This is Jeff Deist and you're listening to the Human Action Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back once again to the Human Action Podcast. The only podcast where we're not afraid of books, even 900-page books from time to time. But this week, we are actually going to take a look at a much shorter book with our great friend and Mises Institute senior fellow, Per Byland, who teaches at Oklahoma State University and is the author among several other titles of our subject today, which is the scene, the unseen, and the unrealized, how regulations affect our everyday lives. So it's really a great and short book in many ways. It's an exposition, obviously a Bastiat's concept, and I think it applies in spades to so much of what's going on in our world and in particular in the U.S. economy today. So all that said, Per, it's great to talk to you. Hey, thanks for having me on. Well, before we get into your book, which I'm going to recommend to people, we're going to link to it. It's available for a few dollars less at Mises.org than Amazon, but you can get it from both places. I wanted to bring up something you and I had discussed offline, which was really the need for a shorter, almost primer in Austrian economics. And so I refreshed my memory. I went back and looked and I had recalled the one by Thomas Taylor called, Introduction to Austrian Economics. The first book is from way back, like 1980. I believe the Cato Institute actually first published it a long time ago. There's also by Eamon Butler, a short book called Austrian Economics, a primer. And then most recently, Randy Holcomb down at Florida State had published with Elgar, a shortish hundred page or so book called Advanced Introduction to the Austrian School of Economics, which was part of an Elgar series. But as a lot of our listeners know, academic publishing houses tend to put a bigger price tag on books than the Mises Institute does. So I think this book is nearly $100, even in paperback form. So Dr. Bylin came to me, B-Lin came to me and said, well, how about if we consider creating a new one, but we'll price it really, really cheaply and make it a paperback and we'll keep it under 100 pages or so. So anyway, that was our conversation a couple of months back and I just wanted to touch base with you, see how you're feeling about that project, whether you still think it's a viable concept. Oh, absolutely. And I'm excited about it too. I mean, what we really need is a short introduction that people can understand and they can give them sort of an overview of what Austrian economics is and mainstream economics is not and how Austrian economics is helpful for understanding the world and for understanding what the heck is going on. The graphs and everything that you learn in mainstream economics, they're not very helpful if you want to understand the world. How do you plan to tackle the sheer size and scope of Austrian economics and distilling it down into something short and accessible? Well, I think it's about talking about themes and talking about approaches and talking about what the point of economics is to begin with. So I remember seeing that Paul Krugman said he had tried to read human action. Human action is not a primer, of course, but he said that he read the first few hundred pages and he said, this is not economics because it's just philosophy and obviously it's way too advanced for Krugman. But what we need is something that gets to the core and gets to the economics right away and talks about why it is important and what we're doing that is different and how we are providing that type of sort of basic economic literacy that people really need, but they don't know that they need. The Austrian school is so good at, but the mainstream economies they've sort of given up on. And do you have some familiarity with the other primers which I mentioned? I have looked at them. Yeah, I've looked at Holkomst book, for instance. And so what's the missing ingredient here? What do you think that we need to do? Well, I think we need to talk about it in a very different way. So talk about it in a much easier, more accessible format. Very often, these primers, they focus on specific issues and they focus on terminology. They focus on almost technicalities. So you mentioned one of the older ones. I mean, that's available at Mises.org too, I think. But it's hard to read. And I've used excerpts from that book in my courses, teaching students. And even seniors in college, they read it and go, oh, yeah. We sort of understand what's going on, but not really why. And they don't get why they're reading this either, because it's not super relatable. They don't know why it matters. And I think that's some, I mean, it's basically the selling of the Austrian school, selling it to regular people, to businessmen, to professionals, to housewives and to kids. Because economics is exciting. It's just that we, typically as economists, would fail to sell it as exciting. So obviously, we hope if people read this book, they will develop an interest. They'll go on and get to some of the more foundational texts or some of the more advanced texts. But is the idea here to create something which could exist as a standalone if, let's just say, that hypothetical person never reads anything else about econ? Yeah, of course. So I mean, it's supposed to be sort of an overview and a crash course into the economic way of thinking, in a sense. I mean, it could... The way I'm seeing it is that it should be able to make economists out of bloggers at New York Times, for instance. Okay, well, you realize now that you've put pressure on yourself because we've talked about this book which yet does not yet exist. Yeah, well... And by the way, you're writing it, so... Yeah, you're right. Yeah. No, I look forward to this. Well, I will say this.  You write for a lot of different types of publications and you don't do only academic publishing. You're also an extremely prolific Twitterati and I think your Twitter feed is one of the best out there in terms of using digestible chunks of whatever the current character limit is on Twitter to set out a thread and help people understand what's going on. And so anybody out there who's not following him on Twitter, please do so right away at pair by Lynn P-E-R-B-Y-L-U-N-D. I think you'll find him one of the better accounts and one you actually go look for rather than just wait to see if it shows up in your feed. I know that I do. That said, your book is now a couple years old. I think it's 2016, the scene, the unseen and the unrealized. I guess first and foremost, people are going to recognize the genesis of the title from Bastiat. What prompted this book? What was the genesis behind you writing it? Several things, really. I mean, it was pretty much what we're thinking about for the primer, too, that if you are to introduce someone to the Austrian school and someone to economics and how the economy works, what book would you suggest? What book would you recommend? And very often it's Henry Haslitz economics in one lesson. And I love that book, but it is one lesson over and over again. And I thought it was missing the entrepreneurship perspective, which means that it doesn't really get into the whole process theory of Austrians. So it doesn't look at the economists sort of an evolving dynamic process that is progressing towards satisfying consumers at higher and higher levels. Instead, it's talking about the opportunity cost, but the