as you can and let's try to stop this from spreading Anything else you want to say Good luck to everybody.  Don't spread it to vulnerable people We have some people in our family That are very vulnerable and I am beliefs vulnerable out of that group You know josh's sister has grades disease and autoimmune disease josh's cousins One of them has Lyme disease another one has stiff person syndrome. These are all autoimmune diseases My mom's best friend from high school has ms Like my uncle has ms as well. Our uncle has ms. These are all autoimmune diseases I looked up a list of autoimmune diseases There are diseases on there. I had no idea we're autoimmune. The list is huge. So take it serious Yeah And his his mom here as well. This is our foster boy. His mom as well has been through Uh chemotherapy treatments, right? Yeah, she just finished her chemotherapy and she's going for radiation treatments, which means she so So she's very vulnerable as well. So uh a lot of people affected by this saintly lady She's she reminds me a lot of drowsy's mom actually. Yeah, she's younger obviously, but uh, this guy's mom. Yeah Great lady and just please keep those who need you to keep them safe safe Let's not forget my grandpa as well. He's in his mid 80s. I don't forget exactly how well I think he was born in 36 Yeah, I think so. He's uh, they're pretty much locked up or isolated in in the The apartment complex Seniors home that he's in I think it's a seniors home our friend Colleen right now is pregnant My cousin Ashley is very pregnant Colleen's ready to give birth in just a couple of weeks Ashley's just a couple weeks behind her like these are all very vulnerable people Just please be careful and it's not just old people affected by this either I'm sure you've seen the news that there's a lot of young people with no pre-existing conditions that are getting very sick and dying Uh, so it's Yep, it's it's gonna mute continue to mutate and we'll see Anyways 16 minutes of us just sitting here talking already. That's enough.   He's breast We'll see you in our next vlog. I got a couple more vlogs coming out that are gonna be talking about the virus Okay, but uh, you'll see throughout this next week. We're gonna just sort of Try to focus on anything but that I hope you all are safe


Greetings from San Francisco. The Cube is live. This is our second day of wall-to-wall coverage of VMware Explorer 2022. Lisa Martin and Dave Nicholson here. We're going to be talking with some ladies from Rackspace next. Please welcome Adriana Bustamante, VP of Strategic Alliances, and Hannah Deuce, Director of Strategic Alliances from Rackspace. It's great to have you on the program. Thank you so much for having us. Good afternoon. Good morning. Is it lunchtime already? Almost. Almost. Yes. And it's great to be back in person. We were just talking about the keynote yesterday that we were in, and it was standing room only. People are ready to be back. They're ready to be hearing from VMware, its ecosystem, its partners, its community. Yes. Talk to us, Adriana, about what Rackspace is doing with Dell and VMware, particularly in the healthcare space. Sure.  And I have the privilege of doing it for over 16 years. So we've been looking after the Dell and VMware partnership ourselves personally for the last three years, but they've been longstanding partners for us. And how do we go and drive more meaningful joint solutions together? So Rackspace, you know, been around since 98. We've seen such an evolution of becoming more of this multi-cloud transformation agile global partner. And we have a lot of customers that fall in lots of different verticals from retail to public sector and to healthcare. What we started noticing, and what we're trying to drive as a company, is how do we drive more specialized solutions? And because of the pandemic and because of post-pandemic, and everyone really trying to figure out what the new normal is addressing different clients, we saw that need increasing, and we wanted to rally together with our most strategic alliances to do more. Hannah, talk about, obviously the pandemic created such problems for every industry, but healthcare being front and center still is. Talk about some of the challenges that healthcare organizations are coming to Rackspace going, help. Yeah. The common theme that we've heard from some of our large providers, healthcare providers has been, help me do more with less, which we're all trying to do as we navigate the new normal. But in that space, we found the opportunity to really leverage some of our expertise, long-term expertise, and that the talent and the resource pool that we had to really help in some of the challenges that are being faced are resource shortage, talent shortage, and so Rackspace is able to leverage what we've done for many, many years and really tailor it to the outcomes that healthcare providers are needing nowadays. That more with less mantra runs across the gamut, but a lot of it's been, help me modernize, help me get to that next phase. I can't, I don't have the resources to DIY it myself anymore. I need to figure out a more robust business continuity program. And so helping with business continuity, DR, third copies of just all this data that's growing. So it's not just COVID pandemic driven, but it's, that's definitely driving the need and the requirement to modernize so much quicker. It's interesting that you mentioned Rackspace's history and expertise in doing things and moving that forward and leveraging that, pivoting, focusing on specific environments to create something net new. We've seen a lot of that here. If you go back 10 years, I don't know if that's the perfect date to go back to, but if you go back 10 years ago, you think about VMware, where would we have expected VMware to be in this era of cloud? We may have thought of things very, very differently. Rackspace, a pioneer in creating off-premises, hey, we will do this for you. Didn't even really call it cloud at the time, right? But it was cloud. And so the ability for entities like Rackspace, like VMware, we had a net app talking to us about stuff they're doing in the cloud 10 years ago. If you, I would say, no, they'd be dead. They'll be gone, they'll be gone. So it's really, really cool to see Rackspace making this transition and being aware of everything that's going on and focusing on the best value proposition moving forward. I mean, am I, do I sound like somebody who would fit into the Rackspace culture right now or do I not get it? Yes, you sound like a Racker. We'll make you an honorary Racker. That's what we call Rackspace employees. Yes, you know what we've noticed too and is budgets are moving. Those decision makers are moving. So again, 10 years ago, just like you said, you would be talking to sometimes a completely different persona than we do today. And we've seen a shift more towards that business value. We have a really unique ability to bring business and technical conversations together. I did a lot of work in the past of working with a lot of CMO and digital transformation companies and so helping bring IT and business. Seeing the same in healthcare because budgets are living in different places and then even across the board with Rackspace, people are trying to drive more business outcomes, business driven solutions. So the technical becomes the backend and really the ingredients to make all of that, all of that happen. And that's what we're helping to solve. And it's a lot, it's very fast paced. Everyone wants to be agile now. And so they're leaning on us more and more to drive more services. So if you've seen Rackspace evolve, we're driving more of that advisement and those transformation service type discussions where our original history was, DNA was very much always embedded in driving a great experience. Now they're just wanting more from us, more services, help us figure out the how. Adriana, comment on the outcomes that you're helping healthcare organizations achieve as we, it's such a relatable, tangible topic. Healthcare is right.  What are some of those outcomes that customers can expect to achieve with Rackspace and VMware? No, great question. So very much I can't have mentioned earlier, it's how do I modernize? How do I optimize? How do I take the biggest advantage of the budgets and the landscape that we have? I want to get to the cloud. We need it to help our patients and get access to that data. Is this ready to go into the cloud? Is this not ready to go into the cloud? How do we help make sure we're taking care of our patients, we're keeping things secure and accessible?  