Daily Tech News Show is made possible by its listeners, thanks to all of you, including Jeffrey Zilx, Tony Glass, and Philip Less. Coming up on DTNS, why Sheryl Sandberg really left Metta, and who is replacing her, plus is Amazon inviting you to try to buy a game console in a good way, and how export rules are affecting Russian tech? This is the Daily Tech News for Thursday, June 2nd, 2022, at Los Angeles on time. And from Studio Redmond, I'm Sarah Lane. And deep in the heart of Texas, I'm Justin Robert Young. And on the show's producer, Roger Chang. Oh, my friends, we have so much to get to. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Amazon will stop supplying Kindle e-readers to retailers in China starting next year. The Kindle China e-book store will stop sales on June 30th, 2023, with the Kindle app removed in China in 2024. Amazon says this was part of an adjustment of its strategic focus, not a result of government pressure, and that its other businesses in China will continue. ExpressVPN announced its pulling servers out of India, saying it cannot comply with recent regulatory changes that require VPN providers to record personally identifiable user information and store it for five years. ExpressVPN says it designs its servers to run in RAM specifically so that they cannot log information. The company will still offer virtual Indian servers that will be physically located in Singapore and the UK. ExpressVPN does this for more than 40 countries. In those cases, the IP address is for the country that you want to connect to, such as India, but the server itself is located in a different country such as Singapore. Valve delayed the launch of its Steam Deck display dock, citing supply shortages and COVID-related work stoppages. The company said it's working on improving the situation but gave no real estimate on when it might ship, though it did clarify that the dock delay will not impact Steam Deck console production. Visa and SafariCom have launched the M-Pesa Global Pay Visa Virtual Card that lets users of M-Pesa make digital payments globally. If you don't know M-Pesa, you have not been following my shows because I am one of the people who tries to remind people that M-Pesa has been around since 2007. It was the first widely used mobile payment system. Kenya was in front of all of us on this. It lets users of feature phones even. Mostly people have smartphones now, but back then feature phones make cash deposits at participating merchants and then pay by phone at now nearly 400,000 merchants. 51 million people use M-Pesa, by the way it's spelled M-P-E-S-A. 30 million of those 50 million are in Kenya itself. The new virtual card will let M-Pesa users make payments worldwide. SafariCom also has payment partnerships with PayPal, Aliexpress and Western Union. Google disabled RCS ads that's rich communication services ads in India saying that some businesses are abusing our anti-spam policies. RCS's business messaging feature allows verified businesses to send messages with interactive features and images. Users in India reported a recent deluge of RCS spam ads, pushing things like credit cards and gambling apps. All right, let's try to get a game console, shall we? If we go to Amazon, there's a new way to try. Indeed there is. Amazon has devised the way to buy game consoles because it's so hard to do it otherwise that are in short supply all over the world. In the US for the PS5 and the Xbox Series X that are fulfilled by Amazon, you can now sign up for an invitation to buy them.   When consoles come in, stock invitations will be sent out and you'll have 72 hours to make your purchase. You might say, cool, sounds great. Then I just get one, right? Well, not everybody's going to get one because they're still in high demand. Amazon didn't clarify how it's exactly selecting which genuine accounts are actually getting those invites, only saying it won't be able to grant everyone's request. Amazon also said this should help reduce price gouging and allow genuine customers to purchase genuine products at genuine prices. Any customer with an account can request an invite. Again, not restricted to Amazon Prime users. It is available now for the PS5. In fact, I went ahead and gave myself a request and invite just to see if I get one and within the next few days for the Xbox Series X as well.  We're going to look at your purchase history. How long ago you created the account, et cetera. And we're going to try to make sure that genuine people get a chance to buy, not just the person with the fastest browser. I would like to know a few more details why they're not telling me it's first come first serve or within a certain time period, it's a random draw that you might get. Yeah, or like, or how long have you had an Amazon account? Or yeah, I have a suspicion why, Tom. Why is that? I suspect that the exact same data that allows them to profile you, so they are showing you relevant products and in the relevant order. So you are going to buy them is probably a lot of the same data that they are going to use to determine whether or not you genuinely want a PS5 or an Xbox Series X. And they might not want to share either for competitive purposes or to weird out the normies exactly how much data and what they are going to use for that. But I suspect Sarah, like you mentioned that the key here is identifying you as a genuine purchaser and not a reseller. And that's really to me where this either flies or dies, because if it's just another avenue for resellers to get more inventories so they can sell at higher prices, then this is not so good. If it is a way that you can say, Hey, look, well, this isn't the Christmas season anymore. If you're waiting on this for a birthday, then this might not be it. But if you genuinely want to buy this thing and you got the money and we believe based on our data in your browsing history that you are indeed somebody who uses this as your main account, then look, we'll put you in the lottery. And at a certain point, we will give you a fair and free transaction on this. If that's the case, that's an interesting. Yeah, that's an interesting because I wondered the same thing. It's like, I mean, I'm a very prolific Amazon user. By all the things from Amazon, is it a lot of gaming stuff? No, it isn't. I mean, certainly some hardware podcasting equipment, that sort of thing, but mostly no more household items. I wonder how much they will wait. That sort of thing of does Sarah actually seem like somebody who wants that? And considering they have not said this is first come first serve or this is a lottery that is determined like each bucket fills up over a two week period. And then we start doling them out. My suspicion is that they might indeed be doing exactly that. But all right, Sarah, you passed the test. You are indeed a genuine Amazon user. But have you ever bought Horizon Zero, Don? Have you ever bought another Sony? Have you ever bought the last of us? Because if you did, then maybe we would put you forward because we're positive we're going to sell to the Sarah like. Well, what if I'm getting into gaming for the first time? I deserve it as much as anybody else. Well, that's the problem is we don't know. So we don't know if that's what they're doing. And and yes, Amos point out in our Twitch chat that that not knowing helps keep people from gaming the system. But there are plenty of ways to let you know how the selection is made without letting people game the system. The best one is to say it is a random drawing. We are not considering anything but random numbers. We're not going to tell you the period in which we choose. You don't have to say anything. Just say it's random. We're not preferring anyone. And I'll feel good about that. I'll be like, OK, I like my chances. It does feel like Amazon's trying to make it sound like everyone should get one as long as inventories hold up. But we can't promise that. But but hopefully all legitimate people will get one. Even new people to gaming like you, Sarah. Yeah, but what if they're not? Yeah, but I want to sell units. So we're going to have people self identify and the people that based on our data are the most likely to buy within the shortest amount of time are the ones who are going to get it first. Yeah. I mean, if you sign up for an invite, you're probably likely to buy. So I don't think they're going to have any problems there. Are you going to buy?   That's like, I want to be invited. That's for sure. I mean, I probably will buy one just because I know it's hard. And I don't think Amazon's going to get stuck with a PS5 because too many Sarahs signed up and didn't buy them. Yeah, just to see. And we didn't mean it. No, it's it's it. Listen, the PS5, if I am granted it, will end up in my living room or someone else's. That's that's you'll resell it on eBay for more. Something like that.   