Thank you so much for joining and congratulations. I was trying to guess what coloured shirt you'd be wearing today. I was roughly on the right hue, but missed it slightly. Thank you so much. I think we've ever had so many questions come through for one guest before, so congratulations. Fantastic, my goodness. Sorry about that, by the way. Sorry about all the delay. Don't worry. It's always a hard one to get right. I'll start off with a really fun one. It was actually from a lady who has written a couple of brilliant things to you over the years. I think she's taken your courses and really loved it. It's from a lady called Nina Jervis. She says, what's your favourite brand of gin and why? Oh, I... Yeah, actually, there are a client of ours, so I have to say this, but actually I say it sincerely, which is we have to credit Sipsmith with the fact that they did a lot of the early campaigning work to make it possible for all the other boutique gin distilleries to open. So there was so much sort of, essentially there was so much what you might call legacy legislation dating back to the 18th century on distilling, that it was more or less a bureaucratic nightmare unless you were some monster corporation to open any kind of distillery. And Sipsmith spent some years campaigning. Indeed, I think they ended up being the first distillery to open in London since something like 1790. And actually we owe a debt of thanks to a few people like that. I think it was Gordon Brown we owe the thanks to for the British explosion in micro breweries. Because he reduced the amount of bureaucracy necessary and reduced, I think, the duty required if you opened up a smaller brewery. And in the United States where until about the 1990s, it was probably the worst country in the world to drink beer, certainly as a proportion of GDP, its beer culture was absolutely despicable. It was Jimmy Carter weirdly it was back in the 1970s, where Jimmy Carter changed the legislation because most of their legislation on opening a brewery effectively dated back to the prohibition era. And so they'd ended up with these five monster breweries, which were kind of brewing industrial scale beer. And now, of course, you might argue that the US has gone from the worst country in the world in which to drink beer to the best. Yeah, so amazing how I also just before I answer anything, I love the way that we can ask you pretty much anything and you'll know something about it. It's a great. It's interesting because of course, government doesn't have much incentive to remove legislation because of course the benefits only appear 10 or 15 years later. Yeah, if you remove legislation and make things easier to do, people don't immediately go, hey, let's open a distillery. Okay, it takes sort of 10, 15 years for the the general shift in behavior and the accompanying shift in taste to take effect. But nonetheless, there is a value to that. I think it's really useful. Totally. I think you're a great example. I was going to say is you're a great example of sort of a T shaped person. That kind of idea of knowing a lot, a lot, a lot of things, a lot of things about a lot of things and how that actually happens.  If I'm being really unkind and actually, you know, there's a wonderful criticism of advertising and marketing, which was always leveled at Drayton Bird by a business friend of his who said, you advertising people, you go very deeply into the surface of things. It's always a criticism, both he and I always bear in mind, but actually the fact that you might have to be talking about PC sales in the morning and then talking about brewing in the afternoon. And actually it's a great business to be curious in because generally, you know, if you become an actuary, reading an article on the greatest example, four days ago, I love the zoom revolution partly because I just like the absence of wasted time and I like the fact that email has reduced in quantity as a result and so on. But I also like it because from now on, if you host a conference or you host a, you know, any kind of trade fair conference, you haven't, you know, a sales event with invited speakers. If you don't broadcast it live over the internet, you'll kind of look like the Freemasons or the Illuminati. In other words, suddenly everything is public by default. And three days ago, I attended this, literally attended this talk on epidemiology at Duke University in North Carolina. If I'd gone to the Ogilvy Finance Department and said I need to, you know, return ticket to North Carolina so I can attend the conference on ant epidemiology. I think they would have told me to bugger off, to be honest.  It's fascinating. So ants have their own equivalent of PPE. So before they have triage, which is they separate ants where there's no chance. From ants, you can help to get better. And basically it's a bit brutal, but if an ant's going to die anyway, they just chuck it out of the colony. But if they have an ant, they think they can save. The PPE is a huge gob of formic acid, which they kind of use to cover their face before they approach the other ant. And then they do this very interesting business of getting themselves deliberately infected, but with only a small dose of whatever the infectious agent is. And so the idea is that by spreading a low level of immunity, you know, by spreading a low level of the disease, you create herd immunity.  And by what she means that masks don't prevent you necessarily getting infected, but they prevent you getting a really, really large dose. And if you get a very mild dose of the virus, the first of all, the outcomes are much less severe and you probably develop immunity at a relatively low cost. And so now this is something which I don't think has been investigated nearly enough, which is is the severity of the outcome dependent on the initial dose.  Yeah, I think I think you raised about that in the spectator. Yeah, it's brilliant. I saw one of the question here, which is probably related to to all of these incredible conferences is from Roger. He says, what was the best piece of knowledge you took from Nudge Stock 2020? Oh, crikey. If we have to follow. I don't know. Maybe it was a lesson learned. Yeah, I was interested in Laurie Santos. I love Laurie Santos, who's an, you know, kind of primatologist who studies apes. And she was quite interesting.  Are, you know, I think disproportionately becoming valuable. And I suspect a little bit of it is is a necessary reaction to. You might argue consumerist overreach, which is that then, you know, this is not by any way, this is not by the by any way by any scope, a majority of the world's population. But it might be the majority of populations now in the developed world are starting out to ask questions about what's it all about affecting me. By which I mean that generally 50% of people in Britain probably don't really want for material goods or that much. Maybe it's 25%. Maybe it trends older. But nonetheless, that question of what actually, you know, now I have so much choice. What can I spend my money, but more important my time on that really makes a difference. That's great. I also, the thing that really interests me is the discovery I made during the pandemic, which is nearly all business discussion revolves around how much you're paid and how hard you work. And this comes from an assumption in labor economics that effectively people have leisure and they're awarded with, you know, effectively 365 days of leisure at birth. And then you exchange your leisure time for money in the shape of work. And that's why your pay is called compensation, by the way, because it's compensating you for your loss of leisure time. And what we did discover during the pandemic, which I think is really important is I started off by saying, actually, I don't necessarily want to work 30% less than I do. What I really value isn't free time, it's free where and free when. If I can work where I like, and I can work when I like to some degree. So in other words, if I'd rather get up at 10 o'clock in the morning and then work at 10 o'clock at night, if I've got something to write, I don't have to be in the office. I can go home. That has a huge value to me, even though it has no real cost to my employer. Okay. And then Brian Featherstone Hall, who's the great sort of career thinker in Ogilvy, he said, no, no, there's a third one. He said, there's free where, there's free when, and there's free who, which is who you get to work with. Yeah. Which is if you can work with people you like at a time that suits you in a place of your choosing. It's no longer really work. It's probably one of the few reasons why people stay in advertising for so long. It's the other people. Very interesting people. I saw a question here from Gareth Welsh, which is sort of related. He said that you famously rebranded twat to mean folks that go into the office on Tuesday, Wednesday. That wasn't me. I wish it was. Had it been my invention, I would have spent the rest of my life effectively marketing it because it's beautiful. I think it came from the city where people who are nearing retirement would say my ambition is to become a twat Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  It's also, now I don't want to make this seem like a real whinge about white collar work. Okay. Because white collar work is cushy. It's not like working on an oil rig. It's not like working in a mine. Okay. But there is one thing about white collar work, which I think is worth noting. Which is once you go to university and you decide that in order since I've been to university, I have to get some sort of office job. The degree of choice you have over when, where and who is basically very low compared to now if you're a blue collar worker and you like we really, really like podcasts or listening to country music and you quite like being a loner. You could become a lorry driver. Right. If you like working weird hours, you can become a taxi driver. If you like a load of matiness and sociability, you know, there are loads of factory jobs where you can have loads of mates and a really good kind of crack. Okay. Actually, office work doesn't, it gives you more money and less grueling labor, but it doesn't give you much control over who, when and where. Yeah. You know, if you're an outdoor worker, you know, interestingly, the guy who services my dad's car back in Wales has got a double first in history from Oxford.  This is a bit weird. And he goes, yeah, no, no, he said, I tried an office job. