Income tax 2022-2023. Social security number SSN. Let's do some wealth preservation with some tax preparation. Most of this information comes from the Form 1040 Instructions Tax Year 2022 line instructions. We're looking at the social security number as we do remember. Support Accounting Instruction by clicking the link below, giving you a free month membership to all of the content on our website, broken out by category, further broken out by course. Each course then organized in a logical, reasonable fashion, making it much more easy to find what you need than can be done on a YouTube page. We also include added resources such as Excel practice problems, PDF files, and more like QuickBooks backup files when applicable. So once again, click the link below for a free month membership to our website and all the content on it. The IRS, the government, they see you as a number, so you've got to get the number right. If you don't get the number right, then they won't see you. You'll be like a ghost. It won't be good. So obviously if you don't put the proper social security number that will tie on and match to the name on the tax form, you might not even be able to electronically file because it'll be kicked back. The system will not recognize it. If you send in something by mail that has an incorrect social security number that could delay the process, could confuse the IRS and when the IRS is confused, it delays the process. It causes problems. Typically you want to avoid that. So an incorrect or missing SSN, which is social security number, can increase your tax, reduce your refund, or delay your refund. To apply for an SSN, you can fill in form SS5. You can find that on the IRS website. You can search for it at irs.gov, irs.gov, and return it along with the appropriate evidence, documents to the Social Security Card. The administration, that's the SSA, the Social Security Administration, another government entity, not the same as the IRS, but they're going to handle that type of identification information, which of course the IRS communicates with and will have and needs to line up when their processing the tax returns. So you can get the form SS5 online at ssa.gov forward slash forms forward slash ss5.pdf. So you can find that from your local SSA office, Social Security Administration office, or by calling the SSA at<PHONE_NUMBER>. It usually takes about two weeks to get an SSN once the SSA has all the evidence and information it needs. So check that both the name and Social Security Number on your form 1040 or 1040 SR, W-2, and 1099 agree with the Social Security Card. So note, you've got your Social Security Number, and then you're going to get documentation from the people you worked for and people that paid you typically, that's going to be the W-2 form. The W-2 form will have your name and Social Security Number. And the IRS is going to have a copy of the W-2 forms having the name and Social Security Number on it as well. And then also you're going to have the 1099s possibly depending on your circumstances, which also have your name, Social Security Number. The IRS has a copy of that as well. So ideally, we have the same names and Social Security Numbers on the tax return that we file, as well as the W-2 forms that were filed by our employer and the 1099 forms. If they are not, then that could cause confusion. Now, obviously, if you file the tax return with an incorrect Social Security Number that doesn't match the name, you might not even be able to electronically file. So you'll see kind of the problem fairly immediately in that kind of situation, or you could file and it'll confuse the IRS. If there's something different on your Social Security Number, then it's on the supporting documentation from the IRS like the W-2s and the 1099s, that could just, you would think, cause the IRS to be confused with the W-2s and the 1099s. They might not tie that W-2 to what you are filing, meaning they don't have the supporting or backup information on their end to tie it to. Now, that might not cause a problem because if you're reporting income that they don't have supporting document for, then they're probably not going to stop you from recording income because you'll end up paying taxes on it. But obviously if the reverse happened, they had a W-2 that you didn't report, that's usually when you would expect it to cause more problems. Right, because then they're going to say that you had income that you did not report, that's going to cause concern on their end. So in any case, so if they don't, certain deductions and credits on Form 1040 or 1040 SR may be reduced or disallowed and you may not receive credit for your Social Security earnings. So remember, that's the other one that you just want to keep in mind, that your withholdings, usually we think about the income tax with the Form 1040, that's what it's there for, but the payroll taxes, Social Security, is important to make sure that it's properly allocated to the right Social Security number and name so that you get the proper benefit calculations maximizing the benefits at retirement age for those items. So if your Form W-2 shows an inaccurate Social Security number or name, notify your employer or the form issuing agent as soon as possible to make sure your earnings are credited to your Social Security record. So note, again, if you probably be able to file the tax return in that case and get your refund, but if the W-2 is not properly recorded in terms of the Social Security number name, then you're not compiling the Social Security credit that you're paying into the program to get the maximum benefit, so you want to make sure to correct that. So if the name or Social Security number on your Social Security card is incorrect, you can call the SSA.  An I-10, I-T-I-N, will not be issued to you once you have been issued an SSN. So the I-10 would be another identification number, so the primary identification number is going to be the Social Security number. Typically if you don't have the Social Security number, then you might have an I-10, but if you get issued a Social Security number, you're probably not going to go back to having an I-10 after the Social Security number. So if you receive an SSN after previously using an I-10, stop using the I-10. The Social Security number is the one that should take precedence at that point. So IRS individual taxpayer identification number. Identification number. So let's get into those I-10s which are IRS individual taxpayer identification number for aliens. So if you are a non-resident or resident alien and you don't have and aren't eligible to get an SSN, that's a Social Security number, you must apply for an I-10. So now you can't get the Social Security number, you're still a number to the IRS, but now you're an I-10 number. So it takes about seven weeks to get an I-10 apparently. So if you already have an I-10, enter it wherever your Social Security number is required for your tax return. So obviously first page of the 1040 and any other kind of location, you've got to give them the name and the I-10. So some I-10s must be renewed. So if you haven't used your I-10 on a federal tax return at least once for tax years 2019, 2020, 2021, it expired at the end of 2022 and you must be renewed if you need to file a federal tax return in 2023. You don't need to renew your I-10 if you don't need to file a federal tax return. You can find more information at IRS.gov forward slash I-10. Tip, I-10s assigned before 2013 have expired and must be renewed if you need to file a tax return in 2023. So you're going to want to do that. So if you previously submitted a renewed application and it was approved, you do not need to renew again unless you haven't used your I-10 as a federal tax return at least once for tax years 2019, 2020, 2021, because hopefully that will give the IRS the information if you have filed those that who you are and they can keep on going forward from that point. So an I-10 is for tax use only. It doesn't entitle you to social security benefits or change your employment or immigration status under U.S. law. So that's kind of the confusing thing about an I-10. Well, one of the confusing things about taxes is usually the requirement is that you withhold the federal income tax, but also you've got this issue with the social security and the social security and Medicare used to be stuff that you would pay as part of like a benefit program. And it was geared towards the idea that if people live past their life expectancy, they would have no way of being able to save for retirement. So we've got this safety net program in that case. But now, of course, the social security, we think of it more of like a government-like retirement program. We're paying into it and we expect to get a benefit. And we should at this point because we're paying a lot of money into it. It's quite a high amount these days. So then you've got questions. Well, what if you're in a situation where you're not being able to participate because you're not a citizen to get the benefits of social security and then whether or not you're going to be paying into the social security, right? These benefit programs sound kind of basic when you first put them in there, but then you run into all these complications when you think about different businesses trying to apply different business models in order to provide goods and services and whatnot. It gets all messy. Any case, for more information on ITENS, including application, expiration, and renewal, you can see Form W7 and its instructions. If you receive an SSN, that social security number after previously using an ITEM, stop using the ITEN. Use your SSN instead. Visit a local IRS office or write a letter to the IRS explaining that you now have an SSN and want all your tax records combined under your SSN. That's the social security number. Details about what to include with the letter and where to mail it. If you're in that situation, irs.gov forward slash iten, that's the place to go. Non-resident alien spouse. So now you've got a situation where normally you're a single filer or a head of household, then you can be married. But what if you have a non-resident alien spouse? What does that do to the whole, this whole crazy system we're putting together here? If your spouse is a non-resident alien, your spouse must have either an SSN, social security number or an ITEN. If you file a joint return or your spouse is filing a separate return.


