So let's begin reading at verse one together. I'll read two verse six and we'll get into our study this evening. Hebrews chapter three, beginning at verse one, reading to verse six. The writer writes, therefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was faithful in all his house. For this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, in as much as he who built the house has more honor than the house, for every house is built by someone, but he who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken of afterward. But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. Now as we've been looking at the book of Hebrews, remember with me that the author, the writer of Hebrews, has been using the word better and has used it several times already. He actually uses the word better some 13 times as we go through this particular book together. And he's been using that word in order to emphasize how great Jesus Christ is in comparison to everything else. And so as we looked at this and looked at the different ways that he's been speaking, he was speaking of Jesus Christ as being greater than the prophets and he also spoke about Jesus being greater and better than the angels. Now in this particular chapter he begins to speak to us concerning how the Lord Jesus Christ is better or greater than Moses. And that's what we'll see here in chapter 3 as we look at this together tonight, that Jesus Christ is greater than Moses. Now this is extremely important because Moses is the greatest hero in the nation of Israel. He was recognized as their great deliverer, he is their great leader. Moses is the law giver and God had done a great work through Moses and all the children of Israel who were schooled in the Word of God knew the things about Moses. Moses had been born during a time when a Pharaoh had arisen in Egypt and the children of Israel had been there in Israel, rather in Egypt for a number of years. And a Pharaoh had arisen who didn't recognize or regard Joseph, the work that Joseph had done on behalf of Egypt many years before. And when he had arisen and came to power, the first thing he wanted to do was subjugate the Jewish people who were there. He hated them and so he began to persecute the nation and gave an order that the Jewish boys would all be put to death once they were born. And so because that was something that was against the moral grain of the Jews, what happened was Moses' mother gave birth and had a beautiful son and she hid him, she hid him in the bulrushes and as she hid him there in this river the daughter of Pharaoh came out and she was there to bathe and one of her handmaidens, as she was there, the daughter of Pharaoh, sees this little basket in the water and sends her handmaid to go and get this ark or this basket and bring it back and she looks at the baby because the baby is crying and she has compassion and Moses' sister Miriam is there and she sees this all taking place and when she sees the daughter of Pharaoh looking at the baby with this compassion, you know the story, you know that Miriam approaches and says, would you like me to get a mother to nurse this baby and she sends her off on the task of getting a mother and obviously she takes Moses back to his own mom and Moses' mama nurses and not only does she nurse him but the daughter of Pharaoh actually pays her a wage to do so and how wouldn't you ladies have liked that if you'd have gotten compensation for that duty. But anyway, and so she begins to nurse him and they wouldn't nurse their children for a month or two months or five months they would nurse them for some time and so Moses was able to be with his mother for a period of years in reality until he was weaned and in doing so was able to be raised with a conscious knowledge that he was Jewish and so when it was time for him to go back to live with Pharaoh and Pharaoh's daughter, he was raised as the son of Pharaoh and grew in stature, wisdom, eloquence, and might there in the nation of Egypt. The children of Israel were familiar with this. Now on one occasion, Moses was out visiting his brother and the Jewish people when he saw an Egyptian who was manhandling one of the children of Israel and when he saw this take place the Bible says he looked one way and then he looked another and then he promptly slew the Egyptian and buried his body. Now that may just rush past you as you consider those words that he slew him and buried him and when you read in the book of Exodus how he did that it's just a very short statement. I mean basically I quoted it. He looked one way, he looked the other and he slew the Egyptian. But you need to understand that the task masters during the time of the Egyptian domination over Israel were amongst the most ferocious men in Egypt. They were like WWF wrestlers if you will. They were giants, they were powerful, they were schooled in warfare, they were fierce and they caused the Jewish people to have tremendous fear because of how bad they were. But the Bible doesn't even indicate that Moses even thought for a moment about it. He just looked to the right, he looked to the left and he killed him. That gives you some insight into how powerful a figure Moses really was. He was a warrior, schooled in all the wisdom of Egypt as well as the military martial arts. And so he dusted him, he killed him, buried him and thought he had gotten away with it. Well the next day as he's there in visiting once again his people he sees two Jewish men who are having an argument so he approaches them and says you are brethren, why are you fighting amongst yourselves? The one who is in the wrong though looking at Moses says what are you going to do?  And so we find it interesting to note that the word had already gotten out about what Moses had done. Now when you consider the fact that there was nobody there other than the Egyptian taskmaster and the one who was being hurt, it causes you to understand that the person who was speaking to Moses more than likely was the one who just the day before had been delivered by him. But he didn't want to hear what Moses had to say in a word of correction and therefore he says well what are you going to do?  Moses knowing that it was known became fearful and the word went out that the Pharaoh was going to have him put to death. And so he fled. He went to a place called Midian. Midian would be east of where he was there in Egypt and it's in what is modern Saudi Arabia, it's south of Jordan and that's where he went. And he was in the backside of the desert and as he was in the backside of the desert there he came across some young women who were taking care of the sheep for their father and he actually helped them because some shepherds began to threaten them. And as a result he drove the shepherds off, he watered their sheep, they went home and spoke to their dad and their dad said what happened and they told him. He said well where is the man that delivered you? And they said well we left him out there. He said bring him home so that I can feed him and show him hospitality for what he's done. And so Moses ends up going to this man's house. His name was Rual. He's also known as Jethro. And he went to his house and ultimately married one of his daughters, a woman by the name of Zipporah. Now as Moses is there and he's now herding sheep, he has gone from the age of 40 when he originally delivers, actually slew that Egyptian. He's now there in the backside of the wilderness and he's been there for some time. And the Bible says that God called him in an extremely unique way. You can see this in chapter 3 of Exodus verses 1 through 4. Let me read that to you. It says Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked and behold the bush was burning with fire but the bush was not consumed. Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, I'm getting out of here. No, he said, here I am. And so that's the call of Moses and the children of Israel were familiar with that. Moses ultimately is sent by the Lord back to Pharaoh. And as he goes back to Pharaoh, he says, thus saith the Lord God, let my people go. And he refuses, as you know the story, and continues to refuse until God begins to bring plagues on the nation of Egypt. And ultimately, after the plagues are continued and concluded, he delivers the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage. And as he leads them out, he is known as the leader of Israel, the law giver, the one whom God used and is the greatest of all the Jewish people. And so as we look at chapter three here in Hebrews, he wants to speak to us concerning the superiority of Jesus Christ. Now Jesus Christ is superior to prophets. Jesus Christ is superior to angels. And yes, Jesus Christ is superior to Moses, the greatest figure in Jewish history. And that's what he's pointing out. Moses is great, but Moses is not as great as Jesus Christ because Moses actually pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, God used Moses to write the first five books of the Old Testament. And in his writings, he actually has prophetic words that relate to Messiah who is to come. The very first prophecy that you have concerning the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, is found in the book of Genesis, a book that was written by Moses. And in Genesis chapter three, verse 15, the Bible says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.  So Moses had spoken concerning Messiah who is to come who was going to conquer Satan. Later on in Deuteronomy in chapter 18, verse 15, Moses said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. And so he was writing concerning Messiah who was to come. Now the early disciples recognized and knew that. Because in John's Gospel, chapter one, verse 45, the Bible says, Philip found Nathaniel said to him, we have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. In John 5.45 and 46, Jesus said, do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you, Moses in whom you trust. Had you believed in Moses or believed Moses, you would have believed me for he wrote of me. And so Jesus Christ quotes the fact that Moses in the Old Testament had been pointing to one greater than himself and that one who is greater than himself is Jesus. And so this is what we're looking at here in chapter three. As we begin in verse one, he begins by saying it this way. He says, therefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest who was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was faithful in all his house. Now he begins by saying that they are holy brethren. Notice that, therefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling. Now when he calls them brethren, he's not speaking racially. He's not saying as a Jewish person to other Jews, I am saying this. What he is speaking is spiritually. He's saying, my fellow believers, the Jewish believers during this day obviously needed this admonition because it was a new thing for the Gentiles to actually be folded into a relationship with God. Even as we were looking at Ephesians today, I was pointing out that the world was divided into Jew and Gentile. And the idea that the Gentiles would actually receive the promises of God was really a foreign thought to Jews.  