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't stand being stuck behind the desk. So he works for home tune and drives around and gets a lot of countryside and fresh air and really enjoys fixing people's cars. Brilliant. Brilliant. The actual question that Gareth was going to ask is he said, now, what are your five items that are essential to run a productive home office? He said he can see from your zooms and cameras that you're cutting edge for, he said. To be honest, a lot of that's slightly self-indulgent. But what I would say, I would say that a Zoom account, actually, not necessarily for yourself, but a video call is only as good as the worst participant as you've just seen. You see. So one person who can't handle it. So actually using the most common software increases the quality of the meeting simply because everybody on there knows what they're doing if you use Zoom. And WPP keep ranting on about moving us to Microsoft Teams because they get it for free. And I keep saying, you can move other people.   I think it's a really interesting question, actually. The other big tip I'll give is probably headphones that actually being immersed in the conversation through headphones is much better than having the audio over the TV. So I think the immersive effect of headphones is important. It's probably worth having a professional mic if only for ego purposes, because it actually makes you feel like a broadcaster. And the final tip is get a big, a big 4K TV if you can and use it as a monitor. So whatever size laptop if you try and work, repeat, you know, seriously, my colleagues, I've kept saying to my colleagues, just get a monitor and wonderfully one of the PAs after lockdown went into the office and shipped out all the monitors she could find. To everybody at home, because trying to do that on a laptop screen, particularly if you're my age, your eyesight is getting a bit shaky is really, really tough. So the monitor thing now, interestingly, don't bother. If you just want to watch telly, don't bother getting a 4K TV if you like football, because if there's a lot of motion on there, you can't tell the difference. Okay, because most of the works being done by your brain, if you're watching a camera panning across a soccer field, it's your brain that's constructing the picture. And if you notice when you go into a branch of curries, all the 4K TVs aren't showing soccer matches. They're showing a close up picture of an ant or a flower. And that's because it's with static imagery or text that 4K makes a huge difference. And getting your HDMI connection from your laptop to your 4K telly, you'll never look back. I'm like Lieutenant Ohuru. You know, it's absolutely brilliant. That was a good, good tech advice. This actually comes from Ken Lyons, Ellaria. She said, what's the stupidest thing you've recently heard in the world of marketing? Oh, God, there's a lot of stupidity. The best thing I've heard, by the way, is Bob Hoffman, who when asked to describe the future of marketing in one sentence replied, more of the same, only worse. Which I thought was pretty damn good. But yeah, you hear unbelievable stupidity. The one thing that really annoys me, interestingly, is when people say, oh, but video conferencing, it's not as good as a physical meeting.  But even I never proposed, we do it five days a week, six months at a time. Okay. You know, I accept that there's a role for meeting people. But, and this is the vital thing, 90% of the meetings you're now attending would never have happened in the physical world. So what you need to be looking at is not how a video call is 5% or 10% worse than a physical meeting. You've got to look at the opportunity cost of demanding that people meet physically, which is most of the most interesting conversations you've had over the last six months wouldn't have happened. Now, okay, in my physical meeting days, I probably attended a meeting where people had come from three or four different continents, four or five times a year. Now it happens four or five times a week. I've just cut. That's why I was late. One guy in Hong Kong, one guy in the United States. Nice. And so the point I'm making is that, look, actually, this freedom for people to form teams without geographical constraints or the constraints of travel time is so important. We should be talking about it much more than we are. Makes no sense. This one's another one. It's interesting. I hear this one a lot actually. I'll try and pronounce the name correctly. It's a Romanian name. It says Silivu, I think. Probably butchered it. And as you said, what's your advice for young professionals in order to sort of best work your way up in an agency or a company? The first thing is get in and if you can get in somewhere good, if you can't get in somewhere bad, because ultimately where you've worked after two or three years, where you've worked and what you've done is more important than what degree you have or all that sort of stuff. So that's one really important thing, I think, which is get in there. Some ways, actually, starting in a small agency has advantages because you develop in your first few years a much broader range of skills than you do if you join a large agency where everybody pigeonholes you and you start to specialize a bit too early. And then try and do something amazing. Don't, you know, try and do one or two amazing things. You know, have a story to tell where you go in and effectively say, I did this, they were going to do this. I suggested that look what happened. And actually, you don't need that much because this is talking about creative people in particular because I never really got, I never got senior account handling to be trusted to hire other account people. But what's your probably looking for? A lot of people absolutely pack their book for the staff. And I often say, look, actually, you kind of now, you don't want to just come in with three things because it makes you look a bit arrogant. I accept the fact that it helps to have quite a bit. But actually, if you've got two, two amazing things that that's the clincher generally. If you can make the creative director think I wouldn't have thought of that or crikey. I've been trying to say something like that for years, but you've said it better than I ever could. I remember actually to two great examples that I had when I was at Ogilvy of people asking for jobs where the people who we often hired were people who kind of stood out and went the extra mile to get in their foot in the door. So we had one person went on to the Lego Google Maps and they built one of our Ogilvy offices in Lego.  And then in the in the in the front of the building he wrote out in Lego bricks, please hire me. And then it was tagged with his email address. I mean, it must have taken him a week or two to build it. And then so he got the interview and he was brilliant and he got the job. And then another genius. The one I love from the UK was a bunch of people who managed to get a placement at Abbott meet Vickers and all they did while they were there was Nick all the writing paper they could find. And then just in case you don't know David Abbott was famous.  Everything about him was kind of beautifully measured and elegant. And they stole all this writing paper. Now, what they did is they wrote to 20 creative directors handwritten and I think it said, dear, let's say they're writing to Jeff Seymour, dear Jeff.  It's totally brilliant. He said, unfortunately, I haven't got any room at my gaff at the moment. But if you want to hire them, why don't you call their drum on O2O? It was written in a cockney slang. And then it said, yours till the cows come home, Davey Abbott. And I think in the way of Davey, there was a little smiley face, something that David wouldn't have done if you'd put a gun to his head. And of course, it was so brilliantly incongruous as a fraud. How could you not? At the very least, OK, you're going to invite those people in for the lollies. Yeah. Out of sheer chutzpah, you know. And I always thought that was lovely.  I always say it's the proof that the opposite of a good idea is another good idea. Perfect example. I saw this one was quite funny. You said, Rich Serbetin said, do you think higher tax rate payers should receive a free annual membership card after the pandemic, which entitles them to discounts like Eat Out, Help Out once a month on taxpayer Tuesdays to thank them for funding our public services? Well, it's a good idea. I'm not alone in this. So there's a guy called George Lakoff at Berkeley, who's very much on the American Left. And he always argues that the American Left lose the linguistic wars without noticing. And he argues that you shouldn't use the phrase tax relief because it positions tax as a basically gratuitous burden from which you can be delivered. And he says you should call them social membership dues or something like that, which is in other words, you're paying your fair share towards the maintenance of a decent and civilized society, which makes it possible to enjoy being rich in the first place. Makes sense. But I think the business of actually expressing some gratitude and also making it feel as though your taxes make a difference isn't totally wrongheaded. And actually, it's very interesting question, which is actually, there is an argument, by the way, which is one of the problems of reducing the tax burden conventionally on the rich is they tend to save more rather than spending. And so you really want quantitative easing to go to the poor rather than the rich because they'll spend the money and therefore revive the economy faster. And so there is something really interesting about actually saying that to some degree, if you can look at socially useful forms of expenditure like buying an electric car, it would be an interesting thing to do to say, look, poor people can't buy electric cars because they're mostly new and they're really expensive at the moment. But saying instead of saying there's a £3,000 subsidy on an electric car, you say if you buy an electric car, Mr. Rich guy, higher rate taxpayer will give you a £3,000 tax rebate. That's really interesting. Right. Because he now feels if he doesn't buy an electric car, he's missing out. So getting because there's an argument that rich people aren't totally useless, by the way, in that one of the things they do is they fund the early development of technologies. So televisions or dishwashers would be a perfect example. I know this because this is a really great brag. Okay. My grandparents owned the fourth dishwasher in Wales. He was a doctor and they bought the fourth dishwasher in Wales. Now it cost the price of a small car. And rich people can be quite valuable because they buy things like big flat screen tellies when they're five grand. And they eventually fund the early stage development of a technology until it becomes widespread and widely affordable. Okay. So that, you know, there is a weird debate about this, which is how much wealth inequality do you want? And what you certainly don't want is a world like Brazil where there are really rich people and there are really poor people. But actually having a very topical thing, having a few rich people kicking around your town means you actually end up with a wider choice of restaurants. Now you can't afford to eat in those restaurants as often as they do, but it still means that when you have a birthday or wedding anniversary, you've got 10 restaurants to choose from rather than two. You know, and similarly, you know, you want the poorest people in the population to be reasonably wealthy because then they'll fund the existence of things that you yourself can use. Okay. So I always thought watching Downton Abbey, I always thought if I'd be the markers of Downton, what I would have done is I would have given all the staff three days off. Okay. And I would have given them a 50% pay rise. And everybody said one earth would be the benefit of that because then they go into the local town and eventually a really good pub and an Indian restaurant would open, which would mean I wouldn't have to eat food cooked by the same bloody woman every night of my life. Right. What was the name that cook on Downton Abbey? But I was thinking, you know, you must have thought, God, it's day seven. I could really do with a chicken gel phrasing. You know what I mean? After having Mrs. Miggins or whatever it was for the last six days. And so you want to live in, you know, you don't want social division in wealth.  