Okay, we're back. This is Dave Vellante with Jeff Kelly. This is the Tableau Customer Conference and we're live with theCUBE. We're really going wall to wall today and tomorrow. We're here interviewing customers and partners and executives from Tableau. Ray Wang's coming on later. My colleague, John Furrier, is back in Silicon Valley crunching the data from this weekend's crowd spots. We did a bunch on the NFL and the NCAAs. And so we're just unpacking the innovations of Tableau. We're talking to practitioners. Bruce Boston is here. He's a practitioner, he loves data. He's worked for, so many companies. Bruce, I can't even imagine. And we're excited to have you here. So thanks for coming on theCUBE. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so we just heard the big announcement. We're excited, we're all Mac users here. So we get to now finally go play with Tableau. I see you have a Mac, so you must be excited too. Absolutely. So talk about how you have used data throughout your career and we'll talk a little bit more about visualization and the impact that this had. Sure, so for me, data is about finding the truth, right? There's what we know, there's what we think, and there's what is, right? And data is those clues that we use to find out what is. And you can do anything with data.  And data, you just give me some data and you'll see, I crunch it, I crunch it all over the place.  And I've heard the data doesn't lie, so what's the story there? The data doesn't lie, people do. So I actually flip it around. I say it's very difficult to lie to a statistician, statistician, right? So yes, if you want to know who can tell you the truth, the statisticians know when data is lying to you and when it's not lying to you. You give a statistician the data and they're going to be able to say not, you got to crunch it this way, not you got to crunch it that way, not ask this question and you'll be able to figure that out.  Absolutely. You can't lie to him. You can't lie to him. I don't care how many TV shows you have or how many things you try to do, you can't lie to Nate. But he will say, but on the other hand, he'll say that based on the methodology that I'm using, the data set that I'm using, there's an eight, 7.5% probability that this is going to occur, right? Well, so. And that's not a lie. No, no, that's not a lie. But that's a straight fact. And so the lack of data or the inconsistency of data or the fact that life is complicated, sure, it creates this vacuum that we call the unknown. But when you're trying to explain the unknown, we don't call that a lie. I mean, that's just the unknown. It's just a no, right? We can speculate about it, we can ask about it, we can wonder what's there and we can make our best predictions. But we don't think someone's lying when they are predicting or suggesting what's in that dark void. So Bruce, how has visualization shed light on that dark void? Sure, so I go back to what computers do well and what humans do well, right? So what does a human do well? Humans, we do intent, right? We do desire and we do satisfaction, right? You can't ask a computer, what are you trying to do, right? You can't ask a computer what do you want? And you can't ask a computer when have we succeeded, right? Those are questions that humans ask, right? And the problem that humans have versus the computers, the computers can do computations that we can't even imagine. They can go beyond anything that we could hope for and they have the ability to crunch numbers like you've never seen. But the problem that we have is I can't talk to a computer. Make me coffee, doesn't do it yet, right? It has to be a language between myself and the computer, between the machine and my mind, right? Between what I want and what I need. And that communication goes two ways. And the me to the computer is me typing things in and me moving a mouse and me moving everything that you saw up there because that's intuitively how I speak to machines. And for the machine to speak back to me, that's the visualization. The machine says, how about a picture like this? How about these colors? How about if I parse it out like this? What if I move this over here instead of moving that over there? Do you see something? And I say, yes, I see something. And the computer says, fine, tell me what that is and tell me what the next question is. So that's the visualization. The visualization is how the computer speaks back to me. So it feels like in the last 10 years. I mean, you remember in the early part of the 2000's Harvard Business Review, many, many other publications would come out with basically how great CEOs operate on gut instinct. Yep. And it was sort of presumed at that time that that was sort of status quo that wasn't going to change. In the last 10 years, that's changed quite dramatically. Not that gut instinct still doesn't matter. In fact, we heard Christian talk about instinct being critical to decision-making. It's just that the amount of data that we have now to drive that instinct, to inform that instinct, has changed. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit.  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk about that a little bit. So here's what I think. I think there's different parts of the problem. So I like chess. I like the game of chess. And I don't play it as well as the professionals do because it takes a lot of time and I don't want to spend the time on the game. But here's how the game looks to me, okay? There are opening moves and then there's a whole bunch of unknown that they have to deal with. And there's the end of the game where both players go, or at least one of them before the other one says, I know how this ends up, okay? And he knows what the answer to the end of the game is. And the other one might say, uh-oh. And the other one says, uh-oh, right? But that area where we have the unknown, that area what you get are aggressive players, defensive players, classic players, creative players. You have all these adjectives that we would use for CEOs, for managers and everybody else, right? But what you see is the reason they have to go some sort of strategy of personality is because that's, they're dealing with the unknown. As soon as the game moves into, I know how Checkmate works, I know how this thing ends up, okay? There are no more aggressive moves or defensive moves or classic moves or fantastical moves. They're all just the right move. And so it's the same with data. Data takes us closer to the future. It takes us closer to the right move than that void that we've always had to deal with in the past, yeah? So, okay, so talk a little bit more about how you have used data in your own experiences and your various work environments and what's excited you. Right, and so it's almost always that same thing. I have a basic theory which is, so I worked with Toyota for a while. Toyota has a concept of Genshin Gimba. And Genshin Gimba says basically, the ivory tower is wrong, right? The ivory tower is wrong. And why is the ivory tower wrong? Because the ivory tower is too far away from the problem, right? So where do you gotta go? You gotta go to the problem and you gotta see what the problem is. You have to talk with the people on the front line. You have to figure out what their intuition is telling them and how they think the problem ought to be saved, right? They don't have the resources to the front line to solve problems, but they have the intuition that you need. Data in the conversation of data allows the people on the front line to speak to the ivory tower and allows the people at the ivory tower to be able to take the input of the front line and turn it into something meaningful so the resources get to where the resources need to be. And almost every single time in my career, I've done exactly that.  