Hey, what's going on guys? Patriot Prime here once again with another episode of The Sit Rep. And my guest for this episode is Rudy Zizou from Rudy Zizou's Science Experience and Figure Force. Rudy, how are you now? I'm very good. I don't think I've ever heard somebody say Figure Force with so much conviction. I love it. Yeah, yeah. I try to do everything with conviction. Figure Force. So first off, tell my viewers a little bit about yourself. So I'm Rudy. I have a show called Rudy Zizou's Science Fantasy Experience and as Jason said, I won fifth of Figure Force, a YouTube collective. I've been toy collecting since I guess maybe like five years old. First conscious memories are from then and I've dipped in and out of toy collecting for the years and years, but in the last two, three years I've gone full tilt, I've gone all in. Excellent. Well, how The Sit Rep works is I've got 10 questions for you. I'm going to ask you 10 questions regarding Transformers and then 10 questions regarding you as a YouTuber. So if you're ready, we'll start off. Question number one is what is the appeal of Transformers for you? The appeal to me, the main one, I guess, is the engineering. If I think back to why I enjoy Transformers as a child as well as an adult collector, it's how they work, especially the diaclone and when you look at extensively third party figures the way that the engineering on there, on they work.  It's what I grew up with. I was born in 78 so I turned 40 last year and my real Gen X, I love arcade machines, BMXs. If you watch Stranger Things, that's the show that I would have wanted my life to be. Oh, you're just five years behind me, I was born in 73. All right, well, number two, sir, so this is going to be right on with you judging by your age, aside from G1, which is always the right answer. What is your favorite Transformers fiction? Whether it be movies, comic books, television shows, what's your favorite? I really like the Japanese continuity. I really like Super Godmaster Force and Victory. Technically it's G1, you know, it was the same time but I didn't see it until 2008, 2009. I didn't really know that that existed. And Super Godmaster Force, I actually like it more now than, say, the first two seasons of Transformers. That's my favorite. Obviously G1 is the go-to and you do get that with Super Godmaster Force. But yeah, there's incredible characters in Japanese continuity and a really different telling and a slightly different anime style. It's that's the kind of fiction that I enjoy now. I'm going to have to break down and just get those. I'm so well-versed in American G1, Marvel Comics. Once it starts going Japanese, I'm done. Same with UK Comics. I'm so mad that IDW canceled their, what do you call them, reprints of the UK series. I think I was five issues in and they stopped. And right before it got good, I know Target 2006 was the next series. Which is awesome is that's one of the best storylines ever. No, without a doubt. I read that in, I think Titan books had these huge books that had reprints of them. But I sold those in anticipation of getting these. So I screwed myself. Okay, number three. Do you have a favorite transformer figure or grail? One that you would never let go of. Say you have to sell your entire collection, what's not going away? Does it have to be a transformer? Can it be a transforming toy? Yeah, I'll let that slide. Yeah, let that slide. I'm going to say. It's my show. I control the rules. I guess I could choose a transformer, but I think it has to be, he's right here because I looked at him today, it is hair fiend, I don't know if guys are going to, I can't let it go. I don't think I can ever let it go. Do you want another? No. So yeah, it's the robots, it's before it became challenge of the go-bots and it's just, it means a hell of a lot to me personally and I, if I had to sell the whole lot, this would be staying forever. If you guys want to check out the review and my nostalgic look back at it, it's a very heartwarming, heartfelt look at a toy and a relationship with a brother. It's, it would never leave the collection ever. I will link that right here. I'll put a little card when this video comes up. We're at 6.36, I'll mark that. All right, where we are now? Number four, what figure is your white whale? This is your most wanted transformers toy. If you found this, you could stop collecting. G1, Super Godmaster Force, Minerva. Trying to think, oh okay, I'm number one. It's one of the headmaster juniors, it was recoloured into, is it Nightbeat? Ah, that's it. But yeah, I was like, it's, that's a huge holy grail. Super rare, it's a cool looking Porsche turning into an ambulance rescue vehicle. I think that'd be the one for me and I've got a soft spot for the train bots for sure, definitely Raiden. So yeah, that's, that's a bit of a grail for me. I guess, you know, a G1 hoist, as boring as it may be, I just, I desperately wanted one as a kid and I just, it was never, it was never there, it was never in the shops. And you can pick, I'm a dime a dozen, as you Americans say. I think hoist, when he was reissued in the commemorative series, that was the one you could always find dirt cheap. Nobody wanted that one. Nobody wanted? Yeah. Shelf warmer. And then obviously, nowhere to be seen over here. There's something about green and day glow orange that works for me. That's a failed military collar at one point, I believe. All right, buddy, last transformer, came top, last transformer question. What is your favourite transformer character? Any fiction? Any media? All right, Rekar. I absolutely love Rekar, Rekar and Nancy, when he gets himself a girlfriend. So you were G1, Rekar, not him? Yeah. Nice.  And you know, he talks TV, it's a very unique IP, I guess, for transformers. How often do you hear somebody talk like Bones from Star Trek in a Transformers cartoon? Never. I just think he's amazing. In terms of the toy, the way he's not had much of a reissue. So he's in Reveal the Shield and United where they could ride each other. The G1 toy is a big behemoth of a toy, and then you've got Keith's Fantasy Club, third party figure, which is the most screen accurate version I've ever seen of him. He's just such a joy to watch on screen and to, you know, to have in the collection. And he's got a kick-ass beard and mustache. You don't have many transformers with that. Yeah. That's one of the stuff she's just, it's a thing. That's cool. I wasn't expecting that answer. That's awesome. That is awesome. All right now, we are going to head into our YouTube questions. Number six, what possessed you, a grown-ass man, to do toy reviews on YouTube? So, I'm a relatively, I got a couple. I've got maybe like three. One is funny, one serious, and one is, it might be a little bit tough for people to hear, but if I do the funny one first, last year I got tickets to go to TF Nation, the convention, and nobody was making TFN videos, so I thought, do you know what, I'm going to be brave and I'm going to start a YouTube channel, and I'm going to talk about going to the Transformers Convention in the hope that other people will do them, because I want to watch other people's videos, so I was like, if I do it, more people will do it. It didn't really work out. I didn't get like, I didn't see anybody doing it for like another six weeks. So that was one reason. The other reason was, the other, the medium one, before I get into the real nitty-gritty of it, I'd wanted to start a channel a couple of years ago, but I just didn't have the confidence. I didn't think I'd be able to talk or freestyle in front of a camera, even though you can cut and edit and you can stop whenever you want. I just didn't think I could do it, and I definitely didn't have a big enough collection. I think I would have got to about 10 videos and be like, oh, I'm all out of toys. What can I do now? So I waited a few years, built up my confidence. I got married and had to talk in front of 120 guests. I had to talk about in lectures in front of 180 students. So it built up my competence in speaking, and I thought, you know what? I can do this. I'm going to get inspired by others, and I'm going to become a YouTuber. And the final one, this is the one that's a little bit more tougher, is I've been trying to, my wife and I've been trying to have a baby for five years, and it's been incredibly tough. There has been miscarriages and our first daughter didn't make it and failed IVF bits and pieces. So I thought if I started a YouTube channel, I could worry about that, as opposed to what else was kind of going on in my life when I could put all my expelled energy that I'm worrying about into worrying about a channel as opposed to if and when I will have a child. So yeah, that one's a little bit more important in terms of YouTube, but I wish you the best with that. My wife and I was in the same boat, and we just finally totally gave up. So here on our 40th birthday is right after my 40th birthday is when we found out she was pregnant. So I wish you the best, buddy. I really hope it works for you. Yeah, it will. Excellent, excellent. That's all I'll say. I can probably tell you in three weeks if it's going well. Good deal, good deal. All right, well, you kind of answered this one already, but number seven is what keeps inspiring you to get in front of the camera? I know you've teamed up with some buddies to create the figure force. That's going to stick. That's going to be the way we have to do it now. I'll be your voice over. I'll be your introduction. That'd be awesome because the world comes the figure force. Well, you're hired. Absolutely. I always, when I introduce my figure force videos, I always do the little spiel. And it's based off the GI Joe cartoon. But yeah, I didn't really want to do the voice over guy. I just thought, if I do it once, I'll have to do it every video. But yeah, that's one of my inspirations, just to keep making figure force videos. And I make videos for myself to keep myself inspired. I want to look back in 10 years and say, I had to go at this. But there's new up and coming people that inspire me. It's good to see that there's still fresh new content and YouTubers having a go. And then we're getting older YouTubers from 10 years ago wanting to come back and swear all the time. Did you know who I think? I think he's talking about you. Rock the book on. Yeah, snack on. Enjoy your spicy onion crisps. You know, he's rolling in the floor right now. Yeah, like this. I think Graham's going to, I was talking to Graham the other day and he's like, I'm probably going to have to send him a box every month now. I was like, yeah, yeah, you are. I want Graham on here so bad. We kind of talk back and forth, but it's the same situation. You and I, of course, he's not on Facebook. So I can't hook up with him as fast as I can, some of you other guys. But he was the guy I went to for all my G1 reviews. And back in his early days, he cracked me up so much because he would grab a figure and say, yeah, it's all right. It's a bit shit, but it's all right. And I would just roll. I loved it. It's rubbish, but I love it. It's totally shit, but I like it.  