When the apostle Paul was stating the fact that because the Jews were resisting the gospel that he was now going to the Gentiles, they rioted over that. Because the idea of having the Gentiles in the covenant promises of God was a foreign thought. And so when he's speaking here, he's saying, listen, you are holy brethren, not Jewish people alone, but you are people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you are fellow believers. And you have a relationship with God through him. And he says, therefore holy brethren, you are also partakers, notice of the heavenly calling. Now this speaks of the origin of salvation. It is heavenly because the call originates in heaven and heaven is its ultimate goal. The call to salvation does not originate on earth. The call to salvation originates with God. And God is the one who initiates it. God is the one who gives the message. God is the one who gave his son. God is the one who did all the work. And the heavenly calling, the calling to salvation, starts with God and ends up with God. Because when that message is proclaimed here on earth, it's intended to draw people to a saving knowledge of God who dwells in heaven and takes us to heaven when we close our eyes here. And so we have a relationship with God because God initiates that, God originates that, and therefore we are partakers of a heavenly calling. Now these are holy brethren. Now that's something that I really think that we should spend a couple moments looking at because when he speaks concerning the fact that they are holy brethren, because God has a heavenly calling, we ought to have a holy life. When you have a relationship with God, that relationship with God ought to do something to provoke us to pursue him in order that we might have earmarks of godliness because we pursue the things of the Lord. So a person who actually has a relationship with God has a transformed life. Their life is changing. I can still remember when I was a brand new Christian. My friends said, listen, now that you're saved, there are a few things you need to do. You need to read the Bible. You need to learn to pray. You need to enjoy Christian fellowship. And you need to tell somebody about what God has done in your life. As a matter of fact, the day I got saved when we were in the back, I was speaking to a man who was a follow-up counselor. And the day I got saved, he said, these are the four things you need to do. If you want to walk firmly with Christ, he said, you need to begin to read your Bible. Because in the Word of God, you have spiritual food and you're going to learn the ways of God. You need to learn to pray, because that's your communication to God. That's your conversation with him. In the Word of God, God speaks to you. In prayer, you speak to him. And when you dialogue with the Lord through his word, you have conversation and it's called prayer. So he said, you need to get into the Word and you need to pray. He said also, you need to understand that your friends that you have are the greatest influence in your life. They're the ones who encourage you to do good or to do evil. Therefore, you should choose people that are influencing you to do the right thing. So hang around with Christians, especially believers who love the Lord Jesus Christ.  So encourage other people to go with you and take this message out and share what you've learned. These are the four basic things that I was taught to do the day I got saved. Those are the four basic things I've been doing now for 35 years. The same thing, getting in the Word, learning to pray, fellowshiping with Christians and telling people about the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I can still remember when I was a new Christian, obviously I knew absolutely nothing once I was blind, now I see, once I was lost, now I'm found. But I didn't know, what could you know after being a Christian for a week or two or a month?  And a lot of it for me was Holy Ghost goose bumps and I'm changing, I feel good inside and I've got something I never had before, I have peace with God and I'm getting along with my parents, some very basic things, but there was no real depth in me. So I didn't know Scripture even though I was starting to read it and absorb it, but my friends say, you got to go out and you got a street witness and now I'm not a street witness, sir. I'm not able to do that and it's odd to me because I can stand in front of a lot of people and speak like this but one on one, that's just not my gift. I'm able to stand next to you while you do it and then if there's an argument then I can step in and do the debating one on one, but I'm not somebody who can just walk up to a stranger and say, excuse me, do you want to go to heaven?  I can't do that kind of thing, that's just not the way I am but they're telling me you've got to go out and you've got to share and so I can still remember trying to learn to do that, to go out and to talk with people and to say, you know, can I speak to you for a moment about something that's happened in my life? Can I share with you? And during that time there were quite a number of young people who actually were really open to that and I began to learn that but I also began to learn that if my life isn't growing and beginning to line up with the things of Scripture that I actually undermined the message of the gospel because of a poorly lived life. I still remember I was on Whittier Boulevard in Whittier and there were actually two places you cruised and some of you are old and maybe you remember this. You had Whittier Boulevard in Whittier and that's where all the surfers hung out and you had the hot rods and they would drag race up and down Whittier Boulevard so I'd hang around there and then every once in a while I'd go to East LA. East LA is where all the low riding took place and you kind of drove real low so somebody couldn't shoot you and that was in East LA and so Whittier Boulevard was actually divided into two cruising kinds of places. I used to hang around in both but especially in Whittier and while we were in Whittier walking in Whittier Boulevard we went to a place called Bob's Big Boy on Whittier Boulevard and I walked up to some people my friend Bill and I were there and he said we've got to share about Jesus and I was all nervous. I was only a Christian for a week or two. What do I know? And so I said well I'll go with you and he says well come on and so we're walking and we walk into Bob's Big Boy into the parking lot and I walk up to this car and there's a friend of mine and Jeff is there in the car and we walk up to him and Bill said oh it's Jeff I said okay we can share with him about Jesus he's a friend it makes it a little easier I thought the Lord was just being kind to me by giving me a friend and so I walked up to Jeff and I said hi Jeff how are you doing? And he just smiles and nods and I went to high school with him I knew him for four years and then I had graduated and also I'd known him for several years how are you doing? I'm doing fine I said look it I want to talk to you about where he looked at me and he was so totally drunk you know I hadn't noticed it first but Jeff was absolutely blitzed and as I was looking at him he says oh I already know Jesus like that you know he's just totally drunk and so I remember that very well and I thought wow how interesting and we had a little bit of conversation you really can't reason with a drunk person at all you know but I remember that very well and that was part of my early Christian life and I realized well I'd better seek the Lord to live a life that is separated because I'm not saying Jeff did or did not know the Lord he could have backslidden that I don't know all I know is that he wasn't in any place to share with me anything about the Lord and so that's when I really started thinking about how am I living what kind of life do I live and do I live a life that is set apart you see the word holy when he speaks of them as being holy brethren the word holy means set apart once you're the ones who have been set apart for use by God in this context you are citizens of heaven and because you have a heavenly calling and it's a holy calling well then you need to let go of earthly things especially those things that fall short of Jesus Christ so don't hang on to earthly rituals don't hang on to symbols and miss what God has for you he says consider in verse 1 consider the apostle and high priest of our confession Jesus Christ the word consider means pay serious attention to carefully study him Jesus Christ is the one that you are to look at carefully he is called an apostle because an apostle is one sent from God as a messenger to man so Jesus is God's highest messenger to man he's referred to as our high priest because he makes intercession for us we will see this in more detail as we go through the book of Hebrews but he's letting us know that Jesus Christ is God's messenger to man who has a role that he performs in our life he is the high priest he says of our confession that's our confession of faith in him unto salvation so consider this one consider Christ Jesus verse 2 who was faithful to him who appointed him as Moses also was faithful in all his house now when it says in verse 2 who was faithful that word faithful means trustworthy he was trustworthy to the one who appointed him as Moses was also faithful in all his house all God's house so Jesus is faithful to the father and he was faithful to perform the work that he was called to Jesus completely performed the task he was sent to perform and what was that task Jesus came to perform the task of salvation he was totally faithful in accomplishing that Jesus is the one who laid his life down for us he laid down in order that he might take it up again and so Jesus did exactly what his father had said he was a faithful one to the call of God but not only was Jesus faithful Moses was faithful also Moses was faithful in all his house so there's a comparison that's being drawn between Jesus and Moses because of the admiration that Israel had of Moses now notice how he says Moses was faithful in all of his house in all of God's house that's confirmed in the Old Testament in Numbers chapter 12 verses 6 through 8 he said listen to my words when a prophet of the Lord is among you I reveal myself to him in visions I speak to him in dreams but this is not true of my servant Moses he is faithful in all my house with him I speak face to face clearly not in riddles he sees the form of the Lord why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses the Lord God says he is faithful in all my house so Moses was faithful to the one who appointed him and so was Jesus Jesus is