Right, and Toyota was, you know, how do you think we're going to fix this so that we can get this up and running, right? And that wasn't actually Toyota. We worked for a company that, we were doing a special show car for them. We were trying to get the show car up and running. But you talk to the people on the front line, you get their intuition, and then you collect the data points. What kind of data points would I need to show exactly what you're saying? Well, you need this kind of data point, that kind of data point, this kind of data point, that kind of data point. You can pull those data points together to build the picture that convinces the people that need to be convinced. So your method is you gather information of the front lines about the premise. Yes. And then you either help support or refute that premise. Absolutely. Have you been more successful in supporting or refuting? And what are some of the outcomes have been? It's almost always, I mean, you're almost always never going to start where the answer ends. Again, they're going back to chess. You can't predict how the checkmate's going to happen. Right, you can start to predict the principles. Look at this, if you put the night in the middle, it does better than the night on the side. Right, if you put the bishops on the side, they do better than bishops in the middle. If it's the kings on black, you better not use a white bishop, right? And so the principles and the intuition kind of tell you what kind of pieces you're going to use for that in game. But how you actually do that, no, nobody actually knows that. But if I know what the pieces in the game are and I know how they move and I know what they are, because I talk to the people at the front line and I have the data to know when they're right and when they're wrong, then when it goes into time to play the game, yes, I checkmate more often than anybody else in the room. So let's just kind of take a slightly different view in this so-called big data world that they often talk about, well, it's not really testing hypotheses anymore with data. You don't come to the data with a preconceived notion, you go to the data and the data tells you what the answer is. You almost don't know what the question is. Does that, it sounds a little bit different than the approach that you were describing. Is there a room for both types of approaches or how do you view that? So I've never found a case where, again, the human role of intention, the human role of desire, and the human role of defining when you've succeeded, satisfaction, hasn't been part of the deal, never. I've never had a CEO come to me and say, I got this question, but it has nothing to do with what I want and it has nothing to do with what I'm trying to get done and it has nothing to do with making someone inside, outside, anywhere in the world happy. Never had that question before. So no, I don't think the role of human is lost in big data. I think it's there and it just, we spend too much time and this is what Christian's doing here. We spend too much time on the other pieces of the problem, which is how do we get the data, how do we crunch the data, how do we manipulate the data, how do we decide what's true and how do we decide what's false and all those things. Because we spend so much time there, so much of the focus of the message has been put there, that's not where it's at. At the end of the day, it's the human that's looking for something that they can't find and it's the human that's trying to get something that they don't have. So I love the, you saw Christian's keynote, I take it, right? You were in there. And you know, Simon Sinek, right? People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. I felt like his keynote and the great companies, Simon Sinek uses many, many examples. He uses Apple as an example and I felt like Christian's keynote talked to that, the why. He was really, he didn't talk about Tableau, what they're doing and their products and their features and all. He left that for the session. People loved that, by the way, he ended up. But I felt as though he was communicating why he and his colleagues started this company. I wonder what you thought of his keynote and what you think of Tableau in general. So I love it, right? I love it. Yes. So he always does really, really well and where he's going. So there are a couple of things that he's done today. So this is the sixth conference that they've had. Every single year it's the same thing. Here's all the milestones they ticked off and they all mean the same thing. It's going to be easier for people to solve problems next year than it is this year. I think he showed that, right? Yeah. And the message of going back and showing that data is ultimately about figuring out the problems of life is also something, I believe.  Yeah, please. So I go to Socrates. Can I go to Socrates? Absolutely. So two quotes from Socrates. All right. The first one where I think he gets it right and the second one where he gets it wrong. So let's start where I think where Socrates gets it right, okay? There is only one good, knowledge. And only one evil, ignorance. If you know the right answer and how to checkmate things, how to get what we want as humans, then there is only one good. It's the knowledge to get there. And ignorance, ignorance is what causes us to make the mistakes. Ignorance is what leads us to having to take random things which was the waste that the toil tell you about that we do in life, right? So that's where Socrates gets it wrong. So where does it get wrong, right? And why not? Why not disagree with Socrates? I disagree with everybody else. Yeah. Right. So Socrates says, the life, the unexamined life is not worth living, right? The unexamined life is not worth living. And I say, no, no, Socrates, you got that one wrong. Every life is worth the same. Every life is worth living, right? The unexamined life, examined life, all of that is worth living, right? But I think he has a point. And here's the point. So I'm gonna clean up what I think he was trying to say, right? Why not re-quote Socrates, might not say he's wrong and then say I can do it better, right? That's a proof upon Socrates. A proof on Alex, and here's what I think. Life is worth examining. There's one place we're gonna spend our time and we're gonna spend what we do, right?  I think that's what he was trying to say. And so yes, what Kristen was saying today, that we ought to look at the Petri dish, that we ought to live in chaos sometimes, that we ought to look at the stars and wonder what's up there, right? That we ought to do that day to day in everywhere that we are, absolutely. So since you invoke Socrates, I'm a Greek scholar, but you know, probably forgotten more than I'll ever know, but wasn't at Socrates we had a student to come to him and say, I have some information to tell you about another student, wasn't at Socrates? And he said, well, can you tell me with a certainty, is that information accurate? I said, well, I can't tell you. Can you tell me if certainly it's true? No, I can't tell you. Well, is it useful to me? He said, well, not really. Well, if it's not accurate, it's not true, it's not useful, then why are you telling me? How does that relate to data, right? So it's- No, no, he's absolutely true. So I go back, let's go back to where I think I started. Socrates is saying, if this is not something that someone is intending, that has some sort of intention in it, why do I care? If it doesn't have some sort of thing that I desire and Socrates didn't desire much, right? Why do I care? And if this isn't making me happier, why do I care? So yes, absolutely. Socrates is saying exactly that, that unless it links to something that we care about, we shouldn't care. See, Jeff, the cube goes to all places. I did not think we were going to go there today, but I'm going to throw a little bit of cold water on this conversation, just a touch. I thought Christian's keynote was fantastic. I thought it was very big picture. It was talking about some really important issues. But then I take a step back and I think of, okay, I'm a BI analyst at a company. I got to get my job done. Yeah, yeah. Some of that core just day to day is not very exciting stuff that you got to do. You still got to do the reporting. You still got to, you know, you still got to get the dashboards out. That might not be, you're not solving great problems like Charles Darwin or Socrates or whoever. How do we bring this back down to earth for practitioners watching who are saying, well, this sounds fantastic, but I've got a job to do tomorrow. And how can I actually do my job better every day? And then, you know, maybe it still strives some of these larger, you know, be a better worker, a better person with some of these bigger issues we're talking about. But still, I got to get my job done. How do you apply some of these notions inside an organization when you're trying to, you know, you're trying to get the train's run on time and you're trying to get the things moving. So it depends on where the bottleneck is and I always go to the bottleneck. So if the bottleneck is getting the job done, you got to get tools that get the job done faster, right? If the bottleneck is you don't have the resources, then you're going to have to figure out how to get the resources, right? And if the bottleneck is you don't have support from the organization, you're going to have to figure out how to get support. But some of those problems are something