Yeah, I think back when I used one of my biggest inspirations to start the channel was seeing Graham. And I didn't know how to use YouTube correctly. If I think back to 2009, 2010, I didn't log in properly. All I ever did was type in what I wanted. I didn't realize you could subscribe. I just had to try and remember reviewer's names and do it that way.  Oh, well, we're old. All right, let's go on to number eight. There are thousands of toy reviewers on YouTube. What makes you different from the rest? I like to delve deep into nostalgia and emotion. I like to really tour back through my memories of 1986 and 87, and I like to give that real personal touch. And I basically just, I think that's what I want to see. As you said, there is 100 of reviewers out there already. You won't see me transform a toy because I can't. I always struggle on screens. I'll leave that to the likes of you or yourself or Ben's Collectibles because they're the go-to people for seeing transformation. But I like to bring that real nostalgia and the real personal connection and experience that I had with the toy because they really have given me 30, 35 years of enjoyment. That's why when I do my episodes childhood toys, that's why I went down to the floor. That's why I went on the plush rug because it makes me feel like I'm doing what I did when I was six, seven years old. Yeah, that's great. I've watched a few of those. I really like how you really bring in the whole history of the toy and how it affected you. So that's why a lot of people who don't understand how toy collectors are, they think it's a joke. All these grown-ass men are buying toys for kids. I was like, no, there's more meaning to that, especially when you're collecting the vintage stuff, almost at least half of those vintage toys because I didn't have a lot as a kid, but the ones that I have as a kid, I can tell you each story behind that particular figure. I think my memory is good enough that I can sometimes remember the day, whether it was a Saturday afternoon going to the local toy shop. I can remember key dates of when I got these Pacific toys. That's what I wanna bring to YouTube. Good, that's why it needs some heart because you can definitely tell the people that are paid to do it and they do it because of the money. You do it for fun, you do it for the nostalgia. I do it as a way to appreciate what I have back there. So yeah, that's kinda why I like watching the newer guys. I'm always interested in picking up toys that remind me of a certain point in time as well. You know, I wanted to get a toy to get a representation of a time in my life or of a film I've seen, not necessarily because it's a toy, maybe because it reminds me of that day I went to the cinema or I went on a school trip. Okay, ah, here's a good one. Number nine, what's your thoughts on the Transformers social community, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and do you have any special shout outs? I can't even talk. It's the social networking side is really, really good.  I think we always get the same in some ways from the sit rep, the same answer. There's always gonna be those kind of the bad guys and girls that just wanna either troll you or in some ways make fun of you or overcorrect your grammar or call you out if Barricade isn't exactly from a MicroMaster but he's there if you know what I mean. And then there's some great Facebook groups is it the Toy Isle that we're part of? The Action Figure Isle. Our group, the Action Figure Isle, all 150 of us, but what I see in that one is great and it's good that a few weeks ago I was saying, yeah, it's really getting traction. It's got like 60 people and then suddenly we're at 150 in that group. Yeah, I'm gonna have to pause Rudy real quick. I've never promoted this yet but I do help run a Facebook group for toy collectors called the Action Figure Isle. It's a brand new group. If you wanna come on in, I'd love to have it just mentioned in the little questions Patriot Prime sent you that you mentioned it or you saw it in this video and join us, we have a blast. I've got a lot of good people on there. So there's my plug. Nice. And then shout out. So, you know, I'd be foolish if I didn't shout out Figure Force and obviously all the members, most no borders dude, Junkie Dave and Zorrider, all of us review toys and all those review transformers. And then I've got a little shout out for a guy I've just been introduced called Mr. Allen in the World of Toys. And he's, I think he's been doing it a few years but he mostly does action figures but he tells a little story and acts out a little play at the end of his videos and I find thoroughly enjoyable. Yeah, it's fun. I love doing that every now and then too but it has to hit me like my Naga hat. That, I worked so, that hit me out of the blue.  So I had a blast doing that one. All right, last question my friend. Do you have any channel goals for yourself? Where can our viewers find you? This is your time to plug you. So my channel is called Rudy's Asus Science Fantasy Experience and then obviously Figure Force. I am on Instagram, I don't always post and we do have a Figure Force Instagram page which they're kind of like growing but you get to see bits and pieces of my life as well as what I do with YouTube. I'm on Facebook, that's about it really just I'm not the biggest poster when it comes to Facebook. I just do it here and here and there. I'm always playing with toys or dusting toys. And you're always watching YouTube videos. I can always cancel a comment from you. Yeah, I'm either watching YouTube or making YouTube or I'm writing PSAs for the end of my videos. Well, just to let you know and my viewers know that I will link a couple of Rudy's videos at the end of this video and a link to his channel in the description so you guys can go check him out. He's got some really cool stuff. Thanks. You're welcome man, that's what I want to do. I want to get people out. I want to talk to people. I think this is the first time you and I have talked to face to face other than Facebook comments. Oh yeah, it seems to have been comments or a quick chat through messenger here and there. But it's nice to see face to face. That is great, especially in the fact you're from the UK, I'm here in West Virginia and today it was just perfect.  He shoots me a message that he just saw my Soundwave video and I'm like, what are you doing right now? Let's do a secret. I was literally making gravy. And I was like, give me 15 minutes. And I was like, I need to put a t-shirt on. Just to let you know, gravy is West Virginia champagne. I was not making champagne for my wife. She's not allowed up all at the moment, if that's a hint to anybody. I was making proper gravy. Gravy granules. Yeah, your gravy's probably a little different in my gravy. Yeah, a little bit. Well, Rudy, it was an absolute pleasure getting to talk to you. I'm glad you came on. Oh, you're so enjoyable. I've wanted to do it for weeks. Good deal, good deal. So as I said, you know, I was like, if you don't get anyone, I'll be your backup. And everybody notices shirt, right? I love that stand-bush shirt. Flex that chest out. Let's see it. Let's see it. Awesome shirt. That is too cool. That is too cool. Well, guys, I- Well, if you look at the Transformers Relay Show, you've got to wear something to transform it. Damn straight. Patriot Prime. All right. Well, like I said, I appreciate you stopping by. And guys, I appreciate you watching. If you like what you see, don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe. I try to put out a new sit rep every Friday, if possible, if I can line up my guests. And so far, it's been no problem whatsoever. Once again, we want to thank Rudy from Rudy Zizzo's Science Experience and Figure Force for stopping by. And guys, I'll check. Guys, I'll see you next time. This is Patriot Prime, signing out. Ho-wah! Hey, I really appreciate you guys stopping by my channel. Don't forget to like and don't forget to subscribe. Also, check out some of my other videos that I've done on Generation One Transformers, Modern Era Transformers, and Toy Hacks Reprolabel 6. Once again, this is Patriot Prime. Ho-wah!


There are about 600 wards around the country who in the first quarter of this year had claimant count twice the national average. We reckon that means they've got a neat rate, not in employment, educational training, of 25, 30, even 35 percent, one in three youngsters not in work or educational training. And so there you face the concentration of disadvantage, often with poor economic prospects, often with poor transport connections, because transport is a much bigger issue than people give it credit for. And it's that kind of area that needs extra flexibility, extra boost, extra effort if we're going to stop short-term unemployment, becoming long, long, long-term unemployment. The most important thing is to make it easy for businesses. The problems of complexity, the problems of government schemes that change every five minutes, the lack of openness that sometimes exists on the part of education and authorities, let's be honest, also sometimes a short-termism in business, those things conspire against giving young people, especially those who are not bound for university, the kind of opportunities that they deserve. I think we need local coalitions of business, of privates, of public sector and of voluntary sector all coming together to say, look, in our area we can really make a difference, but we need government to give us the flexibility. And that's the sort of change that I think this problem needs if it's going to be properly addressed.