All right. Just like Amazon, we can't grant every request someone makes. But earlier today, I asked on Twitter, what do you want to hear us talk about on DTNS and Matt Neuchat's asked nicely if we'd cover the story about Russian tech companies getting hit by sanctions. So Jerry, let's do that. You asked Matt. We answered response to export restrictions to Russia imposed by the EU, UK and the US in February, Intel, Samsung, TSMC and Qualcomm, along with other Taiwanese companies, have stopped selling chips, both to Russia and Belarus. So I want as a signatory to the Wassenar agreement in which 42 countries, by the way, including Russia and Belarus, are signed up in order to promote responsible trade in conventional arms and dual use technologies, dual use covers, electronics, computers, telecommunications, sensors, lasers and Mueller. This week, Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs published details on what is allowed and not allowed under that agreement. So Tom, what are these restrictions? These restrictions are harsh because they were set under the Wassenar agreement when Yeltsin signed it in the 90s. Companies may not sell chips to Russia or Belarus that are faster than 25 megahertz. Oh my God. With a performance, the performance can't pass five gigaflops. And Tom's hardware pointed out that the PlayStation 2 peaked at 6.2 gigaflops. There are other restrictions. You can't have more than 144 pins. No more than 2.5 megabyte per second. External data transfer rate. There's a couple others in there, too. But you get the idea. The rules also prevent selling the equipment that you use to make chips that would exceed these limits as well. The Financial Times, Anna Gross and Max Satan reported on how these restrictions are affecting Russian companies. Russia consumes less than 1% of the world's semiconductors, which limits the immediate impact of the restrictions. I bet you all those restrictions were blazing fast to Yeltsin when he was more potgazin at 11 o'clock in the morning. But conditions, by the way, are changing. However, companies have been pulling their apps from being hosted outside of Russia. This combined with Russian laws requiring local storage of citizens' data has caused a boom in demand for cloud services from Russian companies like Yandex, VK Cloud Solutions and CyberCloud. Those companies are requesting help from the government in finding the servers that they need to expand. But where are they going to get these chips? Yeah, this one's a Russian dill of a pickle. Russia's domestic chip companies rely on foreign foundries. So they have domestic companies, but MCST and Baikal, for example, used to get their chips produced at foundries in Taiwan and Europe. Both those companies and another one in Russia called JSC Micron were importing chips from SMIC in China, Intel in the U.S. and Infineon in Germany. MCST has announced it will produce its Elbrus chip at JSC Microns Russian foundries. However, there's a problem. Elbrus was produced on TSMC's 16 nanometer process. JSC Micron's most advanced node is 90 nanometers. So if you can't make the chips, which sounds like a stretch, you can't get companies to sell to you. Well, Justin, there's only one solution. Indeed. If you don't like the rules, make your own. Russian now allows its domestic companies to parallel import servers, cars, phones, and semiconductors without the consent of trademark or copy holders, copyright holders, meaning Russian companies can get items from unauthorized gray market sellers without violating Russian law. But no matter what market you're talking about, there still is that dang chip shortage. Those sources are not as plentiful as they were before the lockdowns and COVID, which is why 5G rollouts have halted as mobile companies buy whatever 4G equipment they can on the secondary market. Yeah. Russia is having a problem with 5G and chips in general that Sarah's having getting a PS5. You can go to the secondary market, and it might be a little shady, but you're going to pay a lot more, and they might not have them either. This parallel market thing is interesting. If you didn't quite catch it, most countries have laws put on the books that say you can't buy from unauthorized sellers if you're importing. So that's the gray market, where you buy a TV, but if you're not buying the Samsung TV from Samsung, you might not get a warranty, and it might actually be illegal for you to import it. Russia got rid of all those rules and said, yeah, get that Kazakhstan-y import-export business to buy one legitimately from the United States and then ship it to you, and we won't stand in the way anymore. Yeah. Look, I think that among the ripple effects that have happened since the war in Ukraine, the economic ones are probably going to be among the most non-war-related that will linger in the global market. And Russia is having to adjust for the fact that this is going on for a lot longer than people thought it was going to. Yeah. And I don't think anybody really knows what impact this is going to have. These kinds of things always have less significant impact than some people think. People find other ways to get around rules. They find other ways to get by without the stuff they can't get. People are ingenious in that way. And so it's hard to predict when there really will be an impact and what that will be. My guess is you're going to see a lot fewer new companies start because a lot of more energy is going to be going into procuring the things to keep existing stuff going than just starting something new. Yeah. Hey, folks, if you have a thought about this or anything else on the show, but you don't know our email address, let me fix that. It is feedback at dailytechnewshow.com. We'd love to hear from you. Please email us. On yesterday's show, we briefly noted that Metta C.O.O. Cheryl Sandberg posted on Facebook that after 14 years with the company, she will step down this autumn, although she will remain on Metta's board. She says she wants to focus on philanthropic work. So who's taken over her role? Metta's chief growth officer, Javier Olivan, will take over as C.O.O. in the autumn. He's been with the company for 15 years, assumed the C.G.O. title five months ago. Nobody held that before, by the way. So it was, you know, a new title for the company. However, Olivan's role won't be identical to Sandberg's. C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg said, quote, I don't plan to replace Cheryl's role in our existing structure, end quote. What does that mean? Well, Zuckerberg wants to integrate business and product, which are separate right now. Olivan will take over integrated ads and business products while continuing to run infrastructure, integrity, analytics, marketing, and corporate development, also growth. So who is Javier Olivan? Tom, I think he did a bit of a deep dive this morning. Yeah, I looked around, you know, I looked at more than his Wikipedia article, but here's the gist of it. Olivan is from Spain. He got a degree in electrical engineering, and then in 2007 went back to school at Stanford and got a business degree. He led the international expansion of Facebook from 2007 to 2011. Thanks to those efforts, 91% of its monthly users now come from outside the U.S. and Canada. That was not the case when he started on that project in 2007. Quite the opposite. In 2013, Olivan started working on internet.org. If you remember, that's Facebook's effort to bring free internet to developing countries and then got them to sign up for Facebook. That boost Facebook usage abroad quite a bit as well. And by 2015, it had connected 7 million users who were not previously online. He also led the push for Facebook to acquire WhatsApp in 2014. So he has been important within, but don't expect to get to know him. He has a much lower profile than Sheryl Sandberg. CNBC points out that Sandberg has 900,000 followers on Instagram. Olivan has 17, and his profile's private. You can't follow him even if you want to, unless he approves it.  So Sarah, who do we think might fill Sandberg's gap there? Yeah. Well, it remains to be seen, but it seems like Andrew Bosworth, who's commonly known as Bos, who's been at Facebook for some time, will take up at least some of the slack for the public-facing aspects of Sandberg's role. He was once Sandberg's partner in Facebook's ad business, now leads the metaverse-related efforts, whatever they may be, and Sandberg pointed out to The Verge that meta's president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, is also leading the effort to promote meta's safety efforts, especially regarding the metaverse. So it does seem that as much as Olivan is going to be a very key role here, it might be a role that a few other people who are already on the team can absorb some of. Yeah. Sandberg was ads on Facebook. Ads on Facebook is not the future of meta. Hence, they changed their name to meta. The future is whatever the metaverse ends up to being. So Bosworth seems like the heir apparent for the public-facing non-Mark Zuckerberg role. As far as Sheryl Sandberg, lots of exec companies, lots of execs leave companies and claim they want to pursue philanthropic efforts. Many of them do. Some of them don't. Some philanthropic efforts turn into political efforts because those were almost cross. Sandberg worked for the Secretary of the Treasury and the Clinton administration from 1996 to 2001. Do you get any sense she might enter the politics, politics, politics arena, Justin? I got a couple conspiracy theories for you. Why this could have happened if we are going to only look at it in a political lens. And let's understand that everything is almost certainly more complicated than that and everything that's gone on inside of Facebook is what goes on inside of Facebook. Although I will say that the future of Facebook is still ads on Facebook. It's just figuring out where the meta-owned property ads can go. They are still an advertising company, I think, through and through. That being said, I got a Sandberg left because they want to prepare for an uncertain political future conspiracy theory. And I have a Sandberg left because she wants to have a political career theory. Which one do you want first? I