opportunity cost is sort of static. And I wanted to stress the dynamic aspect of it. So I, well, starting to think about it, I was, well, who can do it? Well, no one is going to do it except for myself. So I better write it myself. And that was sort of the idea. And I got the opportunity to write for one of the textbook publishers. They had a book series where they accepted my proposal and off I went typing it up. Well, for listeners, I mentioned its brief. It's really only about 170, 175 pages. It's perhaps a bit more dense than Haslitz economics in one lesson, but not much longer, if at all. And so I'm going to recommend this book, and again, we'll link to it. If you have anybody on your Christmas list who really needs an excellent sort of introductory treatment, and as Dr. Bailen says, in really a more of a dynamic way. I mean, this book is all about sort of the constant interconnection and the constant change, the constant dynamism of market. So I really liked it. The other thing, Paras, this book is almost completely jargon-free. It certainly has no ideological veneer to it. So I enjoyed it very much. Now, let me ask you this. Did you have in mind, I hope the answer is yes, this is called a leading question, was this intended at all as an answer or a parallel to public choice criticisms of the regulatory state? Well, indirectly, I suppose it was. I mean, it was a lot of things coming together. But I really wanted to stress the how destructive regulations are and not in the sense that, oh, look at this option is just gone now because it's regulated, so you can't do it. But what are the long-term effects? What are the long-term implications of regulating a little here and regulating a little there? And taking my entrepreneurship perspective on it, it becomes pretty obvious that your starting point for any innovation is lower the more you regulate an economy and then you're going to end up with something very different. And that's sort of the story I wanted to tell. And I use this book in my teaching at Oklahoma State. And I think the students like it. They tend to be not very frank when it's the professor's own book, but I think they, at least they get it, they get the idea of what I'm trying to say and how the economy works. So they have a different perspective after they've read the book, I think. So when we look at Hazel's book and just those three or four pages at the very beginning, the lesson is we have to look at the effects of some proposed policy on every group in society in the long run rather than a particular group in the short run. Why do you think we have to keep stressing that? Why do you think that we look at the Krugman's of the world and this seems to still go unheeded all these years later? Well, I think it's getting worse even. I think that's part of what Keynes was trying to do. Keynesian economics is really P in your pants economics. So if you're really cold and outside and what do you do? Well, one thing you could do is to pee in your pants and it gives you a little warmth right away. Of course, it's going to get a lot worse later on, but that doesn't really matter because Keynes was looking at the immediate problems only. And then if that causes more problems, then we'll deal with that later on. And very often, unfortunately, when people are economically literate, they look at the immediate consequences of things and then they just find a solution. It's very easy to be a central planner. If all you need to do is just pick something in the present and you don't have to think about the future and everything that can change in the future. But for an economist and understanding the economic system and our wealth and prosperity over time for our generation, for the next generation and for the next 100 years, then it's important to not screw things up now and not tomorrow either. And so when we talk about the regulatory state or the tax state, people just tend to sort of zone out. They think, well, taxes and regulations are part of government. We can't have anarchy. They don't really think of those two things in economic terms if you know what I mean. Yeah, I think that's right. In a sense, we say taxes and then we think of something other than coercively taking people's funds. So there's some magic to the thinking as soon as government is involved. And one thing that I have been part of the reason why I wrote the book too is people's magical view of regulations. So they think that, oh, if you just can just regulate this, then that will take care of the problem. And there are no implications. There are no consequences. There are no side effects or anything like that. You just regulate and then magically you have solved the problem. I mean, if that was the case, then, hey, then let's go for 100% government. No problem. But as we know, any regulation, they tend to not really create the outcome that they're aiming for and they're also creating other problems that you didn't expect. So regulations are, it's a blunt tool. And well, it's actually a stretch to call it a tool because it's not actually giving you anything of what you're aiming for. So it doesn't get you anything of value. It's more like a sledgehammer trying to solve a very delicate problem. Well, when we think of ownership, we think of control, the ability to control an asset. So let's say you own a restaurant and the government comes along and says what a lot of people, a pair think are very sensible things like, well, you can't be open certain hours overnight. You have to pay a certain minimum wage. You can only serve alcohol if you have this magic permit. A lot of people agree with that. Let's just be frank. But in effect, the government, because it's controlling your business somewhat, not entirely, but somewhat, it becomes sort of a partial owner. In other words, in the Rothbardian conception, which is more hardcore, that becomes a form of actual semi-socialism where I think most people on the left would scoff and say, oh my gosh, that's not socialism. Yeah, I think they would. But I mean, in a sense, you are scaring people away from doing those things that are valuable. In this case, running a restaurant because you're saying you can't really think in new ways. You can't run a restaurant the way you want to run a restaurant or in a way that you think will benefit consumers the most because you have to run it in this way because regulators said so. So I mean, it's really, it's imposing a cost on you as a potential entrepreneur to facilitate value for consumers, but it's also imposing a cost on consumers who do not get these new options. And you can't really figure out how to better serve consumers anymore because you don't have these options.  