Alright, I'm Rex and I'm going to give a talk about a series of major breaches in the cannabis compliance software industry in the year 2017. I gave this talk before, I think there was a guy here who like seen it and I was like somebody's going to have seen this talk twice and that's pretty funny to me. I gave it a few days ago at another security convention called B-Size that happened right before this one and they helped me polish it up so you guys are going to get the better version. But okay, so this is cruising the cannabis highway. Who am I? I'm a long time software developer, a web developer mainly, full stack. I've been to a handful of hacker summer camps, it's a lot of fun. Not in Infosec though I do work for some Infosec companies doing front end stuff and I'm also nosy AF. With this talk I hope to give you an overview of the cannabis industry, present a compelling narrative that touches upon disclosure. This is definitely going to be an exercise in OSNT. There won't be any elite exploits though, however there is someone who will be presenting right after me and they will be going over specific surface area attacks for point of sale stuff in cannabis. And really I just hope to foster a more general or broader discussion about Infosec and cannabis because it's sorely needed. So why should you care? A lot of times when you come to hacker summer camp you see a lot of talks about people, where people basically discuss the current state of some industry and then they say, oh this is very terrible and we all need to do a better job of securing it. And sometimes it's something like medical and medical devices and that's really important. Sometimes it's other things but I feel like cannabis is one of those similar watershed sort of industries because well there's a lot of new tech coming into it. A lot of players trying to corner this compliance software market and so a lot of people are potentially cutting corners to cut their time to market and have a greater market share but of course that means more problems, more bugs. There's also a lot of high monetary value obviously in both cannabis itself and therefore in all the ancillary tools. There's also a high number of policy touch points. So we have lobbyists and lawmakers who are active in the political space as it pertains to cannabis but then we also have software makers who are making software for dispensaries and they're also making software and very often the same companies for compliance tracking at the state level and then they're also lobbying in politics. So to me that's kind of funny, maybe potentially a conflict of interest but I'm not a lobbyist so I couldn't say for sure and potentially this is an untapped market for as much learning and drunken partying as goes on in hacker summer camp. There are also all sorts of like random 2 a.m. business deals being made in fancy suites while people get intoxicated further. So maybe this is something somebody wants to look into and maybe there's money and I don't know. So without further ado cannabis. The sweet nugs you smoke with your friends or whatever except not really. We're really talking about the cannabis industry which in 2017 was actually a $9.2 billion industry in all of North America so that makes it kind of less like my burnout stoner neighbor and more like your rich friends even more affluent uncle. In putting this village together and also doing research for this talk I've met or at least read about a number of guys who like don't smoke at all yet have extensive cannabis portfolios so that's where the future is headed I think if we don't pay attention. Not that there's anything wrong with that. We just can't let it be only that. And another thing related to that is like you know a lot of people are saying like okay well maybe I'll get into it maybe it's like the green rush or whatever but if these guys are doing this you've realistically already missed the mark pretty much. But in that light the cannabis supply chain is probably a lot more complex than you probably think. And it looks like this. The green lines are product actual cannabis the black lines are data. So to walk through it sort of quickly you start all the way on the left we have grow ops which are where the cannabis is grown obviously it could be hydroponic could be otherwise organic in dirt outdoors. That can be shipped to a processing facility to be turned into some other form that people enjoy consuming and then from there it's sent to dispensaries sometimes it's just sent directly to dispensaries and they'll make their own little pre-rolls and wrap it in a box and put branding on it but whatever and then it goes to the customer. Now at every step along that chain that I just pointed out people or these organizations are interfacing with the government in some way usually through the form of compliance tracking software. So when the grow ops starts their grow they'll often tag the plant with perhaps an NFC tag or some other sort of radio tech or if not then just a more low key whatever the plastic lock numbered equivalent is and then when they pass it off to the processing processing facility they also have to input data into the system the dispensaries have to input data into the system about where their products come from and also potentially who they're selling it to and a lot of these dispensaries have extensive profiles on their customers. We also have some sales analytics so these dispensaries are furthermore sometimes uploading this data to do number crunching to figure out which products sell the best and why. We also have grow analytics that is becoming more of a thing not as popular as the sales analytics perhaps but grow ops. I guess kind of like what Harry was saying you know entering their data into these systems to be told to figure out how to get the best yield right. If this was my best crop what did I do to get that and how can I replicate it. And then far over there we have ancillary products by which that's that's a pretty broad umbrella as I'm using it could be anything from smart nutrient dispensers that prosumer level growers are using to smart vapes I'm considering well any vape really but vapes are becoming smart and internet connected which yeah. So here are some of the major players in the cannabis point of sale space. We have metric which is a subsidiary of Franwell which is just a more general tech company like a GE or something I would say and I just cherry picked some of these stats because they just to me they give you an idea of like the scale that these organizations are operating at. So they claim to have tracked four million plants and three million parcels and also they're pretty known I think for yeah they're pretty known for their their radio tag technology. So I almost get the sense that like they while they do have software that exists at both the dispensary and the state level they also make a lot of money off of that and have a lot of market share around their radio technology. Another player is biotrack THC. I believe the original company is still around biotrack they basically made medication dispensers that go in hospitals like if anybody watched that show nurse Jackie and saw the part where she had her boyfriend sort of turned the pictures off so she could get the opioids distributed without leaving a trace or maybe you didn't see that show. But they pivoted into the medical cannabis space mainly through dispensary and compliance tracking software. And then we have MJ freeways pretty much the main topic of this talk. They are the originators of the idea of C to sale and that is what I described in the previous slide basically the tracking that happens at each stage. But what are we actually talking about here right MJ freeway they were really one of the largest point of sale providers in the industry present in many many states at the state compliance level present in probably you know an overwhelming majority of dispensaries and as such they had a lot of data to lose. So we're talking about a breach that happened on or about November 19 2016 with no data loss. That is according to MJ freeway and according to them that is what they were told by a third party security auditing company. But in actuality it was two breaches and around two months that time with data loss as they would find out some months after the fact. Except no maybe it's more like three really with a potential pivot in the government infrastructure and the definite loss of personally identifiable information and a several month outage and also in one of these states which you know this hasn't necessarily been attributed but I think the attacks are probably related that's me speculating. But there was a state where attackers modified basically some live delivery information of cannabis restocking so some pretty gnarly stuff is happening and I was kind of like all right this is crazy. And so I started reading more about it. And this is something these are some things that were said from MJ freeways marketing department that they were the victim of a vicious cyber attack. And also that they're only really coming out to say this because a lot of people are saying that this was not a hack and not an attack and it absolutely was.  And then on January 8 our clients began to experience the effects of this the MJ freeway system went offline for all our clients who also had no access to the MJ freeway site. So this is actually I went to a dispensary a few years ago here in Las Vegas during def con. And I was able to talk to the bug tinder that I met there about her experience while this was going down. And this is pretty anecdotal but I guess their boss walked in and they said hey the system's down we can't really do anything. He said you're all liars who try the most to avoid work. So I wanted more anecdotal evidence because even though objective evidence is probably better anecdotal still fun. So I went to Reddit which is the best place for subjective hot takes. But instead I actually found a lot of people who are involved in the industry just really venting their frustrations. And you don't have to read all this but to sum it up they did not do a good job of disclosing that this was happening and a lot of people found out just like I said with my friend by going into work and finding that the system was down. And then over the course of the next few weeks and months they would receive a lot of mixed signals about you know what kind of backups were available because the attackers targeted the backups as well by the way. And when they would have the backups rolled out have the system back up a lot of people jump ship. So my first reaction is like oh my God why is nobody talking about this is a big deal this company as I came to realize is so large in the cannabis community or in the cannabis industry rather. But as it turns out that's inaccurate everybody was talking about it like from national print based news publications to mom and pop blogs that focus on the cottage cannabis industry. So a lot of people were talking about it but still that made me that still gave me a funny feeling though because I'm like all right if everybody is talking about it then why didn't I hear about it. If major news outlets are talking about it why isn't everybody aware of this. And I think they just did a really good job of sort of getting in front of it and controlling the narrative. So I do give them kudos for that actually. But like I said you know looking at anecdotal stuff and just reading a lot of speculation from a lot of people. And one of the things I read about was that the source code was had to so not only was personally identifiable information leaked and put on the pirate bay by the way but also source code was uploaded to get lab. And initially I think MJ freeway came out with a statement saying that this wasn't real. I don't understand what they meant by real. Did they mean like that's fake news or more like we didn't do that. So please don't look at our code that's there. It got taken down pretty quickly though. But it was definitely posted up on the pirate bay as well. So I grabbed that and I started finding any kind of news source I could. And there were a lot of them. And I figured that the timing was going to be important. So I made a spreadsheet as one does with a timeline. And then like I said since everybody was talking about it I grabbed every news article that I could. And what was interesting was that some of them like it was interesting to see their perspective and where they were getting the information from. Some of them would just say stuff like you know they would take a very centrist approach and say outage affects major you know cannabis point of sale lots of dispensaries having trouble and then other people would be like MJ freeway fucked up really bad. But then some people even though there were these sort of different perspectives some of the authors of these articles did manage to find nuggets here and there that I couldn't really find anywhere else that really led me further down the rabbit hole. So back to Reddit. So I read the post from the people who were in the industry and directly affected. But then in that mix were these weird things where like these people were just sort of chiming in with what looked like hot takes. This one dude is like yeah I know the guy who made the software and I've been in it for 20 years and here's how I think it happened which sounds really suspicious. And apparently I wasn't the only one that thought that because MJ freeway subpoenaed Reddit and also Google for information about all those accounts that sort of had first hand knowledge I guess thinking that maybe they were affiliated with the tax amount. That's pretty logical thinking in my opinion I mean I don't know that I think that they did have something to do with it but it's worth checking. So like I said I was interested in the source code as well because a lot of the other stuff is subjective source code is pretty objective. So I went on the pirate bay I grabbed this torrent. Also I was told by the EFF that it's very important that you know that I got it from the pirate bay. But what you're looking at here took me about four months to download to get to that 46.1% and that's after fiddling with like distributed decentralized peers and all that stuff.  