the only one who ever did the entire will of his father completely he never did anything that was contrary to what his father desired in John 8 29 he said he who sent me is with me the father has not left me alone for I always do those things that please him on one occasion in John 8 46 which of you can convict me of sin and if I say the truth and why do you not believe me so Jesus Christ was faithful completely Moses is declared also as being faithful to the Lord and he speaks in verse 3 in this way he says for this one has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses Moses received honor because Moses is great Moses received honor because he was faithful but Jesus Christ receives more glory and there's a reason why because it says he who built the house has more honor than the house Moses was only a member of the household of God he didn't own that house he was only a steward he didn't build the house he didn't own the house he simply took care of the house on the other hand Jesus Christ is the one who built the house he's the builder of all things he's the owner of all things turn your Bible for just a moment to chapter 1 I want to refresh your memory Jesus Christ is the owner of all things he's the builder of the universe in Hebrews 1 remember how it says in verse 1 and 2 God who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son whom he has appointed heir of all things through whom also he made the worlds Jesus Christ is the creator of all things Moses is part of the things that were created by him and because Moses is only part of the creation and not the creator Jesus is better than Moses even though Moses is the law giver Moses wrote concerning Messiah Jesus even though he was a great deliverer Jesus is the one who delivers us all the way to heaven Jesus Christ is superior to Moses because Moses is a servant in the house but Jesus built that house and because he built the house and owns the house he is greater in John 1 verse 3 the Bible says all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made in Colossians 1 16 Paul said by him were all things created that are in heaven that are in earth visible invisible whether there are thrones or dominions principalities or powers all things were created by him and for him Jesus Christ is greater than Moses because Jesus created all things Moses was a servant in the house of God but the house of God is owned and built by Jesus Jesus built the church that's the dwelling place of the spirit of God and because he created us and dwells within us he is superior to anything Moses has to offer he is the builder of all things now when it says there and says in verse 3 he who built the house is more honored than the house the person who is the builder is the one who equips and furnishes it's the one who prepares or makes something ready it's a word that is used concerning to the one who makes anything ready for a person or a thing it's the piece of constructing something with the idea of completely adorning and equipping it and so Jesus Christ is the one who planned and built all of this he's greater than any of his tools including Moses now verse 4 to me has been a scripture that I've known for many years by heart it's a powerful scripture for every house is built by someone but he who built all things is God there are those who believe in in alternate ways for this universe to have come into existence and they think that it requires too much faith to believe that there is an uncaused cause to be a first cause they think that it is too much of a leap of faith to believe that there is an infinite mind who can create all things but here in verse 4 it's almost a common sense thing every house is built by some some man you know you don't drive by an empty lot and then the next day drive by and see a house that's completely been just constructed that came out of the ground it just makes sense there was an architect somebody designed it somebody went constructed it that's the point he's making and that builder is God I used to work just down the street from here at a place called I believe it was FMC just right up the road I used to work there and I had a friend of mine his name is Chewie and Chewie used to work in this place and he constructed street sweepers I'm sure that you guys have seen FMC logos on a lot of the street sweepers FMC was constructing street sweepers at that time and probably still do and I used to work just down the road from here and a friend of mine was there in the department that put him together and Chewie is a believer and Chewie was sharing with one of the guys on one occasion and was sharing about Jesus Christ and as they were talking and Chewie was witnessing the guy says to him I just can't believe in God and so Chewie says and how do you think this universe came into existence and the man said well I think it just basically exploded into existence Big Bang Theory and he says you really think that and he goes yeah that makes some sense to me and so as they were working Chewie turned and pointed to a street sweeper and he says how do you think that got here and he says well we constructed it I know how that got there and Chewie says you're wrong he says it actually exploded into existence and the guy says I see your point everything is built by someone and the universe didn't just happen to exist and that's the point that he's making here every house is built by some man but he who built all things is God there is a designer to all things and the one who designed all things has an infinite mind so much beyond ours and he is the greatest he's the one who built all things and Jesus Christ is superior because Jesus Christ is God in the flesh Jesus is the one who is doing all of the work and that's the point that he's making here you see when the scripture says all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made we know that it's God who created the heaven and the earth and therefore it's pointed to Jesus as that creator we know that Jesus is the one who did all of that for scripture points very clearly to us that he did and so Jesus is the one who built all things and therefore is greater than Moses verse 5, Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken of afterward but Christ as a son over his own house whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end here's a great example of a man who was submitted to God but he wasn't equal to Jesus Christ God's son Moses indeed was faithful but here's something for you he wasn't completely faithful we remember that the Lord God had spoken to him and said to him on one occasion when he was leading the children of Israel there in the wilderness and they were thirsty God had spoken to him and said smite this rock and from it will proceed water and you can use it to drink sometimes when I originally heard that story I'm thinking of a small rock of some sort that Moses hit and all but I failed to think that the water had to be sufficient there had to be enough to water the needs for over 2 million people plus their cattle and so when that rock was smitten it wasn't a small rock more than likely it was probably large and as it split open and the water naturally came out it had to flood a certain area so all of the livestock had to drink and so it was an incredible thing and so when he did that and he smote that rock it was demonstrating that God was able to provide for the children of Israel water to meet their needs in a wilderness well later on the children of Israel are once again complaining against Moses and all and he gets very angry and the Lord says to him speak to the rock and from it will proceed water well here goes Moses and Moses is in the flesh and so as he goes to the children we smite this rock and produce water for you and he hits the rock now God had said to him no you're to speak to the rock Moses didn't speak to it in fleshly anger he strikes it a second time and because of that that was not perfect obedience and thus he never had the opportunity to enter into the promised land God allowed him to look into it from the other side but he never entered in himself and the reason he never entered in himself is because of disobedience he had misrepresented God you see that rock according to Paul when he writes to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10 that rock was Christ and it was a picture of Jesus Christ who was smitten for us and produces living water but he was only smitten once he was not smitten twice he died one time for all time and so rather than striking him twice he was to smite him once as a demonstration of salvation coming through the death of Christ and then speak to him the second time he did not know what God intended to do and thus he disobeys and in doing so was not completely faithful on the other hand Jesus Christ was completely faithful there was never a single thing that he did recorded in Scripture that was wrong or out of the will of the Father so Moses was faithful but not completely faithful he was a faithful man and God remembers him as faithful but we know the full story and we know that he didn't completely honor God in everything in this house and he is used as a testimony of those things which would be spoken of afterward but Christ as he says in verse 6 is a son a son over his own house whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end we are the house we're the church the church is our bodies it's not the building because the church doesn't need a building to meet in the church meets in various places throughout the world at any given time you go to Hawaii and they meet out there in parks they're not meeting in any buildings they're meeting in parks sometimes the church will meet in an industrial an industrial building sometimes it meets in a sanctuary like this it can meet anywhere it can meet in houses it can meet anywhere as the body of Christ gathers together but what the church really is is all bodies as we gather together as the temple of the Spirit and we worship God together and so we are the house we are the temple we are the body of Christ that has been gathered throughout the world and has been brought together in him and we demonstrate that we are his house because we continue in Christ because we have relationship with God in one another and the Lord would have us to do that I find it interesting to know how he says it now notice in verse 6 again Christ is a son over his own house whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end there are some who receive the word of God with joy but when they begin to go through hard times fall away they don't have a real genuine conversion experience so much as they're accommodating their life to certain things that they appreciate that they have read in the Bible that they think sound true the real mark of somebody who is truly born again is continuing it's hanging on there going through whatever it is that we go through through thick and thin hanging