I don't think anybody looks at this nearly enough. It's an interesting one. It's actually, I'll get into another question. But one thing that brought to mind was have you been to Burley house near Stanford? It's lovely because there must have been so many rich stuff there because the entire town is pretty much was built by the estate and all the people who worked on it. And it's still lovely. And I think they, they, from what I know, they were very famous for sort of dividing their wealth. Stanford Lincoln, Stanford Lincoln show is interesting because it was an incredibly rich town because it was when people went on the Great North Road by carriage, horse drawn carriage. You were going to York or Edinburgh. It was where you stay the night. So it was like terminal five in the 18th century. And it's a magnificent 18th century town. Yeah, fantastic coaching in everything's glorious. Okay. And then they made this fatal mistake, which is the railways came and they said, we don't want the railways. We're too posh for the railways. We serve the carriage train. So they insisted that the railway station was placed sort of three miles away from the town. Okay. Which meant it was really inconvenient for all of them to use the railway. But also their fear of poor people coming into town happened anyway because the bloke started a business with a cart at Stanford railway station saying, pay me a penny. And I, and you can, I'll take you into Stanford and you can get pissed all night in the pub and start a fight. And then I'll take you back in time for the last train. So they actually, they actually shot themselves in the foot as a town. But there is now a station in Stanford. How does that happen? I don't know. I mean, well, I know because we're moving there. You're moving there. You'll find the station is a considerable distance from the town. It's right next to it. It's right next to the George. It's about five minutes. This must be some new metro rail thing. Okay. It goes to peace for a bit. The other question here was who where do you most look for inspiration or who or where do you most look? So I don't know whether this is people or a person or perhaps a magazine or a website. What's your go to? I think the ad industry has become far too naval gazing in that what I think it's lost is it's hinterland. And I've always noticed that the best people in advertising have quite a wide hinterland. In other words, as David Ogilby said, the perfect copywriter. This is before the internet existed. He said a perfect writer is an extensive browser in all kinds of fields. Yeah. And that was the thing he looked for. And I think the great thing is you can inspiration not from within your discipline, but from adjacencies. So, you know, the hinterland, the things that aren't advertising to Jerry Bulmore said the best books about advertising aren't about advertising.  That's why I went to a conference on antepidemiology. Yeah. Because social social insects are quite interesting because they humans are social animals to a partial extent.  So they're not they're not like ants or termites or something. Yeah. But but then, you know, there are things you can learn from the other. The other tip I give is that marketing in general and human behavior and psychology and everything related to it like biology is a science of exceptions.  And we're using the wrong scientific tools. Biology learns everything from looking at oddities. It looks for peculiarities. The, you know, the counterintuitive, the unexpected. And then Darwin learned about evolution by looking at the weird things, not the things that, you know, everybody took for granted. And I think that's another thing we do. We're always trying to make advertising into physics and say it's all about purpose. Sometimes purpose isn't a totally irrelevant concept. It's not totally useless, but you shouldn't sit down and say, OK, I notice you're not selling as much of this product as you'd like. Therefore, what you need is a purpose. OK. The person may have a perfect good purpose. They may already have a very healthy motivation for doing what they do, but they've just failed to communicate it. You know. Yeah. I find that I find that a bit kind of weird. You know, why is it always going to be about one thing? You know, that, you know, I mean, it's a bit like if you look at another thing, which is a science of exceptions, of course, is detective fiction. Yeah. Or detective work in the real world. I'm a massive fan of sky crime. You know, I love watching true life crime or indeed fictional crime drama. And it's all about noticing the weird anomaly. It's not about general. And they don't say you start with it, you know, you start with a house to house inquiries. And then when you finish, you do DNA sampling. They do it all. And they cover a wide range of bases. And then when you make a bit of progress, you invest a bit more on where you're making progress. It's a it's what's called a stochastic or iterative process. It's not a it's not a process in terms of a manufacturing process. Makes sense. So did you watch the undoing? Yeah. Yeah. I was slightly disappointed in the ending, actually. Yeah. I watched it last night. Anyway, sorry. I'll move on. Rory Linen. Yeah. Very, very watchable though. Nonetheless. Yeah. I enjoyed the character. He broke the rules in that the bloke who was the obvious contender ended up doing it after all. And so I think that is, yeah, I thought that was a teeny weeny bit. You know, you know, Agatha Christie, of course, you know, reinvented the category in two ways. One of which was Roger Ackroyd, where the murderer was the narrator. Okay. So the actual narrator did it. That's what made her name, the murderer of Roger Ackroyd. And then the second one, of course, was Murder on the Orient Express, where the answer was they all did it. Okay. Yeah. But actually having that, you know, obviously there's great crime fiction where you know who knew who did it all along and you can play that game. But I thought that was a bit weird. Have you watched the movie Knives Out? No. Go on. Sounds like a useful tip. Yeah. If you like Murder Mystery, who'd done it? That'll keep you guessing till the end. Brilliant one to watch Knives Out. It's got Daniel Craig in it. Available on Amazon, I think it is. You can watch it. Anyway. Wow. Wowie. Okay. Yeah. Rory said, Rory Liner and said, how did you come to know Nassim Taleb? And it seems like there's some sort of cross-pollination between a lot of your ideas. Yeah. Well, I think it's mostly pollination in one direction. It's one of the most unlikely friendships. I'm the first to agree with that. I met at the spectator dinner when he came to talk about his book Anti-Fragile. And we just hit it off because we just started what was then an email exchange and occasional phone exchange. And generally one thing that's quite interesting is because I always describe marketing as the, you know, consumer marketing is the Galapagos Islands. I was able to find lots of real world instances of his examples, you know, things that, for example, happen in markets or happen that you wouldn't expect. I'm so sorry. I'm going to go and see who that is. No worries. I'm sorry. No worries. I've got another... What's the time now? I haven't actually got a clock. 2.49. I've got until three, I think. Okay. All right. Let me... I'll just go... Until three. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. Brilliant. Here we've got... There was a very specific one here, actually, from Heidi Smith. I think you might have met her before. So how do I get lawyers to use technology they don't want to use because it will make them work more efficiently, which will then mean that they can bill less to clients, which will then mean that they don't meet their billable hours, which then means that they don't get their bonuses. Of course, this is a very interesting thing, which is that flexible working might help drive this because you're no longer being watched. And so there is, undoubtedly, in any... I'd love to take that offline and have a Zoom call about that because it's really interesting. So one of the interesting things I have discovered is a time-saving technology under lockdown. And of course, it's a technology you can't really use in an open plan office. It's voice dictation. So I've got this thing here.  That's just a wind filter. It's what we would have called in the 90s a dictaphone. Okay. And I started dictating my spectator articles and I discovered very rapidly, you then upload the MP3 file, the resulting MP3 file, gets uploaded to, in my case, otter.ai, otter as in the weird, you know, slippery creature. And then it's an AI-based voice transcription service. Don't try and dictate and look at the words appearing on the screen live because it'll drive you nuts. Okay. Don't do that. Okay. I got in touch with Otter and told them this is a mistake.  So instead take a separate device, a mobile phone will do, dictate an MP3 file, upload it to otter, wait 10 minutes. It comes back with a transcript. Spend your time editing the transcript rather than typing because editing is a high value ad process, typing is a low value ad process. And what you discover very quickly is you can speak about 10 times faster than you can type. I'm a reasonably good typist. I'm far from being a touch typist. But nonetheless, what I discovered is if you speak for six or seven minutes, you've got about 700 words, which means in theory, by the way, who did this? Barbara Cartman, the most prolific author in the English language, I think she sat up in a sort of weird chiffon pink thing in bed surrounded by lace and dictated to a shorthand secretary, which is how she managed to produce so many books. Now you could produce a hardback book in a day if no one would have either the discipline or the degree of fluency. But I'm saying you could produce the number of words required for a hardback book in a single day. It's one of those things where, sorry about this. It's one of those really vital things where nobody at work experiments. I don't fully know why. We weren't experimenting with Zoom. I was because I mandated Zoom Fridays among my team before the pandemic happened.  