Yeah, one specific one, sequencing, genetic sequencing. So we've had this come up from a few different types of providers, whether it's medical devices that they may provide to their end clients and the outcome that they're looking for is how do we leverage, here's our IP, here's what we do, but now we have so many more people we need to give this access to. We need them to be able to have access to the sequencing that all of these different entities are doing and the outcome that they're trying to get to is more collaboration. So that way we can speed up in the face of a pandemic, we can speed up those resolutions, we could speed up to whether it's a vaccine needed or something that's going to address the next thing that might be coming. So that's the specific one, I've heard that from a handful of different clients that we work with and so trying to give them a consolidated, not trying to, we are able to deliver them a consolidated place that their application and tooling can run in and then all of these other entities can safely and securely access this data to do what they're going to do in their own spaces and then hopefully it helps the betterment of us globally, like as humans in the healthcare space, we all benefit from this. So leveraging the technology to really drive a valuable outcome helps us all, so. So by the way, I like trying to because it conveys the proper level of humility that we all need to bring to this because it's complicated and anybody who looks you in the eye pretends like they know exactly how to do it. You need to run from those people. That's fair. It is and look, that's where our partners become so significant. We know we're best in class for specific things but we rely on our partnerships with Dell and VMware to bring their expertise, to bring their tried and true technology to help us all together collectively deliver something good. Technology for good. Technology for good. It is inherently good and it's nice when it's used for good as well. It's nice when it's used for good. Talk about security for a second. You know, we've seen that the threat landscape changed dramatically. Obviously nobody wants to be the next for each ransomware becoming a household term. It's now a matter of when we get ahead, not if. Where has security gone in terms of conversations with customers going, help us ensure that what we're doing is delivering data access to the right folks that need it at the right time in real time in a secure fashion? No, that's another good question in hot and burning. So, you know, I think if we think about past conversations, it was that nice insurance offering that seemed like it came at a high cost. Do you really need it? I've never been breached before. I'll get it when I need it. But exactly to your point, it's the when and not the if. So, what we're finding and also working with a nice ecosystem of partners as well from anywhere from Akamai to Cloudflare to BT, it's how do we help ensure that there is the security? As Hannah mentioned, that we're delivering the right data access to the right people and permissions. You know, we're able to help meet the multitude of compliance and regulations. Obviously healthcare and other regulated space as well. We look to make sure that from our side of the house from the infrastructure that we have the right building blocks to help them reach those compliance needs. Obviously it's a mutual partnership in maintaining that compliance and that we're able to provide guidance and best practices on to make sure that the data is living in a secure place, that the people that need access to it get it when they need it and monitor those permissions. And back to your complexity, Comet. So, more and more complex as we are a global provider. So, when you start to talk to our teams in the UK and our clients there, specializing kind of that sovereign cloud mentality of hey, we need to have a cloud that is built for the specific needs that reside within healthcare by region. So, not just even, I mean, we're homegrown out of San Antonio, Texas. So, we know the US and have spent time here, but we've been global for many years. So, we just get down into the nitty gritty to customize what's needed within each region. Well, Hannah, is that part of the rack space value proposition at large moving forward? Because frankly, look, if I want something generic, I can swipe credit card and fire up some services. Moving forward, this is something that is going to more characterize the rack space experience. And I understand that the hesitancy to say, hey, it's complicated. It's like, I don't want to hear that. I don't want to hear that it's easy. It's like, well, okay, we'll make it easy for you, but it's still complicated. Is that okay? That's the honest answer. That's why you need help, right? That's why you need help. Talk about that. Because people have a legitimate question, why rack space? And I don't want to put you on the spot, but why rack space? You've talked a little bit about it already, but kind of encapsulate it. Oh gosh. So good question. Why rack space? It's because we can help you.  I know. Well, you can do it. There's many different options out there. And if I had a PowerPoint slide, I'd show you this like lovely web of options of directions that you could go. And what is rack space value? It's that we come in and simplify it. Because we've had experience with this, this same use case, whatever somebody is bringing forward to us, is typically something we've dealt with numerous times. And so we're repeating and speeding up the ability to simplify the complex and to deliver something more simplified. While it may be complex within us and we're like working to get it done, the outcome that we're delivering is faster, it's less expensive than dedicating all the resources yourself to do it and go invest in all of that that we've already built up and then we're able to deliver it in a more simplified manner. It's like the duck analogy, the feet below the water. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of expertise as well. Yes. Talk a little bit about the solution that Dell VMware Rackspace are delivering to customers. Sure. So when we think about healthcare clouds or cloud specific to the healthcare industry, there's some major players within that space so you think epic. We'll just use them as an example. This can play out with others, but we are building on a custom or we have a custom clouds able to host Epic and then provide services up through the Epic application through partnership. So that is broadening the market for us in the sense that we can tailor with that healthcare provider needs. Do they have the expertise to manage the application? Okay, you do that. And then we will build out a custom fit cloud for that application. Oh, and you need all the adjacent things that come with it too. So then we have reference architecture built out already to tailor to whatever all those other 40, 80, 90, hundreds of applications that need to come with that. And then you start to think about imaging platforms. So we have imaging platforms available for those specific needs, whether it's MRIs and things like that. And then the long-term retention that's needed with that. So all of these pieces that build out a healthcare ecosystem and those needs, we've built those out and provide those to our clients. Yesterday VMware was talking about cloud chaos. And it's true, you talk about the complexity and Dave talks about it too, like acknowledging, yes, this is a very complex thing to do. There's just so many moving parts, so many dynamics, so many people involved or lack there of people. They then talked about kind of the goal of getting customers from cloud chaos to cloud smart. How does that message resonate with Rackspace? And how are you helping customers get from simplifying the chaos to eventually get to that cloud smart goal? So a lot of it, I believe, is with the power of our alliances. And I was talking about this earlier. We really believe in creating those powerful ecosystems. And Jay McBain, former forester analyst, talks about the people are going to come ahead, really serve as that orchestration layer of bringing everybody together. So if you look at all of that cloud chaos and all of the