on to Jesus Christ when you read in Matthew chapter 7 how the Lord God speaks concerning two men, two builders one builds their life on sinking sand and the other builds it firmly on a rock and the winds come and the rains come and the storms hit and they hit both of those dwelling places but one falls and the other remains strong and the reason one falls is its foundation was shoddy it was built on sand the other remains firm because it was built on the rock your life is built on the rock Jesus himself you do go through storms don't you we all do it's just something that happens to the believer and the unbeliever alike the storms and trials of life hit us all equally yet some of us remain firm and strong because we're hanging on to Christ we built our life on a rock others will say well I gave it a shot it didn't work for me I don't want anything to do with it anymore I once was a Christian but I'm no longer one in reality Jesus had said if you drink of the water that I give to you you will never thirst again if you eat of my flesh speaking of partaking in my life you will never hunger again if you drink of my blood you will never thirst again in other words if you fully imbibe who I am if you are totally regenerated and if you pursue me as a born again individual life is within you and you'll never hunger for anything else I have found that to be absolutely true as a Christian I have met many people over the years who began well but didn't continue then you discover that in reality they had never really committed their heart to Christ in the first place one of the most true stories I can give you about that is the guy who was influential in me coming to Christ his name was Bill he was the guy who when I had gone to his house and he wanted to take me to the Hollywood Palladium to go and hear this Christian concert and speakers and I had gone to Bill's house and said you know I don't want to go with you but I'll go with you some other time it was Bill who prevailed on me and said you need to go because we prayed and God said you have to go and so I went with him and it was Bill who really wanted and encouraged me to come to faith in Jesus Christ and it was at his house that I began to learn the Bible it was at his house that I began to learn to worship it was at his house that I began to learn to pray and it was with Bill for the first three months of my walk that I learned the steps that they eventually became my life and we went into the military both he and I went in together on the same day we went on what was called the buddy plan and Bill and I went into the military and it was Bill who said to me make sure you bring your Bible and bring a couple of Christian books and all because when we're there in the army your faith is going to be challenged and so I brought my Bible and I brought some Christian books and all and we went through basic training together got separated after the eight weeks of basic he went off to one place we got out of the service and by the time we got out of the service Bill had walked away from the Lord and then I saw Bill a few years ago now and he actually had called me and said David he said I want to ask you a question and he said I was listening to some TV preacher and he was talking about the book of Revelation and Bill out of nowhere called me at my house and wanted to ask a Bible question and I hadn't heard from him and I don't know how long and then together he and I were part of a friend of mine's wedding and prior to that Bill had said you know I hear you on K wave I turn on the radio sometimes and I've listened to you speak Dave and I said really he goes yeah I told Bobby this friend of mine he said I told Bobby that he ought to turn on K wave 107.9 1130 you're on the radio and I said is that right I had known Bill since I was five years old and he and I lived right across the street from one another it was my best friend from most of my life in many ways we're very close and almost like brothers at one time and then the last time I saw him he says to me you know Dave he said I heard you on the radio and I heard you bring my name up and I heard you say how that we together used to go to Bible study and he says and I want to tell you something I don't remember any of that not a single thing of that I don't remember that at all see Bill is a trainer he's a lieutenant in the Los Angeles police department now he was in the vice squad for many years and he's seen the underbelly of society and he walked away from God a long time ago how interesting it is to me how somebody can actually be used by God to bring somebody else to Christ when that person doesn't even know Christ themselves and Bill doesn't even remember when he used to go to Calvary Chapel he doesn't even remember how I got saved through his invitation to go to a Maranatha concert and so a long time ago I learned that people can rejoice in all initially but it's not rejoicing at the beginning it's rejoicing of the hope firm to the end that demonstrates that you're truly saved it's not just that initial thing because the Jesus movement and the Jesus people and all of that you know 30 some years ago was an exciting time in the history of the American church but there were so many people who started to finish they didn't finish and so it's always to me as I read scriptures like that a warning a warning to remain firm with Christ to rejoice in him not just in the good times but through the rest of my life holding firm until the very end abiding in his word demonstrating that we truly are his disciples


So yeah, my first question, why has Taiwan been so exceptional in preventing the spread of the coronavirus? Sure, because everybody in Taiwan who's above 30 years old remember how bad SARS was and so when Dr. Lee Wenliang, the PRC was up lower, gets reposted on the Taiwan social media that there's seven new SARS confirmed cases. Everybody gets mobilized and so starting as early as January 1st, we started doing health inspections for flies from Wuhan to Taiwan. So we reacted fast and the PPE distribution was fair and also the communication was common collected and you got fun. So fast, fair, fun was the main reason. Okay, so I've spoken to different people. Some say that it was mainly attributable to what the government did but then other people just said that people had this experience with SARS. You can look at Hong Kong, they also had experience with SARS and I wouldn't say that their trust to their government is at the same level as Taiwanese people to the government but still they managed to do pretty well and so I think social sector mobilization by far is the main reason. But even now, I think Taiwan really stands out among all the other nations. Yeah, we were officially post-COVID and we're repurposing all the digital infrastructure we used to ration the mask to now do the triple stimulus vouchers. So we're firmly in the stimulus stage now. Okay, and then oh yeah, so then describe how Taiwan has implemented contact tracing. Sure, there's just regular contact tracing interviews and such. I think one of the things that really helped is that we have very strict border control because if you put your border control, for example the quarantine hotels at the border then you wouldn't need to spend extra personnel when it goes to a community spread stage. Taiwan never entered the community spread stage and we never imposed a lockdown and because we did very strict and early on very anticipatory. What they use here from people is this term called advanced deployment or Chao Qian Bu Shu. So we treat it as if everybody returning from overseas is sick. We treat it as if everyone who's returning citizen either go to a quarantine hotel or if they have a home where they live with no vulnerable people they can also choose to home quarantine but we also use the digital fence to make sure that their phone doesn't exceed the perimeter of their home quarantine for 14 days and just now we're very gradually starting to say okay so you if you fly in from say New Zealand we're headed more or less under control then we shorten the 14 day into five days but you still have to do a RTPCR test before boarding and after the quarantine. Okay, so let me see if I understand this correctly. I believe smartphones were also part of this contact crisis. If we go to the quarantine hotel of course there's a physical quarantine where you can't leave the hotel but if you choose to stay at home then yes your phone or if you don't have a phone we hand you a phone is basically the cell phone towers near you already collect the signal strength right so if you have three cell phone towers each knowing the distance to your phone and you draw three circles there's going to be one overlapping point and that's where your phone is but it's not GPS first of all it doesn't drain the battery GPS it's very energy consuming it doesn't require you to install any app it's the data that the cell phone operators are already collecting anyway and finally it has a precision roughly 15 meters in urban areas in GPS we would know exactly which room you're in in your home and that's like too much information we don't need that information we just need to know whether you have broken out of the currently or not if you choose to stay in the quarantine we pay you I think 33 US dollars per day a stipend but if you break it it's 1000 times that is a fine okay so how does this contrast with I don't know if you're familiar with what was done in Israel but there was some sort of Israel recently revealed that you know hey we've been we've been using smartphones to track people to prevent terrorism and we're now using the same technology to yeah it's it's not the same it's not the same use okay in Taiwan the kind of geo fans or what we call digital fans is used for two cases that people are familiar one is for earthquake if you are in a place where there's a high risk of landslide or whatever soon as earthquake happens actually before the earthquake actually gets felt you will receive this cell broadcast like a sms message that tells you to evacuate basically or when typhoon comes if you're in a place with a high chance of flood then people in that area also receive a sms so people already gets into the habit of receiving the kind of public service announcements for specific areas of population and so the geo fencing in the digital fence works similarly but it works basically by defining the rest of Taiwan you know other than your home uh as a dangerous area so once you break out of it not only you but also your household manager or the police receive the sms but it's the same idea so there's no extra data collection no apps need to be installed and it's very transparent people understand that once the 14 day parenting is over there's no constitutional basis for us to keep track of your whereabouts and so it's both space limited and also time okay so i think that pretty that explains pretty much how