There's some ideal ratio of, I'm just going to see if my wife's there. I don't fully know. Now one great thing about working from home is that if you have a lot of productivity, you get a leisure game. To be honest in the office, you don't. It's not like you can bunk home at four o'clock, is it? Right? So in a sense, in the office, there was no incentive to make yourself more productive. And that voice dictation thing isn't godsend, actually, because the other great thing is that you basically quite often you've got to write a thousand words and you get stuck on the first paragraph. And the great thing about this is once you've got 1200 words on the page, you don't get stuck. In other words, you don't have that tyranny of the blank sheet of paper where you stare at it and go, oh my God, how am I going to start this? You just get started, say anything, mumble, but basically if most of the words you need are already typed up by the algorithm, then you're 70% there in terms of effort. Makes sense. But I love to take that offline because it's a really interesting question, which is the law, the legal system has always been a bit luttered.  Send them a telegram. I mean, it's just absurd. And so I think there's something, you know, there is something we really need to discuss there, which is the internet to which government was unbelievably face to face. Another user said, I think this is their Instagram handle just said story pics. What do you think the future of email marketing looks like? It's a good one. I mean, I think there's a whole question. I think we'll spend the next three or four years partly improving things like this, but also undoing the damage in digital marketing, which has been caused by bad metrics. And I think, I think one of the problems with email marketing is with performance marketing with digital marketing is we've optimized it around the wrong things. And we've optimized it around, you know, effectively transactional metrics, not emotional metrics. And we need to be really careful about this. By the way, by the way, what I'm not going to say is I hate email marketing and I think it ought to go away. I think that actually there are a significant number of companies, quite major companies who do it far too little. So, you know, I, you know, don't get me wrong. It's not a huge inconvenience if I get an email from British Gas to actually click delete. You know, it's, there's no, not much wastage. I give British Gas a thousand pounds a year to heat my home. I don't regard that as, I don't regard it as absurd that they should seek to communicate to me. And some of it's useful. So no, I mean, I, I think that actually email marketing, there are a few cases where it's done far too frequently. But in most cases, I think a lot of companies could still be doing much more of it.  And so I kind of made a point of never sending too many emails from, from, from 42 courses. And it's really interesting. I would sort of send normally one or two a week now. And it's still by far our most effective marketing that we do. You know, technically it costs whatever 100 or 200 quid a month to, you know, subscribe to an email service and then a bit of time to write them. But it's, it really is remarkable. It takes a while to grow it and you have to be consistent and obviously try and not try and do things that are interesting, but I agree with you. The worst case scenario is someone hits on subscriber or deletes it in a way. There are absurd anomalies. I once was in Houston, Texas and went with the family to see a Houston Astros game at the baseball for those who don't know. And because I booked the tickets online, I think I ended up getting an email from the Astros every single day. Now, of course, if you live in Houston and you're an Astros fan, that's probably not entirely ridiculous. Okay? Because you would have that look. Now, you know, by British standards, I'm more interested in baseball than the average person. But my chance of attending a game is fairly slim for the foreseeable future. And once a day does seem to me, you know, would you, you know, and so giving people some choice over what they receive seems like good manners. But actually, for every company that does it too frequently, which we notice, there are a lot of companies which do it far too rarely. Yeah. Far, far too rarely. You know, and I think that I think someone needs to develop a formula, which is to do with frequency of purchase, you know, frequency of interaction and significance and what is really an acceptable volume. But I mean, you know, it depends on your degree of engagement. You know, I mean car companies do it far too little because people are kind of interested in cars. Okay. But there is a problem, by the way, with why the performance marketing, which I keep citing, which is that if you first of all, you transact and you transact in a high margin product category. I discovered this very bizarrely by accident, which is my daughters were always asked me to buy them replacement tights. And I said, well, let's just an experiment. Let's see if we buy expensive tights. Do they last longer? Because maybe it would make more sense to buy a 10-pound pair of tights or 15-pound pair of tights. And if they last five times as long, I'm happy with that arrangement, you see.  So I can't remember who I went to. It was like one of those online things, Walford or Fogel or something like that. And now I have no idea what the margins are like on those things, but they must be insane. Okay. The profit margins must be enormous. They were getting helmet Newton to shoot the catalogue historically. Yeah. So they were obviously making a fair stack of money. And so the margin must be astonishing. It's good. And for about a month, you never get an advertisement for anything else. And two things, it's high margin and transactional, which means that the ratio of performance advertising I get for high margin things I've bought online, okay, or I've browsed online, close to the point of transaction, relatively amount of advertising I see for Unilever, which is nil, okay, is completely out of whack. And there's something wrong here. So what's happening is that transactional advertising is crowding out display. Makes sense. I don't see any package goods advertising at all. Now I buy the package goods in my household. Anybody who could see my cookies would say I'm a fairly regular Ocado user. And yet, you know, I would be interested, I'm not saying I get a click immediately and order it for delivery or subscribe. But if there's some new flavor variant of a brand I buy, I'm kind of interested. It's not a waste of my time. And yet I see zero of that. Whereas if you go and search for something like funeral plans, which are a one-off high margin purchase, you will see that's for nothing else for weeks. And so it occurs to me that the entire advertising and email marketing ecosystem, over which by the way you have no control yourself, right? So I sympathize. But the whole ecosystem has become kind of ridiculous. I know that we've run out of time. So I don't want to keep you. But did the tights experiment work? Yes, probably. It was very, it was very borderline because they weren't, they weren't immortal, these things. Good. There was, and funnily enough, I learned it because there was a nurse on the radio who was using, you know, because someone was amazed to discover that a nurse bought, because you think as a nurse it's sort of disposable. And the nurse's experience was no, actually it pays, because you've got to wear them sometimes. I don't know what nurses' uniforms are like. And obviously in summers a nurse's uniform involves stockings. But I don't think that's probably what they have to wear as healthcare professionals. I think that may be a very inaccurate take. Rather like that wonderful piece in The Onion where it said that the pornographic film industry makes the job of plumbing seem far more exotic than it really is. But I don't know whether it's a requirement to wear them. It probably is because, you know, for all kinds of reasons. And it was a nurse on the radio and someone covered it and said, okay, well, maybe they know what they're talking about because they've obviously had a long experience of this. And anyway, I think it probably did work. I think the nurse was right, actually. So to finalise in summary, I think we all need to buy some sips-ness gin for a specialist. Watch some Scandinoire. Watch, look at some epidemiology ant conferences. I'll end, by the way, with a very, very funny story which Naseem doesn't even know yet, which is Naseem in his last book, Skin in the Game. It might have been in Antifragile. Now, I think it's Skin in the Game. It advances the theory of minority rule but if there's a small, stubborn and intransigent minority of people who won't do something, they have a disproportionate effect on collective behaviour.  So the easiest thing to do is just make it halal for everybody, okay? And I told Naseem the point that one of the reasons pizza is very successful. Two things. One of the reasons you always get wine at parties is that 30% of women won't drink beer. So you can't have a mixed-gender party where you only serve beer, okay? Whereas it's assumed that everybody drinks red and white wine. So that becomes the party drink of default, okay? And anyway, we're talking about minority rule and how one person who hates something can mess up a collective decision. And Naseem doesn't know this, but it's given rise to KFC's Australia's build-your-own-bucket. So I'm going to say to Naseem, if ever you feel you're lacking influence in the world, then you can draw reassurance for the fact that indirectly you gave rise to KFC Australia conceiving the build-your-own-bucket because there are bone rejecters and there are kind of wing rejecters and hull rejecters. And so the build-your-own-bucket is a way to enjoy a collective dining experience without being killed by the power of veto. So there you go Naseem. If you're ever doubting your influence... That's wonderful. Look, I'll let you get back to it. Have a marvellous December. Thank you very much for everything you do and stay well and look forward to chatting again soon. Likewise, I'll speak to you before Christmas. I'm sure if I don't speak to you before Christmas, have a really, really wonderful time. Fantastic. All the best. Cheers. Bye-bye. Thanks everyone. Bye.