that Christian's going to be able to solve. Some of those problems are something that we're going to have to solve ourselves, right? And, you know, he is going to make it easier and easier for me to justify using a tool to do some really amazing things. I mean, I can talk about features that I think that I'm going to use over the next year. Yeah, I mean, what are some of the things that Tableau is focused on that you think are going to make your life easier, going to make the way you do your job better? Besides calendar control, because we know you love it. Yeah, calendar control is really sweet. So the big three that I took out of there was the storytelling. You know, again, we can transform data with some code. We can't transform people with code, right? And so I think you take them down the path of a story. You say, here's where I started and here's the key points along the path to where I got to my conclusion. You know, I used to get in trouble with my geometry teacher. He would say, you're skipping steps in your proofs, right? You've jumped from here to there without showing me how you got there, right? And storytelling basically says, I have seven steps in my proof. Here's each of the steps. How do I get to where I am? And there you go, there's storytelling. Web authoring, and what you can do on an iPad today, is where you go into self-service. We're not gonna be able to crunch all the problems for everybody. We're arrogant if we think we can crunch all the problems that everybody needs.  We're arrogant if we think that they can't do it for themselves, right? Web authoring, and what you showed us today is, yes, we can come up with data sets that are clean, that are good, that are curated, right? And we can give them to the people that need to have that data to crunch and solve the problems that they need to do. And we can get out of the business of crunching the data for everybody, and that's gonna make my job as a data cruncher that much easier, right? And then the final one was well, having it on the Mac, right? So having it on the Mac, really, I think what he's trying to push there is, the data's going to follow you. And the analogy of you having to go home to get your email or having to go to work to get your work email, and now you can do it on iPad while you're on the plane, now you can do it at your desktop when you're at desktop, now you can do it on your home computer or at your home computer. Those three are pretty powerful to me, right? Yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about, you mentioned kind of the storytelling, but maybe taking a little bit of a step back, just in terms of how you approach visualization. I mean, we talked today with a few practitioners about who both kind of independently said, keep it simple, and my sort of antidote was that we've seen as we've taken theCUBE around to different big data events and analytic events, sometimes you'll see competitions for the best data visualization, and a lot of times there's some really busy visualizations that look very pretty, but I couldn't tell you what they're trying to get across. Do you agree with that idea that simplicity is really one of the most critical elements in data visualization? How do you approach that? So I'm a chess player, right? So chess players don't want to know how many thousands of steps you can take to get to where you want to be. They're always looking for, okay, I know how to get there in eight, can I get there in seven, right? I know how to get there in seven, can I get there in six? Nope, I can't get there in six. Fine, the minimum number of steps and the right number of steps is seven, and then yes, taking out all the fluff. What's distracting from what I'm trying to say? My step seven is all about this to that, and not about this other, well, let me get that other stuff off, right? And just get down to the seven steps that you need to prove your point. So absolutely, yeah. So chess is this closed system in a sense. Yeah. And yeah, that's an infinite intellectual playground, for sure. But what gives you confidence, or do you have confidence that this open system of this world that we live in, everybody talks about data being the new source of competitive advantage, and we're here cheerleading visualization, which is a great thing. theCUBE is a big data cheerleader. What gives you confidence, and do you have confidence that data is the new source of competitive advantage? You will actually realize that vision, in not just clicking on ads and getting people to buy things, but whether it's healthcare or sociopolitical issues, et cetera, do you subscribe to that vision and do you have confidence that we'll get there in our lifetimes? So will we get there? Yes, we'll get there. Is data the competitive advantage? No. Crunching data? Nope. What I think is probably at the core of where we're going to end up getting, and being and wanting to be, is the intuition of the people in your organization. What you don't have in the database is going to decide what answers and what solves those problems. I've never seen the computer really come to a good conclusion. I've seen a lot of people look at a Petrie dish with mold in it and say, that mold is surviving. Right? And say, that's what's unique about that. And what data is doing is data is getting to the right people, so the right people with the intuition to say, that mold is surviving have all the information they need to make that observation. Well, so you're touching on a point there about, there's this concern and you read the Economist, Harvard Business Review. Think, are these articles about, are data and analytics and automation going to remove the human element? No. We're going to lose jobs and we're going to be an automated society. We're going to deliver all this value through data and automation, but kind of paradoxically, it's not actually going to, that value is not going to translate into a higher standard of living for most people. Do you disagree with that? Absolutely. And why? Explain on that a little if you would. So if you look at the technology that's available to even the poorest of the poor in today, right? The technology that's available to the poorest of the poor is amazing compared to what was available to even the rich a thousand years ago, right? I don't think that trend subsides. As for us being automated, you can, oh, there we go. Technology, right? It's not getting in my way. It's not making my life better here. As far as technology automating our lives, it doesn't automate how I think. Maybe it's smarter at knowing that this has lower cholesterol and lower cholesterol is going to lead to a happier Thanksgiving with my kids because I'm going to be able to indulge in a little more turkey if I save up during the summer. But this doesn't say that the calculation is wrong. It's helping me and showing me how to make calculations because it's right. When Google Maps picks a path that I've never taken between my home and work, because there's three accidents today, they're not getting that calculation wrong. They're getting it right, right? And yes, the first time that Google reroutes me to my work, for any other reason, they got the calculation right and that gets out on the internet? No, no, that doesn't work for Google, right? As soon as they do it because of advertisements, soon they do some sort of deal they had with a local guy or as soon as they do it because of some other reason, other than they have the right answer, okay, they go away. So no, I'm not afraid of the manipulation of data. I'm not afraid, the peer review is through the roof. And no, no, I'm not afraid of the jobs. What we need in this country, so this political, personal, yeah? Yeah, go for it. Yeah, why not, why not? Is to solve more problems, right? And I do believe that when you make a nice park, everybody gets to enjoy it. When you have a nice beach, everybody gets to enjoy it. When you have good schools with good facilities and everybody gets to enjoy it. When you have budgets that aren't wasting money, everybody gets to enjoy it. When you have good roads and good airplanes and safe this and safe that, do we all get to enjoy it? Absolutely, we all get to enjoy it. Bruce Boston, awesome, we love it. Can't take the humans out of the equation. Gut feel, intuition, intent, desire, and known outcomes that are satisfying. Yeah, yeah. Great stuff, really appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. Pleasure to meet you. Yeah, you too. All right, keep it right there, everybody. Anel is up next for Manpower. We're back. Jeff Kelly and Dave Vellante live from the Tableau Customer Conference. This is theCUBE.