No one else would try it because it was just this one weirdo entrepreneur who tried it. Everybody else thought it was completely crazy, but then suddenly, whoops, there's something that consumers really liked and consumers really appreciated. And that became a blooming business and that completely changed sort of the direction of the market process because they figured out a new way of serving consumers. And with the regulation, you don't get that. With the regulation, you don't get this sort of experimentation and the trial and error. And you sort of circumscribe where entrepreneurs can go with their ideas. And that's going to turn a lot of entrepreneurs off. So they're not going to become entrepreneurs to begin with. So the cost is enormous. So that goes to the unrealized. In other words, the unseen is the cost and the inefficiencies and the problems caused by, let's say, the regulatory state. But the unseen is, let's say, a good or service which literally does not come into being because of this environment we operated. Yeah, exactly. So I thought something was missing there. And I mean, I love Frederick Bastiat. And the scene in the unseen is really important to understand that there's another side to it. But it's sort of short term and it doesn't look at what would have been facilitated and made possible had this not happened. And of course, since the economy is cumulative and we're talking about wealth, for instance, society's wealth, the wealth of nations, as the accumulation of capital over time, over generations. Well, if you start regulating and you have all these seen unseen things going on, that means that every generation is going to start at a much lower level. So the ideas that are possible for those entrepreneurs are much fewer to begin with because there are regulations and they're starting at a lower level as well. So a lot of these options that we would have as consumers and maybe cures for diseases and things like that simply do not materialize. They remain unrealized because we have regulated away our future. Right. And of course, this works to the tremendous benefit of politicians because they can always point out they can take some taxes and build, let's say, a public housing project and then take some homes of people from under a bridge and put them in there and say, see, look what I've done. Whereas Dr. Byland has to say, well, what might have been, who might have been, you know, people only have had more kids. They might have invested more in next. We might have had the next Steve Jobs. We might have had all kinds of things, but we can't, you have to have a couple more layers of conceptual thought to make people understand that. So you see what we're up against. Yeah. And the thing is that we also need to be very nuanced with how we think about this. Because it's easy to immediately fall into the trap of the Chicagoites and other schools of economics that, well, the option is simply perfection. So we'll just draw these curves and then everybody has perfect information. And that's where we could be if we were all gods. But that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that compared to the unhampered market, the unhampered market is not finished. The unhampered market is not perfect. It's just that the unhampered market would have a lot of innovation and a lot of entrepreneurship. And it would focus on serving consumers, not serving regulators. So compared to that situation, which is also sort of a moving target, since it is a market process after all, compared to that, we are not there. And the difference is the unrealized. So all those options that we could have had, and I mean this in a very real sense, they're not there. And we lost out because they were not created and that's the unrealized. So it's not really a comparison with some utopian unreal existence. It is where we would have been had it not been for regulators stopping entrepreneurs, regulators pushing consumers around and things like this. Well, you have this excellent chapter in here. I think titled wonderfully, The Unbeatable Imperfect Market. And of course, we're not talking about utopianism in the Austrian school. We're not talking about some unachievable perfection or equilibrium. If we're causal realist economics, we ought to be talking about better, not perfect. And so you sort of attack this idea of market failure and say, hey, this is the best we have available under current conditions with current information. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, of course, we already lost a lot now through the centuries of government and monarchs and what have you. I mean, it doesn't mean that we have to lose even more. And there is a real possibility of a free market, which of course is not super efficient. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have. And we would have had a lot of very cool things, very valuable things much sooner had it not been for regulations. And it's that contrast, especially over time, because it means that certain types of jobs, certain professions also do not materialize. They do not happen. So lots of those awesome jobs that we would have had to choose from today, we don't have them because those types of businesses do not exist because those types of products do not exist because some entrepreneur way back was not able to innovate in that direction. So that never happened. What was your Twitter thread the other day? I don't think it was about monopoly. I think it was about the idea when you say, the best ways to point out someone who doesn't understand economics is when they start carping about market failure or something like that. Do you recall this tweet? Yeah, I think that, yeah, there was even a rerun from a few years back, I think. But I think that is, I think that that captures the core of it because a market failure, there's always a comparison with some utopian unreal model. Right. And if that is how you view the world that you're comparing it with sort of a divine existence, then you're not really analyzing anything at all. I'm not sure what you're doing, and it's certainly not economics. I also notice that a little earlier in the book, you go into Say's law a bit, and this is something for which you're notorious on Twitter, and you suggest in the book that we have, let's say, a superficial understanding of Say's law. And I'm sure many of our listeners are familiar with the idea that a lot of people sort of state it is that production creates its own demand. But give us your take on Say's law and where it fits in this book. Sure. So the way I usually summarize it is in two statements. One is that production precedes consumption, which is sort of an obvious thing. Most people would say, yeah, of course. But then they still think that they should consume stuff that has not been produced yet, and they don't have to bear the costs of that either. And the other is that demand is constituted by supply, which is Say's statement. He had the law of exchange or something like that. It was called. It seems that in a market setting, you have to earn the purchasing power to buy something, which is also pretty obvious when you think about it. But that's also not how politicians and the political class is thinking about it, because they think that, well, if you just print a little more money or something like that, or you just forcefully reallocate resources from one group to the next, then you have created a lot of value. But that, of course, is not true. And you have to supply something in order to buy something from someone else. And in the market economy, of course, you have specializations. So we all work with something that we're not consuming ourselves. We don't grow our own food. We don't build our own houses and things like that. Instead, we're focusing on something that we either are good at doing or become really good at doing. So I don't consume a whole lot of entrepreneurship lectures, for instance, but I produce a lot of them. And the same thing with my papers. I don't, I don't tend to sit and read my papers a lot. But the papers are for others. And I get paid for doing this work. And for that payment, I can buy other stuff that some, some farmer has produced a lot of great food. And maybe you have a restaurant