Here's how you can stay consistent and committed to the things of God, even if you've tried before and failed. The first thing you need to do is, number one, stop believing the lie that you can't become strong in the faith.  You can be holy. You can be Christ-like. You can be consistent in prayer and the Word. You can walk in God's divine purpose for your life. The enemy says, it can work for others, but not for you. Your sins are too great. Your flaws too deep. You've tried so many times before and failed, so of course, you're going to fail again.  You're never going to grow in Christ. And even if you do manage to see some progress, you just eventually end up back in your old ways and return to your old habits. That's what the enemy says. That's what you may even tell yourself, but here is what God says. Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. That's Philippians chapter one, verse six. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. That's 1 Thessalonians chapter five, verses 23 and 24. For we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. It's Ephesians chapter two, verse 10, and we are indeed God's handiwork. So long as you believe the lie that you'll never become committed to the things of God, you're going to struggle. In a strange way, though we don't say this out loud, there's something in the back of our minds that makes us feel as though we're the exception to the rule, as though God's power can work for others, but not for us. Perhaps you just don't see yourself as someone who can become and then remain a strong Christian, or maybe the enemy has you convinced to see yourself through the lens of your mistakes, rather than through the lens of God's grace. If you grant the premise that you'll always struggle spiritually, you begin the fight with compromised footing. Whatever the reason for the doubt. If we don't choose to acknowledge and then reject the lie, we're going to make the spiritual battle that much more difficult.  All you have to do is trust and obey. Surrender to God's will through daily submission to God's Word. Even if you make a mistake, repent of the compromise and keep moving forward. Like Peter sinking in the midst of a storm, keep your eyes fixed on Jesus. If this is blessing you thus far, consider leaving a like so that this teaching can be spread to others. Number two, abide in Christ. I am the vine, you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. That's John chapter 15 verse 5. When you follow Jesus, you will bear fruit. You abide, He'll produce the fruit. Now, it can become frustrating when trying to keep track of all the ways in which we know we ought to improve. We have our long list. Be more patient. Pray more. Read the Bible more consistently. Be more humble. Evangelize more often. Attend church regularly. Serve others selflessly. Demonstrate greater levels of kindness. Be generous. Encourage others. Be more faith-filled and on and on the list goes. Now, of course, we as followers of Christ ought to do those things. However, because they become overwhelmed by trying to balance all of these Christian responsibilities, many believers become stuck in frustration, confusion, and even worse, self-hatred. Then they begin to imagine that the Holy Spirit distances himself from them if they don't perform with perfection. Well, first of all, the Holy Spirit isn't our reward for good Christian living. He's the source for good Christian living. You don't receive the Holy Spirit as a payment for perfection. You receive the Holy Spirit the moment you're born again. You can see Romans 8 and 9 for that. And He's the one who does a sanctifying work in you. In Romans chapter 15 verse 16, the apostle Paul writes, He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, that list we carry, that meticulous, exhaustive record of all the ways we don't measure up, can be consolidated in a simple command.  This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments. If we love God with all that we are, and then love others as ourselves, we submit to God's will at its root. How can this be? As Jesus and the disciples continued on their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet listening to what He taught. But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here? Will I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me. But the Lord said to her, My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her. Jesus came to visit. Martha and Mary prepared to welcome the Lord. Both of them recognized the greatness of the Lord, and both of them wanted to please Him. Martha chose work, Mary chose fellowship. Now, to be clear, because I don't want to be misunderstood, I have to stress to you the truth, that we as believers must indeed demonstrate fruits of holiness and service and devotion to God. That's not up for debate. What I'm saying to you here is that if you want longevity and consistency, you must serve from the place of fellowship with the Lord, that is, abide. Martha was so distracted by her responsibilities that she neglected relationship, so eager to work that she forgot how to wait. But when we choose fellowship, when we choose to abide, when we choose a love for Jesus above all else, everything falls into place. The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commands. Now, many believers lack consistency and service because they lack depth in love. It is in our beholding of Jesus that we experience transformation as a result of that transformation, the ability to serve consistently. But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord who is the Spirit makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image that 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 16-18. Every moment spent with Jesus yields transformation and progress, even if it's not immediately visible. Now, on an aside, we understand that we have the presence of the Holy Spirit and that God's presence is everywhere. So when I talk about spending time with Jesus, I'm talking about intentional awareness and interaction with His presence. When we tend to His presence in this way, the Spirit gains influence over the flesh. We are changed as we behold Him. We abide, He produces fruit. We surrender, He brings the result. We love Jesus and everything else falls into place. And the good news is that the Holy Spirit gives us that love. He cultivates that love and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. That's Romans chapter 5 verse 5. Think about this. To love God and others is to fulfill what God requires. And the Holy Spirit even gives us that love. All we have to do is walk in that love, abide. Be pliable in the potter's hand and He will shape you. The Holy Spirit will produce the fruit. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. That's Galatians chapter 5 verses 22 and 23. Now, it's my prayer that every believer understands this. It's not oversimplistic to say just love Jesus. That's the key. When you love Jesus, prayer isn't an obligation. It's an opportunity. The study of Scripture isn't a chore. It's a delight. When you serve out of a love for Jesus instead of a legalistic fear, ministry stops being a box that you have to check in order to feel like a good son or daughter. And it becomes a natural, energized, overflow expression of your passion for the Lord. When you give out of that love, you can keep on giving. When you serve out of that love, you can keep on serving. Perhaps the reason so many are weary is because they're giving from themselves rather than from the well of divine love. If this is challenging and encouraging you, let me know why in the comments. Number three, take practical measures. To our spiritual disciplines, we must add practical protocols. When speaking of private prayer, even Jesus insisted upon the practical measure of closing the door. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. That's Matthew chapter 6, verse 6. And if you want revelation of the Word, you have to implement study. Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth, 2 Timothy 2.15. And for example, there's nothing wrong with adding things like accountability to your arsenal against sinful habits. The point is simple. If you want real results, you have to apply realistic measures. How do you expect to pray consistently if you don't get intentional about your schedule? How do you expect to be in the Word daily if you don't have a plan? How do you expect to avoid temptation if you don't take practical measures to avoid it? Go to church, connect with fellow believers, honestly assess areas where you need to grow, and then pursue Christ's likeness in these areas. Be more like Jesus today than you were yesterday. Take it a day at a time. Progress, not perfection, is the goal. I pray this helped you. Let's stay connected. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel also. Remember that this ministry is donor supported. Help us continue to make free content like this by becoming a monthly partner today. Just go to davidhernandezministries.com slash partner. And until next time, remember, nothing is impossible with God.