privacy is protected yeah and if you don't like the digital fence you can choose to go to a hotel okay okay all right and so what areas of government are you involved in in what ways do you help to shape policy yeah so i'm in charge of three things one is for social innovation for example when there's people who said oh i would like to visualize how many masks are available around my vicinity and that's social innovation because the government didn't think of that it is the people right so i'm in charge of amplifying their idea trusting citizens with open data ensuring the social innovation can continue to become essentially digital infrastructure nowadays these tools more than 140 enjoys more than i think 10 million users and all together of 23 million people in taiwan more than 21 million have collected using their national health insurance card the rations mask or is a is a big success more than 90 percent of people have done so the rest maybe they already have some musk in their store so they would instead use another app to basically dedicate their uncollected must quote out to international humanitarian aid so that's another thing right so these are social innovation because this starts from the civil society so that's one of my job the other job of mine is called open government is the other way around is a government responding to people's ideas saying okay now we have a consultation we would like you to suggest ways that our privacy in consign that doesn't hurt the privacy while helping to manage the code it so for example we run the co-hack which stands for corona virus hackathon or collaboration hackathon your choice but at co-hack.tw it's a joint taiwan us statement to counter coronavirus so we invite lots of teams around the world to vote on the ideas that conforms to the local norm that people feel are they're comfortable in implementing so out of the open government work came for example the idea that people can use their phone to check their own whereabouts but it doesn't sense through bluetooth or 4g or 5g or whatever it keeps strictly in the phone so it's works only for you and the reason why for that is called lockboard one of the winners of the co-hack hackathon the open government work is that because people feel if it serves their own best interest then they're willing to check their whereabouts and once the contact trace have come to them it generates this one-time link that the contact tracing know exactly the kind of information that medical offices need without divulging the privacy details of their friends and families as a traditional contact tracing interview would reveal so it's a privacy protecting tool so that's open government where we ask for consultations and ideas and finally i'm also in charge of youth engagement in which each of the ministries in charge of innovation like 12 of them have a higher really not higher a point to reverse mentors people who are under 35 years old who are their social entrepreneurs social innovators that leads the ministry's direction suggesting for example the world skills competition champion should be treated like olympic athletes champions on the national day parade and also teaching like high schools people so that they choose high schools specializing technique technical expertise as their first choice instead of just academic high schools as their first choice that's a really good idea and it's implemented through the youth council that basically has the premiere as the head that translates these young people's directions into feasible government plans that's my third portfolio so just stepping back a bit this open government initiative is actually a collaboration with people all over the world not just that's right yeah taiwan is just one of the the fields that we work and digital minister in taiwan but i'm also a board member of three international ngos furthering open government work in the future society also radio exchange foundation the council foundation in amsterdam and so on so we see us as a kind of coalition of the willing coalition of liberal democracies that look to basically make democracy grow stronger during the pandemic to make a more like real-time democracy instead of vote every four years democracy and we use the pandemic as a amplifier for people to feel that oh we're all stakeholders in this counter primary way so i've spoken to other people other ngos here in taiwan actually it seems to me that's one of taiwan's strongest expressions of soft power yes so it's interesting to me that you're also part of that of course yeah if you'd spoke to for example the taiwan association for human rights the thr they will gladly tell you that taiwan is the only jurisdiction in asia that enjoys the completely open rating from the civicus monitor in terms of the freedom to assemble freedom of speech freedom of journalism and things like that and even if you count asia pacific i think taiwan and new zealand are the only two which means that not only the reporter without borders have their asian headquarter here that also a freedom forum set up their annual conference here twice now and also the journalists that got um uh invited out uh from prc and the hong kong and the international ngos nowadays um just choose taiwan as their headquarter because really there is nowhere else that has the more free civice science that's fantastic um i i would actually like to talk to more ngos uh just to get a better sense of what taiwan is doing in that area um so how do you actually help to shape policy then here in taiwan yeah so as i said uh through open government that is to say the public consultations and hackathons through social innovation that is to say people have a great idea i just show it to our premier i say that we really need to support that okay and as that and also youth engagement these are the three main ways that i should policy uh and each ministry related to social innovation uh around 12 of them uh have secondment in my office okay so uh on your way in we're probably already past the secondments from the ministries of interior of culture of communication of justice of finance uh i'm missing a few foreign service and and so on and basically they agreed to work out loud meaning that they work in a very horizontal leadership way i don't give them scoring or rating or whatever uh but say uh work on cross-ministerial issues kind of autonomously okay so uh not now i know another initiative of yours is to make government transparent this should should the government be totally transparent i mean yeah i think government should be radically transparent and radical i mean at a root so for example my meeting with journalists uh i agree to publish this video uh after you do so i can embargo until your story runs okay so it's not like we livestream everything or if you choose to have a textual transcript you can go back and edit away the typos or add some references it's all okay as long as you don't touch my part of words so uh it basically it flips the default it makes radical transparency makes um transparency the default and you have to do some extra work to redact or to take away some anecdotes that you hear from your friend who have no clarity for complication and so on so all of this is allowed but a radical transparency makes the transparency the default okay but i mean certainly there are some areas in which government needs to be confidential also right i mean i'm sure and then you have 10 days or in case if you're uh public servant you have 10 working days to edit those out okay okay all right um yeah okay so i think you've explained pretty well how tywin tywin has successfully implemented transparency but are there are there some other areas which you think more effort needs to be made perhaps yeah sure uh in the parliament they just started their own open government network um opening up the parliament which is a very good development because we in the demonstration you know it's the uh we are making ourselves transparent to the people uh and also to the nps but we could not ask the np to be transparent to us right that would be the reversal of constitutional rules but if the nps and i think all four parties uh there are or five uh or or more but anyway uh all the different parties in parliament agree no matter what their ideologies are that uh open government is their kind of shared value uh and so they have their their own coalition of the open government partnership inspired multi-stakeholder uh forum to make themselves more open and you see already the same uh happening to the justice to the courts as well uh in taiwan we're in the next few years gradually uh introducing juries that is to say participating uh citizens which will again open up the field of the judges and so i think it's just not uh something that the demonstration can do it along we need support from other branches as well so so could could you explain at what stage each of these different uh efforts are sure yeah so um i think for the open justice part there's a lot of mock uh trials uh already uh involving participatory citizens like mock juries uh and i think they're now working on the kind of final legalization required uh to to make that a reality i think the goal is to implement it within dr siren one's second term uh and for open parliament again they just pass the resolution uh before the end of the previous session so we'll see a lot more activity in the next session so what does that mean to the typical citizen in taiwan if they want to see any sort of judicial proceedings or legislative proceedings online they can do that for example uh for unsafe driving which is a very popular thing driving under influence uh the oi there's many people who would question uh why do the judge rule so lightly on this um the oi incident uh funny how people don't ask why they judge so strongly but anyway so uh so and so because of that uh the uh court uh the what we call the judicial yuan uh the judicial branch developed this assistive intelligence and ai that basically lets you click uh any driving under influence case and it analyzed to you using natural language parsing which part of the persecution corresponds to which clauses in the driving under influence rule and so that's results in this sentencing and you can try it out and compare how similar like these different cases are and so instead of explaining over and over again why do we judge this way or that way it's actually also very useful for judges so who can see how this case compares to every other cases of course they can always override the assistive intelligence but then they have to specify why and so i think that is a really good case in which that assistive intelligence really lowered the kind of everyday chore of the public servants oh fantastic so okay now i think this probably is a bit more difficult question hopefully i'm not giving you two questions they're too too easy but uh how good is taiwan cyber security i