What do we have here some packages? Yeah from Amazon these are Rewards for some my patreon supporters. We've got some Linux arm devices in here that I'm gonna be mailing out in the next couple of days I just want to thank those supporters who are in the rewards program that get these and I hope that you enjoy them and You know since I recently was talking about different arm devices I thought I'd order a few different ones and send different ones out to different Supporters, so thanks for your support, and I hope that you have fun either using these devices for their intended use or Modding them and putting your own distro on there. So thanks again for your support and as always I hope that you have a great day


Today, we are going to be looking at delays and how to model them in system dynamics what it means. So, delays exist in almost all the systems, some delays create instability in oscillation, others filter out unwanted variability within the system so that we can get rid of the short term variability and look at the long term performance or remove noise from the signal. So, these are the aspect in all the systems whatever process we take there will be some form of delay which is incurrent part of all the systems. If you just think about it in modeling perspective delays are nothing, but where the output lags behind its input by some time duration right whatever it may be. So, that is a very simple definition of delay so broadly speaking we can think of two types of delays one is called as a material delay which captures a physical flow of materials for example, if say we send in raw materials into the factory after a time delay of say 2 days it comes out as a finished product as raw material comes in maybe after 2 days it comes out as a car. So, there is a delay and there the material is conserved so whatever material goes in it either comes out as a finished product or as a scrap right. So, that is a kind of a mass balance or you can think of say letters that is being posted say through courier or postal service so whatever goes into a system then remains in transit for some duration after end of it which it is delivered. So, those are material delays where the material gets conserved and or when you send an application for say applying for IIT your application was a physical material it went to the admissions office it stayed there for some time many different people would have processed it and then finally, you would have got some response to that correct. So, those are also material delay or when you finish an exam you give the exam papers to me then I have to grade the papers and give it back. So, even those are also considered as material delay so material does not mean it has to be a physical you know object or anything it can also be like an order or the exam papers etcetera. So, those are also material delay or the act of sending an emails so when you send an email assume it nothing is lost, but after some delay the material gets read. So, until you read it the material is in your inbox even after that it can go into your archives or it continues to remain until you delete it right. So, there also the material is conserved. So, those are all considered as part of a physical flow of material. So, I am just having a very broad description of the physical flow. The second kind of delay is called as a perception delay or information delay which represent gradual change in perceptions and beliefs. I mean change in beliefs is going to take time. So, these kind of delays are called as perception delays or information delays or delays of beliefs. This is also quite interesting given a certain people's background they will have certain kind of perception about things. You cannot just pass a law and make it change overnight it takes some time for it to gradually change in especially in social customs. Another more related information delay could be how you process whatever has been taught in class right it takes time to observe it. If at all at some point some amount gets observed it takes some time to retain it and over time that can also we tend to forget normally. So, those are called as information delay. So, there there is no conservation of mass it cannot be like you know I taught you so much hours of material and that much hours gets stored in memory it does not happen like that right it is a maybe some few abstract pieces of information that gets stored which also erodes or gets updated over time. When you get new information you process new information and the old one either gets replaced or reinforced or you just forget them. So, those kind of perceptions is what we call as information delay. Some form of both you might have seen in other courses also. Today's class we will start with the material delay which is kind of more easy to grasp and handle we will get a hang of that. So, material delay. So, when you look at material delay essentially in modeling in system dynamics method we consider two things one is average delay time as is distribution of deliveries or output around this mean delay like as I told the example of sending letters I send letters and after a delay of say a week or a week suppose all the letters are delivered exactly at the same time then I know that there is a fixed delay right, but it does not happen so. Sometimes when I post a letter today some letters get delivered after three days some after four days some after five days right. So, there is a distribution around this average time of delay. So, those are two things that we want for modeling the delays what is it average time and what is the distribution around that average time that we expect and based on that we will be choosing the kind of models we want around that. Let us take the simplest case saying that where output lags behind its input by a fixed and a constant duration we call that as a pipeline delay. So, whatever you send in at this end of the pipe comes out at the other end of the pipe the same quantity after fixed duration. So, it is very common in like say an assembly line kind of setup where material is sent and after a time a finished product comes out whatever the time scale might be and order of exit from delay is also same as order of entry delay times are constant. So, this is one of the simplest model. So, let us do delay as a topic let us consider a simple pipeline delay we represent it as. So, imagine again letters being posted so, we can consider it as material in a drawer to small box, but you can correct it because in is your outflow average delay time D. So, we are going to be using capital D for the average delay time throughout. So, input is kind of exogenous so, whatever it can be material in transit is nothing but the difference of the flows. So, only equation of concern is what is this output. So, output time t is nothing but inner time t minus d ok. It is a very simple equation output lags behind input after d time periods. So, in Wensum if you want to model it we cannot write these equations as you might have observed in Wensum there is no way to give it subscript of time t time t is taken as implicit correct. So, they have defined functions for that. So, if you want to model this in Wensum out we simply model as that is a function called as delay fixed it takes as parameters d time and in it that is in refers to your inflow or the input d t is your delay time D delay duration and in it is initial value of output when time is less than D or the delay duration. So, these are two or three input parameters for this function which fully captures this. Now, internally what Wensum will do is do the same equation output is in of t minus d where d is your delay duration and in refers to your in here which is same as the in here this is a variable name and in it is initial value. So, observe the equation when t is less than d it becomes negative. So, we need to know what happens when t is less than d. So, that is also specified in Wensum as what is the initial value typically we take it as 0 that means, there is no output until actually input starts working. So, that is a simple lag. So, if you want to may write a proper equation. So, this works when t is greater than equal to d yeah that is it. It is quite simple to visualize your flows for example, if there is a assume a pulse input at say time 0 at time 0 there is a pulse input and assume there is a d equal to say phi that means, after phi periods the entire thing is going to come out as an output. So, this becomes your out that this pulse input is your in it is very simple delays whatever you are going to put in is going to come out. So, whatever profile it comes here it is just going to be offset by d time units and the same profile is going to come out after d time units for the output. So, we look at few types of delays then we can move to Wensum for trying it out it is not that difficult look at it. So, this is what we have seen. So, this is one extreme where whatever you do after time delay starts coming out we can take the other end of the spectrum a kind of delay which we have already seen. Since, we look at delay I am introducing it as a first order material delay. What you are saying is in this case output is proportional to the stock. So, assume that whatever inflow occurs this stock is mixed perfectly the analogy here is again the same water tank. So, in this water tank as you can see there is inflow happen and suppose there is a tap below it is not water is not going to follow first end first out policy as soon as it comes it is going to be assume there is also mixer which keeps mixing it. So, water is going to just come out almost instantaneously as long as inflow started immediately outflows will also start and tank will continue to drain in this model. This is nothing but a simple first order model that we have already seen you know when there is a outflow which is proportional to the inflow and the stock in hand. So, tank is going to keep draining until the entire tank is drained right. So, that simple first order negative feedback system is also called as a first order material delay. We will do the Vensim one and couple of questions we can think about. If it is a first order material like a first order negative feedback system. So, what are inflow occurs and it system starts draining almost instantaneously. So, what time does the maximum value of stock occur will be a time 0 will be at the initial point how long an average it spends.