It's really old Drupal code that was never patched so I'm not going to learn anything from that. And I was a little bit disheartened because even if that's true I still wanted to know what was going on in there. And then somebody told me to do another search and I was like duh I didn't think of that. And as it turned out this code was reposted a number of times in the pirate bay so to me that makes an interesting narrative. You have some people saying I don't care and other people saying no please look please. So again I don't know what that means but it makes my spider sense tingle or whatever. So I grabbed this and started digging in.  So I'm not a hacker like I was saying. I have a pretty decent background in consulting by which I mean working for a company that outsources my services to another company. And so I've worked with a lot of other developers on various teams in various configurations. I've worked with offshore teams and other remote teams and things like that. And one thing I can tell you is if you look at so you see how there's up at the top it says CC leaf. And then if you read down there are other ones that like just leaf or like Washington leaf or those other things. What you're seeing there is like like if I can sort of put on my like Oracle Psychicad a little bit. This was a team that could not decide on a software development process that would allow them to share a common core and easily build a custom customer functionality on top of it.  I actually have a tattoo on my leg of a man named Melvin Conway. He makes something called Conway's Law that says your software is going to look how the communication between your teams looks. So I would say this communication between these teams is probably not pretty good. It's probably not very good. And that will lead me to believe that you're going to find exploits when you look deeper into the code. A note on how some of this stuff is laid out right. You're quint your obligatory stack diagram. So we're most concerned with what's going on in the middle. Those are dispensary level trackers. You have MJ freeways Graham tracker. That's the one that was based on like a six or five or six year old Drupal core with like a bunch of custom plugins that basically made it so that there was no upgrade path. So really a person could just fingerprint their Drupal instance from afar. Go to any like CVE site and say what are all the exploits that have been found for Drupal since this version. And I believe that's what the attackers did pretty much. Then you have MJ freeways MJ platform and that was supposed to be their new and improved thing made from scratch. I think they got a lot of flack from people in the community because some of the stuff I saw on red it was like a guy who works in the dispensary but he also had a lot of technology maybe even some info second. So he was like hey I did a scan on my instance of MJ freeway and I didn't like what I saw. And I think some of those people were very vocal about that. So perhaps that was part of the motivation for MJ freeway to roll that out. But then also they were just sitting on Graham tracker for a while. So you can't really I mean you can be the industry leader and not really innovate and then you get surpassed by somebody else so they didn't want that to happen. And then we have other third party dispensary trackers from other companies. But below that you have MJ freeways leaf data system and that is their state level compliance tracking. Now I definitely read something from their marketing department where someone sent them a question saying isn't this kind of a conflict of interest and they were like no no that's a separate company it's okay. So that was kind of funny. But the middle tier is supposed to integrate with the lower tier. Everything the dispensaries are doing they have to feed to the government like I was showing in the previous graph based slide. Now a lot of times these companies their selling point is that you will automatically be compliant. Your data that needs to be uploaded to these compliance trackers will that will be done automatically. So to me that means that your data is probably being double dipped depending on like where you live and where you're buying your legal weed. And if it is a company with not a great track record of security that's like kind of troubling. And then if that surface area wasn't enough you have stuff like dynamic websites that are being made by your local mom and pop web developer web developers. And so they are using the API's that these trackers offer to perhaps you know show the most up to date inventory at that dispensary. You have in store menus like the ones you see above the counter at McDonald's but for weed. And those also integrate with your dispensary tracker. You have your vendor or suppliers. So maybe your processing facility is directly uploading data to you based on what they're doing. And then you have mobile apps that again are showing potentially what is available at your local dispensary. So those things can be hacked as well. It's a lot of things going on here. So one of the things that I wound up reading a lot about was MJ freeways dealings with the Washington legal cannabis industry and the sort of organizations that exist at the state level that that are required to implement that. And I would have foiled. In fact I thought like oh finally now this is my first chance to like have something good to like submit a FOIA for.  But I found something that's like almost this is good. This is a sales force instance that has like PDF minutes of every meeting that the chief information officer of Washington State has. And so there are just tons of things about MJ freeway and their bids to win the contract and also how they missed deadlines with the the handoff because BioTrack at some point had that had this this state contract essentially. And at some point the Washington State decided they would rather use MJ freeway. MJ freeway missed several deadlines and so there is much information in here about that. As well as some posted videos from the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board to dispensary owner telling them not to worry about all the rigmarole that's been going around related to breaches in the cannabis industry. So back to the code. Again I'm not a hacker. I'm not looking at the code trying to find exploits. I mean I probably could I'm sure. But I thought it would be much more interesting to see what the metadata would say. So I harvested all the emails from Git. Git log lets you format the display in any way you want. So I pretty much made it look like a CSV and with a minimal amount of deduping and manual cleanup I wound up with a very long list that is poorly redacted. Now if you notice this is just like the A's right here. So it was a pretty extensive list and as you can notice a lot of those email addresses do not end with mgfreeway.com because they use a lot of consultants some of which are offshore or near shore or probably even working with them for an extended amount of time but some companies just like to structure themselves that way for whatever reason. Sometimes it's beneficial.  I believe I was using the jigsaw puzzle to enumerate on other social media profiles and although that API key costs like a bajillion dollars if I had it I would probably buy it because I'm very nosy. So okay collected a lot of stuff there's much reading to be done I had blog entries tweets Reddit articles podcast transcripts training manuals get commits and I found a lot of interesting things. So first off like I said there are a lot of email addresses that are from contractors obviously so I can see the contractor companies because a lot of them in in those URLs but a lot of them are also Gmail addresses and some people just would like alternatively commit from their Gmail address or from their work address. I've been there I've also fixed it which is saying a lot because I can be a lazy developer too but that's the kind of thing I don't want I don't want sitting around in a get repo for other people to look at and point fingers at and then I noticed so like if you're looking at the top what does that mean I didn't bother verifying it but my thought is that that's them committing directly from the get UI. Like is that how you get that email in your in your get log does anybody know? No. Okay. One guy made eight commits in a row using just his name as a commit message which I'm sure the commits weren't all that important but again if I was a hacker and I was going to look for exploits and code I'd probably start with his code. And so again lots of remote contractors lots of various lots of varying Gmail addresses. I would probably like if I was a less principal person fudge one of those Gmail addresses like make one that's very similar and differs by one letter and start emailing like everybody on this list. And because I see all your get commits like sort of even keeping in mind that this stuff has been leaked or maybe you know that hypothetically we were talking about an open source project. I still feel like if you say some really specific stuff to somebody that's going to resonate with them they're going to be like oh well maybe this is legit. Especially it kind of especially if it looks like an email that I've interacted with before for work and why else would I have a reason to doubt such a specific message. So here's what that sweet spear fishing pretext would look like. Hey developer I've been dealing with some of your commits as of late and I wanted to point out that you do this weird thing where you commit from your vagrant environment because that's what one of those weird ending addresses was to. That makes it really hard for me to reconcile some of your other work when I rebase off master. Could you please not do that anymore. Also I think there's some stuff in your local repo that you probably didn't push to master. Would you mind sending me a patch of that. And I think that would work. I don't know. And I received a little bit of indication so when I was reading these subpoena documents that MJ Freeway submitted to Google. That was one of the email addresses. That's not the person's email address. They swap two letters. I'm not sure if the attacker tried any social engineering stuff. It might have just been an address from which they like used to do the smear campaign and I'll tell you about that in a second actually. So perhaps the most interesting is this letter. An open letter to the state of Washington cannabis industry. I'm sorry. I should be looking at you guys and connecting with you. But the icon is really small on my screen. And yeah. Well anyway. So this was written by a guy named Patrick Vo. President and CEO of Biotrack. And I don't even think I found a blog on this site or any other letters. So I thought it was very interesting that they posted this one and then even a link to download a copy of this. Click here. So there's a lot. It's like eight pages and it's very heated. He is not happy to just summarize it. He was pretty tight over how things went down in the handoff that I mentioned before from Biotrack to MJ Freeway in Washington state. And he gets at the Washington state liquor and cannabis board a little bit over their lack of accountability and how they sort of mismanaged the process as far as he was concerned. And he said a lot of things about MJ Freeway. But basically the biggest one was we really can't afford to have our reputation commingled with another company that is this insecure because it will also make us insecure. Which there's some truth to that. But like they were really what they had to do concretely was like a ship around like CSVs by FTP upload. So I'm kind of like OK how insecure is that making you really. But you know I'm not a business owner so. But it also references these data ransom attempts that the attackers made. So he was nice enough to copy and paste a message that someone received and they posted it. I believe to a Google group for dispensary owners and workers. But basically the attackers were uploading snippets of the data to these like Bitcoin lock box sites and then ransoming it and sending these emails from spoofed addresses to all these dispensary owners. And I think the price is I'm not sure if it was for a sample or for the actual dump but it was like eight bucks.  