mean is it as a digital as a hacker yourself yeah we're we're sitting here means it's pretty good okay um it's battle tested so um it's very interesting because in taiwan uh the white hat uh hacker community is very active just as our civic hacker community is active uh i think last year they won the second place in the international DEF CON CTF the kind of like annual olympic level contest um this was DEF CON in the us yeah DEF CON CTF uh they won second place uh next only to the us team i think this year maybe we win but anyway so we're seeking but uh in any case the point is that the white hat hackers in taiwan is considered both a prestigious as in they're like i don't know defenders of of our island and also paid very well because we may show that for each government project uh five to seven percent of all id budget goes to cyber security alone like penetration testing third time saying purple taming and so on and in the next four years we're expanding that to five to seven percent of the total budget which is even more right so if you're a white hat hacker you get paid well you have a lot of chance to meet with the president or the minister um and also you get recognized for your work and to make sure that young people learn about all these ethical hacking things so they don't fall to the dark side which has more cookies so these people are the white hat hackers are contractors working for the government or yeah some of them decided to contract and work for the government some of them started their own company like trend micro is actually quite famous internationally i never thought of them as white hat hackers they are white hat hackers okay yeah they do they do prevention they do forensics they they even do disinformation analysis they also have a chat bot called doctrine message that can look at trending rumors on the line platform if you forward it to them or invite the bot to your chat room it does what antivirus does best which is scan each incoming message and if sees something like a scam or a you know disinformation package it just says right there that this is virus detected disinformation detected and so on so the private sector is very important in keeping the cybersecurity branding so making sure that everyday people just like they trust about antivirus company they would also learn about good information hygiene so to speak so that those scams or those disinformation packages won't have a r-value over one meaning that people wouldn't spread it to other people that it could be contact traced and that's called cybersecurity attribution uh and and hunt it down okay so trend micro i think is based in japan that there's no conflict of interest with them being in japan but doing more true well there's some investors and some developers in japan but trend micro started as a time yes yes i know that right okay um okay so there have been several serious hacking incidents this year uh from some of the reports i've read even some confidential documents were you know inside the central government were lost really yeah oh so you're you're not aware of that what you mean the presidential office yes i i thought one i think one's report i read said that what uh the personal details on uh you know taiwan citizens were were act and and uh it was long ago though it was long ago it was long ago um the news still was new and and i think it's very interesting how how long ago was that by the way i think it's around 2008 2009 okay like that okay because it's a it's a very old copy and it's probably not from a government database it could be from multiple sources the format is like very chaotic it came from various different sources as woven together and in in in any case it's not news to us so it's very interesting how the the press have kind of rediscovered uh that uh i think it's interesting because it compares i think to the presidential office which is again not office document it's more like personal notes uh from the presidential office and it's not the the carbon copy of the personal note either it's being adjusted strategically and sent to to journalists and so all this um there's no kind of single incident that uh give these results rather it's more like a kind of media operation that they want to i don't know scare Taiwanese people maybe okay okay okay so they're i'm i'm sure you're aware of these reports that said that uh a lot of even state-run companies like uh what uh john hotell com yeah so on and so forth they they were all they were also under these cyber attacks during this year i think it was prior to uh to uh president size the beginning of her second term of office so i think you are aware of those incidents i mean did they actually happen yeah well it's been going on for a very long time though um because for example the the the so-called um the household uh data that you just referred to uh the vast majority uh is from before 2004 okay and from 2005 to 2008 there's been according to our investigation people there's been 30 uh new data inserted in uh and so it's just i don't know how to put it but i think the main point is that it's been going on for a very long time this is what we call advanced persistent threats or a apt so while the majority was before 2004 uh from time to time they add just a few uh items that they somehow managed to get uh and to kind of keep refreshing this memory of uh you know tony's personal data being circulated uh dark web and things like that and so i think a lot of it though i think is just to create a a atmosphere of unease of anxiety more than anything instead of hard cyber attack i think this is more like in the mold information area okay so what is it fair to say then that taiwan's cyber security now is better than 2004 yes okay okay well that's good to know um all right because i've also heard people say that taiwan is sort of like a laboratory for these hacks coming from from china right i mean it's a fairly constant thing that that's what i mean by battle that's it yeah yeah okay so those yeah uh those there's been no decrease in those attacks right yeah there's been no decrease but again i think uh because of the white hand hacker community in taiwan they don't have to do exercises or drills right they face real things every day so that also prompts us to have a strong cyber security culture and also if you liken it to kind of personal hygiene like using soap to wash your hand and things like that uh two factor authentication and things like that uh it makes it the norm to do so and a lapse in that of course sometimes causes minor community cases but it never really evolved into community transmission like in the critical infrastructure it doesn't affect the operations like the operation technology because we design already with these in mind and most of the core infrastructure doesn't even connect to the internet okay what about some of these privately run companies though like tsmc apparently they're also they're part of critical infrastructure too okay yeah and uh they're um mis their information management um also have a lot of really good white hat hackers in i know because tm tsmc poached one white hat hacker from my office oh tsmc how long ago was that it was a year ago a year ago okay so apparently they're they're cyber security is also fairly good and they have to i mean by law because tsmc is classified as part of our critical infrastructure oh yeah i mean if i remember several years ago there was uh what some of their equipment was affected by some sort of a worm uh i believe i don't know if you're familiar with that but that that did have some impact on there i think they had to shut down yeah but i think it was contained very quickly okay yeah so it's not like we're totally invincible to attack but the idea of defense at depth is that as soon as you notify that happens first you do a notification to the core coordinated reporting system assert on the other hand they have a business resilience plan for example they would unplug the internet cables and continue to do plan b work which keeps its normal work running obey as a i guess a reduced efficiency but it's not like end of the world okay all right so how does uh is there anything that taiwan needs to do to prevent future cyber attacks well i think one of the main thing we're working on as i said is just to increase the budget if every government agency see that when they're procuring they're not adding server security as some extra item after but rather they use penetration testing as a norm when i become digital minister i set up this system called sandstorm that allows cross-departmental document sharing uh spreadsheet sharing and so on and we asked the top hackers the one that got the second place uh in the defconn cdf uh to attack the system uh is open source so it's why bought text testing for six months and they file three cvs three vulnerabilities and finally concluded okay it's safe right so we need to make this a habit and this is not just for a virtual system for example in the self-driving testing ground uh in charlotte right uh we also hosted this grand challenge to invite one hand hackers to make sure that nobody can i guess remote control the self-driving equals into killing machines or something to making sure that's that physical infrastructure is uh also safe before we allow any testing on that proofing ground oh okay i think i saw some of the i i had to kind of rub my eyes when i saw these self-driving vehicles uh in that area how how soon is that going to start it's running now or is it in the shini dedicated bus lane was that right yeah it's just it's not picking up passengers yet because i think there's two models one was nine people one was 35 people and they worked after the metro closed so it's kind of like a pseudo software defined metro and they're now training those assistive intelligence to get familiar with the road of Taipei and soon once they're reasonably familiar then people will be able to take on those buses so how soon will that be i think before end of the year it will that be a world's first probably not the world's first but in taiwan there's many world's first so there's also self-driving boats uh i think in galsheng and also um self-driving uh drones that's already everywhere and so when we do our self-driving vehicle uh testing sandbox act we did not distinguish between uh different modes it could be something gets on water and then flies or goes on the road or whatever it could be multi-mobile and all of this are now under testing and many of them require 5g to properly work because of pollution prevention vehicle to vehicle communication and so on i think by tomorrow two of the many major telecoms will announce the general 5g availability oh okay now i know this is kind of this is not on the list of questions but right i mean i see a lot of uh chinese made equipment in taiwan like a Huawei equipment zte equipment it is hopefully not in our office system is that