Titus chapter 2, beginning at verse 11, for the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no one despise you. Ask yourself, perhaps you are, maybe you're not, but let me say this, you may be asking yourself, why does Pastor David want to share this particular portion of Scripture tonight? What makes this a unique portion of Scripture that would be appealing to him and why would that be something he would want to share with us on a Wednesday night in a midweek Bible study? Well, the answer to that is it's none of your business. No, the answer to that is real simple. Now, this upcoming Sunday, I'll be sharing with you in a continuation of our study through the Gospel of Matthew, I'll be sharing with you this upcoming Sunday out of Matthew chapter 7. And in Matthew chapter 7, the very first verse of that particular chapter is one of the most controversial misquoted Scriptures that you're going to find in Christendom today. Judge not, lest you also be judged. How many of you have heard that? Don't be judging me, brother. Don't be judging me, sister, judge not. Don't we hear that quite often? Well, I'll be sharing a little bit about that and teaching you this upcoming Sunday to judge everybody. No, I'll be teaching you on Sunday what that means. But I wanted to take tonight to kind of lay a foundation because I'm not able to do this to the same degree on Sunday morning. And so this, for you who came midweek, you're going to have a step ahead of the rest of the fellowship in a sense and then I'll be sharing a little bit with you concerning why it's important for us to take that Scripture and understand its context. Because, again, that's one of the Scriptures that many people quote, but they unfortunately don't understand the point that Jesus is making and hopefully this upcoming Sunday I'll have opportunity to share scripturally what he's intending to communicate and it'll help us as we live our lives for the Lord. But as we look at this verse here and these verses really before us in Titus chapter 2, verses 11 through 15, we're looking at the grace that brings salvation. Now this particular portion of Titus in chapter 2 is a very powerful portion of Scripture because it gives us insight. It gives us insight into the grace of God, the grace of God that has been manifested or revealed to us, clearly presented to us through Jesus Christ. And so he begins in verse 11 by simply saying, the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared, he says, to all men. The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared unto all men. Now I want to develop this as a foundation for you. Let me give you an introduction by asking a question. What is he referring to when he speaks of the grace of God appearing to all men? Well, obviously first we notice that he's pointing to God's grace. The word grace is the Greek word carous, C-H-A-R-I-S, carous. And its most basic fundamental definition is usually just referred to as the undeserved favor of God. Under normal circumstances that is the basic definition. It's the undeserved favor of God. We do not deserve it. It is something that he gives to us though we do not deserve it at all. It's called carous and it's translated by the word grace. And so God's undeserved favor is actually at work in every element of our Christian lives, in every element of our walk with God. When you start looking at grace and you just start looking up scriptures that use the word grace in them, you're going to find some things out. You're going to find that Christians are saved by faith through the grace of God, that we are justified through grace, that we are spiritually gifted through grace, and we are called to serve God by His grace. Grace permeates every element of a believer's life, every element from salvation to service. Everything about our walks with God is permeated and fundamentally founded on God's undeserved favor in our lives. God's grace undergirds and empowers every facet of our Christian life. Because of God's grace, we are actually by faith granted entrance into heaven itself. And none of us, and we all know this, I'm just saying what we know, none of us is good enough to enter in through our own works or our own righteousness. Not a single one of us.  During that day when Isaiah was writing and he spoke concerning our righteousness being like filthy rags, during that day if somebody had leprosy and it was an oozing disease, the leper would wrap his arm or her arm with a cloth. And so that which was being emitted from their arm, their leg, whatever, wherever the leprosy was active, it would soak the cloth. And as it soaked the cloth with this moisture and they would be out there because they couldn't be in the city. They were outside of the city. They were living in dusty regions. The dust of the region would settle on the cloth and it would cake on it. And Isaiah is saying your righteousness is like that leperous cloth. That's a pretty graphic illustration of our sinfulness. Somebody says, I'm not that bad. Yes, you are. That's what God says. He says, no, you are. In comparison to him, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. In comparison to him, anybody who thinks that they're almost as righteous as God on their own, they just don't know God. They just don't know God. That's their imagination. They've been a God that's less than themselves. They've humanized him. They've elevated man and reduced God. That's what happens, you see? And so we don't understand that today in our society, in a society that really rejects a message like that, which it quite obviously does, rejects a message like, oh, that's a downer man. I'm not that bad or you don't know my circumstances. When we make excuses, we really are simply saying, I'm not interested in that at all because I'm not really interested in having a relationship with God. That's basically what that is. But the Bible makes it very clear that none of us is good enough in and of ourselves by our own works or even religious activities that have been foisted upon us and times perhaps that we weren't even aware that these things were taking place. Those religious things, those religious behaviors, none of that saves us. Titus chapter 3 verses 4 and 5 says, when the kindness and the love of God, our savior toward man, appeared not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration, renewing of the Holy Spirit. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. It's God who did it, right? God did the work. What we do is we receive from him by faith and we enter into his grace. You see, the grace of God is intended to produce holy lives. We do not use the grace of God to excuse ungodly living, which I have to tell you, I see that commonly today. Commonly today.  I thought that every Christian understood that. For years I did. I almost felt I was insulting people by reminding them of what God has done for us. I did. As a matter of fact, every time I've taught for years, I have taught with this attitude you already know that you'll even hear me say that. It's just a habit that I have. I'm just telling you what you already know. But knowing and doing, those are two different things. Knowing here isn't the same as knowing here. You know, some people are missing heaven by 18 inches, the distance from their head to their heart. They may have knowledge. They may have accumulated information over time. They may have gone, like I, to catechismal classes as a child and received rudimentary instruction related to God and the Bible and the work of Jesus on the cross and things. They have a basting knowledge. They've heard these things. The gospel, quote-unquote, in and of itself is not a brand new thing. They've heard elements of it before. You can speak to them and ask them, is there a God? And because they were raised in a somewhat Christian environment and the nation at one time had a more Christian feel to it.  