entrepreneur somewhere with great food that I can buy from him and so forth. And because we're all focusing where we can create a lot of value for each other and serve each other. And, and that's, but to understand how that works, you have to realize that you have to put something into the economy in order to take something out. And there's some, some sort of disconnect in, in modern quote unquote people when they think about the economy because they just want to get stuff. They don't have to put anything in. Well, I wonder how profound, you know, the reshaping of society has been because this idea that we create a healthy society through consumption and the way to spur consumption is to create more money and credit. I mean, that's, that's exceedingly a profound shift in the 20th century. Yeah, it is. And I, I'm not sure where that comes from, but I think part of, of the problem now is that people have been to use a Marxist term, alienated from the value that they're creating that we, we go to an office and we sit there and warm a chair all day. And then we have earned money because we were there this number of hours. It doesn't really matter what we do and we can't really see the result of it either. So we're not actually selling anything. We're just wasting our time and someone pace, pace for it because well, we need a bunch of people with, with a body temperature of 98.6 degrees in cubicles. And that's not more, more to it. Right. You don't have to work really hard and you just do the minimum. Right.  You could probably get some more.  So you were always exposed to the market in some sense. So you were exposed directly to selling to someone and negotiating the price and, and so forth. So you had more of a direct connect to how the market functions and the fact that someone will need to appreciate what you're offering and you will need to accept what they're offering in return. But today it seems like we've gotten far away from that. And I'm not saying that that's a bad thing because when we need more specialization and things like that, and we need more specialized jobs, but for some reason we have turned our backs on how the market economy works. And therefore everybody can point fingers and blame the economy quote unquote for everything that is bad, not realizing that we are the economy. Well, in this later chapter in the book, you have explained the market and natural disasters. It brought to my mind COVID, which of course is not a natural disaster, so to speak, but it has some of the same effects in that it created some sudden shortages. It was unexpected. It's radically changed what a lot of people get up and do in the morning. So, you know, speaking of the ripple effect, which you mentioned several times in this book, speaking of the scene, the unseen, the unrealized. Wow, it sounds like we are in uncharted territory when it comes to all these ad hoc mass mandates, lockdowns, various things that not only different countries, but even within countries, different governors, different mayors are doing. Yeah, no kidding. And the solutions to this, since apparently the only thing to focus on is the fear of the virus. This seems like the solution offered, and I saw some comment to that effect by AOC, the Congresswoman, where she said that, well, we need to just lock everything down and then make sure to send people checks so that they can buy what they need while they just sit at home. Well, apparently she's supposed to have an economics degree, but she doesn't understand that production precedes consumption, right? You cannot buy anything unless it's already been produced. So if everybody's just sitting at home doing nothing, but the government is sending them checks, well, they will have to eat those checks because no one is producing food anymore. And if no one is producing food, well, then you're going to have a lot of other problems on your hands as well. So the economy is really, I mean, I talk about it in the book as an organism because I think it's wrong to call it a system or a structure or something like that because that's so impersonal, but it is really an organism that if it changes and if it moves in one direction, if it grows in one spot, it probably follows along from another. So it's constantly shifting, constantly moving and constantly figuring stuff out and becoming better. But what they're trying to do now, it seems like with COVID is to simply ignore the economy and how the economy works. That it actually is a kind of organism. And instead just say, well, there's a lot of stuff out there and the stuff just magically appears. So let's just put everybody in their houses and then send them money so that they can get stuff. And I guess the stuff will just not only magically appear, but it will also be magically transported to the people who want them. And if we just print them more money in some sort of MMT fashion, then everybody's going to be happy. I mean, if it was that easy, then, well, that would be wonderful, but then we should have done it for hundreds of years ago. You know, I can't help but thinking, monetary policy has a lot to do with this mindset, especially since let's say the crash of a 708, that we don't have to consider tradeoffs and scarcity as much anymore because we have this enormous printing press and we have the world's reserve currency. And I honestly think, Pair, that a lot of people, let's say under 30, maybe even under 40, really believe that material abundance is there. And it's all about distributing it correctly. And I think that that could be an absolutely fatal attitude for the West to take. Yeah, I think I hear that pretty much every day on Twitter when people say that there is abundance, it's just unevenly allocated. So what we need to do is simply take the money off of the billionaire's hands and then we can just run around happy and sing for the rest of our lives. I mean, some of them will also claim that the problem, the poverty came through the institutional property because they say that well, before there was this thing, before anybody claimed property, everybody was running around and there was abundance of resources available to them so they could just reach out and grab whatever they wanted whenever they needed it, which is preposterous, but they seem to believe it somehow. Well, ladies and gentlemen, again, if you're looking for a great book, a great gift for anybody on your Christmas lift, the seen, the unseen, and the unrealized by Dr. Pair Bailand is an excellent choice. You can also go to Mises.org to get free copies of Henry has the economics in one lesson if you need a box of those sent to some of your loved ones. We're going to go ahead and link to this book and if you listen to the earlier part of the show, we are going to look forward to and expect a new sort of introductory primer on Austrian economics itself from Dr. Bailand over the next year or two. So we'll look forward to that very much so. And of course, because it's Mises.org, we'll make it a very affordable little paperback, probably five or seven dollars and I bitch will even give away some of them to the to the best people out there. So all that said, Pair, I want to thank you for your time today and hope that the audience has a great week. Thanks for having me on. The Human Action Podcast is available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, and on Mises.org. Subscribe to get new episodes every week and find more content like this on Mises.org.