is that a concern though i mean could could it be a weakness it's a it's a it's a debate we had uh when we occupied the parliament uh in 2014 uh in sunflower more than 20 NGOs each debated one aspect of the cross trade server and trade agreement or the cstn one of them uh debated whether we need to allow prc components in our 4g infrastructure and uh result everybody knows it by now is now right we do not allow prc components in the base stations in the basic infrastructures but also people doesn't feel that handheld devices that super phones at that time was a big threat because if you secure the core infrastructures there's very limited damage what a phone could do and that was kind of the rough consensus at a time of course later on Huawei would get into trouble with ncc because in their firmware update they insist calling taiwan you know taiwan province of china or something like that but that's another thing altogether right so our strategy is just to keep infrastructure safe uh and then in the public sector of course we do not procure prc components but in the economic sector where the damage is negligible if they're not in critical infrastructures at the moment there's no i'll write that okay all right and so then what i think you explained already quite a bit about taiwan's coder culture which is kind of surprised to me because i've i've always kind of perceived of taiwan as more sort of a hardware place i know our best software engineers gets conscripted into working for hardware fans yeah so so what what is the coder culture like here in taiwan yeah i think in the recent years there's been a lot of change i think assistive intelligence or ai really play a large part that's when the sme suddenly see that they can do a digital transformation and instead of kind of saving money amortized somewhere down the line they can just save money immediately by automating a lot of their chores on qa work automation work and things like that with very little programming required it's basically just a assistive intelligence apprentice observing their senior staff working and so for that the digital transformation there's a lot of people kind of freed up from this hardware industry now working with the miss me's to do digital transformation even for example some internationally known people like ezen du the person who was in charge of the cortana ai in the microsoft ecosystem moved back to taiwan to start the alabs to explore human computer interaction medical uses a lot of the pandemic counter pandemic uses of ai that was pioneered by the alab the gold card visa also helped i think the founder one of the founders of youtube is also now back to taiwan using gold card and so on so we're seeing a influx of pure software people working with the hardware ecosystem to work on what we call sensory fusion projects that requires for example in the southern vehicle you need the optics the acoustics the lidar whatever to work very closely together and that often requires computation at the edge that is to say on the vehicle instead of in the cloud because that would be too too late and tsmc of course can do whatever chip you design for that and so there's a very good integrated supply chain not only the peripherals the optics the chips and so on but also people specializing in interaction design that's your design and so on all of these people are now going back to taiwan sometimes accidentally because they were just here for a new year and then they find there's nowhere as safe as taiwan so they say so that was sort of an indirect impact of the corona virus definitely i mean a lot of people who kind of accidentally you know just go back to visit their parents and then wait where am i going i'm not going anywhere and then started to to really think about how could they can contribute to taiwan well that's fantastic i i really love to meet some of these people if you could help introduce me to them of course yeah because i think that's one i mean okay i've covered the hardware industry for you know so many years and so i've always had this perception of you know this is a very you know manufacturing oriented sort of industry here right but so it's interesting to hear that you know we now have this sort of coder culture that is yes you can talk to a recent winner of co-hack right i talked about lockboard where you keep your word about in the phone and there's someone another team called autonomy that does that but on a community scale community level and the the person leading that ever is called shan most puts and he runs bitmark in taiwan but i think he's american uh and he and his co-founders and their friends are now trapped in the bubble uh but they said it's a good book to be trapped so maybe i can introduce you to shan you can have a chat yeah that would be great that would be great i would love that uh so yeah so yeah you've introduced some of these people so what about the lgbt scene in taiwan we're going to have a find physically i think the only one in the world right yeah right i read that so that what is that going to be so um it's a series of events right the municipal governments uh the various different NGOs and so on they have a series of um events i think there's um wow a lot actually they they start today uh and and continues for quite some time and um a lot of so um yeah the the news i was just reading the news it says a nearly 500 other events globally have been cancelled uh and so a lot of energy has been pouring in uh into the the the pride uh so there's of course the global pride online uh but there's also um the according to the taiwan gay sports association um the the global pride family celebration is on sunday which was yesterday uh and then uh continued with a lot of live streaming extra the again sat there was not fine okay so how has this opening to the lgbt community here really changed society in taiwan well uh in two ways uh one i think uh people after the two referendum one constitutional ruling uh really see that our very innovative msa uh legalizing the bylaws but not the in-laws or a mandarin jiehwen bujie in uh it is very creative because for taiwanese people who married before 2007 uh it could be by social ceremony meaning that it's a matter between two families but after 2008 it's by registration only which means it's between two individuals and this is called when and that is called in right and so when we did the legalization a year or so ago um we legalized a hyperlinked act that basically says for uh you know home same-sex marriage uh they hyperlinked to every part of the civil code that says the when the rise in beauty is of individuals but it doesn't link to any part of the civil code that talks about families so their farm families are wet okay their individuals wet okay and so this is very interesting because this kind of is something both generations can live with it doesn't disrupt the the um i don't know eight different pronouns um that we use for outside uncles not really pronoun proper nouns that we use for outside uncles but it does protect the same rights and beauties of the the newlyweds uh and so i think this really has a spirit in taiwan uh after the legalization they had both sides feel oh the things that we cherish which is marriage itself uh is being taken care of the family to family value is preserved the individual wants is also being protected and so um i think the approval rate of same-sex marriage grew by like 10 percent between the legalization and now proving that this is not a kind of majority over minority thing but rather is something that we can all live with that's the first and the second is that it creates a uh at least in east asia a really good uh precedence for other jurisdictions look at you just as in in south korea they said oh taiwan published a mask pharmacy map every 30 second why cannot our government do that and they managed to convince their government to do exactly that in um tailand in japan and across the whole of asia we have activists now telling us that this legalizing the bylaw and not in laws may just be the ticket uh and so the power model is spreading so that's also useful internationally that also helps to build recognition of taiwan yes of course right right um yeah this is kind of a personal thing but i've always felt like inclusiveness is is kind of a it's something that presidents high pushed when she first became president you know she had this famous quote in her organization spanish saying that you know before democracy was showdown between opposing values but from now on democracy must become conversation between diverse values and and she's really good at making sure that we take all the signs when designing uh these major policy reforms right right yeah okay um i don't know how we're doing on time here i i know you're you're kind of busy 15 more minutes okay um so are you working with the pro i know you were involved during the sunflower movement with the people in hong kong but are you are you still working with these protesters in hong kong now many of them actually visited me uh either physically or digitally in the past few months um due to um generally in all circumstances uh and many of them are very delighted when they see a week or so ago that our government under president saying west direction have this dedicated office and hotline for protection of hong kong people if they want to seek asylum or they want to seek a platform which to speak to international media and things like that we're happy to help taiwan is here to help so that that's the main form of support that you're providing to these people in hong kong well also hosting also a freedom foreign hosting the reporter without orders making sure that their stories are told truthfully uh and and journalists and in taiwan can report however they want without uh worrying they would be invited out yeah yeah so is there any other way that the government here is supporting the be water movement in in hong kong well i think be water starts from hong kong i mean say it's a li xia long thing right it's a risky thing right uh but it's it's we see it everywhere in the world now i think the people in brasilona quotes be water uh and pretty much everybody in the world now who have heard of how this leaderless movement work uh could see that it's a new stage of uh protests i know extinction rebellion also use some of those uh tactics uh and uh even alternative parties like alternate events uh in danmark and so on there they're all i would say imitate i would say they're learning from the be water ethos uh and basically become a hashtag and once a movement become a hashtag it's leaderless right you can't confiscate a hashtag or or imprison the hashtag because it's just an idea um i don't understand how that works though i mean i think it's a brilliant idea uh but how do you have a leaderless movement right well well hashtag me too is a great example uh if you see hashtag me too um like i