don't know. Sarah, you choose. The political career. All right. She is very plugged in in politics, Charles Sandberg is. Like you pointed out, she came from the Clinton tree before she went into tech. Tech and democratic politics have been very side-by-side over the last 10 years. She is an icon specifically with her Lean In book. If she wanted to step in to a very high-profile position in democratic politics, she might only have to look to the 88-year-old Diane Feinstein, who over the last few months, there's been a lot of little articles coming out that I've found to be a bit odd with unnamed sources that had to come from within the Democratic Party, insinuating in fairly blunt terms that she might not be all there mentally. One of them detailed Chuck Schumer trying to have a private conversation with her about stepping down only for him to reinstigate the same conversation two weeks later, and she didn't remember the first one. That's about as ugly as it gets when you're, when it's inside the tent, like it seems to be sourcing wise. So if she knows that at a certain point, sooner rather than later, there's going to be an opening there and whether or not she has to wait a few years to run in the, in a statewide election and kind of do a Meg Whitman sort of thing, or she is plugged in enough that she can get appointed to take over Diane Feinstein's senatorial role, that might be a reason why she would leave. Yeah. And even if you find it tasteless to speculate on Feinstein's health, at 88, she could step down for all kinds of reasons, right? For, forget about why. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that Senator Feinstein steps down, at which point, Sandberg might be excellent. And by the way, already won reelection two years ago, Chuck Grassley, who's also 88 from Iowa, is currently running for reelection. So nobody knows anything. I just found it odd. Yep. Yep. Those stories would be bubbling up when normally, especially age on any kind of political side, people close ranks because nobody wants to get pushed out. Yeah. And what about the other one? We've long thought that companies, Facebook is one of them, are going to face a rocky road ahead. The politically in terms of deregulation and other kinds of interactions from the federal government. If you are going through that and you are Mark Zuckerberg, do you want somebody who is as partisan defined as Sheryl Sandberg at as high of a level as she was? Now, this would probably have to double with some kind of internal conflict. But that would be, if I'm recklessly speculating, only through the political lens that maybe knowing that there might be a 230 fight coming. There might be a breakup Facebook fight coming. And both parties for various different reasons are upset with you for various different reasons. Do you want to have somebody like Sandberg as high in the company? At which point do you think Clegg is the one that takes up that mantle? I think somebody that does not have gigantic political donations on their record and help advocacy would be the very boring thing. But politically savvy, even if they don't have that. Yes, you need to know how to maneuver, but you need to know how to take a picture next to Ted Cruz the same way you take a picture next to Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, I don't get the sense that that's only Von in any way. They moved him into this position, as Sarah pointed out, five months. They created this position five months ago. This is a plan. They knew Sheryl had a plan to leave. They planned to put Oli von in a newly designed role suited to his strengths that leaves some of these other things that Sheryl did to other people. So it just remains to be seen. Who gets to pick up those things? Is it Nick Clegg? Is it Bosworth? Is it somebody else? And I'll be very curious to see if Senator, I mean, Sheryl Sandberg is just doing philanthropic works or something more. That sounds weird to me. Let me just say that like Sheryl Sandberg is such a name and has so much money that if she wanted to, she said that she was leaving because of the upcoming overturning of Roe versus Wade, and she wanted to be more philanthropically dialed in on that issue specifically. If she wanted to step out and start an advocacy organization that directly did that today, she could. She's got the money. She's got the money. That makes perfect sense. And you don't have to add anything on top of that for it to make sense. Yeah. No. Well, y'all, you might be familiar with the Orba $100 little synthesizer. It looks kind of like a hockey puck, also a looper, also a MIDI controller. Very cool. I have heard from some of my audiophile friends that it can be kind of hard to use, but if you're good at it, you are good at it. Now Orba's parent company, Artifone, has released the Orba 2, a very similar looking model with eight touch pads across the top, built-in speaker, synth engine, which was recently opened up for anybody to design their own patches. And now supports sample playback, so you can record your own samples using the Orba app on your phone and then turn that into a preset that it can be played. You want to go to a barbecue and impress all your friends, yada, yada. Orba 2 can also handle a 128 bar loop. That's up from eight bars for the original. I've got five minutes of music total. This is all for a new price of $150. Oh, that's not bad. Actually, yeah, that's a fun little thing. I know we got some sound junkies out there who are going to pick one of these up. Let us know. Send us your compositions. I want to hear these. Indeed. All right, let's check out the mailbag. So we got a good one from Vince. Vince wrote in, listen to our conversation about Tweetdex Mac OS app being retired from Twitter. We talked about it yesterday. It was Scott Johnson. Vince noted, it was mentioned that other companies, such as Discord, aren't retiring their native apps. Vince says, a key factor I didn't hear brought up, and I think might be of interest, is that companies like Discord have been adopting hybrid frameworks over the last few years, which allow our right once run anywhere experience. These apps are entirely written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, so code and skills are more transferable within web development organizations. Examples are Electron. That's what Twitch and VS Code use. And React Native, Facebook Messenger, and Discord use that. Yeah, I don't know that they would have had to retire the Mac OS app in order to do this, but it was what I was circling around yesterday, which was the Mac OS app is just the website in Mac OS in a native app. And what Vince is pointing out is like, they really could have it just be the same exact code. And if they're wanting to rebuild Tweetdex on the web quite a bit, it would be easier to just focus on the web, create that, then turn that into either an Electron or a React or something like that without having to maintain the Mac OS app. That said, they definitely made a lot of enemies. I saw people I respect out there very upset that this is going away, and whether they ever bring it back or not, I have no idea. But it would be easy enough to do that if they are rebuilding the web Tweetdex with an eye towards what Discord and Twitch do. So hopefully they do that. Well, thank you, Vince, for writing in. Reminder, feedback at dailytechnewshow.com is where to send. Any email you got a question, you got a comment, you have an idea for a future show, do send it our way. We love your feedback. We also love having Justin Robert Young on the show. Justin, what's been going on in your world? I got a brand new podcast, and it's called We're Not Wrong. You can go ahead and get it wherever that you find your podcast. If you don't see it there, then please hit me up directly on Twitter at Justin Our Young. I will make sure that I submit it to every possible directory that we need to. So it is there for you. It is a panel show that discusses politics and more featuring myself, Justin Robert Young, with the Politics, Politics, Politics show, Jen Briney of Congressional Dish, and Tom Merritt, eventually will guess Andrew Heaton of the political orphanage. But surprise, Tom. Yeah, Andrew Heaton. Or as I call him, Tom Merritt dressed well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Tom Merritt with an ascot. Andrew Heaton also is on there, but we had a great episode. It was really, really funny. I had a great time doing it. I really think the show's gelling, and I think people would really like it. Yeah, and I like the new segment, You're Not Wrong, where you actually bring in the audience. It's pretty cool. We do, yeah. Well, thanks, Justin, for being on this show as always. We also want to extend a special thanks to Seth Cordes, who's one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS. Thank you, Seth, for all the years of support.  Yeah, you could be the next Seth starting today. Just back at patreon.com.dts. Indeed. Reminder, there's a longer version of the show called Good Day Internet. It's lots of fun. It's available at patreon.com.dts. We roll right into it after we finish here. But just a reminder, we're live on DTNS Monday through Friday, 4 p.m. Eastern, 20 hundred UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We are back tomorrow with Len Peralta and Patrick Norton. Patrick's going to be talking about moving your TVs and other electronics without breaking them. Talk to you soon. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. The Diamond Club hopes you have enjoyed this program.