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We do awesome powers tonight Tyrae Easton, Kate Cunningham Tatum for the Celtics out of 99 and LeBron orbital to 75 with the Lakers Tenacious something to combo auto to 149 bucks To 99 Ricky Giorgio Ziotto bucks Marjahn Bochamp Five to go Brisbane Choice Bowl sellout promo all the breaks tonight if we get them all filled up and give away 500 break credit in 15 Father's Day packs other spot came in for crown Alright, nice name, but it's Fezz Like Danny DeVito as many me in the third one good stuff got Cavs Jared Allen numbered 299 and a Tunnel vision Nicola Yolkich Tunnel vision Nicola Yolkich nugs outside of 99 with the Grizzlies Tyus Jones auto to 149 and Magic Cole Anthony it's a 35 on the Jersey auto matrix material. All right, everyone shy tonight. It's okay Tracy McGrady Raptors in the orange to 50 and an orbital Devin Booker Suns to 99 Miami he Harold Minor to 149 in the auto. Do you watch any more ship hell show? Harold Minor out of the 149 baby Jordan for the heat and Max Christie rookie out of the 50 for the Lakers rookie eruption I'm just a baseball on somewhere Sean's air show America's funniest home videos Johnny Davis rookie for the for the Wizards Terry Easton rookie to 99 for the Rockets and Orange Tony Parker Spurs to 50. There's always corn holes It's a sport that never ends. It's a fill with the best athletes. So they have this They have the interns just keep going Pacers Duarte auto to 75 and Kings out of the 75 Kevin Herter You guys said to give up one for the rest of your life Had to give up one of them forever hot dogs or hamburgers I think most people would say that I expect that I'm leaning that way, but I don't know I don't know It's like I'm just thinking like I go to a baseball game. What am I gonna eat? It can eat a hamburger at baseball game. That's dumb Kevin Durant Suns That's that's that's the crazy I've ever heard Kevin Durant to 99 for the Suns and The what are these called? What are these called? It's not rainbow. It's a neon neon flood neon flood Kevin Durant Suns That is dirty. We'll get that mad. Congrats Suns slim Reaper Magic Gary Harris auto out of 99 You go magic Gary Harris and Dyson Daniels the 25 no to 75 75 75 rookie dual Jersey auto Pelicans a good burger can be better than a really good hot dog. That's the one thing Cracker Jacks Should we change crap? Oh, yeah, I've brought the I've brought the Cubs are playing in Fenway this weekend Hopefully they lose all their all the games they play there third It's a 30 rookie AJ Griffin Hawks Without the 75 down a Mitchell Cavaliers orbital That one was backwards. Oh There he is Brian Scalabrini lightning strike auto Celtics pow pow Celtics Brian Scalabrini prick it in the ceiling. I think it's in the ceiling. Yeah. Oh, that's gonna wear me out Clippers who's to see a bot day dual Jersey rookie auto 75 oh boy Either that it's a super loud cricket It could be it could be it just sounds like it's You know, it's out of the ceiling tile there That that's definitely a nickname grandpa shorts that I'm not gonna say Autos of Diabata Scalabrini Gary Harris Dyson Daniels Chris Duarte Kevin Herter Max Christy Harold Minor Cole Anthony Tyus Jones Marjane Bochamp Vanessa Santana Kumpo Gary Trent Jr. Chuma O'Keeke Ty Ty Washington Kenny Martin Jr. Isaiah Mobley Deandre Aiden Alexi Pocostewski and Jaden Ivy Isaiah Mobley Thunder redemption Jalen Williams on the rookie Eruption auto got John Moran die-cut inside a case hit on those Warriors redemption Patrick Baldwin jr. Hey, that's not a thing. That's something ears Oh, is it? Yeah, what I don't know no idea. No, I Yeah, that's something over here, man, huh? Neon of flight Kevin Arant for the Sun's and Ricky Jersey auto J. Nive for the piston. Thanks again everybody moving on now to a box NBA mixer


Today I want to talk a little bit on the topic, on the topic I called Knowledge with a Difference. And I want you to go with me to Ezekiel chapter 37 and we're going to read a famous passage from verse 1. Ezekiel 37, if you don't know where it's at, it's somewhere in the Old Testament. Verse 1, let's read from the top. The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and sent me down in the midst of the valley.  Then He caused me to pass by them all around. And behold, there were many in the open valley. And indeed, they were very dry. And He said to me, son of man, can these bones live? So I answered, oh Lord God, you know. Again, He said to me, prophesy to these bones and say unto them, oh dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones. Surely I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.  Then you shall know that I am the Lord. Verse 7 says this, so I prophesied as I was commandant. Today I want to talk to you about knowledge with a difference. God comes to Ezekiel and He takes him in a spirit and brings him into the valley of dry bones. And begins to have a conversation with the prophet of God. Begins to have a conversation with Ezekiel. And He asks Ezekiel, what do you see? Can these bones live again? And they begin to conversate together and discuss. And I want for us to take the lessons from this passage, from this story, to take the principles to apply it into our life. Today this message is to those that maybe in your situation, your situation has gone beyond the point of return. Maybe your dream has, you know, there is dry, but there is very dry seasons that you are going through. That maybe your marriage, you know, it was bad, but now you are looking at it and you say, you know, I don't think there is ever any comeback from it.  My time has gone by. Or maybe, you know, the business that you have been working on, you know, it has just been stagnant. And whatever effort you apply, whatever things that you are, whatever energy you put into the investment money is just not going forward. Today this message is for you. God talks to Ezekiel and says, Ezekiel, can these bones live? He is asking Ezekiel, Ezekiel, what do you think? Ezekiel, what do you know? Can this situation live?  Can it work? Can you progress? Can it move forward? Can it be revived? Can you succeed? Even knowing knowledge is power. And the kind of knowledge that you have will determine the quality of your life. The kind of knowledge that you obtain in your life will depend the kind of quality you have.  