different logos and the webs and which decisions to make, the ones that can help simplify that, bring it all together like we're going to need a little bit of this, like a baking a cake in some ways, we're going to need a little bit of sugar. We'll need this technology, this technology and whoever's able to put it together in a clean and seamless way. And as Hannah said, we have specific use cases in different verticals, healthcare specifically and talking from the imaging and the epic, helping them get hospitals and different smaller clinics get to the edge. So we have all of the building blocks to get them what they need. And we can't do that without partners, but we help simplify those outcomes for those customers. So there's where they're cloud smart. So then they're like, I want to be agile. I want to work on my cost. I want to be able to leverage a multi-cloud fashion because some things may inherently need to be on Azure. Some things may inherently need to be on VMware. How do we make them feel like they still have that modernized platform and technology, but still give the secure and access that they need? Right, yeah. We like to think of it as, are you multi-cloud by accident or multi-cloud by design? And help you get to that multi-cloud by design and leveraging the right tools, the right places. And Dell was talking about that, just that, at Dell Technologies World just a couple of months ago that most organizations are multi-cloud by default, not design. Are you seeing any customers that are able or how are you able to help customers go from that? We're here by default for whatever reason, acquisition, growth, shadow IT, line of business, and go from that default to a more strategic multi-cloud approach. Yes, it takes planning and commitment. You know, you really need the business leaders and the technical leaders bought in and saying, this is what I'm going to do, because it is a journey. Because exactly where I M&A is like inherited four different tools. You have databases that kind of look similar, but they're a little bit different, but they serve four different things. So at Rackspace, we're able to help assess and we sit down with their teams. We have very amazing Rockstar expertise that will come in and sit with the customers and say, what are we trying to drive for? Let's get a good assessment of the landscape and let's figure out what are you trying to get towards in your journey and looking at what's the best fit for that application from where it is now to where it is where it wants to be. Because we saw a lot of customers move to the cloud very quickly. You know, they went cloud native very fast. Some of it made sense. Retailers who had the spikiness that completely made sense. We had some customers though that we've seen move certain workloads. They've been in the public cloud now for a couple of years, but it was a static website. It doesn't make as much sense anymore for certain things. So we're able to help navigate all of those choices for them.  So if I am a customer and I have some outcome I want to achieve, the people that I'm going to be talking to from Rackspace are from Rackspace. And the people from Rackspace who are going to be working with the actual people who are deploying infrastructure are also Rackspace people. So the interesting contrast there between other circumstances, oftentimes, is you may have a global systems integrator with smart people, representing what a cloud provider is doing. The perception, they try to make people perceive that okay, everybody is working in lockstep, but often there are disconnects between what the real capabilities are and what's being advertised. So is that, I mean, it's like a leading question. It's like, try that, softball.  But I mean, isn't that an advantage? You've got a single, the saying used to be one throat to choke. Now it's one back to pack. Because it's kind of, kind of in general. We'll go first into hug. Yeah, but talk about that. I mean, is that a real advantage? It does. It really helps us because, again, this is our expertise. This is where we live. We're really close to the infrastructure. We're great at the advisement on it. We can help with those ongoing and day two management and operations of what it feels like to grow and scale. So we lay this out cleanly and clearly as possible this is where we're really good. We can help you in these areas. But we do work with system integrators as well and part of our partner community because they're working on sometimes the bigger overall transformations. And then we're staying, look, we understand this multi-comp. But it helps us because in the end, we're doing that end to end for them. Customer knows this is racked space and on hand. And we really strive to be very transparent in what it is that we want to drive in outcomes. So sometimes at the time where it's like, we're going to talk about a certain new technology, Dell might bring some of their architects at the table. We will say, here is Dell with us. We're doing that actively in the healthcare space today. And it's all coming together. But you know at the end of the day, this is what racked space is going to drive and deliver from an end to end. And we tap those people we needed. So you don't have to worry about picking up the phone to call Dell or VMware. So if I had worded the hard-hitting journalist question the right way, it would have elicited the same response instead. Yes, yes, yes. It drives accountability at the end of the day. Because what we advised on what we said, now we got to go deliver. And it's all the same, the same organization driving accountability for that. So from a customer perspective, they're engaging racked space who will then bring in Dell and VMware as needed to find the solution. Exactly. We have all of the certification. I mean, the team is great on getting all of the certs. Because we're used to handling all of the level one, level two, level three business. They know who to call. They have their dedicated account teams. They have engagement managers that help them drive what those bigger conversations are. And they don't have to worry about the experts because we either have it on hand or we'll pull them in as needed. If it's the bat phone, we need to call. Yeah. Awesome, ladies. Thank you so much for joining Dave and me today, talking about what racked space is up to in the partner ecosystem space and specifically what you're doing to help healthcare organizations transform and modernize. We appreciate your insights and your thoughts. Yeah. Thank you for having us. Take care. Our pleasure. Bye. For our guests and Dave Nicholson, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE Live from VMware Explorer 2022. We'll be back after a short break.


This is the most well-known verse in all of the Old Testament, Jeremiah 29-11. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. Now the prosperity preachers will take this verse and they'll say, see, right there, God says He wants to prosper us. So prosperity, health and wealth. Now we as Baptist, we may not take it to that extent, but a lot of us as Baptist, we still use this verse, don't we? We still really like this verse. And a lot of people make Jeremiah 29-11 their life verse, and they inscribe it on their Bible covers. You see a lot of leather Bible covers and they'll have Jeremiah 29-11 engraved in it or something like that. I can't tell you how many church signs I've seen, drive by a church and on their church sign they've got Jeremiah 29-11 on it. Be very careful in making Jeremiah 29-11 your life verse. Dear friends, this was not written to us. This was not written to us. This was written to the Jews in Babylonian exile. This was written to the Jews in Babylonian exile. Do we have any Jews here this morning who find themselves in Babylonian exile? No? Nobody here in Babylonian exile? Oh, well then it wasn't written to us, then was it? Well then question is, why were the Jews in Babylonian exile? The Jews were in Babylonian exile because God had instructed them to leave their land fallow every seventh year. But for a period of 490 years, the Jews had not done this. And so God put them into Babylonian exile. And He put them into Babylonian exile for a period of 70 years. Do the math, 490 divided by 7 is 70. So God put them in Babylonian exile for 70 years. That's a long time. That's the vast majority of a person's life. And so what God is saying to the Jews in Babylonian exile, He's giving them a message through the prophet Jeremiah, and basically God is saying this. He's saying, look, Jews, I gave you an instruction. You ignored it. And therefore I'm going to punish you. I'm going to bring judgment on you. You're going into Babylonian exile for 70 years. You're going to be basically in time out for 70 years. But I have not forgotten you. I still have plans for you.  