Hello, this is Fran Olson, crop economist and marketing specialist with NDSU Extension. This is the weekly soybean update for the week of January 28th through February 3rd. This week we're going to focus on a brief update on the status of the current trade negotiations between the United States and China. Senior-level U.S. and Chinese trade officials have just completed two days of face-to-face negotiations in Washington, DC. They met on January 30th and 31st. The initial reports that are coming out of these negotiations were very positive. It sounds like there was some progress made. As part of these trade talks, China has announced that they will purchase an additional 5 million metric tons or approximately 184 million bushels of U.S. soybeans. These purchases will likely take place over time and won't be a single purchase of 5 million metric tons, but the fact that the Chinese are continuing to buy U.S. product as agricultural products as they negotiate these terms is a very positive sign. The other thing that was kind of a major announcement coming out of this was that U.S. negotiating team was invited to visit Beijing in mid-February. Now, again, this would continue the face-to-face negotiations. I do want to make sure that everybody understands negotiations are going on almost continuously via conference call or web conferencing, so there are talks going on on a regular basis, but the face-to-face negotiations are the ones that seem to make the most progress and those are the ones where commitments are made. Now, there was a rumor, and I want to emphasize a rumor, that President Trump and President Xi of China would also attend a face-to-face meeting later on in February to try and seal this comprehensive deal. It's always difficult to try and sift through and interpret the information that comes out after a major trade negotiations session like we just completed in Washington, D.C. What I try and do is focus in on the comments that are made by kind of the key leaders in these negotiation process, and one of those is U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer. Now, Mr. Lighthizer is really the chief negotiator, the head person, for negotiating the terms of any kind of deal between the U.S. and China. His comments in the press release afterwards said that there was substantial progress made on intellectual property and forced technology transfer issues, and again, these are really the two very big picture issues that are central to the negotiations. Agriculture is important, obviously it's important to us in production agriculture, but these are the really two areas that we have the greatest disagreement and have the most challenges. Now, when asked about the opportunity for an actual deal to be completed by the March 1 deadline, Mr. Lighthizer said at this point it's impossible for me to predict success, but we're in a place where if things work out, it could happen. So again, ending on kind of a positive tone. During the press conference, Mr. Lighthizer was asked some additional follow-up questions regarding the specific objectives for the U.S. trade negotiating team during this last round of talks, and especially as it related to this intellectual property rights as well as forced technology transfer. And his comment was really in three areas. They want to be more specific to make sure that both parties understand what is expected in the terms, second is to be all-encompassing that includes a broad range of products and goods and services, and that it also be enforceable, and of course enforcement becomes a major issue. Now what are some of the mechanisms that could be used as part of this enforcement? One of them that was discussed, and I want to emphasize may be included would be some kind of snapback provisions where U.S. tariffs would automatically be re-initiated if the Chinese did not follow through on their commitments. Another point of discussion was well with the U.S. and Chinese tariffs, which are currently in place, be part of this discussion and know those tariffs that are currently in place will stay in place. Now let's try and transition into what are the implications for U.S. soybean prices as a result of the information we gained from these last trade discussions. This slide provides a brief summary of the purchases of U.S. soybeans by the Chinese since the beginning of the marketing year on September 1. The purchases that are listed for December, those four purchases are actual numbers that have been reported into the U.S. D.E. reporting system and are actual verifiable numbers. The sale on January 7 was a trade rumor. We don't have the exact numbers yet because the export sales reports were halted due to the government shutdown. These are the trade estimates that came in on the amount of purchases. So if we add all those up, the total purchases of U.S. soybeans by the Chinese is somewhere between 3.7 million metric ton. Now just as a reference point between September 1 and January 11 of last year, the Chinese had purchased approximately 21 million metric ton. So they are behind the curve in their normal purchasing patterns because of the tariffs. Again, there was an announcement they were going to purchase an additional 5 million metric ton over the next several weeks to be able to increase that amount. But again, the total values are well below what we would see this time last year. So how have world soybean prices responded to these trade negotiations? This is a graph of soybean prices received at a port. So it would be the inbound soybeans, not the price of the soybeans loaded onto a vessel. But it would be the price for soybeans delivered to a port facility. The red line is the U.S. PNW, so that's the 8 elevator locations in the Pacific Northwest. The green line is the U.S. Gulf, so that would be in the Gulf of Mexico. The blue line is the Brazilian port, Potanagua. And the black line is the Argentina river ports. And as you can see historically, if you're kind of under normal market conditions, looking back in January of 2018, those prices tend to be clustered very closely together. And then as we move through time, as we move into the summer months and into the harvest, you see this big discrepancy or difference between the prices in the United States and the prices in South America. And of course that's because of the tariffs and shifting trade patterns. But you see also see now recently as the negotiations have become more fluid between the United States and China that the world prices for soybeans have started to narrow up and being again very clustered together. So based on today's prices, the U.S. soybean prices as well as those prices for South American soybeans at the export terminals are very, very similar. We've also seen some adjustments in the basis levels for soybeans at different points within the United States. This figure shows the basis levels at specific elevators that I used to kind of represent a region or a state. The red line is North Dakota, the brown line is South Dakota, the black line is Minnesota, the blue line is Iowa, the purple line is Nebraska, the green line is Illinois, and that dark blue line on the very top is the Louisiana Gulf. So again you can see that these basis patterns tend to go up and down together. In the North Dakota region we have this very deep drop in basis or very negative basis as we moved into the harvest months. We've seen some recovery now as the trade flows have begun to open up in the Pacific Northwest and as the local elevators are able to work through this backlog of soybeans that were delivered at harvest. So the elevators that I have talked to are starting now to get cleaned out of the soybeans. They have some additional room and some additional capacity to handle more soybeans when necessary so you start to see that basis levels start to improve. So one of the common questions that I get from farmers is what will happen if China does come in and start buying large quantities of U.S. soybeans? Do we have the capacity to be able to handle that? And what's going to happen to local basis levels? Well, there's obviously a lot of pieces to that. One is how quickly and what quantities do the Chinese come in and purchase? If they do, is it going to be in large chunks or is it going to be smaller amounts over time? The second is what's the capacity at the local elevator level to be able to handle more soybeans? What's the capacity of the rail system to be able to handle that? And then finally what's the capacity constraints out in the Pacific Northwest on the export terminals? Well, to answer that last question, the USDA grain transportation report provides weekly updates on the movement of grain in the United States, not only by rail but also by barge. And they track the volumes of grain shipped to different port locations. This is one of the figures that's reported every week. I want you to focus in on that dotted green line on the very top. That represents the rail deliveries of grain to the Pacific Northwest elevators. And again, it's weekly information so we go back into 2016. As you can see, there's quite a bit of variability and there is some seasonal patterns that we start to pick up. I want you to really focus in on the information on the far right hand side. If you notice the grain shipments, again this is by rail to the P&W ports, we have been relatively high not only through last winter but then also through the summer months. But now as we get into the winter months, it's started to drop off. Two-fold reason for that, obviously we don't have the soybean shipments out to the P&W that we normally see at this time of year. But also the corn shipments from the northern plains into the P&W ports have also been slowing. Now as I talked to local elevators, what they're saying is that the rail transportation system has been very fluid. The turnaround times have been very high levels so we do not have any major constraints. Now the cold weather we've had the last few days may have slowed that up a little bit. But the grain movement right now and the logistics system that we have has some additional capacity to be able to handle larger volumes of grain as we move forward in time. So my suspicion is, my expectation is that as we move forward, if there are additional purchases of US soybeans by China, that the basis levels will start to respond. We've now worked our way through this backlog of grain and we're becoming much more fluid and so local basis levels should be more responsive to the needs of the marketplace, which again should be positive for US farmers and in particular farmers in this area. So this completes this week's update. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need some additional information. Thank you for listening.


So, today we're going to look at G-Log, and G-Log is a fairly useful log viewer. Its main intention is to view logs, but it's also really useful for looking at big files and searching big files. Another useful aspect of G-Log is that when you update a file in G-Log, well, not in G-Log, but if a file is updated somewhere on your hard drive, it's going to update the file in G-Log itself, so I'll show you that as an example later. So right now, to actually demonstrate the features of G-Log, I made this data file. This data file is about 600 megabytes, and what I put in here is the complete works of Shakespeare duplicated about, I think, 100 times or so. Okay, so let's actually take this, put it in here, and the first thing you have to observe is that it loaded this file in just a couple of seconds. I didn't even blink, and I saw that the whole file got loaded. Now, here's the thing that you have to keep in mind. If you open this file using a notepad or a mousepad, what's going to happen is it's going to take a couple of seconds to load, so I open this with mousepad. It's probably going to take me 10 or 15 seconds to load this file, and it doesn't even load the whole file. What it does is it loads a chunk of it, so for example, it may look here that mousepad opened this entire file, but it didn't if I scroll all the way down. As you can see, it's loading more lines as it's going down, see? Okay, anyways, getting back to G-Log. So G-Log is fairly simple. It's really straightforward. All it is is basically this window here, the display. It has this search line here, and it has this output box down here, and this is how you would actually use G-Log. You're going to type something into the search box, so you're going to type something like Spear, hit Enter, and you are, as you can see, it's searching for all of the occurrences of Spear down here. And now that it's finished, we can scroll down and see, well, okay, so we're getting all of these references to Spear, okay? And here's what you can do down here. You can click on any of these lines, and when you click on these lines, it's going to go up here. It's going to show you where that line is in the actual file. So if you want to know where that line is, you're just going to click here or click here, and you're going to get taken up here to that line. Another thing that you can do is you can kind of bookmark these lines. So if you want to keep a line for reference for later, you can just click beside this red circle, just click here, and it's going to turn into a blue arrow. When it turns into a blue arrow, that means that the next time you search for something, it's going to save that as a mark.  So let's look for something else. Let's look for the word hand. You have to really appreciate how quickly it's searching this entire file. OK, so go back to matches, and now all of these are results for the lines which have the word hand in them. OK, let's see. So yeah, I think this is pretty self-explanatory. You just click whatever you want to save. I guess I'm going to go back to match something. OK, so I'm just going to save whatever I want. I'm going to go back in here. I'm going to search for a table, maybe. And you just keep repeating the process. Now, here's something that people who know regular expressions could appreciate. You're able to use, actually you're encouraged to use, regular expressions in this search line. So if you wanted to, you could use a character set like this. So you can say 029, and it's going to return to you all of the matches which are from 0 to 9. And I find that to be extremely useful because not every text editor or file viewer has regular expressions built into it. OK, so let's see. Yeah, so all of these lines now have a character which are either like 0 to 9 in that range. And finally, I think this is what makes a geologue really useful. With a geologue, if this file ever changes out here, it's going to, well, no, if it doesn't change it here, I mean, if it ever changes on my hard drive, it's going to display the results in here. So if this file gets something added to it on my hard drive, it will automatically display that change in this viewer, which is why it's really useful for viewing log files. And to do that, I'm going to demonstrate it using this command. So OK, I am going to echo an empty string into this data file, which will effectively remove everything in here. OK, perfect. So now, as soon as I execute that command, geologue cleared everything because it said, well, there's nothing in here, so I'm just going to delete everything. And I am going to type geologue is awesome. And as soon as I execute that command, it added that. So if I want to do that continuously, I can just keep typing this in and think about it. If you have a log file that's constantly spinning out logs and you want to keep track of them, you can simply open that file in geologue and it's going to keep updating that as the file updates. So you get real-time updates without having to make a script or use a tail or head. I'm not sure which one people use. But yeah, so yeah, it's really useful for stuff like this. And I hope that you like this video. And if you like this, please like and subscribe. And I'll see you later.