KYC, know your channel. Do you want this to happen to you? Wake up one morning to see this message on your channel? Of course not. So I will show you in this episode examples of what not to do and what to do to keep your channel safe. Let's go. KYC won the bait and switch. What's wrong with this channel behind me? At first glance, nothing. It's all about agar.io. But look at the latest videos. No longer agar.io. Let's play a clip. The channel owner decided to do framing. He's putting TV shows in a little box, right here, trying to fool content ID by adding other animations around it, hoping that he can get away with pirating TV content. Why did he do that? I think because he was only getting a few thousand views per episode with this agar.io, he tried to shortcut his way to success by getting 23,000 views on the first video he uploaded with pirated television content. Why would you do this guys? If you do, YouTube will catch you and terminate your channel. And of course, we will unlink you as soon as we discover this. KYC too. What's wrong with this channel? At first glance, it looks very legit. These are normal gameplay videos, some of which are getting millions of views. Look at the 7.3 million video. Here's the video. It's only 41 seconds. There is no audio. It's mute. And it's showing very normal gameplay. How did that video get 7.3 million views? And look, the comments are disabled and there's some likes and dislikes, but very few given its view count. What we discovered was this video is embedded in a popular website where you have to click something to get something you want. And it plays the video in the background as an embedded video that the person on this website doesn't even want to see. So all these views are fake views. Don't do this guys. I know it might seem exciting because you're making lots of money by cheating the system. But the system will catch up with you and terminate your channel and at the very least, we will unlink you. KYC 3 Permissions. What's wrong with this channel? It's obviously a music promo channel with 172,000 subscribers. And are they doing this with permission? In fact, this is one of the channels that got terminated and we helped bring it back. They are doing music with permissions and that's how they got their channel back. Sometimes YouTube does not understand the context of a channel and they will take action like terminating it. But there is a dispute process which we will help you with if we believe your channel was terminated by mistake. And this is an example of one that did come back. KYC 4 Repeated Content Without Permission. What's wrong with this channel? This channel wasn't terminated but it was suspended from the YouTube Partner Program. And all they do is looped songs for one to ten hours. Now there are other channels that do long play relaxing music. But in this case, the music wasn't used with permission as far as we can tell. And YouTube did think that it was an offense worth a YPP suspension, not termination. It still counts as an abuse event and it's something we don't want you to get. Because if you're YPP suspended, you're automatically unlinked from whatever network you're part of and you're demonetized. And if you're not in a network, you're just demonetized. How many of you have had a YPP suspension happen to you? It's a new class of an abuse event before the only abuse event that mattered really was termination. But now demonetization and YPP suspension are tantamount determination. Meaning they're just as severe and they are just as punishing. Tell me your thoughts down there in the comments below. As you know, YouTube now has something called an MCN 50 count which was leaked. And I mentioned that in yesterday's video. Click that I in case you missed it or my last video. And that basically puts a lot of pressure on every MCN to know every channel. Because now every time there is an abuse event, YPP suspension, demonetization, termination, it counts against one of these 50 that you have in a rolling 90 day window. Now that 50 count won't remain 50. It'll go down probably. So we have to do a much better job. We want to get to a zero count freedom. Our goal is to have zero abuse events because we know each of our channels so well. Obviously we're not there yet, but that is our goal. KYC 5 tags in descriptions. What's wrong with this channel? I already told you there are tags in the description. Let me show you an example. You see this? Ignore extra tags. So what YouTube looks at is this spamming. Yes it is. He's trying to get higher search results by putting extra keyword rich tags in his description thinking he'll get more search results. Instead, what's going to happen is once YouTube detects this, they will take action and either deprioritize his videos the other direction so they won't show up in search results or terminate his channel or suspend it or just demonetize it because this is an abuse guys. The video description is not meant to be a place for extra tags and writing please ignore extra tags doesn't help. So please don't do this in your video. Now you might think maybe that's just one of his videos, but in fact it's all of his videos. And here is another example of please ignore the extra tags in the video description. The video description is meant to be a description of your video for humans to read. Use it for that purpose. If you try to use it for something else like this, YouTube will take action eventually. Now you may get lucky and nothing will happen to you. There's always the chance that you will get missed by YouTube's detection systems. They're not perfect, but don't play that game guys. It's not worth the risk. Do things correctly and you will grow faster and have a safe channel. Would you like me to carry on this KYC series? Tell me down there in the comments below if you want to see more examples of channels that are doing good things, channels that are doing bad things and channels that were recovered from doing what YouTube thought were bad things. Were bad things, but after YouTube learned the context that they are now doing good things. Click that I to see the video where I really talk about YouTube context and I give other examples of channels that were terminated and brought back with our help. So in case that happens to your channel, you know what to do. So you will prepare yourself for these events and you know how to solve them. That's our goal here at Freedom is to help you grow and to create new career paths in this digital world. In fact, we're playing with the new mission statement. If you remember, what do you think about this one? Here's the first mission statement I asked you about in the last video. Which do you prefer? Do you like a different statement? Tell me down there in the comments below and I will start reading your comments again guys. I will feature them in a future episode. So please keep leaving them and I'm sorry for not featuring them in the latest episodes. It is now 11 20 p.m. on a Monday night local time and I need to get to sleep because I have a long day tomorrow. That's part of the reason why I haven't been making videos regularly is my day runs away from me. When I get to making videos, it's usually this time or 3 a.m. in the morning and right now we're going through a negotiation with a game studio and that is taking a lot of my time which I would normally be spending making videos because this is an important deal that can help us get a professional team of game developers who've already launched two successful games and they're working on their third. So we want to help them, we want to work with them and we're trying to come to terms on a term sheet and if that works then we'll move on to the due diligence phase and I can tell you more about all that if we get to the term sheet phase. Alright guys, as you can tell my voice is getting a little hoarse. So I will say who am I? I'm Boppa George, George Sunpai, Sleepy George. I am George CEO and founder of Freedom. I don't have my freedom shirt or my freedom logo but I think you know who we are by now. For Freedom and the Freedom Family and MGM Studios, the game development division of Freedom Family and click that I to meet the head of MGM Studios, Dave Frackia who tells you what MGM Studios is about and what you can expect from us and how you can contribute. Till the next episode, I'm George, you've been watching. Click that I to partner with Freedom and join the Freedom Family so we can all grow together. Many perks like position music, you also get epidemic sound, a lot of other access to royalty free videos, sponsorships and many things to help you grow. Just click the links down there in the description below to get involved in our community, our forums, our Discord chat servers meet our graphics team, meet our community team all of that on Discord and the forums. What are you waiting for? Get started. And we will grow together as a family because this is the Freedom Family. You are part of it, we are all part of it and we're all growing together. To get more George, click that big F that will subscribe you to Freedom Central home of the George Show and PewDiePie gave one of you Freedom Family a big shout out. Click that video to see the shout out and to see our new 3D sets for you and click that video to see what YouTube recommends you watch next.


Amen. Okay, keep your place. Of course in Romans 3 that will be our main text for tonight. So as you know we've been going through the book of Romans in the last few weeks and we are now in Romans chapter 3. So we have been going, we started in Romans chapter 1, Romans just to recap Romans 1 and 2 because Romans 3 just keeps right into the story, okay? So Romans chapter 1, Paul was talking about the Gentiles and how they're, you know, they're without excuse before God, even though they didn't have the law, you know, the law in their hearts, their conscience and their heart was a law unto itself. So they're still guilty. They're still guilty. And then of course in Romans chapter 2, Paul talks about, you know, the Jews and how, you know, the Jews they had the law, but it was, you know, the circumcision really, they were called Jews, but the circumcision is really a circumcision of the heart, of the spirit. So it's those who are saved, you know, he starts, he introduced this theory in chapter 2 about how circumcision isn't of the flesh, okay? And in Romans chapter 3 in verse 1 he continues this thought and he says in verse 1, he says, what advantage then hath the Jew? Because if you look back in the verse, the two verses before Romans chapter 3 he says, for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter whose praise is not of men, but of God. Because you had the Jews who were just getting praise of men, they were outwardly righteous on the outside to show people that they were righteous, but he's saying the circumcision was of the heart. And in Romans chapter 3 he just continues this thought in verse 1, he says, what advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision? It's a good question, right? So what advantage do the Jews have? If they're still, you know, under God's judgment, if they're still under the law, what advantage do they have? And then he answers the question in verse number 2 and he says, much every way. He says there's many advantages. Chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. So they had many advantages and the advantages stemmed from the fact that they had the Bible, the Jews. The Jews had the Word of God and that is a serious advantage. Turn your Bibles to John chapter 6. Let's look at this concept of the Bible being an advantage in your life as it was an advantage to the Jews. I'll read for you Hebrews 4 in verse 12 while you're turning there and the Bible says, for the Word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two edges sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is the discerner of the thoughts and intense of the heart. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 17 says this, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God the Bible, the Word of God is our weapon. The Word of God tells us. It's our weapon. In John 6 turn look at verse 63 verse 63. You know this is the weapon when Jesus said go ye into all the world and preach the gospel. This is the weapon that we were to take with us the weapon of the Word of God. And when we go out preaching the gospel it is our sword that we take with us. In John 6, 63 the Bible says it is the Spirit that quickened it. The flesh profited nothing.  