And like I was going to try to see if I could like do some like lay persons threat attribution. But it's kind of obvious here who did it. I probably don't need to go into that anymore. I didn't have to make that graphic. It was just just a good fit. But jokes aside while this animosity as I said before I've worked in consulting.  And I think they understood on some level that engaging in drama is a Pyrrhic victory kind of right.  So but yeah again that spider senses tingling and I'm basically telling myself there's something else going on here. I don't think that just this idea of you know your reputation being commingled with someone insecure is enough for all that vitriol. So I did more digging. And as it turns out there's definitely something. So apparently both Biotrack and MJ Freeway were in the same bid to be the state level dispensary the state level compliance tracker for Puerto Rico. And because of transparency and how many sort of public records get uploaded now. You can just find information about that. It's posted online invitation for bid for C to sale inventory tracking system PR dot gov. Wow. Okay. And this is a lawsuit from MJ Freeway against the Puerto Rican Health Department and Biotrack the winner of the bid. So basically their attitude was hey wait a minute according to Puerto Rican rules a company that has a felon on the board should not be allowed to win this bid. And as it turned out Biotrack did have an ex felon on the board. Now this is something I don't know this is kind of stuck out to me. I don't even speak Spanish but I was like let me peruse this and see what happens. In conforming means unhappy. I'm not a lawyer but to me unhappy sounds like an awfully subjective word to be in a legal document but that's neither here nor there. It's definitely telling them. But so okay. More about you know the board member and the the the the the felonies or what have you. It was a Mr. Steven Seagal. Not this Steven Seagal but like it would have been really cool if it was and I wouldn't have even been surprised to be honest. And so basically back in 1999 the guy that I am talking about was involved in some male fraud and some stuff like that. And so you know I guess objectively speaking perhaps MJ freeway had a leg to stand on. But you know I don't really know like ethically speaking or morally speaking like what side I fall on here. But it was definitely entertaining to read about. And here's another suit that biotech was involved in. So I guess there's a lot of just litigation in this space in general. It's highly competitive. So okay. Drawing to the end here but here right. This is from the timeline again. This is a very dense you know snippet from the timeline. And if you look at the top I'm going to get up because I can't read what's all the way over there. But I want to speak to that. 2016. MJ freeway brings a suit in 7 2016. Steven Segal Steven Segal. He actually divests his shares. Him and another gentleman named Brian McClintock. They sell it to a holding company. So now they're not on the board anymore. So moving forward MJ biotech won't have this problem. Right. And they also put the guy who like the guy who's the CEO of the holding company I believe they put him on the board and MJ freeway launches their MJ platform at marijuana business conference here and expo in Las Vegas here. And three days later they were breached and then double tapped. I'm just speculating these things again. I'm not a hacker. I'm definitely not the person who can do threat attribution. But if I was I would definitely be looking closer at that. I don't want to say aliens but you know. But then I did install their stuff. I kept saying I'm not a hacker but I did want to dig around a little bit. But fortunately a much more experienced person in pen testing wrote me like two weeks before Defconn it was like hey I'm actually working on some of this stuff and I would love to present. So I'm just going to leave that as an exercise for him. But in conclusion who was to blame again. I don't know. I am definitely speculating about all of this really. But like in my head at some point I was like maybe this is some kind of foreign state actor thing right. Sounds implausible but I'm not really kidding like some of those consulting emails were some from some pretty interesting places. And also I would like to think that you know if I wanted to point out the sort of downsides to to one's Western capitalist bourgeois ideals probably shitting on your new found fledgling vice industry and like you know letting it fall on his face that would probably be a good way to do that. And there's been a lot of psyops going on so maybe that could be a related thing.  They are you know alt right hackers now that's a thing. Competitors perhaps very competitive space or just maybe board teenagers like advanced persistent ones. The cannabis space has a lot of interesting concerns regulations and compliance. There's a lot of it and when it's done poorly it equals increased surface area for attack.  And also another thing that's interesting is that when you are in the legal cannabis space and you get hacked you probably are not going to go to the feds. The feds are probably not going to help you and even if they would you probably would not want them to help you. And I didn't change the slide so I said come to the cannabis village and check this out but you're here. Thank you. And that's it yeah. I believe that is Mr. Lewis in the back with a question. Yeah I don't even know I was super curious. I think they might have been like second runner up and maybe MJ Freer was like both of you. Yeah and like some of the later lawsuits that I was showing was between Biotrack and other legal cannabis software companies also in Florida. So I thought that was pretty interesting also. Any other questions. OK.


All right, we've come to the last session and we're going to be looking at That's what I feel. Yeah Looking at being a woman who pleases the Lord by proclaiming the gospel Proclaiming the gospel if you would turn with me to Colossians chapter 4 Colossians chapter 4 Did you know according to recent statistics that only 2% of churchgoers actively share their faith with others? Did you get that 2%? That is tragic, isn't it? I Think of all the people who have tried to make a difference. I think of James Kennedy who developed Evangelism explosion MacArthur's church. I took that program. We were out there Discipleship evangelism Recently way of the master. That's another one that is out there with Kurt Cameron Ray Comfort and Todd Freel and Yet with all the you know the helps that are out there evangelism explosion discipleship evangelism way of the master Even a book that I really like called tell the truth by will Metzger Which is a wonderful book to teach you not not only how to share your faith, but how to turn every day Conversation into spiritual conversation and yet with all the training programs and the books out there on evangelism Most of us in this room. Well, I take that back because most of you in this room are doing this But most Christians are not obeying the Great Commission They are not going into all the world and preaching the gospel to every creature that is under heaven Which were Christ last words in Matthew 28? And will Metzger's book to tell the truth he tells us why You know why most of us never witness Why we don't share the gospel Because we don't start We never start we don't open our mouths We don't take the initiative Maybe we we worry about what other people will think of us and we're fearful that we might lose family members Or we might lose friends or I hear in the reform circles if God is sovereign in salvation Then why should I share the gospel? That's a big one Oh, you know Susan if I share the gospel then I'm gonna lose my job I'm gonna lose my job Ladies you can come up with your own excuses, but whatever excuses you can come up with it's hard to get away from the Great Commission, isn't it? We are to pray we are to go and we are to speak and we're gonna clearly see these three elements in Colossians Chapter four verse two to six. So let's look at this together Continuing prayer watching the same with Thanksgiving praying for us that God would open a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ For which I'm in bonds that I might make it manifest as I ought to speak Walk in wisdom toward those that are outside redeeming the time let your speech be always with grace season with salt That you may know how you should answer every man Now you have an outline there before you we're gonna see how we should pray for the lost How we should reach the lost and how we should speak to the lost Paul says we he begins Excuse me in verse two by saying continue in prayer and watching the same with Thanksgiving now ladies look at the context, okay? The context is how we are to look at those that are outside Those that are without Christ the context is the lost and the gospel and the idea is that we pray and we watch for opportunities to share with lost people and We do that coupled with Thanksgiving Paul says for the opportunities to share the gospel You know, it's a blessing that God would use any of us To share the gospel of Jesus Christ in fact We know that's the context of what he's saying in verse two because look at verse three He now gives a prayer request regarding the gospel Here he says he actually it's a prayer request for he and Timothy here it is This is our first principle in evangelism and that is prayer. We must pray He says pray also for us he and Timothy That God would open to them a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am in bonds Ladies I find it very refreshing That the Apostle Paul did not think he was above asking for prayer You know, I really like that. In fact You know sometimes my husband I get in trouble for being too transparent, but that's okay I'm not gonna you know, I don't want to cloak or hide anything I want to be transparent with people and here we see Paul being transparent. I Need you guys I need the church at class a to pray for me and Pray for me not that you know pray for me that I'll get you know Unchained from this Roman soldier I'm chained to or pray for me that I'll have a decent meal while I'm in prison or pray that my bleeding wounds will Get treated he done he didn't ask him to pray for that He says pray for me that I will have an opportunity to share the gospel while I'm here in prison Pray for me Ladies we need to be praying for one that we need to be praying for each other that we will have opportunities for the gospel And we need to get above the earthly prayer requests to the heavenly prayer requests And isn't it interesting that Paul asks that God would open the door for the gospel? Do you know it's God that opens the door and you know what happens to most of well a lot most but some of us We shut the door he opens the door Here's an opportunity Susan to share the gospel and I slam it But ladies we need to pray that God will open opportunities for the gospel And I believe that's why we need to be praying