He says, I see dry bones. He stayed in him effect. The fact is the situation is very bad. The fact is the situation is beyond the point of return. The fact is the business is not going forward. The fact is the kids are trained on drugs, rebellious, and the kids have gone haywire, kids left home. The fact is husband is not treating me right. Wife is not treating me right. The fact is things are not moving forward, but God wasn't asking Ezekiel for facts. He was asking him, what does he know? What truth did he embrace? What did he accept as truth for himself? What kind of knowledge does he have concerning the situation he is in? See, your knowledge produces the pattern of thinking that you have. How you can know what kind of knowledge you have is the kind of thoughts that you think when you think of that situation. That's the kind of knowledge that you have, whether it's positive, whether it's negative. Examine yourself and you have to understand and know what you're carrying inside of you to know how to proceed forward.  It's very important to understand and comprehend the kind of knowledge and truth that you have embraced about your particular situation or your life. See, knowledge is acquired by our five senses, by seeing, hearing, touch and smell. The biggest source of information that our knowledge collects is from seeing and hearing. You may have to be extremely careful of what information do you let in? What do you read? What do you watch? What do you hear? What do you allow? What do you feed yourself with? Because that information will be a base for the knowledge that you will carry, the truth that you will embrace. Just to give you an example, there were two men in England and both of them in the same hospital in the same city, they were already diagnosed with a disease that rendered them unable to walk. Both of them received the same kind of information, but one decided to base his knowledge, his truth, on the fact, on the information that he received from the doctor and remained in a wheelchair. The other one decided and he said, you know what, yes, it might be the fact that this sickness is in my body and I can't walk, but I'm choosing to embrace different information and base my knowledge, my truth on different fact. This man, with many tries, slowly began to walk. After some time, he began to run. This man, his name is Roger Benister. He was the first human being to break a mile to run under four minutes, three minutes and 59 seconds. First human in history in 1954 who broke a record of a mile. Nobody could run a mile before under four minutes and he ran a mile under four minutes, three minutes and 59 seconds. What makes the difference between the two? It's the knowledge that they possessed. And as a matter of fact, the other guy was misdiagnosed. His condition wasn't severe and he remained in a wheelchair. And this man, Roger, was diagnosed correctly, but he refused that knowledge. He refused the information and accepted different truths about himself. The knowledge that you carry will determine the quality of your life. I wonder today how many people were meant to run with a company of millions of dollars, yet they're working on a wheelchair of ten dollars an hour. I wonder how many families, how many marriages are suffering on a wheelchair when they were meant to run and break limits for God and save others and help others.  Well, they were meant to break sales records and run multimillion and billion-dollars corporations. I wonder how many people are stuck in a wheelchair of their predicament, of their family, nobody graduated from college and live a life without a degree when they're meant to get a degree in engineering and practicing law or any other things and run with it. It all comes down to the kind of knowledge, the kind of truth they decided to embrace. See, God is not asking you what you know that He knows. He's asking you to tell Him what you know. See, we all know here. And Ezekiel was just like most Christians today. See, God's asking you, what do you think? Can these bones live? And He gives this typical Christian answer. God, if it's your will, it's your bill. God, whatever you will, let it be done. Well, if I'm sick in my body, if you want to heal me, God, let it be so. If I'm struggling with poverty, God, if you want me to prosper, then let it rain. God is not asking Ezekiel. Ezekiel, tell me what I know or what I think about these bones. He's asking Ezekiel, Ezekiel, what do you think about these bones? He says they're very dry. God says, no, I know. But what do you think? Can they live? What makes the difference in your and my life, in our Christian life is not what we know what God knows about us. The kind of destiny He has for us. The kind of goal in the future He has for us. The kind of thoughts that He has for us. It doesn't make no difference what God thinks about your destiny in your call if that's not what you think about it. If that's not what you're going to embrace and make the truth for yourself, then knowledge would be your kind of knowledge. So many Christians quote a scripture, turn around and stomp the ground three times and shout and say amen.  While God thinks one thing about them, but they think differently about themselves. I wonder how your life would change if you embrace what God knows about your situation. I wonder how my life would change if I truly embrace the knowledge of God that He has for my dry bones. God is asking you what you think about it. It's not what God knows that matters. It's what you know. You have to understand God will never work in your life above the level of your thinking. If you're thinking and you're dreaming your goal is one day that you make $20 an hour, God will not go above that. He'll get you to that place. If you think that God can get you to the place where you can make $100,000 a year, God will get you there if you truly believe. It's your capacity to embrace God's thoughts, to embrace God's ways, to embrace God's knowledge about you that will determine the level of life that you're going to reach in your life, in your marriage, in your business, in your spirituality, in your ministry, in your home group, in every area of your life. It does not come automatically. It comes as a result of you embracing God's promise and making it your own. God's truth about your situation, not the facts that speaking. See, our situation, they speak. Your situation, they speak. Your setbacks, they speak. Bad relationship and marriage, they speak. And over time, it's easy to accept what they say. Constant setback and failure, constant limitation. Your background, your upbringing, it speaks to you. It tells you, but it's up to you to embrace what God says or what the world say or what your past say. You choose the source of information which will be the base for your knowledge. And that knowledge will determine where your life will end up. There's another story of a man, as I was searching for this story. Yes, there's actually many of them. It's so crazy. There was this man for Portuguese, Rufio Borrego. At the age of 13, he was diagnosed with some muscle disease that again rendered him unable to walk. At the age of 13, he was put on a wheelchair. At 2010, 43 