The Word of God is our life folks. The Bible says in Romans 10, 17, so faith coming by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It is only by the Word of God that we are saved. And we need to remember that when we're out soul winning and we're getting better and better at giving the gospel to people and becoming personable with people and reading people and just being friendly with people and being a people person will make you a better soul winner but you need to never forget that it is the Word of God that saves people when we are out there. We say oh I got this many people saved. The Word of God people saved. Not us. We need to remember that when we're preaching the gospel because you will find people that will go out and they will give the gospel and they will tell all kinds of stories and analogies and all kinds of things and I mean I've been out soul winning with some people who that's why by the way that I'm just like we in general need to stick to the soul winning seminar of Verity Baptist Church when we go soul winning because it can get really strange. I've been soul winning with people where you hear a gospel presentation and you're just like I think I just lost my salvation. I don't know what that was all about you know I'm joking but I mean it's just like you don't even understand if I a saved person can't understand what you're saying. The gospel is simple right. The gospel is simple. It's designed that way. It wouldn't have been fair if God made the gospel so complicated that only the the most elite smartest people could get it right. So the gospel is simple. Let's keep it simple right and yes there's many things that you can do and better things you can get at it expounding the Word of God. We need to remember that it's the Word of God that saves people. That was the advantage the Jews had. It's the advantage we have okay and it's a huge advantage. I forgot the book tonight but I was going to bring this book that we had in our house and we have in our house and I remember this book it was written in like the 1600s. It's a great little book and it's about the testimony of this kid's life. He lives in like England and he's given this testimony of his life and kind of it's a neat little story. It's called the hedge of thorns but there's a part in the beginning of the book where he's talking about his dad and how his teacher used to make them memorize scripture because nobody actually had a Bible because it was just such a it was an elite thing to have a Bible and he talked about how he'll never forget the day his dad sold one of the two cows. This is a true story from the 1600. His dad sold one of their two cows to buy a copy of the scriptures. So imagine I mean just imagine that for a minute imagine having to spend half of your business or half of your net worth or half of your income to to purchase a Bible.  You know on Amazon the average price is like ten dollars for a nice King James Bible. It's extremely available and for that reason I think we take it for granted. You know I think we take it for granted. You know just when you imagine how many people throughout history have just not had this advantage that we have okay. Now this is a powerful advantage as well and we can share it with others turn to John chapter 8. Now I believe that and this is a theory of mine as well but I believe that one of the reasons for all these different Bible versions in the last hundred years or so is because the Bible the King James Bible has become so available to people. So the devil has to attack this. He must come at it in a way that that undoes this fact because everybody can have a King James Bible today. If you look down at John chapter 8 verse 44 we can read about the devil and Jesus says you are of your father the devil and the less of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him.  In second Corinthians 11-14 the Bible says and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. You see Satan has never operated in the way where he just comes out and he says look here's a book on Satan I rebelled against God. Here's my ideas and I think they're better than God's.  He's taking what God this is what he's always done. He's still doing it today. We'll talk about liberal Christianity in a couple weeks and you'll see he's really doing it very well today and he takes what God does and he twists it just a little bit. And the thing about these false Bible versions I love New World Order Bible versions. I love it was one of my favorite documentaries even before I moved to California. I love it but here's the thing. I love studying all the details about the things that have changed and I love studying about how there's an agenda to you know take away the deity of Christ and there's an agenda to you know twist certain things in the Bible that that really attack key doctrines but here's the thing it doesn't really matter because the fact that all these Bible versions exist is enough because it's not like you're going to find somebody out there. Let me explain what I'm saying here if you're not with me you're not going to find many people out there or I've never found anybody that's like I believe the NIV but not the King James. You see what happens is there's so many Bibles that are just flooded out there a hundred hundred and fifty they've just created doubt of the Word of God. So most people unless you're saved and have studied it out most people they don't know all the different things that have been changed in all these different Bible versions but they're like just the fact that these Bible versions exist makes them doubt the Word of God. I've met several people like that many many people and if you go soul-winning enough you will meet these people as well. They just you know they doubt the Word of God they doubt the Word of God you say well we we only use the King James it doesn't even really mean anything to them because they're just they've been grown up with so many different Bible versions they're just confused about it all. You see so it's a very successful tactic and he didn't even really have to change any specific details all he had to do was show people that it must have needed to be changed and people all of a sudden if because guess what if there's one mistake in here if there's one mistake in here how do I know where it is? I had a I had a power plant a couple years ago and we found out that 10% of the power plant was rewired was wired wrong when we were building this power plant and the contractor and the owner they were arguing if it was 10% it was 50% and I was the guy coming in to fix it and I said forget about it it doesn't matter if it's 10% or 90% unless you can tell me which 10% is wrong I got to check everything that's the same thing with the Bible if there's one mistake in here and I don't know where it is I doubt everything but there is no mistake in here but when you throw out all these different versions it creates doubt in people's mind and if people think that maybe it's 5% wrong or it's 10% wrong it doesn't matter because then they doubt the whole book see so it's a brilliant plan he's always been a liar and he's always been transforming into an angel of light he's always been trying to pass off his ideas as God's ideas he's never come up with his own ideas he just wants to take as many people he knows he's going to hell he knows he is damned and he wants to take as many people with him as possible and and he's succeeding unfortunately in in many ways okay verse number three we're gonna that was a long two verses we'll go through these a little bit faster in verse number three so the Bible says for what if some did not believe shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect still talking about the Jews he's saying what if they did not believe I they had the advantage of the Bible what other advantage do they have he said what if they did not believe some did not believe shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect meaning can do they have the advantage where they don't even have to believe and look what he says God forbid yeah let God be true but every man a liar as it is written that thou might just be justified in thy sayings and might just overcome when thou art judged look he's saying that the Jew doesn't have that advantage if the Jew doesn't believe he's just as damned as somebody else that doesn't believe the only advantage that the Jew had was that he had the oracles of God committed to him which is a huge advantage I actually asked this question to a Baptist pastor several years ago before we moved as well who was you know the Jews are God's chosen people all this kind of stuff and I was just like okay fine you know I didn't really know about any of the end times prophecy stuff but I was confused logically about it if somebody died without believing in Christ I knew they were going to hell and so I asked this pastor I said if somebody dies of a Jew dies and does not believe in Jesus Christ where are they going and he said well hell like what advantage what advantage is there that's the question that they can't answer there is no advantage other than that they were committed the oracles of God and then Jesus came and they didn't believe him so they lost that advantage as well alright verse number five but if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God what shall we say is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance I speak as a man now I love when Paul does this type of thing you see this I speak as a man this to me proves that Paul knows he's writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit because he asks a question here he asks a question it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek question and he wants to clarify that the Holy Spirit would obviously know the answer to this question and he says is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance because obviously God is not unrighteous who taketh vengeance because God is holy God is holy now turn to Psalm 103 and I'll read for you 1 Samuel 2 verses 2 and 1 Samuel 2 verses 2 and we see that God is holy this is another thing that we need to explain to people when we're out soul winning because this is a huge problem in America today people have the wrong view of God you are going to meet people who may have grown up in a Christian home we met some people like this this weekend it's almost better to find somebody who's unchurched I say these days because people have a false God a false idea of God in their head God is holy and he must judge sin that's what the Bible is saying here he has to in 1 Samuel 2 2 the Bible says there's none hold none holy as the Lord for there is none beside thee neither is there any like is there any rock like our God and Psalm 103 verse 1 a Psalm of David bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name now turn to Romans 12 that means whatever God does is right so when people think that oh that sounds mean a mean God would never throw anyone into hell God is holy God is judgment the Bible tells us this we may not understand this today but you know what it's okay to not understand everything by the way you know people get themselves into trouble when they think that every single deep thing of the mind of God they have to understand that's where you see all these people getting into these weirdo doctrines on the Trinity and all this kind of stuff hey when the Bible says you know it's three persons in one it's three and one I I'm good I'll ask God about it when I get to heaven hey how exactly does that work how do those gears fit together it's when you start coming up with analogies on your own and you try to fit it into your own human logic and those types of things look the gospel simple how to get to heaven is simple we can understand that but there's some deep things in this book we don't have to be so arrogant to think that we would just understand everything all the time okay so look just remember whatever God does is right God is holy in Romans verse 12 we see that God you know the Paul said at the end of verse 5 is God unrighteous is God unrighteous who take a vengeance I speak as a man God will take vengeance in Romans 12 verse 19 we see this dearly beloved avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written vengeance is mine I will repay say at the Lord God will punish sin and those who are not saved are going to be punished in hell and that's another thing that you're going to find that many people don't believe when you're out soul winning this is a good soul winning lesson Romans chapter 3 because really Romans chapter 1 Romans chapter 2 and Romans chapter 3 Paul is just given this huge soul winning lesson is what he's doing okay God will punish sin and those that don't believe will be punished in hell turn to Luke 16 let's look at that you ever if you go soul winning enough you're gonna you're gonna find this guy too you're gonna find this guy the guy that you say you know you get to the hell verses and the guy is gonna be like man hell's right hell's right now man this is hell man right here bro we're living in hell dude I mean you guys you guys are laughing cuz you met this guy we've all met this guy you know and I feel bad for that guy because obviously things are not going great for you if you think like man bro this is hell bro dude bro I had a conversation with Garrett one time for like 10 minutes and all we could say was dude and bro and we did it no but seriously you're gonna find this guy okay you're gonna find this guy now let's look at this story in Luke chapter 16 verse 19 we're gonna start reading we're gonna read the whole thing is I want to explain some things about hell and you can take people to these verses to explain hell because it's important it's scary and it should be scary okay look Luke 16 verse 19 there was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table more over the dogs came and