continually about sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ Lord you want me to talk to this person Lord open this door I love Lord bring someone into my life today that I can share the gospel with Now there were some obstacles standing in the way of the door being opened And so Paul wants these removed he says pray for me that a door went open and he calls it a door of utterance What does that mean? well a door of admission for the word an Opportunity to preach the gospel pray for me that a door would be open So I will have an opportunity to preach the gospel. In fact, you know, there's another time that Paul was in prison and He wrote to the church at Philippi and he says you know Don't worry about me in here. These things have happened to me for the furtherance of the gospel Don't worry about me in here in prison I'm having opportunities to share even with some in Caesar's palace Caesar's household And you know, we come to the end of Philippians, you know what he says greet all the saints We do those in Christ Jesus even those of Caesar's household Evidently while Paul was there in prison when he was writing at the church at Philippi He shared the gospel of Jesus Christ You know, that's what landed him in prison in the first place was sharing the gospel And he wanted to share the gospel more and guess what some of them came to faith in Christ and at the end of the letter He greets them and so he says don't worry about that Ladies he says pray for me that a door of veterans would would open so I could speak the mystery. What's the mystery? Well, a mystery is a truth, which was once hidden, but is now revealed It's just the mystery of the gospel Paul mentions this many times in Ephesians He talks about the mystery, which is the gospel the truth of the gospel Now ladies before we go on. Let me ask you a question Do you ever have a burden for someone's soul? Of course you do. I have burned for a lot of people. I pray for all seven of my grandkids You know, they will all come to faith in Jesus Christ I have seven brothers and sisters and there's only two of us that know Christ I pray for my brothers and my sisters that they will come to faith in Christ We all have people that we pray But ladies when you have that burden for them We need to ask God to open the door of opportunity to share with them or or pray that they will come in contact with someone else Not outside of family that can share the gospel with them And I know many times I have seen God open doors for me and then as I have mentioned I've shut it to my own shame Paul was obviously very bold in his sharing of the gospel so bold He wound up in jail because Paul says I'm in jail. This is why I'm in bonds Pray for me that God would open a door of others to speak the mystery of Christ. That's why I'm here That's why I'm in jail because I shared the gospel Ladies remember Paul was very closely watched and guarded by a Roman guard and handcuffed to a Roman soldier 24 hours a day You know, he didn't have TV and internet and couldn't go outside and work out like they do in prison now Nothing like that He's in jail and yet he's not concerned about getting out He's concerned about getting the message of Jesus Christ out, but he's not concerned about getting himself out In fact in 2nd Timothy 2 9 he says this for which I suffer trouble as an evil doer even under bonds But the word of God is not bound even though I'm bound up The word of God didn't bound up I can still share the gospel with this Roman soldier and anyone else that comes in here and that's you know I saw my dad He had been very sick many years ago He had 48 blood transfusions and he was in the hospital I don't know how many times and you know what every time that someone would come and put a new Pine of blood in my dad's arm and he would say do you know the life of the flesh is in the blood?  They don't know if he's gonna live or die This was many many years ago, and I did not see one doctor or one nurse that didn't come into my dad's room He did not share the gospel with he found a way to share the gospel. That's what Paul saying Though I'm bound up in here. I'm not bound to share the gospel. I can still share the gospel whoever comes boy I'm gonna tell them about the gospel Ladies this is a rebuke to our comfortable Christianity We're fearful of sharing the gospel because we might be ridiculed we might not be liked or we maybe we don't Maybe we think we'll mess up the message, you know But what if we faced imprisonment for sharing our faith, which by the way could happen Could happen it has happened already, you know debbie not going to India next week and the last time I went it was a little It was a little bit unnerving than the time before there's a lot more persecution among Christians, and I felt a little more ill at ease and But you know in this country we haven't had to face imprisonment yet because of being a Christian, but does that mean it won't happen? Good How many of us would went out, you know, how many of us would fail to tell the message if we thought we were gonna end up in prison? And how many of us in this room if we did wind up in prison? Would continue to share the gospel while we are in prison Paul had a burning and a soul to share his faith ladies We should pray and ask God to give us that same burning that Paul had to share the gospel This is the great commission that Jesus left us. It is not an option for us Well, Paul further elaborates on his prayer requests in verse 4. He says so that I can make it manifest as I ought to speak What's he talking about? He says I want to make known the mystery the gospel I Want to make it known, but he also says I want to make it manifest as I ought to speak What does he mean when he says as I ought to speak? Paul not only is wanting to share the gospel, but he wants to present it clearly as He ought to speak ladies a good message presented in a bad way can do more harm than good We have a great message Christ died for the ungodly we have a great message, but you can present that message in a bad way In fact Paul asked for a clear message and a bold message in Ephesians. He asked for the same thing I want to present the message clearly Paul says in Romans 1 16 I'm not ashamed of the power of the gospel of Christ But as the power of God into salvation to everyone that believe it to the Jew first and also to the Greek Paul says in another place if I preach the gospel I have nothing to boast on Both stuff for I am under compulsion. What was me if I do not preach the gospel? Ladies we should know how to share our faith in a clear and a precise way And then Paul reminds them of how they should live and act towards the loss that they're trying to win to Christ This is huge. It's important How do we reach the lost well Paul gives the answer in verse 5 Walk in wisdom towards those that are outside. What does this mean to walk in wisdom? Well walking would include our behavior right we looked at that last night Walking in wisdom means properly evaluating our circumstances and making godly decisions that we looked at last night Contrasting the foolish woman and the wise woman One man says behave wisely towards outsiders always bearing in mind that though few men read the sacred scrolls all men read you ladies You can share the gospel of Jesus Christ all you want with all the people you want But if you don't live it out you might as well hang it up You might as well hang it up. I remember going to a lady's house one time for discipleship and I got there and her kids were It was bad Disrespectful not a bang and I said is this what kind of goes on she goes.  She was I know you're right I repent and she did you know she did and she started raising her kids God's way So now she not only shares the gospel, but she also raises her kids right. She's walking in wisdom Towards those that are outside In fact outside just means that's a reference to unbelievers Paul says in 1st less Holians 412 walk honestly towards those that are outside So you can have lack of nothing ladies We must be careful how we conduct ourselves that we do not blaspheme the word of God and make it unattractive There are enough Christians today doing that. I mean every day it seems like I hear about another Christian Who's you know committed adultery or who's swindled money from people and you know It's it's in the newspapers and we're blaspheming the word of God and making it unattractive who wants Christianity You know the biggest thing I hear people I should be a Christian. They're all hypocrites And I said well, yeah, that's true, but not all hypocrites, but they're not real Christians if they're hypocrites, right? We have a challenge today ladies because Christianity to many has become a lot laughing stock To the unbelieving world and we need to reclaim our testimony by walking in wisdom Towards those who are outside to the lost and Paul says we also reach the lost by notice What else he says redeeming the time? What does that mean? We looked at that last night, but to buy off the off buy up the opportunity to rescue the time Recover the time from being wasteful Believers are to buy time like determined bargain hunters. You've ever seen those women at the garage sales They're like crazy, you know, you're supposed to have a garage sale at eight and they show up at seven or six o'clock They would you got I mean they're determined bargain hunters. They want to buy up the opportunity, you know They want to get the good bargains They're serious You know Nikki she's this coupon person now. She's a bargain hunter That's what Paul says how we should be when we're around the loss being tent on redeeming the time buy up the Opportunity to share the lost. Oh, here's an opportunity for me to share the gospel with this person. Here's a great bargain great opportunity Ladies the time that God gives us with the loss. Don't waste it. Don't waste it make the most of every opportunity Don't just sit and wait for the opportunity to fall in your lap It's not going to just like those good bargains aren't gonna fall in your lap In fact Paul says in Ephesians 5 15 and 16 see the Ewoks circumspectly not as fools But as wise redeeming the time as we looked at last night So we've seen how we're to pray for the loss were to pray for open opportunities a door of utterance to be open We're to reach the loss by conducting ourselves wisely buying up the time with them And finally Paul tells us how we're to speak to him. There's a certain way we're to speak Let your speech be always with grace season with salt that you can know how to answer every man Now what does it mean that our speech should be always with grace? Our speech towards the unbeliever should be gracious and Joyful Do you know even when our Lord stood up there in the temple in Luke chapter 4? You know he was reading the scroll and when it's when he sat down it said wow His words were gracious He was gracious Ladies our speech should only be gracious it be it should be seasoned with salt Which is interesting because not far from Colossae. This is the church that Paul is writing to there was a salt lake And so they would understand this imagery of having our speech seasoned with salt now What does it mean? What does this mean having our speech season with salt? Well, it actually reads this way having been seasoned indicating that our speech Should already have been seasoned and should continue to be seasoned and season means to prepare with Stimulating condiments salt has flavor right in fact I don't know about you, but that chicken salad was good But it needed some salt minded or something and needed You know salt had it stimulates the flavor it brings out the flavor of food Our speech should be thought-provoking it should be worthwhile it should be stimulating it shouldn't be a waste of time It should be attractive. It should be have spiritual charm. My husband's always saying we should be winsome We should be winsome with the lost Ladies our saltiness will prevent us from being ignored as irrelevant boars You know, I have met some Christians and so have you quite frankly that if I were an unbeliever I would not be attracted to them just because of their speech. I Mean, I've called some of them on the phone. They go, hello. Who do you want? I'm like, whoa, sorry. I called you. I Mean seriously, I have you know Calling Christian women to ask something and excuse me. I'm sorry. I called or I mean that's not an appropriate way to Talk as a Christian Or you know you they have these sour faces and negative looks on their face Who would it be attractive to that? Ladies we must remember what Jesus said you're the salt of the earth But if the salt has lost its savory with what shall it be salted it is therefore good for nothing be trodden down and cast out I mean who wants that? Have salt in yourselves. He said have peace with one another now I'm gonna give you some bad examples of unsalted speech towards the unbeliever.  