So God was saying, I haven't forgotten you. Yes, you're in judgment. Yes, you're in Babylonian captivity. But I have not forgotten you. So unless we are Jews who have not left our, or if I failed to leave our landfallow every seventh year for 490 years, we find ourselves in Babylonian captivity, this was not written to us. It was not written to us. So it doesn't really apply to us now. Is there a general principle that can be gleaned from this verse? Yes, there is. Does God have plans for us? Yes, He does. Does God have plans to prosper us? Depends on what you mean by prosper. How many times have we heard the Gospel presented this way? God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Is that true? Yes. God does love us and He does have a wonderful plan for our lives. But what God deems wonderful may not always seem so wonderful to us. God had a wonderful plan for Stephen's life. What was the wonderful plan God had for Stephen's life? To be stoned. God had a wonderful plan for the Apostle Peter's life and that was to be crucified upside down. The wonderful plan God had for the Apostle Paul's life was to be shipwrecked and stoned, imprisoned, beaten, and ultimately beheaded. God does love us. He does have wonderful plans for our lives. But what God deems wonderful may not always seem so wonderful to us. Dear friends, sometimes God is most glorified in us when we suffer, when we are persecuted. Sometimes God is most glorified in us in those times, not in times of health and wealth and prosperity. Be very careful with Jeremiah 29-11. Another verse is this, 3 John 2. This is almost like the gold standard of the prosperity gospel. They love this verse. 3 John 2. Oops. There we go. Beloved, I pray that in all things that thou mayest prosper and be in good health even as thy soul prospers. And the faith preachers look at this verse and they say, see, there it is right there in black and white. God wants us to prosper and be in good health, health and wealth. Watch this video clip from Joyce Meyer. 3 John 2 says, Beloved, I pray that you might prosper in every way and that your body might keep well even as I know your soul prospers and keeps well. Now that's a very wonderful scripture. When I talk to my prosperity, he says, I would that you prosper and be in health and be in health. So we see right there that God wants us to be healthy. Can everybody say God wants me to be healthy? Well you can say it, but that's not what this verse is talking about. John was writing a letter to his friend Gaius. You would see Gaius' name in the first verse of this short little book of 3 John. And John opens his letter in much the same way that you and I would open a letter or an email that we write to one of our friends today. Basically, John is saying this, dear Gaius, I hope that this finds you doing well. Friends that's all in the world he's saying. This is not a doctrinal statement. It's not a didactic statement, meaning it's not a teaching statement, it's not a statement of theology. It's simply a common greeting to a letter. It was a common greeting in letters 2,000 years ago and it remains a common greeting today. Nothing more, nothing less. And the faith preachers know it, but they don't want you to know it because it just happens to fit their theology. So you can take verses out of their context, you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to say. Foundational to the faith preacher's teaching that it is always God's will to be healed is their teaching that healing is provided for in the atonement. That is a word that we give to the work that Jesus did for us on the cross. Now sadly, we saw the other day how the prosperity preachers don't believe that Jesus paid for our sins on the cross. They believe that He paid for our sins down in hell, but we looked at that the other day when it was yesterday morning. But watch this from Andrew Womack, watch this from Andrew Womack. He placed your and my sickness and diseases, infirmities upon Jesus and He bore them 2,000 years ago. If He already paid for your healing, how can you doubt that you are healed? I sometimes refer to Andrew Womack as the John Boy Walton of the Word of Faith Movement because he's just normal looking, you know? He's not flashy, doesn't wear a white suit.  But make no mistake about it, he is Word of Faith, hook, line, and sinker. He is Word of Faith. And in many ways, people like him are even more dangerous than the Benny Hens and the Todd Bentley's because he does look so normal. But what as to the point, is healing provided for in the atonement? Andrew Womack and all the prosperity preachers all appeal to Isaiah 53, 4, and 5. Let's look at this. Surely, he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken smitten of God and afflicted. And the faith preachers look at these 2 words that I have highlighted here, griefs and sorrows, and they'll say that another way to render these 2 words is as sickness and pain respectively. For Jesus bore our sickness, carried our pain, and because He bore our sickness, He carried our pain, we should not have to. So goes the logic. Well, in a sense they're right because these 2 words in Hebrew do have multiple possible renderings. And there's a lot of words in Hebrew like that. We have words like that in English. You can take the word are you in. You could run to the grocery store, you could run a marathon, you could run a business, you could run a computer program. You could get ladies, you could get a run in your stockings, right? It's the same word, but it has different meanings depending upon the, what? The context in which it is used. So this is nothing unusual. So now the question is, well, what's the context? Well the very next verse shows us what the context is. Verse 5, but he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with the stripes we are healed. So very clearly the primary context of Isaiah 53 is not physical healing. It's spiritual healing, not healing from sickness and disease, healing from sin. We see that from these 2 words, transgressions and iniquities. In fact read the whole chapter of Isaiah beginning about midway through chapter 52, all the way through chapter 53. The whole thing is talking about transgression, sin, iniquity. It's not talking about cancer and arthritis. So what is the answer to our question? Is physical healing provided for in the atonement? Yes. Yes, it absolutely is provided for in the atonement. Dear ones, the reason that I'm crippled, the reason I walk on crutches is a result of sin. Not my personal sin, but the sin of Adam and Eve. When Adam and Eve sinned, when they ate of that fruit, whatever that fruit was, we don't know that it was an apple by the way. It's just what the coloring books have. But when they ate of that fruit, whatever it was, sin entered the world and so did sickness and disease and ultimately death, physical and spiritual death. So the reason I'm crippled is a result of sin. The reason many of you are wearing eyeglasses this morning, that's a result of sin. Not your personal sin, the sin of Adam and Eve. Next time you catch a cold, you can blame Adam and Eve for that. It's just one of the consequences of living in a fallen world. So when Jesus came and died on the cross, He paid for our sins, He also paid for all of the consequences of those sins, one of which is sickness and disease. So yes, physical healing is provided for in the atonement. But here's where the faith preachers get it very, very wrong. Not all of the benefits of the atonement are promised to be fully realized this side of heaven. Not all the benefits of the atonement are promised to be fully realized this side of heaven. Some of the benefits of Jesus' atonement we will not realize until the other side of heaven. And healing from sickness and disease is one of those benefits. To give you another illustration of this, a glorified body is also provided for in the atonement. Use your hand if you've got your glorified body. What? Nobody in here? Nobody's got their glorified body? Why not? It's