Luke chapter six, Luke chapter six, let's begin reading together here in Luke chapter six at verse 39. I'll read verses 39 through verse 45, and we'll get into our study. Luke chapter six, beginning at verse 39, reading to verse 45, Luke writes, and he spoke a parable to them. Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye?  First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit, for every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Now as we begin here at verse 39, now I want you to note with me that he says, Luke says that he spoke a parable to them. And the word parable is something I wanna speak to you about for just a moment because that's what he's given actually, is a parable, they're receiving a parable. The parable, or the word parable is a story. It's a story in which nature and history of God's kingdom is figuratively portrayed. It's been said that a parable is an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. The word literally means to place one thing beside another for comparison. And what he's doing is he's giving them a parable. Now God revealed truth to us by his creation and he uses it to illustrate spiritual insight. In other words, God will use that which is familiar to communicate to us that which is unfamiliar. God will use stories that take place on earth so that we can connect with those things, but those stories are intended to communicate to us something that we're really not familiar with yet and that's things about heaven. And so God can use nature to communicate his ways to man as Jesus does so when he uses parables. In Psalm 19 verse one, the Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God. The firmament shows his handiwork. And so you can actually use the creation of God to illustrate something heavenly and that's what Jesus Christ is doing. It points to God because every house is built by some man but he who built all things is God. And so you can use the parable, you can use an earthly story to illustrate heavenly things because we connect with earth and can understand something about heaven by doing so. So Jesus uses parables in his teaching in order that he might share insights into the kingdom of God. There are purposes in the parables and one thing about a parable is it's intended to both conceal as well as reveal. A parable is intended to conceal as well as reveal. Now how do we know that? Well in Matthew chapter 13 verses 10 through 13, Jesus says this. Matthew tells us the disciples came and said to him, why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them, because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but to them it has not been given. For whoever has to him more will be given and he will have abundance. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear nor do they understand. In other words, a lazy listener is not gonna exert any energy or anything that is necessary to understand what Jesus says. And so to them it's gonna be concealed because they don't really care. If it's not plain to them they're not interested. That's why Proverbs 25 2 says it is the glory of God to conceal a matter but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. And so bottom line is the same message that Jesus Christ gives for the person who is hungry, that message will draw them to be satisfied in him. But the person who's not interested in the Lord and things of God, they're too lazy to think about it. They're not really interested in thus heaven's glory is hidden from them. Interestingly enough about a third of Jesus's recorded teachings came through parables. They're called mirrors and windows because we can see ourselves in them and they help us to see life through them. And they reveal truth concerning his kingdom. They illustrate doctrine and develop our understanding of spiritual things. This particular parable that we see here verse 39 is intended to condemn religious hypocrisy and it's to illustrate its eternal effect on people. This parable actually is referring to a religious group during the time of Christ called the Pharisees. You can see in Matthew chapter 15 verses 12 through 14 how his disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? But he answered and said, every plant which my heavenly father is not planted will be uprooted, let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind and if the blind leads the blind both will fall into a ditch. And so Jesus's words offended the Pharisees and the Pharisees were jealous. They were jealous for their place and their position in the nation of Israel, small in number, powerful in influence, they did not like losing their following. And so Jesus gives a warning and is actually speaking concerning them when he speaks here in verse 39 and is also speaking concerning just simple religious hypocrisy. These Pharisees were called the blind leaders with blind followers. And unfortunately because they were living as hypocrites, hypocrites generally will lead others but they lead them to a fall.  In this parable Jesus is illustrating that spiritually blind people, the Pharisees, lead other people astray. And so if a blind man leads another blind man neither one of them will see the pit that's in front of them. So physically this is a picture of two men walking in a field and both falling into a hole that was dug and filled with water, a hole that was used to provide water for animals.   And so Jesus is speaking here and saying the blind if they lead the blind will lead them straight into destruction. Pharisees, you are religious hypocrites. As religious hypocrites you don't see the truth. Because you have a hunger and a desire for power and position and prestige in this nation you're not willing to hear the things that God has spoken through me Jesus would be saying. And because of that I have to warn people about you because as if they're walking out there in a field and as they're walking in the field and they're blind, a blind man being led by another blind man as they're walking to the field and they're blind they both walk into the pit that they can't find. You have the one person who is supposedly the leader who is blind but he's leading the other man who is blind and so two blind men cannot see what's right in front of them. They're stumbling physically but spiritually and eternally they're gonna be lost and therefore beware of the hypocrisy, beware of false teachers and that's where Jesus is speaking about. When he goes on to verse 40 he says a disciple is not above his teacher but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher. So a disciple, a disciple's a learner. A disciple is somebody who's voluntarily submitted to the instruction of a mentor or a teacher. And what the disciple desires is his teacher's wisdom as well as his teacher's character. So a true disciple's great desire is to become like his instructor. And so Jesus would teach us that if you want to be great in the kingdom of God then you use him as the example and Jesus various times would point himself out in that way. John 13, 15, Jesus says there I've given you an example that you should do as I have done to you and so if you wanna be great, if you wanna be somebody who's used by God you use the example of Jesus Christ. John told us in 1st John 2, 6 he who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked and so we use Jesus Christ in the life that he lived as an example of what we would like to aspire to what we would like to be like.  In Matthew 11 Jesus said it this way in verse 29 he said take my yoke upon you and learn from me. I am gentle and lowly and hard and you will find rest for your souls. So a disciple is not above his teacher. You never outgrow your teacher. A disciple especially in areas of moral conduct and knowledge of the word of God simply has a great desire to be like his teacher. You know I have a teacher in my life that in many ways I have asked the Lord to help me to one day be like and that's my pastor Chuck, pastor Chuck Smith who's been in my life a tremendous influence. First time I ran across my own pastor when I was 20 years old and he was 43. He was 43 years old. He's about to celebrate his 80th birthday. So but the first time I ran across pastor Chuck he had some hair and I can still remember him when I was 20 and I remember looking at him like he was just that old man up there talking to us because he was 43 years old. He was the age of my father and I can remember as I would be seated there at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa back in 1970. I first encountered him in 1970 and sat under him as a Christian in January of 71. I can still remember as I went there to Calvary Chapel that small chapel there that they used to have before they had the tent and before they built the church that they now occupy. They used to have a small church that they occupied there and I can still remember going there and I can remember sitting there as a young man on the ground and listening to the Bible studies with hundreds of other kids who were 18, 19, 20, 21 years old and I can still remember looking up there and seeing this man speak to us and like I said I thought he was kind of an old guy and all but he sure knew a lot about God. Well, 37 years, almost 37 years later all those years of following the Lord and serving the Lord and teaching and all have only caused me in my own heart to say I would like to have that kind of ministry as I grow older. I spoke to him on one occasion and I said to him actually he had brought it up we were talking about retirement and this is when he was gonna turn 65. So it was 15 years ago and I remember talking to him one time and I said, so Chuck you're looking to retire and he said, well, yeah, I'm thinking about it and all because he had announced it at a pastors conference and we were speaking a little bit at breakfast and I said, so you're thinking of retiring and he goes, well, I'm considering it and so 10 years later or more I was talking to him and I said, Chuck you were supposed to retire about 10, 11 years ago. What happened? He says, well, you know, one of the things I've discovered that is that in ministry, the older you get as you serve the Lord the more you have to offer other people. He said, the world declares that you should retire at 65 but in ministry you're just starting. He said, and so no, the Lord has given me strength and desire and I wanna continue until he takes me home and I suspect that this is gonna be a man is gonna be an example of one who continues on in ministry and until one day, like Jerry Falwell recently will just hear that Pastor Chuck is not dead he's just gone home and I think that something like that may very well happen in him and so he's been a great example to me. I want to be a minister like that. I was talking just today to one of our staff guys, Mike Callahan and I said, you know, I'm not too far away from what people call retirement nine more years and I'm 65. You know, actually eight years, well nine years and one month or two, I'll be 65 years old. I said, but you know what? And I just, I couldn't see myself retiring. I said, I'm looking at Pastor Chuck as an example. I said, and I think that I'm probably gonna just continue on until nobody comes to church anymore to hear me. I'll have at least one person that'll be Marie. She has to, has to come but I know she won't give any offerings and so we'll have to stop, you know. But you know, when you think about it, a disciple's not above his teacher, he never outgrows the teacher if the teacher continues growing. He never outgrows him and so the best thing that a disciple could have in his heart or her heart is a desire to be like that mentor, that teacher, that one that they're attached to over a lifetime to learn the ways of God through and so Jesus is making it very clear there that we ought to live a life that is like his. Verses 41 and 42, continue. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, brother, let me remove the speck that is in your eye. When you yourself do not see the plank that is in your own eye, hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye. Now when he says speck and when he speaks of a plank that word speck is a Greek word that means a twig or a splinter and that word plank is a beam that was used to support the roof of a building. It's like I see something in you and so I walk up to you and I say excuse me, let me remove that problem from your life and I begin to reach over but I've got this two by four that's in my head and I'm slamming everybody around as I'm walking up to you. That's the picture that Jesus is giving here, slam, slam, slam. Let me get to you and bang, bang. I'm hitting you with mine and the funny thing about this is he's speaking about self-righteous judgment because self-righteous judgment when I think I'm better than you, well that self-righteous judgment ultimately boomerangs. I ultimately will pay a price. It comes back to me. There's an interesting scripture I memorized it many years ago. It's Romans chapter 14 verse four and the question is asked who are you to judge someone else's servant to his own mastery stands or falls and he will stand for the Lord is able to make him to stand. Who are you to judge another man's servant? Who are you?  You know the bottom line is is that God hasn't called us to be gospel gestopos running around trying to make sure everybody does exactly what we think they're supposed to do in order to be actually serving the Lord Jesus Christ. So in matters of just normal everyday affairs we do have a responsibility to concern ourselves for one another absolutely. I do have a responsibility to care about you. There's no doubt about that even when Cain was being spoken to by God concerning his brother he asks the question am I my brother's keeper? Well the answer to that question was absolutely. Of course you are. Yes you have the responsibility to care for your brother. What kind of question is that? Yes you do. Of course you do.  Now my brother has if he has some problems well the first thing I better do is look at my own soul. The first thing I had to do is look at my own heart. Who am I to bring a word of correction to you if I'm not doing right myself? You know when I was a young man and boy that was a while ago when I was a young man and we used to talk concerning not trusting anybody over the age of 30 and all and the establishment that we were in opposition to and this and that.  All of us at least one time in our life as believers have probably experienced it where somebody has brought a word to us of correction that perhaps wasn't done in the right spirit and though the word may have been true their attitude put us off so much that we didn't even wanna hear what they were saying. You know there's a couple things I've learned about that one as I tried to do my best to hear what's being said regardless of how it's being packaged because what's being said may very well be true and even if the person is saying it in a way that is hurtful or perhaps prideful or mean spirited what I have to do is I have to take that to the Lord and say Lord two things I'd like to ask of you one is it true and two would you kill them for me in Jesus' name? I mean you know I've learned to pray with great faith in that way but the bottom line is is it true because if it is true I ask Lord that you would work in my life so that I can correct this but I have found that if somebody brings a word of correction with a spirit of gentleness and meagerness that I am more prone to listen to what they have to say and that's biblical Galatians chapter six verse one says brothers if someone is caught in sin you who are spiritual should restore him gently but watch yourself or you also may be tempted you know considering yourself let's you also be tempted you watch over your own self you know we provoke one another to love and good works we consider one another and provoke one another to love and good works according to the book of Hebrews chapter 10 and we do have a responsibility to do that but we're provoking one another encouraging one another to love and to a life that reflects that and I've discovered that if you cling to the Lord Jesus Christ if you hold fast to him and love him your life is gonna change simply because you're with him spending time with him clinging tightly to him and so self-righteous judgment when I'm looking at somebody and I'm thinking oh they shouldn't do this and they should do that self-righteous judgment is something that will always boomerang it's been said it is a vital moment of truth when a man discovers that what he condemns most vehemently in others is that to which he himself is prone and I think that that's true our sins never look so bad as when we see them being practiced by somebody else and so it's important for us to first consider ourselves and then if we need to bring a word of correction we do so in love Jesus isn't saying that we are not to bring encouragement and exhortation to brothers and sisters and the Lord who may need that but he is saying is don't be self-righteous and don't be placing yourself above them as if you don't stumble and fall yourself because that's pride and therefore God will not bless us for that if I correct in love and I consider myself I'm really flowing with the spirit verse 43 for a good tree does not bear bad fruit nor does a bad tree bear good fruit for every tree is known by its own fruit for men do not gather figs from thorns nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush and so Jesus is still speaking of blind guides and is still speaking concerning the fruit of their efforts and other words hypocritical teachers who actually bring you into error and so he's basically saying you're gonna know the false teacher by their fruit now fruit trees are intended to produce fruit that can be eaten and to sustain life and the reason for its existence is for the well-being of others so we ask the question can thorn bushes produce figs and can brambles produce grapes now a fruit tree is judged by what it produces not how it looks and so the one who is speaking for God is to be judged if you will discerned by his life as well as his words does that person have fruit does that person have an evidence that he's got a relationship with God does that person bring me closer to the Lord when they speak now if somebody comes and shares with me and says look I've got a word from the Lord for you or I've got a Bible study I'd like you to be part of or whatever and if I sit under that do I walk away from that saying I know more about the Lord than I did before and as I've gotten to see this person in action I've seen that this person is sincere and this person actually is trying to do what he is saying you know it's a difficult thing by the way to be consistent I have to admit and confess that to you openly when our church was very very young maybe two maybe three years old I had somebody who had come and visited the church and all and began to attend for a short time and approached me and said to me listen I've got a sister who needs some help could you give her a call and I said well give me her number and I'll try and call her up and it was one of those things that I allowed myself to get overwhelmed by other things that I was doing and I put that phone number on the side of my desk and I didn't call her for a while and then one day it was like within a week no more than a week and a few days I made the call to her to see if I could talk to her and connect with her and couldn't get through to her and I put that phone number on the side of the desk and didn't try again and he approaches me and says to me did you call my sister you didn't call her did you and I said I did but I wasn't able to connect with her and he got so mad and so hurt with me and said well you said that you would connect with her and you didn't do it and I remember very well how he was hurt by that and it was at that point when I began to realize I apologized of course to him I said I'm so sorry I did try to make the call I wasn't able to connect I'm sorry I should have continued to do so until I connected and forgive me but he was so hurt and angry at me he left the church and I didn't see him for years and then we were in Ontario at that time then we moved over here and it was in the early 90s and he came walking up to me after a church service and he looks at me and he says I remember you I was invited to come to this church here you know and but I remember you and I looked at him and I remembered him too and I said and I remember you well nice lecture that you gave today but in essence was saying but I know you're still a hypocrite because you don't do the things that you say and you wanna know something I learned some pretty strong lessons through that experience and that's why sometimes people after service will approach me and will say to me pastor can you do this and that's why I'll be up front and honest with you and I'll say no I can't I wanna be honest with you some people can't handle that some can some can't and some can I had a lady approach me 20 some years ago now after a Bible study and she said pastor will you go out for dinner with my husband and me and I said no and she says well we wanna get to know you and I said you won't like me when you get to know me but if you'd like to get to know me come to church I talk an awful lot and you'll get to know all kinds of things about me and you know and I thought oh lord let's see what happens she's gonna get hurt feelings I'm sure but you know they become very dear friends of ours over the years and their kids are like her own kids now but she was willing to hear that from me and I learned a long time ago just be honest because people can normally handle an honest rejection then an attempt to pretend that I'd like to call but won't they can normally accept that and that's why I'm that way with you and some of you know that some of you have approached me after a service and said can you do this and I'll smile at you and I'll say no no but thank you for the invitation I do appreciate it I really do but I can't but there are people here who have been brought on staff who can do that for you and that's the reason they're on staff and if you'd like I can make every arrangement for you to have them meet with you or to do whatever is necessary but I'm afraid that I can't do that because I realized a long time ago that you just have to be honest and real with people and most people can accept that some can't but most can and sometimes they'll say well I'm gonna leave this church and I'll say well bless God you know there are some nice churches all over the place and I'm sure you'll find one that'll meet your needs and you know that's just the truth and so I think what we really need to do is we need to try and live a life that is consistent with our words and that's what Jesus is teaching here he's saying listen if you've got somebody who's teaching you something does he try to live up to what he's teaching his words and his works have to match they have to match in Matthew chapter 15 verses seven through nine Jesus said this he said hypocrites