years later, he gets a new doctor. Whether he died or stopped treating him or whatever the reason was, he gets a new neurologist. And neurologist decides to send him for scans and tests just to see if there's anything that he can do to improve his life. He gets to find out that this man 43 years ago was misdiagnosed. And that this man that's already past his 50s has a minor problem with his muscles that they can be treated with therapy and small guidance. And at the age almost at 60, this man begins to learn how to walk again and begins to walk in his life. Because he embraced the wrong information and made it his truth and knowledge, for 43 years of his life this man sat on a wheelchair and was limited. Today I wonder, what are the things I'm embracing? What are the things you are embracing because you grew up in it? Because that's what you were told that you will never amount to anything, you will never do, you will never succeed in it. What do you think? You're the only smart one in our family that you're going to start a business, you're going to start making millions?  And you chose the life of a wheelchair when you were meant to run with God without limits. When you were meant to shatter every obstacle and to get around in life as you wish as God has planned for you. So many people today are rolling on the wheelchairs in their family. So many people today rolling on the wheelchairs in their career, in their marriage. So many people chose a life of limitation because they're embraced wrong type of knowledge. They embraced wrong type of information. Today God is calling you to get up from your wheelchair. Today God is calling you to put an end to that demonic lie. And today God is asking you, what do you say about your situation? What do you see in a valley of dry bones? Do you see life? Do you see progress? Do you see prosperity? Do you see successful marriage? Do you see restored family?   Do you see your home group growing? Do you see your church exploding? God is asking you, what do you see in a valley of dry bones? Because that will determine whether these bones will live again or they will remain as dry bones. Or they will remain as a memorial, what you could have been but never done. What you could have achieved but you never pursued. God is asking you to embrace his thinking today. He's asking you to embrace his knowledge, his truth. He is asking you to embrace his promises today. Change what you see and how you see your situation in your life. Point number two, speak what you know, not what you feel. Speak what you know, not what you feel. Ezekiel says, God, the bones are very, very dry, beyond the point of return.  He says, speak to them. Command them to come back to life. Command those bones to come together. Command snooze and muscle tissue to cover it. Command skin to cover it. And command the breath to come from four corners of the wind. And command it to come to life. What you speak matters. What you say with your words matters. So cut out the negativity. Cut out victim kind of mindset and talking. Oh, they did this to me. Oh, they mistreated me. Cut out all kinds of complaining and whining. Because that's not the language of God. That's not the language of the Holy Spirit. Embrace what God says about your situation. And speak God's word, despite the fact that your situation is very, very dry. Begin to speak into your kids. Begin to speak into your marriage. Begin to speak what you want to see, not what you see now. Begin to speak in a strong army that will rise up and will conquer. Begin to speak strength. Begin to speak victory into your situation. Your words have power. You know, there's this misconception that when we talk about creation, people say God created this world from nothing. But I beg to differ. God did not create this world from nothing. See, God says, God, He says about Himself, He is light. If you know anything about light, light is an energy. Have you, when you were kids or maybe when you were adults too, you take a magnifying glass and you try to focus the sun, the light in a lens and try to start a fire. How many of you did that? The rest of you start on childhood. Okay. Light is an energy. It's a very strong energy. That's why you see solar panels. You know, they collect the light and break it into the energy. That's why you see, if you look at laser, now they have laser weapons that shoot down planes and destroy things. I mean, laser is a form of light. We see X-ray machines.  Light is an energy and God is light. Second element in creation that we see, so light. So light is an energy. Second element that we see in creation, Bible says that God said, let there be light, he said, let there be this and that. God spoke. Sound is a form of energy. So combined, those of you that if you don't believe me, put your headphones on and play it really, really loud, see what happens to your ears. Just joking, don't do that, but you get the point. Sound is an energy. There's even a, I don't remember, some of, a long time ago I read that in some countries, the way they test skyscrapers for their stability is they bring this huge, huge speaker and they play it really loud that sends those sound waves and a building, pretty much they replicate like 5.0 or 6.0 earthquake to see if the building withstands. That's the kind of power that sound has. So coming back to creation, God created the world with light and with sound, with power of His words. Where I'm going with this, Bible says that you are the light of the world. You carry the light, that energy, that creative energy.  You begin to do the things that God did when He created His world, when He created this world. God has given you an ability to create. Don't speak negative. Don't speak bad words over your children, over your spouse, over your business.  Oh, I knew you would never work out. Get rid of such a words from your vocabulary. Speak the words of God. Speak life. Your words have power. You speak will come to pass. And the point number three, He says to Ezekiel, I mean Ezekiel says in the verse seven, so I prophesied as I was commanded. Prophesied because God commands you to do so. God tells you to speak His promise, His word. It's not just an option.  Speak my promise into your life and watch what I will do. He says Ezekiel prophesied because Ezekiel, if you do not prophesy, the bones will never live again.  It will never prosper. It will never move forward. If you don't speak, the bones will remain very dry.  