provided for in the atonement. It's not promised to be realized here. Dear ones, when we die and go to heaven for all of us who are in Christ, when we die and go to heaven, we're not going to take our sickness and disease with us. No cancer, no arthritis, no muscular dystrophy, none of those things. Why? Because our healing has been provided for, bought and paid for with the blood, death, and bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you know what? When we die and go to heaven, dear ones, I'm really not sure it's even going to cross our minds that we no longer have our sickness and disease. I'm really not sure we're even going to give it a second thought because we're going to have better things to think about. We will be in perfect worship of, fellowship with, service to the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the one who spoke the universe into existence. We will have perfect fellowship with Christ, Christ. He is the joy and the glory of heaven. He is who makes heaven heaven. You know, I think sometimes we get such an earthly view of heaven, don't we? We think of heaven as this one big family reunion. You'll see grandma and grandpa and we'll walk on streets of gold and yeah, you know, we will. We will be reunited with our loved ones who preceded us in death if they were in Christ. But that's not the joy of heaven. The joy of heaven is Christ, knowing Christ. He is the joy and the glory of heaven. He is who makes heaven heaven. Open your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face and the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. What of the biblical record? Can we look through the Bible and find examples of people who loved the Lord and served Him faithfully and yet did not walk in perfect health? Absolutely. Thomas was left sick at Meletus. Epaphroditus was sick to the point of death. The Apostle Paul encouraged Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach in his frequent ailments. Now, I find this very interesting. Notice that the Apostle Paul did not write to Timothy and say, Timothy, go see a faith healer. Be sure you sow a seed into his ministry so you can reap a harvest. Take a little wine for your stomach and your frequent ailments. Now I find this interesting on yet another level because the Apostle Paul wrote this about the year AD 64, about the year AD 64. Back up 10 years to the year AD 54. What was going on in the year AD 54? The events of Acts chapter 19 were going on. What was happening in Acts chapter 19, extraordinary miracles of healing. So much so that even handkerchiefs and aprons were being taken forth from the Apostle Paul and delivered to sick people and God was healing sick people at distances through the agents of these handkerchiefs and aprons, extraordinary miracles of healing in the year AD 54. Fast forward 10 years to the year AD 64. No handkerchiefs and aprons going forth from the Apostle Paul. What changed? Something significant changed, did it not? Could it be that even in that 10 years span that the apostolic gifts, the sign gifts, tongues, interpretation of tongues, miracles, physical healing had already passed out of operation, already faded away? Two years later Paul writing 2 Timothy and it says that he left trophium of sick at Meletus. Paul was with him and he left him sick. Didn't heal him, he left him sick. Interesting is it not? That maybe even in that 10 year span that the apostolic gift of healing had already passed out of operation. For those of you who may not have been here yesterday, do I believe that God still physically heals people today? Yes. When and only when it is His sovereign will to do so. Is that the apostolic gift of healing? No. I'm talking about two totally different things. The gift of healing was when someone, for example Peter and Paul, could go up to a sick person, heal them instantaneously, verifiably with confidence, knowing that God was going to do it, and that we don't see today anymore. There's nobody alive on the face of the earth today who has that gift. God does still heal people, but He does so when it's His sovereign will to do it, and that is not the same thing as the gift of healing. Does that make sense? Two totally different issues here. Job. Job is the 800-pound theological gorilla sitting in the living room of the prosperity preachers, none of whom want to admit is there. Job's a problem for the prosperity preachers, because here you have a man who is upright and righteous, and yet God still allowed Satan to come and to strike from Job everything that he had. His possessions destroyed. His family dead. His own health deteriorated. Job suffered horrifically. Job's a problem for the prosperity preachers, and they know it. So what do they do with Job? Well, it's hard to ignore an entire book out of the Bible. So you know what they do to Job? They turn the tables on Job, and they say the reason these calamities fell upon Job, they were all results of his negative confessions. Job spoke negative, fear-filled words, and he brought all these calamities upon himself. Job tapped into the dark side of the force. Do they really teach that? Yep. This is from Joyce Meyer. For the thing which I greatly fear comes upon me, and that of which I am afraid befalls me. Fear is a terrible emotion, a self-fulfilling one. Job had fears concerning his children, and finally reached a place in his life where he saw his fears coming to pass. The Bible says it will be unto us as we believe, totally takes that out of context. That principle works in the negative as well as the positive. You see it's this principle, it's this universal law of attraction, the good side and the bad side of the force. That's theology by Oprah Winfrey. That's New Age. It's not biblical. Let's see all this is. Our word-faith theology is, is cultic doctrine wrapped in some Christian ease, wrapped in some Christian terminology. Joyce Meyer and the prosperity preachers completely miss the point of the book of Job. Miss it entirely. You know what the point of the book of Job is, dear ones, the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God. God can do whatever he wants to do. And sometimes that means making us sick. Can you believe that? That sometimes God makes people sick. Now you tell that to a prosperity preacher or a prosperity person, they'll probably faint right on the spot. Get the vapors. But if God doesn't make people sick, then somebody needs to inform him because he seems to think that he does. Exodus chapter four, verse 11, the Lord said to Moses, who has made man's mouth or who makes him dumb or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I the Lord? Friends, that's God talking there. I don't know how you get around that. Who has made man's mouth?  Is it not I the Lord? God speaking again, Deuteronomy, see now that I, I am he. There is no God besides me. It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal. And there is no one who can deliver from my hand. Put that verse in your prosperity pipe and smoke it. Sometimes God makes people sick. Now sometimes we make ourselves sick, don't we?   I mean, we live in a fallen world and people just get sick. Sometimes God makes people sick. Why would he do that? To watch us suffer? No, absolutely not. But sometimes God makes people sick to sanctify us and to glorify Himself, to glorify Himself. And ultimately everything that God does ultimately is about His glory. This is a man that I met a few years ago. His name's Rich. Rich lives in Long Island, New York. And Rich was born able-bodied. And he was saved when he was about 19 years old. God saved him. And then a few years later, he had a motorcycle accident and it left him paralyzed.  But Rich loves the Lord. He lives with his brother and his sister-in-law, his brother's wife, neither of whom are believers. But Rich is. And every Sunday morning, Rich asks his brother and sister-in-law to get him up. And they get him up out of bed. They dress him, they bathe him, and then they dress him. And they put him in his electric wheelchair. And Rich drives his electric wheelchair five miles one way to church every single Sunday. Even when it's raining, they put a poncho over him to keep him in the electronics of his wheelchair dry so his wheelchair won't short out. And he drives his electric wheelchair five miles one way to church in the rain. And he never misses. The only thing that will keep Rich from going to church is if it's snowing and his wheelchair just won't go in the snow. The pastor told me he said, Justin, Rich is the most faithful church member I've got. He's got bumper stickers on the back of his wheelchair with scripture verses on them. He's quite literally a rolling testimony for Christ. Friends, God is glorified in that. God is glorified in that. How many people has Rich been a witness to when they see this man every Sunday driving his wheelchair five miles to church with the Word of God on the back of his wheelchair?  