And I'm not sure about the hell thing, but I do think there's a heaven. And then you ask them, how do you get there? And then you get all kinds of interesting responses. Do your best. Try your hardest. Go to church at least twice a year on Easter and on Christmas. Things like that, right? I mean, that's kind of how we were raised. If you get married, get married in the church. Things like that. If you have children, get them baptized. You know, it's just religious rituals. That's how I was raised and some of you in this room were probably raised similarly. Whether it was Baptist Catholic or whatever, you probably had, if you had any religion at all, you probably would agree with, yeah, that's generally, that's kind of how it was for many people. But the fact is, it's not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration, the renewing of the Holy Spirit. That comes from God. Not by works of righteousness we've done, but his work, you see, and it's all grace. And so God's grace has been given to us not to give me permission to continue living a godless life. But it's really been poured out on me and you to set us free from the bondage of sin that I might live a life that is pleasing to him and blessed by him. Paul said that in Romans chapter six verses one and two. You see, when Paul was writing the book of Romans, there were people who were arguing against the Gospel of grace. There were legalists and there were Jewish individuals who rejected this idea of grace. And so they would argue and they argued in Romans and all you need to do is begin Romans chapter one and get to chapter five and you'll see the argument as Paul begins to lay it out. When he gets into chapter five in the book of Romans, Paul begins to speak concerning the fact that there are those who are accusing him of saying, well, let's just continue in sin so that grace may abound. And he's saying, you know, because they're saying, look at, no matter how, Paul is saying, no matter how deep you go into sin, God is deeper still.  You're giving people an excuse to continue in sin. And so that's the whole argument. And so he says in chapter six verses one and two, he says, what shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? Because that's what they had been saying. Go on sinning so that grace may increase. The more you sin, the more the grace. So really just run it to the end so that you have all kinds of grace, Paul. That's what they were saying. So he says, oh, what are we supposed to do? Continue sinning so that grace might increase. But he goes on and answers his own question. He says, by no means, we died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? So you see where he's going with that? Listen, if I have been saved by Christ and I've been crucified with Christ, he says that actually in chapter six, but he says it to the Galatians too, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The life I live now, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He says, listen, I'm alive right now. I live in the flesh. I have animal life. I have life, he says. But I understand something. I have been crucified with Jesus Christ. When Jesus took upon himself the sin of mankind, Paul was simply saying he took his sin too. When Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago, he took the sin of mankind. And that means he took my sin. That means he took the sin of the world. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He took it upon himself. And when Jesus died on the cross for you and me, he took my sin upon him. So now that I have received by faith the grace of God into my life, Paul would be saying that does not give you or me the right to continue in sin so that grace may abound. No, if I'm dead in Christ, then why should I continue living in sin? And so grace has not been given to you and has not been given to me so that I can continue sleeping with my girlfriend, doing drugs, getting drunk, cussing at people when they cut me off in the freeway. And all the things that sometimes happen. There was a guy in his way to a prayer meeting. True story, not making it up on his way to prayer meeting. In an early morning prayer meeting, as he was driving, he was being tailgated. And the guys flashing the lights and there's only two cars on the street. A guy could have driven around him if he wanted, but no, they're on a two-laner. This guy's right behind him flashing his lights on him, tailgating him. And finally, the guy who was tailgating goes around him and gives him the California Howdy, revealing his IQ and goes on down the road.   Oh, God, forgive me. I'm going to pray for you.  True story, true story. And here, so grace wasn't given to me to continue in sin, but to set me free from its bondage. To set me free from its bondage. So that's what I want to center my attention on for a few moments. God's grace is in permission to continue living an ungodly life with a ticket to heaven. God's grace has been given to free me from bondage, not to encourage me to continue in sin. Again, I mentioned this earlier. One of the things I hear very often today is the comment, don't judge me. Well, we need to understand that the Holy Spirit is the one who brings conviction and we need to also understand that he often uses people to do that. Sometimes I wonder when somebody is in obvious sin and a good-hearted brother or sister says, you know, you really need to be aware that the life that you're living is in pleasing to the Lord and I love you and I'm telling you the truth. That isn't easy to do. I mean, the majority of Christians I know over the years I've known hesitate or will not even do that. They won't even do that. They don't want to be judges. They say, my goodness, who am I to judge you? And they really are hesitant. I don't know that I know many, if any, self-righteous people. I'm not saying they don't exist. Of course, there are those who are. But in my ministry experience and my Christian life, I have to be honest with you. I, at the top of my head, I can't think of anybody that I know that is like, oh man, you know, I'm going to sniff out sin and I'm going to point it out. I just, there are those who do that. I just, I don't know them. The ones that I have known over the years who come up to me and said, listen, I'm concerned. I have a friend who's living with her boyfriend and they're claiming to be Christian and I don't know what to do. They don't come to me with this, this half-fire and brimstone attitude of self-righteous judgmentalism. They come broken, always. I don't know what to do. And I'll say, you know what to do. You just don't want to do it. Can you do it? No. I don't know them. You want me to introduce you to them? No. Well, what should I do, pastor? They're going to get mad at me, right? They're going to get mad at me. I may lose their friendship. Do you love them? I wouldn't be talking to you about them if I didn't. You love them? Tell them the truth. How? Well, with a broken heart. With a broken heart. Pastor Chuck Smith, my pastor, who went to be with Jesus, shares the story of how that one time he had a friend who was a pastor also who had left his wife, started living with a woman and it broke Pastor Chuck's heart. So he shares how he went to visit his friend and he said, I knocked on the door. The man opened the door and his woman he was living with was in another room. This man had left his children, left his wife and now his girlfriends in the other room closes the door. Pastor Chuck walks in, sits down with his pastor friend. Pastor looks at him and says to Chuck, why'd you come over? And Chuck shares how that he looked at the man, didn't say a word and just started weeping. And if anybody here knew Chuck or knew him in any way, that's one of the things he doesn't do. He wasn't a weepy kind of guy at all. He wasn't me. He was a man's man in every weather. He was real strong, stoic. I mean, the man had a root canal without any nobikin. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing. Amazing. He wept. Didn't say a word, cried, stood up and walked out. Didn't say a word. The man broke up with the woman, moved home to his wife, reconciled, moved on with his life without a word. It was a tear. It was a broken heart. So when you encounter somebody in sin, uniquely and gently with humility, considering yourself, approach them with brokenness, that's how you do it. Because your heart breaks when people are not walking with Jesus Christ.   It isn't that way at all. You know, the Apostle Peter, we all love him from what we read about him. Many of us can identify with this man. He would remove his foot from his mouth only to insert the other one in. You see that over and over again in scripture. You know, he had this experience with the Lord. He was there in Joppa. He was showing him a sheet. It had all kinds of animals and the voice of the Lord said, rise and slay and eat. And the Apostle Peter argues with the voice, argues with the Lord, not so Lord, I've never eaten anything unclean. I'm absolutely kosher and you have these unclean, creeping things? I can't do it. And the Lord says to him, what I have declared to be clean, you are not to call unclean. And he doesn't know exactly the meaning of this vision, but this man by the name of Cornelius, who is a Gentile, has sent some people over to pick them up and talk to him, bring them back to the house to bring the gospel. And as Peter is on his way to a Gentile's house, it hits him. So this is what it is. God is sending me to bring the gospel to Gentiles and then the Jews had no dealings with Gentiles. And so he says, oh now I see clearly what God is saying. There's no difference between the Gentile and the Jew. I see Jesus Christ. You see that in Acts chapter 10. But later on in the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul has to speak to this beloved man named the apostle Peter. It's found in Galatians