licked his sores and it came to pass that the beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's booze booze him heaven the rich man also died and was buried and he lift up his eyes being in torments immediately he was in hell you see that that's the first thing there's none of this you sleep and then whenever else you know you you wake up later he immediately he lift up his eyes and he was being he was in torments right away and seeing Abraham a far off and Lazarus in his booze him and he cried and said father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am tormented in this flame he's burning he's burning and he just wants to be cooled off but Abraham said son remember that down my lifetime received that good things and likewise Lazarus evil things but now he has comforted and now are tormented and beside all this between us and you there's a great golf fixed so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot neither can they pass to us that would come from thence look there's no getting out so to that guy that says that to you you need to say you know what man are you on fire right now are you in flames burning in pain right now no you're not then he said I pray thee therefore father that thou would it's send him to my father's house he knows he can't get out but he wants his family to to not go there okay now look there's these other people that are like oh I'm just gonna go to hell because that's where all my friends are gonna be your friends don't want you there if your friends are in hell they're there for about a millisecond before they realized that they wanted you to not go there this guy immediately he knows he can't get out and he immediately just wants someone to go tell his family someone get back there tell my family I have five brethren he said that he may testify under them lest they also come into this place of torment Abraham saith unto him they have Moses and the prophets they have this let them hear them and he said nay father Abraham but if one went unto them from the dead they will repent and he said unto them if they hear not Moses and the prophets neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead belief folks is a heart issue it's a heart issue I used to be one of these people that was like you know what if we could just find you know before I was saved I was like that we just find Noah's Ark and we could just find all this stuff everyone would believe in God no Jesus did miracles in front of the Pharisees and they still didn't believe and then eventually they could not believe it's a heart issue their heart is hard so even though somebody came back from the dead Abraham says to them they're not gonna believe anyway because he didn't believe the Bible his heart's not right he wouldn't believe anyway so Revelation 14 let's look at one more thing on hell and if this is hell Revelation 14 in verse 11 the Bible says this and the smoke of their torment ascended up forever and ever and they have no rest day or night who worshiped the beast in his image and whosoever receive it the mark of his name talking about people that are damned to hell there's no rest and it's forever it never ends imagine I mean you can't even wrap your head around it you can't even wrap your head around it imagine no rest imagine that you know people torture people that way you know that's like a psychological form of torture I got a quote here from psychological psychology today sleep deprivation is an especially insidious form of torture because it attacks the deep biological functions at the core of a person's mental and physical health it is less overtly violent than cutting off someone's finger but it can be far more damaging and painful if pushed to extremes now imagine this extremes of never having any rest and burning while you never have any rest this is not hell no matter how bad your bill situation is or whatever you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the vengeance of God if you think that this could even be close to hell so feel free to have a couple verses that can explain this to people from the Bible if you get that if you run across that that guy you know God is a perfect judge folks and he will take vengeance so the answer to Paul's you know question is is God unrighteous that take a vengeance no you know God is righteous God is the perfect judge and everything that he does is right look at verse number seven Romans chapter three verse number seven for if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory why yet am I also judged as a sinner and not rather as we be slanderously reported as some affirm that we say let us do evil that good may come whose damnation is just what then are we better than they know in no wise for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin this is chapters one and two right here both Jews and Gentiles are under sin this wraps up chapters one and two I love how he just repeats these things and he he goes into these long essays about the Gentiles and these long essays about the Jews and he just repeats it for us again and wraps it up right here as it is written there is none righteous no not one there is none that understand it there is none that seeketh after God they are all gone out of the way they are together become unprofitable there is none that do with good no not one then he goes into you know verses 13 and through 18 he talks about how you know their throat is an open sepulchre you know their feet are you know he's kind of recapping some of the Romans chapter one and if we go down to verse number 19 we can continue there the Bible says now we know that what's what things so ever the law sayeth that sayeth to them who are under the law that every mouth be stopped and all the world become guilty before God therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight he says it again for by the law is the knowledge of sin so that's the point of the law is the night is that give us the knowledge of sin before we are saved but now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all that upon them that believe for there is no difference just repeating this between Jew and Gentile its faith in Jesus Christ Jew or Gentile for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God it's the second time he says it you know the Bible repeats many important things two or three times you know he says not of works in Ephesians two eight through nine he repeats there as well for by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works he says it twice just to make sure we don't get it or we don't miss it and then in verse number twenty five whom being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed through the forbearance of God propitiation means appeasement or atonement appeasing God's wrath towards you God's wrath towards sin now imagine if Paul is just wrapping everything up in verses twenty six twenty seven and twenty eight imagine she was just right he just gave this awesome essay on chapter one and chapter two and then he gets up with his microphone and he says to declare I say at the beginning at this time his righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of him that's you which believeth in Jesus where is boasting then sounds a lot like Ephesians two where is boasting that is excluded by what law of works nay but by the law of faith we get it therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law like drop that's it right there the mike doesn't work anyway that's the whole thing that's all of chapters one two and three right there therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law not with a little bit of the deeds of the law not with some of the deeds of the law without the deeds of the law that's it that's any man should boast it sounds a lot like Ephesians two eight through nine it's because it's the same holy spirit that wrote it that's why and then down in verse number 29 we see this is he the God of the Jews only and he just goes in it just kind of beats down this this Jew and Gentile thing a little bit more I mean how you could be unclear about the book of Romans and you could pull works out of the book of Romans is shocking to me truly it is you see the God of the Jews only is he not also of the Gentiles yes of the Gentiles also seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision by faith and the uncircumcision through faith so there's the Jews and the Gentiles do we then make void the law through faith God forbid yay we establish the law now throughout Romans we're gonna learn a lot more about the law okay because our salvation is not through the law it's not through our obedience to the law it's not through our works we know that right so what is the point of the law and he's really gonna get deep into some of that stuff in in some later chapters but we can talk a little bit about it now first of all the law is there to convict us before we are saved it's there to show us our sin and then after we are saved the law is there to establish us so we're convicted by it and then we're established by it now when I became a Baptist many years ago I used to be Lutheran I got saved I got into a Baptist church many people thought and I even thought this myself about Baptists so I can see both sides of this I can remember both sides of this but many people thought that we were under some legalistic system when we became Baptist because people saw changes in us and I always wondered that about the Baptist because I I would argue eternal security 15 years ago with a co-worker of mine and I was Lutheran and he was Baptist and we would argue eternal security and we never agreed but I little did I know he thought I was unsaved he never told me that thanks a lot buddy but what I always thought about the Baptist was it's really strange that they believe that they could never do anything to lose their salvation yet they're like they their their wives are dressing modestly they they go out sharing the gospel with people and I always knew that that was something that we should be doing always even before I was saved because that's one of the simple things in the Bible go ye into all the world and preach the gospel that's not rocket surgery you know what I'm saying I mean you don't have to be saved to understand that one and but I was always wondering so he doesn't think that he can do anything to lose a salvation yet there he doesn't drink he doesn't do these things and he's living a clearly different life than everybody else yet I grew up you know in a Lutheran home and I know many Catholics who are just drunks and they believe in works it doesn't make any sense there's a definite inversion of logic there if they believe in works they should be living the their best life now right as we talked about a week ago but here's a thing folks what you're going to learn in Romans as we go forward and what you're going to learn as you grow as a Christian if you don't already know it is that the law is freedom the law is freedom sin is slavery and you're going to learn that and the more you you learn the Bible and the more you get you get plugged into the Christian life and the more you start walking in the spirit instead of the flesh you're going to understand that sin all these things the world tells you is freedom is slavery that's what you're going to learn so the law drives us to the gospel and we get saved and it establishes us in our life okay and Paul's going to get very deep into all those things in the next in the coming chapters so all that you know that the drinking the music the TV the the the dressing provocatively all that stuff is slavery you'll see it clears day and the more you start living the right life you're going to see that as well and it's a wonderful thing because I mean people look at me now is that I used to say that about my friend Lance I used to say it all time great guy no fun I used to say that I'm embarrassed to say but I used to say that about the guy but the thing is people look at me and they people worldly people will look at me and think the same thing like we're just no fun but I've never had more fun in my life than I'm having right now and that is the truth because the law and walking in the law walking in the spirit instead of the flesh it is just is mind-blowingly free folks all right let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer dear heavenly father we thank you for these chapters in the Bible we thank you for the Apostle Paul that you used him to write such such great great essays and explanations on on the gospel Lord we ask you that just give us give us this clarity that Paul has when we go out and we preach the gospel just help us be as clear as possible using your word Lord knowing that it's your word that has power using your word for whatever anyone comes at us with or has questions about that we may be able to give them a clear understanding and a clear explanation from your word Lord and and hopefully that their heart is right and that they will end up you know accepting Christ or we thank you we thank you for this church thank you for all these people that would come out on a Thursday night to hear hear your word preached bless the rest of our evening and the fellowship to come in Jesus name