God's glorified in that. And yet we've got prosperity preachers today like Joel Osteen writing books, Your Best Life Now. And Joel Osteen recounts this story about how one day he and his wife Victoria were trying to find a parking spot at the mall. But all the good parking spots were taken, you see. But they just kept believing God for a good parking spot. And so they were coming down the aisle of cars not willing to take a space, you know, out in the back 40, they were just believing God for a good parking spot. So they come down the aisle of cars and wouldn't you know it, the car in the very front spot backed away and drove off just in time for Joel and Victoria to pull in, get that good parking spot right up front. And Joel Osteen says, friends, that's the favor of God. Really? That's the favor of God? Getting a good parking spot? Tell that to Rich. Tell that to our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who right now are being persecuted for their faith in Christ. Tell that to Pastor Bill in Uganda, a man I met last April in Uganda, Pastor Bill who was out in his little village passing out gospel tracks. And there was a prominent word of faith preacher there in the area. And he heard about what Bill was doing. He didn't like it one bit. And so this prosperity preacher bribed the police to go and find Bill. They arrested Bill in front of his family, beat him, took him to the police station, chained him up to a tree, left him there, chained to a tree all night long in the rain, all for passing out gospel tracks. Tell Bill the favor of God's getting a good parking spot. Tell our brothers and sisters in Christ in countries like Somalia, in Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea. Tell them the favor of God is getting a good parking spot at the mall in the United States of America. Are you kidding me? The prosperity gospel is no gospel. If you have to add an adjective to the gospel, you've got a different gospel. There is no prosperity gospel. There is no social gospel. Thank you very much, Tony Kempolo. There is just the gospel.  Dear friends, it's a matter of biblical record that not everyone who loved the Lord and served him faithfully walked in perfect divine health. It's not a matter of opinion. It's not up for debate. It's simply a matter of biblical record. Does God still heal people today physically? Yes. But only when it is His sovereign will to do so. Does God always heal people today? No. He wasn't doing it in the days of the Bible, and he's not doing it today either.  Jesus healed everyone, right? Jesus never turned anybody down for healing. Jesus healed them all. Have you heard this before? Well, I would like to refer them to John chapter 5. Recall this, the pool of Bethesda. Remember the lame man who had been laid there for 38 years, and he was unable to get into the waters. You know, it's an unusual account where the angels would come and stir the waters and people would go in and be healed. But there was this man who had been there for 38 years, lame, unable to get into the pool by himself.  How many people did Jesus heal? One. One. According to the prosperity preachers, not only must you have enough faith, you must also, if you want to receive healing, another requirement you must meet, show me the money. You better sow that seed. Watch this from Joyce Meyer. It says you ask people to give money, so you say, do it cheerfully, because the Bible says give, and shall be given unto you, so giving is a major part of the whole Christian. But do you believe if someone gives money to the ministry, right, that more will come back to them? Yes. I think that's what they mean by prosperity. It's not. No, but do you worry at all that sometimes your message will be heard by someone in the most dire circumstances. This is sort of a black wheel, a sort of gambled with God. Okay, well I can't pay the rent, but I'll give it to Joyce and we'll see what happens. Do you worry at all about that? No, I don't worry about that. Oh no, I totally don't worry about that. I'm sure she doesn't, but she should, because right now there are thousands and thousands of people all around the world right now watching Christian television. And they're being told if they will sow a seed, God will grant them a harvest. You need to get out of debt, sow a seed. The only thing that'll do is get you further in debt. You need healing, sow a seed. I'm sure Joyce Meyer doesn't worry about it, but she should, because the sick and the poor and the desperate are being exploited right now all around the world. And this is the face of Christianity in much of the world today. You know when I was in Uganda, we were staying in a little, what they call a little guest house. We were staying there and there was a little black and white television there. And Mike, my friend and I, Mike and I went there. We were staying in the, we were roommates there in the little guest house. And we hadn't even turned the TV on, but long story short, Pastor Bill and his wife and five kids came over to see us at the guest house. And Bill and his wife and family, they don't have a television in their little hut. They don't have a toilet either, by the way. But they came to the little guest house and they saw it television. The kids were just enamored with it and they turned on the TV. And I kid you not, you know what the very first thing was that came up on that screen when that little television warmed up? The very first thing I saw was Jan Crouch and her big mop of pink hair, thrilling for money. Watch this from Rod Parsley. Rod Parsley, Pastor in Columbus, Ohio. Rod Parsley says that he wants you to sow a seed of $54.17. Well, why so specific? Why $54.17? Well, based off of Isaiah 54 verse 17, of course. Silly goose. There's a battle raging and it's raging right now. A fierce, all-out attack against you, against everything of great value in your life.  On this broadcast, you're about to discover how to receive for yourself his miraculous anointing of provision and protection. Stay right where you are. I'm Rod Parsley. And I'm going to take you at your word. I'm going to stand up in faith and I'm going to sow an Isaiah 54.17 seed of $54.17. Let's go to the phone. Do it right now. Go to the phone. Right now, this is a moment of faith that may never, ever, ever be repeated again. But God is saying that if you're hearing this word, take hold of it. Seize this moment. Claim this word right now as your own word and say, God, that's me. That's my family. That's my business. That's my ministry. That's my church. God, those are my children. That's my marriage. So I feel the adversary releasing his strangler holder. You going to your phone? $54.17. Are you going to your phone right now? Are you? Are you going to your phone? Are you going to your phone right now? Don't miss this special time of anointing. There's anointing right here for prosperity. There's an anointing right now. I feel it. There's an anointing right now for healing. Hurry up and go to your phone. You know why the prosperity preachers do that all the time? All the time. You know why? You know why they want you to hurry up and go to your phone?  