well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying these people draw near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me and in vain they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men so any person speaking God's message will evidence good fruit in attitude and action and that's because they're abiding in Jesus Christ and producing evidences of salvation Romans 622 says now having been set free from sin having become slaves of God you have your fruit to holiness and the end everlasting life now no matter how healthy the tree appears if it is unhealthy it can only produce bad fruit and so Jesus is simply saying you need discernment you need to know how to discern what is true and what is error and so we have methodologies in which we can do that one is we have the Holy Spirit who has been given to us and the Holy Spirit can give to you within your heart a sense of this doesn't sense right I really believe there's a discernment and you find in 1 Corinthians 12 that there's a discernment a gift of discernment that God gives to you and even new believers can be protected by the working of the Holy Spirit within them and I've had that happen in my own life I remember I was in a Christian more than just a few weeks you know at the most and I was at my parents home I was still living there at that time and there was a knock on the door and I was a long hair and all and I remember walking up to the door and opening the door to two Jehovah's Witnesses and I was wearing a Japanese robe and I had long hair and granny glasses and bushy sideburns and I was barefooted and I'm looking at these two women and they got kind of scared when they saw me I have to confess and so I said hi how can I help you I was brand new Christian how can I help you they said well we're you know Jehovah's Christian Witnesses and we're out here going through the neighborhood sharing about Jesus Christ I didn't know anything about Jehovah's Witnesses other than my grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness but I never spoke to her concerning what she believed in all of that I was a brand new Christian I made an assumption that they must believe in the same God I did I didn't know whether they did or didn't I assumed that and I remember them speaking to me and as they began to share and I'm a brand new Christian maybe a month or so old in the Lord knew very little I just started going to Bible study just started reading the Bible but as they were speaking to me I remember smiling at them with that big old dopey Jesus people grin that we used to have you know just a freak looking at them with this big old smile and as I was looking at her I said you know what I don't think I agree with what you're saying but you know what that's cool and they didn't know what to do I didn't know how to tell them what I did believe I just knew that what they were saying was wrong and later on as a Christian later on I started reading their material I started seeing some of the things that they believed I bought a book called Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin and I read the 110 pages or so on on Jehovah's Witnesses and I said well they believe this and they believe that I didn't know that this is all new to me but the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit had put a check in my spirit there's something wrong with what they're saying and so you have the Holy Spirit who does it 1 Thessalonians 5 19 through 21 says do not quench the spirit do not despise prophecies test all things hold fast what is good now how do you test that you test that to the word of God you test it through God's word does it line up with scripture and one of the things I know and we've just begun speaking about this in 1 Timothy I was sharing this with you just this Sunday those who were with us this Sunday morning I was saying one of the things you can see concerning fruit is how has it lived out in that person's life and in 1 Timothy 1 5 Paul had said the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart a good conscience and from sincere faith these are evidences there's a love about them there's a loving spirit and they've got a purity in their life and they've got a love and freedom in Jesus Christ and so you can see that and so he's saying listen there are those who are blind leaders of the blind don't follow their ways look at their fruit again we're not judges but we are fruit inspectors and we can check out the fruit and notice verse 45 a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks this is one of the most basic principles you find in Scripture what you are inside will be revealed by the way you speak the heart when he speaks concerning the good treasure of the heart the heart represents the center of a person's will and thought life it is also the expression of a person's character and so that which fills your heart will overflow through your speech he speaks about the good treasure that word treasure is where we get the word the source from it's a treasury or a receptacle in which valuables are kept and so your heart is a storehouse and it holds or contains your thoughts your ambitions, your loves, your attitudes and your loyalties and what you value ultimately comes out in what you say so be careful that you speak that which is true that which is glorifying to God let no unprofitable word come out of your mouth but that which is good for the use of edification that you may minister grace to the hearer Paul said in Ephesians 4 and that's how it works Proverbs 4.23 says keep your heart with all diligence for out of it springs the issues of life and so Jesus is just making it very clear listen, a good person is gonna say good things that are true concerning God and evil person is gonna distort those things because out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks I've seen that to be true in many ways I have had people approach me and share with me and say things to me that they know my wife's name and they'll know my kid's names and they know that I have a grandson and all of that and they'll walk up I mean I've had strangers approach me and talk to me people that I don't know my face and they'll say I know you by your voice I'll give you an example just this last week Marie and I on Saturday my wife and I took my daughter Anna out for and Joseph my son Joseph out for a late lunch and we went to a local restaurant and while we were there we were just sitting at the table and our server comes up and introduces himself and says hello and gives us his name and so I looked at him and I said hello, how are you? And he looks at me and he smiles and he goes, are you Pastor David? And I smiled at him and I said, does that mean I get a free meal? No, I said I said, yes I am he says, you know, I listen to you on the radio and I can tell by your voice and it just trips me out that people, do you know well I could go into story after story with this it is just so amazing how this happens but he says, I heard your voice I hear your voice and they can talk to me about things and so I said, well this is my son Joseph and this is my daughter Anna because he's obviously heard their name because I have spoken it out in my Bible studies I give my kids names out and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. You know, if we're having a simple conversation an unguarded one meaning if I were speaking to someone who didn't know I was a pastor I can tell you within 15 minutes what they are excited about in life I can tell you that just by what comes out of the mouth just the things that they say I can tell you that I was test driving a car and as I'm test driving the car this was a couple years, about a year ago it was for my son Joseph we were actually with Joseph and I was sitting in the front seat and Joseph is in the back and the guy who's selling the car is driving to get us off the lot and as we're driving he's just using profanity just speaking and all of that and as he's cussing I'm just smiling at him because I've used worse words than he was using so I'm smiling at him and he says, oh by the way what do you do? I said, I'm a pastor I pastor just down the street Man, all of a sudden he's oh I go to Calvary Chapel too I said, oh really? Not mine, baby. Not mine but as we're you go to Rawls, I know but within five minutes and then all of a sudden you know he's got sanctified you know, speech you know, all of a sudden he's, well praise the Lord you know, I just love God you're not sure you do sure you do, you know of course you do within five minutes you can pick up what really causes a person join his life it doesn't take that long to get to know somebody why? because out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and that's what Jesus is saying and that's absolutely of course true he moves on into verse 46 but why do you call me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them I will show you whom he is like he is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock and when the flood arose the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it for it was founded on the rock but he who has heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation against which the stream beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great so as we look at this what we're seeing here is Jesus is making it very clear in verse 46 that calling him Lord is much more than just simply saying the word Lord notice how he says that this one of the scriptures that has spoken my heart for many years now why do you call me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say the first time I heard anybody even quote that scripture I'd read it of course before but I was a freshman at Biola back in 73 and I heard a taped excerpt from Pastor John MacArthur and he read the scripture and he read it in such a way that it was easy to memorize instantly why do you call me a Lord Lord and do not the things which I say what a powerful question what a powerful question how can you say that I am your Lord and we don't understand that of course we live in a democratic society republic really and we're used to voice in our own opinions and all and saying well I'll obey this if I want to I won't obey that if I don't it's just the law et cetera et cetera but if I live during the time of Christ and I spoke concerning a person being my Lord there was an awful lot more going on than me simply mouthing a word when I called him my Lord I was basically saying that I owed him my life and he has a power of life and death in my life and so when Jesus asked the question why do you call me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say why is it that it's so easy to mouth out that you think that I'm your Lord why do you say I'm your Lord but obedience is not to be found in your behavior Lordship is revealed by surrendering to him following him living for him Jesus in John 14 15 said if you love me keep my commandments and that's how it's demonstrated guys that's how Christianity is demonstrated we live in a time when there's quite a number of people sad to say who say one thing and do another and it absolutely undermines the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ there have been times when I have and I am ashamed to admit it when I've wished sometimes that people who profess to be Christians sometimes the ones that I've encountered who are doing evil even as they were witnessing there have been times when I have thought it would be better if you just didn't say anything than to say the things that you're saying to this