You know, are you saved? You know, I mean Don't you know there's only one way to heaven? I mean that's really attractive, isn't it? Does that win you towards me? Those are not salty approaches. Maybe hot pepper, but not salty Yeah, you could say something like You know a fact last night one guy came in there Debbie and I were in the book room And he was sharing his faith about his faith and how he came to Christ And he was telling us what a lie what a mess his life what a mess his life was before Christ And I thought wow, that's a great opening to you know You know since I gave my life over to the Lordship of Jesus Christ has been given such me I just got to tell you about this what God's done for me. That's a great way That's a salty approach or you know, you seem to be struggling. Could I help you? I've often thought of that when I see women those out of control kids Except I'm afraid they might take their clock out of their purse and kill me since now everyone carries a weapon But I guess that'd be being perceived being a martyr for Jesus and my husband has always hoped that we have a one of a Martyr in our family, so I guess I'd be the first one but You know, I I see those moms and their kids are out of control and I just want to go up and say can I please help you? You know and but I'm afraid that I don't know how that would go But pray for me and don't pray for me too hard because that might happen in the Orlando Airport here in just a minute but You know you could say things like that or You know, what is your religion? I'm just curious.  Do you believe in Jesus? Do you who do you believe Jesus is or one time? I asked a woman I said do you believe in God and she said well I believe in a God and I was like well, which God is that you know? So I mean there's all kinds of ways and there's like I say the will mesker book tell the truth Yes, some good openings for that how to take turn every day conversation into spiritual conversation I think I told you probably several years ago. I was Putting gas in my car and I was on my way home from something and I Went in to pay it was at a time I wasn't using my credit card and I walked in and the guy goes that boy you sure are happy today. What's the key? And you know I didn't say anything To my shame and I thought oh, I've got 15 minutes supposed to be home to cook dugs at dinner And I like my husband would really be upset if I was late because I was sharing the gospel You know and I blew and you know those opportunities never reclaim themselves They never reclaim themselves. I miss the open door, and I didn't buy up the opportunity that God gave me Lady salt has a two-fold purpose. It gives flavor and it preserves from corruption As far as flavor goes our speech should be joyful witty In fact, that's what it means in classical Greek. It should not be boring. It should be stimulating It doesn't always have to be religious, but it should be properly seasoned. It should be gracious seasoned with salt Witty amusing clever humorous, but not you know foolish jesting and course talking nothing like that But our speech should also preserve unbelievers from corruption. We looked at this already let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth We're not to be using that form of speech one man said this Foolish remarks ungracious surly cutting retort saltless talk is Vapid and from which the hearer's mind turns away because it is not worth considering It never does the Christian cause any good ladies Paul wanted to say the right thing at the right time So that he would not damage the gospel message in any way and then Paul gives the reason why we should have gracious speech Why we should have seasoned speech notice what he says So that we can know how to answer every man That man in the gas station that said you would you know, why are you so happy about you're so happy? What's the key? Ladies each is to be answered appropriately to his question and the spirit in which he asks Peter says in another place Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you of the reason of the Hope that is within you So our speech is to be gracious seasoned with salt so we can answer these people that say what makes you so different You know in fact I've heard from several of you this weekend and the people that you knew before Christ They're like who are you who are you now? You are so weird. I'm what has happened to you. You know, you're so different Ladies we should speak the right word the right time to the right person so we can know how to answer each individual You know think of Philip in the Ethiopian and you remember when the spirit said go join yourself to that chariot And the Ethiopian unique was reading out of Isaiah and Philip said you understand what you're reading and he goes no How can I accept some man guide me? What if Philip had said you know what I can't help you either sorry about that bud I mean, you know, let me go home and look at the John MacArthur commentary. I'll be back and help you He knew Philip knew the word of God so well that he could hop up in that chariot and explain to the Ethiopian Unique what he was reading out of Isaiah so much So that says they went a little bit further and the Ethiopian Unique said here is water What hinders me to be baptized Philip said nothing they stopped the charity baptizing and Philip went on his way and the Uniquin away rejoicing He didn't see Philip anymore, but hey, he had salvation Philip knew how to share the gospel with him. He knew what Isaiah meant there That's what Paul's saying be ready be ready Well, how do we pray for the lost we pray that doors would be open and we would present the message clearly How do we reach the lost by conducting ourselves with wisdom? How do we speak to the lost with gracious and salty words? Ladies if you do not know how to share your faith I would encourage you to find someone who does and learn from them or Go through some of those programs some are better than others make sure you go through a program that Really teaches you the real gospel. Okay, not the false gospel the real gospel not a cheap grace gospel the real gospel But you must do something In fact, there are six things you must do according to the passage here and I want to leave these with you Okay, when we think about the gospel number one You must pray You must pray pray for opportunities to share the gospel Pray for God to give you the words to give to that person If you don't know how to share the gospel pray for someone that can help you You know, I've gone out to the park with others and even some of the women that I disciple They they say, you know, I don't know how to share the gospel. I said, well, let's hook up with Maggie the evangelist I'll go out. She's a good trainer You know, and if that's a good opportunity or to the park or someone they they feel awkward They don't know how to share the gospel. So just let them hang out with you number two You must buy up the time you must buy up the time Paul says redeem the time there must be a sense of urgency. We have no sense of urgency You know what we say well, I'll share with that neighbor next year I'll tell my brother next year about the gospel or I'll I'll do this next year tomorrow One man said if Christians felt the same urgency to reach others with the with the gospel as they do about securing their own welfare In this world our churches would see amazing results Number three we must act wisely We must walk in wisdom our walk must be in Accordance with our belief we must live out our faith you can do more damage to the gospel message by living a life of hypocrisy Nobody's gonna want what you have if you don't live out what you preach Number four you must be gracious you must be gracious now. Don't be so gracious that you never open your mouth Okay, don't do that But you must be gracious with your speech You must use Things that are you know have salt within themselves and so that they're attractive to the unbeliever Number five you must be lively season with salt your gospel presentation should not be dull It should not be boring. It should be lively.  They're very exciting I know because when I'm one of the things that happened to me when I embraced the Lord at the age of 30 all of a sudden all this The stuff I've been carrying back here in my neck and my back all the guilt of my sin You know that went away, and I finally started sleeping at night I mean forgiveness and repentance was huge in my life huge I mean letting now God and the Lord Jesus Christ be the master of my life instead of me trying to do everything my way In fact, I think I told you before Christ my husband used to say Susan I'm gonna put on your tombstone. She did it her way and You know that's an indictment on my life before Christ Number six we must be well-grounded we must be well-grounded Paul says we need to know how to answer every man Now I would not have a canned gospel even though I think you should learn the basic facts But you must be able to answer questions like What makes Christianity different from other religions? How can I know for sure I have eternal life? How do you know Jesus is the Son of God and on and on the questions that people will ask you now It doesn't believe it doesn't mean that necessarily you have have to have the Bible mastered But ladies you should be pursuing a knowledge of the scriptures You should be growing in your understanding of the Bible and the gospel You cannot afford to have status quo when it comes to your walk with Christ Ladies we have to buy up opportunities to share our faith.  Will you be a woman who pleases the Lord by proclaiming the gospel a? Woman who pleases the Lord is personally devoted to Christ. Are you in the ways we looked at last night a? Woman who pleases the Lord is pure Are you a Woman who pleases the Lord parents God's way Are you parenting God's way or the world's way a? Woman who pleases the Lord it puts her spiritual gifts to use Are you using your spiritual gifts for the glory of God and? Lastly a woman who pleases the Lord proclaims the gospel Let's pray Father, thank you so much for this time. I pray that my hurried words have not Fallen on deaf ears. I pray that you will take the things that I have said that are true and Impressed those things upon the hearts and the minds of these women I pray that you will take anything that I have said in a careless moment and not impress it upon their minds and hearts But Lord that they would each of them take away Precious principles and truths from your word and your word only I Pray, oh God that you would help us to be women who please you and everything we do And Lord we know that your word says that by keeping your commandments This pleases you and it shows our love to you and I know Lord this weekend There is no way that I could cover everything that your word says that we should be doing But we certainly have enough for food for thought and so I pray oh Lord that we would leave here being Not just hearers of what has been said but doers of your word Give us grace give us help from your spirit Give us the ability to ask each other how we're doing and how we are carrying out the things that we have learned Father we do all this not for ourselves, but for the glory of Christ. We want him to be exalted We want him to be known and we want him to be Glorified and so we give it to you for Christ's sake


So why are dogs the target of so much unnecessary slander from women? They call men who are no good a dog. When dogs don't do nothing but be faithful. Don't call me a dog unless you're trying to get this boom. That's all I'm saying. I had a conversation with a dog about this. OK. And the dogs told me to come on the podcast and tell people. Are we losing them? OK. What type of dog was it? A shitsuit. And what exactly did the shitsuit say? Could you please explain to all your listeners how offensive it is to call no good cheating men dogs? But can I be honest with you? Dogs have loyalty in terms of their love. But when they see another person, they be kissing up on them. When they see another dog, they immediately go to the genitals, sniff that out. Dogs are kind of philanderers. But even when dogs don't have other dogs around, they'll just hump a pillow or something.