chapter 2 verses 11 through 13. And what had happened is Peter had become a stumbling block for non-Jewish Christians. Even after he said, God has made it crystal clear to me. So Paul speaks and says, when Peter came to Antioch, I had to oppose him publicly, speaking strongly against what he was doing for it was very wrong when he first arrived. He ate with the Gentile Christians who don't bother with circumcision. But afterward when some Jewish friends of James came, Peter wouldn't eat with the Gentiles anymore because he was afraid of what these legalists would say. Then the other Jewish Christians followed Peter's hypocrisy. Even Barnabas was influenced to join them in their hypocrisy. This is a man who said, God has 100% made it very clear to me that I am not to separate myself from those who call in the name of Jesus Christ. And yet under pressure, he had to be confronted by the apostle Paul who did so publicly because the ones who were sinning publicly are rebuked publicly. It causes others to fear, Paul told Timothy. And so sometimes the Lord will use people to bring conviction into our lives. A lot of times, don't judge me. Don't tell me anything. If God has anything to say to me, he'll tell me personally. But he is right now. You don't look like God. But he is right now. When's the last time you read the Bible? Well, you know, I don't have to read the Bible to be a Christian now, so you haven't. When's the last time you had fellowship with a brother or sister in the Lord and spoke about the goodness of Christ? Well, you don't have to have people in your life, man. All I need is God. Me, God, granola and some trees. Really. And you know what's going on right now. And that person is not walking with the Lord. They're hiding from God. And so the Lord sends a Jonah over who may not even want to go and says, you know, 40 days and you're going to burn. Brings a word and says, it's time to repent. And I'm telling you, my experience in yours is probably the same as this. When you come even with tears in your eyes and a broken heart, the first thing people do is they say, when did the Holy Spirit stop convicting people and appoint you to do it? I had a woman one time. She was gossiping in church. I was in the pastor at that time. I was a member of the church. This woman enjoyed gossip. She was a dear friend of mine. I loved her very much. She had great things to say about everybody. No. No, I loved her very much. She was a dear friend. But she had a habit of gossiping.  And the Lord didn't like that. And I'll never forget, she spoke to me straight in the eye and she said, so when did the Holy Spirit give up his office and give it to you? When did you become the Holy Spirit? I said, well, I don't think I'm the Holy Spirit. Pretty sure I'm not. But I am a brother who loves you and what you're doing is wrong. And you know it.  Stop gossiping. Listen, grace is not provided to allow us to continue in sin. Sometimes sin must be openly dealt with. And so grace. Notice what he says in verse 11 concerning grace. He said, the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. When he says the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared, the word appeared means has become clearly known. God's grace has been openly revealed. Paul is saying that God's grace has openly been revealed and has become clearly evident. God's saving grace has become clearly evident in Jesus. In the sin-stained darkness of men's lives, God's grace as the early morning sun has risen. He says God's grace has been openly manifested by Jesus' coming to planet earth. He is the incarnation. His ministry of death is burial. His resurrection. All of that reveals the grace of God. The Bible in John chapter 1 verse 1 simply says in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. The word is Jesus Christ. According to verse 14, John 1.14, the word was made flesh, dwelt amongst us. We beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth. The word of God, Jesus Christ, has incarnated, taken upon himself human flesh, dwelt amongst us, tinted amongst us. He abided amongst us. We beheld his glory. The glory is the only begotten Son of God. And he was filled, he said, with grace and with truth. God's grace has been manifested through Jesus Christ. God's grace has come to the rescue. And God's grace saves men from the greatest possible evil. What would the greatest possible evil be? God's curse and judgment upon sin. He has come to the rescue and he has saved us from God's judgment. The Bible says in Psalm 7, verse 11, God judges the righteous.  In John 3.36, all who believe in God's Son have eternal life. Those who don't obey the Son will never experience eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon them. Romans chapter 2, verses 4 and 5, do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience? Not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance, but because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath when his righteous judgment will be revealed. You don't understand that it's God's kindness that leads you to repentance. So many times people think that, if God doesn't come down on me, he must approve of it. Right? That's true. You've done it. I've done it. I've just been coasting along in sin. God hasn't killed me yet. Must be okay. Must not be that bad. Maybe I'm being harsh on myself. I shouldn't judge myself so harshly. God's okay with it. And Paul would say, what you're doing is you're storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath. You're not dealing with it. And you don't understand it's God's mercy and goodness towards you. It's his kindness that leads you to repentance. So you see it's God's grace incarnated in Christ that brings salvation. His grace is revealed to us in Jesus and proclaimed to us through the gospel. We receive salvation through personal faith in Jesus Christ by receiving the gospel. He said in Romans 5, 1 and 2, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And so this gospel has been declared to be notice for all men, not just men of course, for all mankind. And all mankind includes the old men and the old women, the younger women, younger men. It includes every element of mankind because salvation is for everybody. God is gathering together his people from all mankind through the Great Commission and it's his desire to save everybody and he does that through Jesus Christ. In 1st Timothy 2, verse 4, it says, God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. All men, not just some men, not just certain men. God wants all men. God wants every person to know him. You know there are times, not always, I wish that I walked in this constantly. I don't. But there are times when the burden to see people saved is so overwhelming that sometimes it hurts, it can physically hurt me. I actually physically feel heaviness when I see people who are so lost. And it breaks your heart. How long, oh Lord, how long? Look at what they're saying about you. Look at the emptiness of the life, Lord. And I've seen young women grow into older women, young pretty women who never got right with the Lord, who lost their beauty through a bad life. I had a friend of mine, I can use her name, her name was Debbie, because I don't remember her last name. I was, I knew her when I was 17, 18 years old, 10, 12 years ago. We used to party, a lot of my friends, and she was part of the group that would party together. You know a lot of you had groups of people you hung around with, maybe you still do. I had a large group of friends, large circle of friends, and we partied a lot. That's what we did, go to houses and just party. It didn't matter if it was in the afternoon, it was at night, it was the weekend, or the weekday, I mean we partied all the time.  And she was part of that party scene. And that's what we did, we drank, we smoked dope, we did, that's what we did. I went into the military, I hadn't seen her, I'd gotten saved, I hadn't seen her. I got saved when I was 20, went into the military, I got out of the army, I was about 22 years old. I was in front of my parents' house when Debbie came walking towards me. I did not recognize her, she was 21 years old. 21 years old. I did not recognize her. She used to be the epitome of a hippie girl, you know with her hair parted in the middle, long hair, granny dresses, real, real pretty girl. Her skin was real sunken.  