person right now and living the way that you are it would be better for you not to bring shame on the name of Jesus Christ than for you to be saying oh I love the Lord but you live it in the way that you are clean up your life because when you are saying oh I love Jesus and you're out there doing exactly what the world does you bring shame to your father's name and I've done that you know I don't stand as one who is guiltless in this I've done that and it's because I've done that the Lord has taught me this one he's taught me this one lesson why do you call me Lord and don't do the things that I say why? why do you say that you love me when you're not obedient to me why do you do that? how can you do that? I mean it would be like my wife Marie on our wedding day when the pastor said will you love and honor your husband and all and my wife saying sure I will on Sundays and maybe once in a while on a Wednesday but the rest of the week's mine to do what I want with it I'll give him my heart and my soul and all that I am but he can have that once a week and six days a week I'm going to go out with other guys what's wrong with that? now me I'm one of these jealous husbands they say no listen honey it's all or nothing I'm not going to marry you for a one hour a week relationship I want to have a relationship with you every day I want to be that one man in your life that consumes your thoughts I want to be that person that you think of and still thrill over 30 some years later that's who I want to be I don't want to be a part time person in your life where you care for me once in a while but you like others now I'm a human being and I'm an evil one on top of that but it makes sense to me that if I'm going to commit myself in marriage to somebody it better be a seven day a week 24 hour a day kind of relationship or what's the point of getting married well when I got saved the Lord began to try to teach me the same lesson why do you call me a Lord Lord and do not the things that I say why do you say that you love me but the things that are difficult or perhaps will require some sacrifice on your part are the things that you say well I'll look at that some other time or I must be misreading this passage here you know surely it can't be seen that I need to do that no we need to understand that Lordship is revealed by surrendering surrendering him daily following him living for him on a day to day basis and so he's speaking concerning this in this parable now notice the two people in the parable these two people encounter the same trials same trials but the difference is one house is built on a rock and the other is built on something that cannot hold it hold the building it's on shaky ground one thing that I know about is that as believers we're not insulated against hard times we're not insulated against tragedies and trials we're not immune from the pain of life the one thing I do know is that when I'm out of control God is in control I know that and I know that disciples remain faithful especially in the hard times the Psalmist in Psalm 119 verse 71 said it's good for me that I have been afflicted that I might learn your statutes it's good for me that I have gone through the pressures and the pains of life so that I can learn that you are faithful to your promises it's good for me that I've gone through these trials and hurts and the tribulations and the various afflictions that I've gone through because it has drawn me closer to you and I've seen that your word is true because you have said to me I will never leave you I will never forsake you I was sharing with my staff yesterday in a staff meeting and I said one of the things that we have to be careful in ministry is not to rescue people from situations that God has allowed them to get in so that he might teach them that he's got over all of their situations so many times I wanna bail somebody out before they learn the lesson that God wants to teach them and sometimes I have to take my hands off and allow them to die to whatever it is so that they might live into Jesus Christ it's like that woman who was with her son and her son was a little guy hadn't learned to swim yet and as he was walking they were walking near the edge of a lake and as they were walking near the edge of the lake she knew this one area was shallow and he could step in it and it would only go up to his knees and all and he could cool himself off and so it was a warm summer day and they step into the lake there and she sits down and she's got her feet in the water while her little boy is there and he's playing but she didn't realize that there was a sinkhole there she didn't know that and as he was playing he stepped into the sinkhole she could not swim and as he began to thrash he began to fall away or pull away from the side there and there was no way she could reach him and she begins in panic to begin to scream because she knows that she jumps in she's going to die along with him and she doesn't know what to do and as she begins to cry here comes a man and the man comes walking by as this boy is thrashing and the boy is a big enough boy to cause some problems and so he stands there and the woman starts screaming and says you've got to help my son he can't swim and the man says to her nothing he just stands with his arms folded and she watches him as he doesn't move and she begins to scream to him and she says you've got to help him he's drowning, you've got to help him I can't swim and he doesn't say a word until finally the boy begins to sink under the water and the man steps in and goes into that sinkhole pulls the young guy out and puts him up there on the shore there and he comes too and then everything is calmed down and the woman says to him why didn't you go in why did you wait he said as long as that kid had strength he would have dragged me down with him and drowned both of us he said I could not save him until he realized until I saw that he had no strength to save himself and when I saw he had no strength to save himself I could step in and save him and you know what the Lord will allow us the thrash and thrash and thrash and whatever situation we're in until we finally die and say I can't do this and I've discovered that I've discovered that the Lord will step in and take care of me when I realize that I need his help I go through trials like anybody else but it's the afflictions that have taught me to trust in him to hold fast to his word to know that God is true and that's what the Romans says let God be true in every man a liar God speaks the words of truth he gave us his word he gave us his Holy Spirit he's given us his love and he gives us his help and support so yes we go through hard times there's no doubt about that but a true disciple a true disciple not only hears and agrees in theory but a true disciple hears and does because hearing and doing once again is evidence of true faith in Jesus Christ in Luke 11 verses 27 and 28 Luke writes it happened as he spoke these things that a certain woman from the crowd raised her voice and said to him blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast which nursed you but he said more than that blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it now non-Christians obviously do not build their lives on the sure foundation of God's word and because they don't when trials and storms hit they're devastated Jesus speaks concerning a structure that falls and the fall he says to us is very great it's a very great fall their foundation is built on human philosophy and the philosophies of the world can't secure them that's why the psalmist said in Psalm 5611 in God I have put my trust I will not be afraid what can man do unto me when you put your trust in that which cannot save you you will always end up empty always so Jesus is saying a house built on the rock is a house that is built on trust in God's word and so when attacks come we're safe because our foundation is strong and it is deep believers build their lives on a strong foundation of Jesus Christ in his word that's what the psalmist said in Psalm 11989 when he said forever oh Lord your word is settled in heaven Luke 21 33 says heaven and earth will pass away but my words will by no means pass away you see in verse 49 he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built his house on the earth built on his house on the earth and it just didn't have a foundation those who do not have a relationship with the Lord suffer greatly not simply in this life but in time to come because ultimately they experience eternal separation because that's what is the result of not building your life on God's word the fall or the ruin of that house is great there's a song called American dream some of you perhaps have heard it I have the lyrics to it because I think it goes along with this very well and let me read the lyrics to you it speaks concerning building a life on something that is shaky building a life on that which cannot last all work no play may have made Jack a dull boy but all work no God has left Jack with a lost soul but he's moving on full steam he's chasing the American dream and he's gonna give his family finer things not this time son I have no time to waste maybe tomorrow we'll have time to play and then he slips into his new BMW and drives farther and farther and farther away because he works all day and tries to sleep at night he says things will get better better in time so he works and he builds with his own two hands and he pours all he has in a castle made with sand but the wind and the rain are coming crashing in time will tell just how long his kingdom stands his kingdom stands while his American dream is beginning to seem more and more like a nightmare with every passing day daddy can you come to my game oh baby please don't work late another wasted weekend and they're slipping away because he works all day and lies awake at night he tells them things are getting better just take a little more time he works and builds with his own two hands and he pours all he has in a castle made with sand but the wind and rain are coming crashing in time will tell just how long his kingdom stands his kingdom stands he used to say whoever dies with the most toys wins but if he loses his soul what has he gained in the end I'll take a shack on a rock over a castle in the sand now he works all day and cries alone at night it's not getting any better it looks like he's running out of time because he worked and he built with his own two hands and he poured all he had in a castle made with sand but the wind and the rain are coming crashing in time will tell just how long his kingdom stands his kingdom stands all they really wanted was you all they really wanted was you you build your life on sinking sand and it crashes all around you and that's what Jesus said he said you build your life on that which does not last and when the pressures come it crashes all around you and we can climb into our new car we can hide in our nice home or we can run to that office that we find so much solace in and so much of our identity in and we lose our family and we lose everything that matters and we lose everything that matters and ultimately we even lose our own self and one day we wake up and we say I wonder how I got here how did I get so far away how did it begin and how did I end up here how did I end up doing these things Jesus said it's because you heard but you did not do it's because you called me Lord, Lord but you would not do the things that I said and as a result you pay the price may God help us not to pay the price