You might not sow your seed. But let's be fair to Rod. Let's look at Isaiah 54.17. No weapon that is formed against you will prosper. Wow. Well, it does say that, doesn't it? In every tongue that accuses you in judgment, you will condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication is from me to clear as the Lord. Huh. It does say that. Well, a couple of points to be made here. Number one, there is nothing inspired about 54.17. The chapter divisions and the verse numbers are not inspired. Man put those in there just to help facilitate us looking things up in the Scriptures a little bit more easily. So there's nothing inspired about 54.17. The content is, but the chapter divisions and the verse numbers are not. So that's meaningless. That's meaningless. But what of this? No weapon that is formed against you will prosper. Well, it's kind of similar to what we were discussing about Jeremiah 29.11 and healing in the atonement. In fact, we see kind of both of those principles at work here. Was this written to us primarily? No. No, it was written to Israel. However, is there a general principle that can be gleaned? Yeah, because it does kind of have a universal qualification here in this verse. It says this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. Are we servants of the Lord? Yes. So does this apply to us? Yeah, actually it does. Just like healing in the atonement applies to us. Is it provided for in the atonement? Yes. Is it to be realized here? Not necessarily. Is this a promise for us? Yes. Is it promised to be realized here? No. It seems to me that the sword that was formed in the blacksmith shop that lopped off the head of the apostle Paul, that weapon certainly seemed to prosper, didn't it? It seemed like the nails that were fashioned to affix Christ to the cross, those weapons seemed to prosper. But in the eschaton, when God brings all things to their appointed end, it is true that no weapon that is formed against us or God will prosper. It's very cliche and I almost hate to say it, but we've read the back of the book and we win. God wins. So it is true that in the eschaton, in the grand scheme of things, no weapon that is formed against us will prosper. Is that promise to be realized here and now? No. No, it's not. By the way, verse 17 is the last verse of Isaiah chapter 54. Do you know what Isaiah chapter 55 verse 1 says? Now that would mean even more money for Rod. I mean a $55 one cent seed, that would be more money for him, right? That would be 84 cents more money per sower. So why didn't he ask for an Isaiah 55 verse 1 seed? Here's why. Ho, everyone who thirsts come to the waters.  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. That's why he doesn't want you to sow an Isaiah 55 verse 1 seed because it totally obliterates everything he was just saying. You think Rod Parsley hasn't read Isaiah 55 verse 1? Oh, he's read it. He's a charlatan. He is a snake oil salesman. My apologies to snake oil salesman. If you have your bibles, look at Luke chapter 21. Luke chapter 21. This is the account of the widow, the widow's might we often refer to it. And I don't know about you, but this account, this story has never made sense to me. There's just something about it that's just never made sense. Let's look at Luke 21 verse 1. And he, Jesus, looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow putting into copper coins. So he said truly I say to you that this poor widow is put in more than all of them for all of these out of their abundance have put in their offerings. But she out of her poverty put in all that she had to live on. And that's it. Now the way we have most often heard this text preached is that the widow should be our model in giving. We should give like the widow gave. Well, let's keep in mind, dear ones, that the widow didn't give some. She didn't give most. She gave everything she had and went home completely destitute. Raise your hand if you've done this. Has anybody here ever given everything they've got to the church? No? I can't raise my hand either. So you know what, if the widow is our model in giving, you know what, we've all blown it. I don't know anybody who's ever done this. And think about this too. This was a widow. This was a widow who had no means of support. And so in all likelihood after she gave everything and went home completely destitute, in all likelihood the Bible doesn't say this but it's just an educated guess. In all likelihood, not long after this, she probably died. Well, we're told that the widow gave so selflessly. Does the Bible say this? No? Or she gave out of the abundance of her heart. Does the Bible say that? No. Jesus doesn't make a comment one way or the other about her motivation for giving. He just makes an observation. She gave everything. He doesn't commend her. He doesn't say this was a good thing that she did. He just makes an observation. Do you think Jesus expects little old widows to give everything they have nowadays to the church? Is that what God wants widows to do? Uh-uh. The Bible actually has a great deal to say about how we are to care for the poor and the orphans and the widows. Jesus doesn't commend her. He doesn't say this was a good thing. Now, for context, to what was she giving? Was she giving to Cornerstone Baptist Church of Jerusalem? No. This was Wednesday of the Passion Week. This was two days before Jesus went to the cross. You know what she was giving to? She was giving to the temple. She was giving to the same religious system that in two days was going to nail Jesus to a tree. That's what she was giving to. And she gave everything she had. She gave everything she had to a religious system that was corrupt from top to bottom. That's what she was giving to. I don't think this pleased Jesus at all. I think it angered him. This widow was being told that if you want the favor of God, give your money. Look up a few verses for context. Remember the chapter divisions aren't inspired here. Look at verse 45 in chapter 20. Then in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples, who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, the best places at the feast, and look at verse 47. Who do what? Who devour widow's homes. And for a pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. And what's the very next thing that Jesus sees? He sees a poor widow giving everything she had. You see how important context is? The same thing that was going on 2,000 years ago in corrupt religion is going on today in corrupt religion. You want the blessing of God? You want healing?  You want to restore your marriage? You want to get out of debt? So accede. Give me some money so I can fly around in my private jets and you know where these prosperity preachers get a lot of their money from? From little old ladies, little old widows who are sitting at home or sitting in their nursing home and tragically the only church they have is this filth that they see on Christian television.  Watch this video clip from Mike Murdock Mike Murdock in light of what we just saw. There is a widow who is watching a day star watching us right now and you're sitting there and your thoughts are now I wish I was young again and I wish I had a business but I'm on a fixed income and I don't know where I would get the $58 that's what makes it faith that's what makes it faith. Same thing that was going on 2,000 years ago is going on today. There's nothing new under the sun. According to the prosperity preachers if you receive your healing you must have a right heart. Your heart must be right with God. This is what Benny Hinn told a miracle crusade audience in which I was in attendance it's the first Benny Hinn crusade I went to actually. He said this you cannot receive healing unless your heart is right with God. Healing is easily attained when your walk with God is right. So stop and think just for a moment put yourself in the shoes of someone who is there and they are sick they are in a wheelchair they have cancer they have a sick child and when the show is over they leave with the same cancer in the same wheelchair with the same sick child now not only do they have their illness with which to deal now they also have to worry about their own spiritual deficiencies that there's something wrong with their walk with the Lord because they are sick simply because they are sick now I do want to offer a little caveat here if a person is at a Benny Hinn crusade in hopes of being healed that is an indication that something is wrong that is an indication that something is wrong they are either a very immature Christian or they may not be genuinely converted but the point of the matter is this is that being sick in and of itself is not a reason to doubt your walk with the Lord being sick in and of itself is no indication that there is something wrong with your walk with the Lord watch this from John Hague that's what that means let me tell you sickness comes from the devil when you walk into a hospital room and your friend is there a member of your family is there you have the power to say in the name of Jesus I repute that disease and the God of heaven will heal that disease when you are right with God in heaven so John Hague says that as a Christian you have