i for one cannot be called who first used that hashtag but i know what that means uh and hashtag black life matters now uh have a very similar structure i mean there's ostensibly leaders but there's like just in hong kong there are leaders there are people who make uh music like make glory be to hong kong so but they do so by co-creation they do so uh allowing uh remixes they relinquish most of the copyright anyway uh and so that each generation uh and i mean generation a very fast iteration since i don't mean 20 years maybe 20 seconds uh after they publish it um internet platforms uh people start to remix and make more potent memes uh on top of those hashtags and that's how we see those very trending hashtags being created you can see the same involving taiwan with the milk tea alliance uh hashtag you can see it in the viva taiwan hashtag uh there's a lot of hashtag structure of that okay but for example if you if you want to organize a protest or something like that how yeah you have a good hashtag okay yeah okay okay so then everybody organizes under underneath that that's right yeah okay yeah my main hashtag as you can see is called taiwan can help okay okay so okay then what what are your personal aspirations what what are you what do you see yourself doing maybe five years from now 10 years from now exactly as as now okay building common values out of different positions and also when something really needs uh to be done and nobody seems to be doing it well i still have some programming chops i guess i can do that myself as a civic pattern um i changed for example the translation uh one word really a typo uh in the japan stop covid dashboard for the tokyo metropolis uh and that was me as a github contributor not me as a digital minister all right and uh code for japan look kind of their equivalent to cup zero um how does the kisang their their leader tweeted it and the city councilor tweeted it and then the mayor of tokyo tweeted it as if this is somehow you know trick one diplomacy but this is really digital or track zero diplomacy so i still do that from time to time kind of as a hobby but most of the time i spend my time listening to different stakeholders and try to build common value out of different positions okay so does that mean you you i mean you're working in the private sector or the public sector in the future or maybe both no obviously both right i work primarily in the social sector the people right right that the people who voluntarily see injustices in the world and try to come up with innovations that makes it that's bad or a lot better but the economic sector of course can amplify these like google supported the mask map the public sector again can support the necessary open data and so on but it's for first and foremost social sector okay right so then what what are your aspirations for taiwan so the jade mountain savia the tip of taiwan the peak grows by two or three centimeters every year toward the sky and that is because the tectonic plates and and i think this is very symbolic or not at all symbolic if you go to the taroko gorge you get to see that in action so the two plates that bump into each other all the time both creates earthquakes forcing us to be resilient and force us to look at things from a higher vantage point and i think this is what i call transculturalism which is be in taiwan with more than 20 national languages including the sign language which has become very popular thanks to them daily press conferences they all enjoy equal sign in shaping the future of taiwan which is growing upward toward this time okay so then that's very abstract though i think right but but that's that's what liberal democracy is all about it is being open to possible futures this is not a top down like we do a 10-year plan right this is what whatever people think of today we translate that into national scale innovation tomorrow or next year yeah do do you ever i mean a lot of the people i've spoken to of course talk about independence for taiwan people say well it already is independent yeah it's not it's not it's not really something we need to since the neolithic age right i heard that comment from you before that was that was brilliant geological okay so there's no point really in in overemphasizing uh you know taiwan becoming uh well i think internationally it's very important that people i think after the marriage equality after milk tea after now the taiwan model uh less and less people confused as with taiwan not not not that i have anything against taiwan i've been in taiwan many times and they also have milk tea there and also bubble tea but in any case the point is that um taiwan as a a brand internationally still have a lot of room to develop there's many people who hear taiwan and only think of tsmc not that tmc is is is not our what our pride but we have much more to offer in liberal democracy in our countering the infodemic without takedown countering pandemic without lockdown all sort of different contributions taiwan can help so it's not just hardware manufacturing so i think a lot of international branding and image is what we can work on and that for me is even more important than any sort of de jure independence and even if you are working for de jure independence that's kind of a requirement for de jure independence because i would recognize you know mutually uh from the international community and taiwan's contributions right yeah i i think recognition is you know it's an important point really but how to how to achieve greater recognition i think that's it's not so easy i mean you you mentioned taiwan being confused with taiwan well i had someone just a few days ago make that mistake yeah um so i mean how does taiwan actually achieve greater recognition yeah i think it's twofold first is as in like taiwan can help that us which is not even a government website it's a crowdfunded website uh they basically collect everything they can about the taiwan model to counter the pandemic and offering kind of epicenter to epicenter working with youtubers and so on to get the taiwan model out especially the critical part about how taiwan nowadays do make 12 million masks per day and we can export easily two million masks per day an automated factory anywhere in the world if you want that and so that's part of the message that the civil society is offering the world basically if you're still struggling with the coronavirus there's at least some parts in taiwan model that we can help and we're willing to help uh in fact we have a list of people in taiwan can help that us uh that's dedicated to their uncollected mask quota for international humanitarian aid and and they are now in the numbers of almost 700 thousand now which uh together donated more than uh the quota of five million and the fun thing is that you can see it um exactly who so so half of the people decide to remain anonymous but half of the people decide to show your name so if you type in my name you can see exactly how many masks did i dedicate uh which is 36 but it's not really 36 it's just six for me but other people who share part of my name dedicated uh their their masks uh quota so so this is the first branch this is civil society social sector youtuber and so on getting the story out getting the message out and the second which is more traditional like official track for example for the international democracy forum dr zangwin our president just gave a speech there virtually before the wha we hosted our own kind of pre wha mini electoral meeting with 14 jurisdictions and through the global cooperation training framework with japan and us and other host countries we do focused workshops on evodemic and things like that and so uh circular economy and so on so for all these mini laterals um taiwan gets um a lot of stage to to offer concrete help instead of focusing our energy solely on nearly 200 countries big multi lateral uh where taiwan traditionally have very little room to navigate uh starting this year we're focusing more on mini laterals and multi stakeholder forums okay one person i interviewed who he he's doing video production and he's he's produced videos for discovery tv national geographic and a lot of them introducing taiwanese cuisine that sort of thing yeah i i thought that he had a very interesting comment about you know winning more recognition for taiwan he said that he feels that it's it's not really important to have a lot of friends it's more important to have just a few very good friends well i guess that depends on whether you're extrovert or introvert okay if you're introvert you prefer a few very good friends okay because meeting with a lot of people drinks you down but if you're extrovert then the larger the party the better okay and and so i think both are important um the general population from like a random country a random um human being if they associate taiwan with something nice something warm um something for example we dedicate the mask or we send our medical supplies we help the agriculture there within a field is to remember how we refine their rise in productions and so on uh of course that's generally good but i agree that it's also important to have a few very good close allies that share the common values and work on common projects together well it certainly helps when uh the the white house holds a press conference and the masks they're wearing say made in taiwan right right here right so it's kind of an assurance on the quality okay i i think i just have one more question which was not on the list but i just read yesterday that uh that taiwan is going to establish a digital ministry is that correct that's correct okay or will you be the the the minister of that digital i will help in getting the plan out okay but uh because uh this is already ready the budget session so which means that even if it passes this upcoming session i don't mean the very eventful emergency session right now i mean the regular session after what the new ministry would not run because it wouldn't have a budget for for next year so the earliest it could run is actually the year after the next okay right and so for the next year and a half uh will have a lot of contributions from legislators also how the digital ministry should work because although it's a presidential promise it's a campaign promise from veteran signwin it's also something pretty much all the parties feel as necessary to do so they'll probably have a lot more inputs into the the act so from the administration of course i can't say uh you know what it will look like because it has not passed even the first reading in the legislation and once it does pass hopefully in the next regular session then we can talk more about how to allocate the budget how to make sure the personnel's work and things like that but that will take place next year okay okay well i think my time's up so thank you so much for your time really good questions well thank you