Don't speak to God about your problems. Speak to your problems about your God. Don't complain. Don't whine. Sometimes our prayers, there is time for intercession. There is time for prayer. There is time for request when we bring before God. But many times our prayers, they turn into whining. They turn into disbelief. Many times the way we pray to God is as though we don't believe that He is almighty. It's as though we don't believe He is all powerful. It's as though we don't believe that He holds the universe in His hand. It's as though we don't believe that He is in charge of our situation. He is just waiting for you to release your word so he can begin to work. He is just waiting for you so you can begin to prophesy. Prophecy is simply meaning talking about the future. So you can begin to talk about your future as though it is now. That you begin to declare the things into the atmosphere, into your situation, your marriage, your business, your finances. That you begin to unleash God's power into your life.  He is not waiting. He is not waiting for a perfect timing. He is not waiting on Himself. You are not waiting on God. God is waiting on you to embrace His principles, to embrace what He is calling you to do today. Begin to speak into your life. Begin to speak into your family. Begin to declare. In Numbers 14-28 says, As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do the very thing I heard you say.   What is God constantly hearing you say about the valley of dry bones in your life? Is He hearing complaints? Is He hearing how unfortunate I am? Just how I was born in our own family? How I was born in our own side of the tracks? How people mistreated me? How people took advantage of me? Or is God hearing faith? Or is God hearing, you know, if God got me to this place, if God kept me alive when many people died, if God got me this far, I believe He can take me further. I believe He's gonna take me to the next place.  The other person faces the same situation and he says, God brought me here to elevate me, to take me to the new place. The people that solve problems, people that face challenges and overcome, become the successful ones, become the prosperous ones, the ones that enjoy the fruit of the life, of the words and of their thinking and of the knowledge that they carry on inside of them. Today God is saying, what do you know about your situation? What do you declare? What do you speak about the very thing you find yourself stuck in? It's easy to say negative words. It's easy to declare how you're unfortunate. But when you take a high road, when you begin to partner with God and begin to create in your life, when you allow the Holy Spirit to be unleashed through the power of thinking and through the power of words, the Holy Spirit has freedom to create the very life you desire. I challenge you today, embrace the mind of God, the knowledge of Christ. Embrace what He has for you, the promises of God and begin to speak into your life. Begin to speak it in your life. Begin to prophesy, amen, can these bones live? Yes, Lord, they will live in Jesus' name. If you receive something, put your hands together for Jesus Christ.


So I've talked a lot about good habits and bad habits and trying to do less bad things and more good things, but really there's nothing that in itself is automatically a good habit or a bad habit. It's all about how it serves the larger picture. The actions, the little things that we do every day, they can be judged based on how they contribute to the bigger picture for ourselves and we can also judge them based on how they affect others. So if you have an ambition to do more good and less bad, it ultimately becomes, by itself it is something hollow to just want to do good things for the sake of doing good things. They're good because they connect to a bigger good, something that is more significant. It's their connection to the bigger thing that makes good actions good and it's because they take away from the good bigger picture that bad actions are bad. So this is something that I am reminding myself now because in the last couple of days, ever since I had this wonderful musical weekend where I was really feeling the moment and experiencing the music, now I'm going back to work, going into a new week of work and it started off feeling a bit routine, feeling like I'm going through the motions and I'm trying to build up something, but then I sometimes wonder what's ultimately the point because we can get into the momentum of making good changes, self-development. It has its own momentum, it's like a game in and of itself. We can start self-development because we have good reasons, want to make our overall life better, more meaningful, but then you get into it and it can sometimes just becomes a fun game by itself. How much can I improve myself? How much, it's so satisfying to see myself take control of my life and be able to do better things, but then sometimes I just look at it and think, well, what really is the point because ultimately having good habits does not in and of itself make a good life, just as having bad habits does not in itself make a good life impossible or take away from a good life. So we have to always be plugging things back into our bigger picture and I can speak for myself. This is something that I have to do. There's the enjoyment, there's the game of improvement, but if it's not connected to something bigger then it's ultimately pointless to just make yourself into this self-improvement machine that just gets better and better and then you die and especially if it means always bending towards more work, work, work and not having fun because that's really, I mean for, I think in many cases, I mean that's really how we get into bad habits is that they're fun. Most bad habits are fun and they begin as fun and but then they become something that becomes sort of automatic and something that we lean on to fill what's missing, fill the meaning that's missing in our lives. But these habits in and of themselves are not bad and just as it's easy to forget that, it's also easy to forget that all of the good habits of working hard every day, discipline, improvement, these things are also not necessarily good. It's all about the bigger picture. So usually bad habits, things that are bad take away from our bigger picture, take away from the bigger things we want to do in life. Like if we're going to fall into escapism then we cannot achieve better things in the real world. If we're going to do physically bad things like drugs and poor eating habits, lack of exercise, laziness, these things lead to a lesser overall life energy and ability to live good life and that's why they're bad. And on the other side, things like discipline and hard work and improvement, they're good because they make it possible for us to become stronger and therefore live better lives. But at the moment I'm in the state of needing to remind myself once again of why I'm doing it and what is, I'm asking myself what is the bigger picture of the life that I want and then all these little details feed into that.