the authority to walk into a hospital room and if your friend is there your family member is there you have the authority to command that sickness to leave and as long as you are right with God in heaven that sickness must leave so if the sickness doesn't leave then you are not right with God in heaven alright? well this was aired in March of 2010 you know where John Hague was about a year and a half before this in October of 2008 you know where John Hague was he was flat on his back on an operating table with his chest cracked open having quadruple bypass surgery why didn't he just command his arteries to clear up would have saved him an awful lot of time and heartache pardon the pun was he not right with God? why didn't it work for him? I take no joy that John Hague had to have quadruple bypass surgery take no joy in that but I do find it interesting that what the faith preachers preach doesn't seem to work for them and if what the faith preachers preach doesn't work for them that ought to be a clue to them there just might be something wrong with what they are preaching why are they sick? W. Kenyon, grandfather of this movement died from a tumor Kenneth Hagen died from heart disease or Roberts died from heart disease Fred Price's wife treated for cancer, Jen Crouch treated for cancer, Nora Lamb the faith healer that I went to see when I was a teenager had a massive stroke in 2003 died early the next year friends the faith healers get sick just like us common folk do and if what they preach doesn't work for them it ought to be a clue to them just might be something wrong with what they are preaching this is an interesting photograph I came across Jesse Duplantis, Benny Hinn and John Hague now look at the man in the middle Benny Hinn what's he got on his face? oh, eyeglasses Mr. Miracle himself has to wear eyeglasses friends never trust a faith healer who wears eyeglasses they teach that it's always God's will to be healed because we've been completely delivered from all of the effects of the curse of the fall next time somebody tells you that ask them this question okay have you stopped aging because the reason we age is the same reason we get sick it's part of living in a fallen world the reason we cannot physically do at age 80 what we could do at age 20 is because of the fall it's part of the curse of the fall so next time somebody tells you it's always God's will to be healed because we've been completely delivered from all that ask them okay have you stopped aging pull out a picture of yourself from 10 years ago let's take a look and until they stop aging they've got nothing to say to us well if you're not healed it's probably just because you just don't have enough faith watch this from Benny Hinn and hear this well the reason people lose their healing is because they begin questioning if God really did it we'll receive it by faith we keep it by faith say by faith kind and touched is gone now before she touched verse 28 says before she said before she said before she said before she said say that with me in other words she knew she knew that she knew that she knew she's gonna get a mirror first key she heard second key she came third key she knew when you know you're on the way but if you sit there and say I'm not sure you just lost it what does laying your hands on a human have to do with healing? really nothing we touch people all the time what he's looking for is permission the power to heal is always present but having permission to heal is held up by humanity and their lack of faith having permission to heal is held up by humanity and their lack of faith is faith required for us to receive healing from God well dear ones let me put it this way if you are here this morning and you know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord don't let anybody tell you that you don't have enough faith to be healed if you've been granted the faith to be saved you've certainly got enough faith to be healed because being saved faith is by far the greatest miracle if God were to heal me right now of my CP and he could dear ones that would pay all in comparison to what God did for me when he saved me from my sins when he saved me from his own righteous wrath when he caused me to be made alive in Christ that is the greatest miracle of all don't let anybody tell you you don't have enough faith to be healed I want to close with the Gospel just want to close with the Gospel has there been a time in your life when you have been convicted by God's Holy Spirit that you're a sinner that you have broken the laws of God and just like when we break laws here on earth there is a penalty to be paid how much more so when we break the laws of the eternal God but unlike on earth if we break a law the penalty is temporal when we break the laws of the eternal God the penalty for that is also eternal his character and his nature demands it his righteousness demands it and if we die and if we die in our sins then we will all very rightly and very justly go to a very real place that the Bible calls hell and it will never end and dear ones let's not soft pedal hell you know I've heard preachers say so often that if you die in your sins if you die without Christ you will go into a Christless eternity entirely accurate do you know what the worst thing about hell is? God because he's there Revelation 14 verse 9 those who are in the lake of fire are tormented day and night in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb the most terrifying thing about hell is God because he's there in his mode of judgment people in hell are separated from God relationally there's no fellowship there's no love there's no love exchanged but judicially they are in the presence of God and God's wrath will be poured out for all of eternity let's not soft pedal hell that's the bad news but there is good news and the good news of the gospel is this is that God loves you God loves you and he is made a way of escape he sent his son Jesus Christ to this earth and Jesus lived a perfect life sinless never broke any of the laws of God and Jesus willingly laid down his life on the cross his life was not taken he gave it and Jesus bore the wrath of God so that you and I would not have to and on the third day bodily raised from the dead and he proved himself to be who he said he was God in human flesh and the only way to have the wrath of God removed is to repent of sins turn from sins and place your trust in the risen Lord Jesus Christ there is salvation in no one else and then some people have a question well how do I repent I got an email just late last night somebody does not they emailed me and they said how do I repent they've tried and then tried but they just can never seem to repent dear ones we can't you cannot repent on your own and I think what a lot of people try to do is they try to repent in the flesh they try to just it's a glorified New Year's resolution you may give it a good go for a while but it never lasts why because genuine repentance is in and of itself granted by God God grants repentance 2 Timothy 2 24 and 25 Acts chapter 5 verses 30 and 31 Acts chapter 11 verse 17 God grants repentance we can't He gives it and so if you're not sure of where you are with Christ I would encourage you examine yourself to see if you're in the faith do you have a godly sorrow over your sin has there been a change in your life do you have a love for the Lord do you have a love for His Word do you have a love for the brethren and if you're not certain get real honest before God and cry out to Him genuine repentance in faith in Christ there is salvation in no one else let's close in a word of prayer our Father we do we thank you for your gospel we thank you for making a way for us to be reconciled to yourself I pray Lord that as your gospel has been presented this morning we pray that your Holy Spirit would do his work would convict even now the truth of your glorious gospel we pray that your Holy Spirit would do his work Lord we thank you for the salvation and you have offered to us Father I pray in this time of equipping the last few days that we would be better equipped to speak your truth to people to speak that truth in love to be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us and that we would live lives of obedience to the commands of Christ live our lives in such a way that honor Him and glorify Him and point others to you and these things we do ask in His name Amen Amen