Her hair was falling out. This beautiful brown hair was falling out and she was missing her teeth. And I looked at her. She says, hi David, do you remember me? And I looked at her and I said no. No. Who are you? Debbie. And I remember looking at her like, Debbie, Debbie, we used to part, Debbie, Debbie. She goes, I've been into meth. She was doing all kinds of drugs. And that'll, anybody here who knows anything about meth knows what it does to you. And it did it to her. I'm looking at a girl who at one time was like a pinup girl for a hippie magazine. Just as vivacious, smiley, happy and she goes, you look good. I said, man, I got away from drugs long time ago. I got right with Jesus Christ. She says, oh, I said, you need to, to Debbie. I was at a wedding a few years ago now and a lady that went to high school with me, I hadn't seen her in many years since 68. This was probably in 2007, 2008 or so. I hadn't seen her in 40 years or whatever. I hadn't seen her. She's at a wedding and she walks up to me. David, do you remember me? I went to high school with you and I'm looking at her and I'm going, what's your name? She gave me a name and I said, oh yeah, I remember your name. It's not like we were buddies or that we dated or anything.  You know some people in your class and all. She knew me that way. I knew her that way. I said, oh yeah, how are you? Her husband's standing next to me, kind of a heavy said guy, you know, big old beard and stuff. And she says, David, she says, you look good for your age. I said, well, I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm not in the coffin yet. I guess that's a compliment. Thank you. And I said, you know, I said, I got right with the Lord when I was 20 years old. I said, and I had a new life, man. I stopped doing the drugs and stopped drinking. I stopped doing all of that. And her husband made me laugh. He says, man, I should have done that because it's so sweet.  He says, I'm not interested in that stuff. She comes here now. I saw her a few months ago. But you know what? God's grace, man. God's grace has appeared unto all men. He wants us to be saved, to remove us from the mystery of the life that you live without Jesus Christ. Jesus came that he might set you free. And he gives you grace. And grace is intended to affect every element of our lives. Notice how it says here, teaching us. The word teaching is a word that is usually used to train children. It speaks of being instructed or taught. It speaks of chastising with words or correcting. It speaks of molding the character of somebody else through reproof as well as admonition. And so through God's grace, we are walked step by step into maturity in Christ. And God's grace is to train us. What is it training us to do? Well, he says to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. And there it is. Instead of the grace of God being poured on me so I can continue in sin, it has been given to me to train me to avoid these things. Ungodliness and worldly lust. To reject it. To reject wickedness. Again, 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 7.  Ephesians 1-4. He chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. There's a fellow who was a gangster. The old-style mobster, what we used to call mobsters, a guy who was like an Al Capone type gangster. And a very famous man for his being, a gangster. And he went to a Billy Graham crusade in the 50s. This shows you how long ago this was. And he went forward at the invitation and Billy Graham gave the invitation to get saved. This mobster, well-known mobster, went forward. It was in the newspaper. So-and-so comes to faith in Christ through ministry of Billy Graham and it was front-page type news. I mean, it would be like Don Corleone coming to Jesus one of those things. So the follow-up minister goes to visit him and the guy is still in racketeering. And the guy says, you know, now that you're saved, what are you going to do? He says, I'm going to be a racketeer. That's what I do. He says, no. That's not what believers do. And the guy said, listen, they're a Christian businessman and Christian athletes. I'm simply going to be a Christian racketeer. True story. True story. Is there such a thing as a Christian or a racketeer mobster?  You're judging him. You don't know his heart. He has called us to live holy lives. That means we stay away from killing people and stealing their money. Well, how do we live? Soberly. The word soberly speaks of having a temperate or discreet or a sound mind. Now, we are also called to live righteously. The word righteously speaks of being upright before God. To live righteously means to live fairly and honestly. It speaks of having integrity. He says we're to live godly. Godliness is a life earmarked by reverence and respect for the Lord. And so we have soberness, a sound mind. We have righteousness. We live fairly and honestly. And we live in a godly way. People see the reverence that we have. That's the life that we should be known for. And we live with anticipation. He says looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So God's grace also trains us to wait for Jesus who is returning.  In 1 John 3, 2 and 3, now we are children of God. It has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when he's revealed, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. In other words, the anticipation of seeing Jesus motivates us to live for him as we wait for him. 2 Corinthians 5, 14, the love of Christ compels us. This is love for Christ. It's the love that Christ has had for us that causes us to love him in return. And we await. We're waiting for his return. I was reading something. I don't know how to pronounce his name. I actually went to a Japanese pronunciation so I could learn how to say it. I can't. If anybody here speaks Japanese, forgive me. But his name is Onada Hiro. Hiro. Hiro was a second lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. And he was sent to the Philippine island of LeBang in 1944 and he received orders from his commander to remain there. You have no right to take your own life and you stay there until I come personally to relieve you of your duty. Well, the war ended and he didn't know it. And he stayed there from 1944 until 1974, almost 30 years under orders. And people would see him out there in this particular region and go after him and he would not accept that the war was over. He said, my commanding officer has not relieved me of duty and he would not come in. This is a true story. He would not come in. A young Japanese adventurer was going through the jungle and he encountered him and said to him, the war is over. It's been over since 1945 until I hear from my commanding officer that it is over. I will not lay down my sword or my arms. He would not do it. You know what happened? This Japanese adventurer went back to Japan and reported that he had seen this man. They got in touch with the commanding officer and shipped him to Leban. And he came and found this Japanese soldier and said to him, war is over. Lay down your arms. And he said, now that my commanding officer has come and told me what to do, then I will do it. And there's a real famous picture of him laying his sword at President Marcos in the Philippines back in 1974 as he laid down his weapon before him and finally was relieved of his duty. This was a guy who was told, you occupy until I come. And it was a Japanese soldier in an actual war who refused to give up until his commanding officer came to relieve him. And the Bible tells me that my commanding officer is returning and I must be faithful until he comes. And that's why I am not to be living an ungodly and unrighteous life filled with worldly lust, blaming it on the grace of God, but I'm to live soberly and righteously before the Lord as I await his return. God's grace has not been given to me or you to continue in sin, but to set you free from its power. And so when someone says, don't judge me, bro, the word is judging you. You're not lining up with it and you know it. And Jesus is calling you to repent and get right with him. And finally, Paul simply says, and I'll close with this, speak these words. This is a command to a pastor, speak these words, exhort, rebuke with authority, let no one despise you. Don't worry what men say, do what I say. And that's what God calls us to do. May we live in the grace of God, not as an excuse to continue in sin, but to live as those who've been freed from its power.


Imam al-Sadaq alaihi salam once said, The believer has two wings, one is called hope and the other is fear. These are the wings of belief with which the true servant flies to the pleasure of Allah. They are the eyes of the believer's intellect with which they see Allah's promise and threat. Fear contemplates the justice of Allah and hope calls for Allah's overflowing favour and gives the life to the heart. Whoever worships Allah with the balance of fear and hope will not be misguided and will obtain what they hope for. How can a slave be anything other than fearful when they do not know if their final action will be good or bad? Yet how can a slave be anything other than hopeful when they know that despite their weaknesses they are drowned with the seer of Allah's blessings and favours which cannot be counted? The lover worships their Lord with hope by contemplating their own states with their eyes of wakefulness and their abstinence worships with fear.