But today, we're going to be looking at the Gospel of Luke, and as I was looking at this, realizing that the first chapter has 80 verses, we obviously aren't going to go through all 80 verses tonight. It's an absolute impossibility for me to do something like that. So we're only going to look at 79 verses, no. We're going to look at the first 17 verses of Luke in chapter 1. I'll begin reading to you here in Luke chapter 1. At verse 1, I'll read Luke 1 verses 1 through 4. And I'll give to you an introduction that's going to give you some background information, and then we'll move on into our study. So let's begin reading here in Luke chapter 1 at verse 1. I'll read to verse 4, and we'll get into our study, Luke 1 beginning at verse 1. In as much as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which are most surely believed among us. Just as those who, from the beginning, were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. The Gospel of Luke is like the other four Gospels in that it is identified by the name of the writer. Every one of our Gospels are given to us by name Matthew, Mark, Luke, as well as John. Interestingly enough though, you don't see him identifying himself here in his introduction, nor is he identified throughout the entire Gospel. Church tradition holds that Luke wrote two books that he wrote here, the Gospel of Luke, as well as the Book of Acts. And so what you have here is an early tradition identifying Luke as the author of this Gospel. Luke was a Gentile, meaning he wasn't a Jew. More than likely was a native of ancient Syria from the city of Antioch. As a Gentile, he would be the only writer who was a Gentile who contributed a book to the Bible. As we look at the Bible, we see him in the New Testament, and he's identified in various places. We know that according to Acts chapter 16, for example, that he was a traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. We also know that he was a servant to the church and served alongside of the Apostle Paul because in the Book of Philemon, verse 24, he's mentioned there as a fellow laborer with Aristarchus, Deimos, and others. He's a physician. We know that through Colossians chapter 4, verse 14, because he's identified there as the beloved physician. So as a physician, when we go through the Gospel of Luke, you're going to see that he highlights many of the healings that Jesus performed. Now both the Gospel as well as the Book of Acts are written to an individual by the name of Theophilus. You see that in his introduction when he speaks concerning that in verse 3, and he speaks of him as most excellent Theophilus. There's a variety of reasons that people have begun to speculate as to who he is. Some think that he may have been a patron, a person who was a believer who paid Luke to give him a written account. He more than likely was a Roman nobleman of some sort, perhaps a Roman governor. As we look at Luke, though it has 24 chapters, and Matthew has 28 chapters, yet Luke contains more information, is actually more wordy. It's the longest Gospel of all four Gospels. When you study the Gospels, you're going to see that each one of the Gospels has a particular purpose for them being written. For example, the Gospel of Mark was written for the Romans. It was written from a perspective of the Lord Jesus Christ being a servant. And so when you read the Gospel of Mark, Mark is written from that perspective because in the nation of Rome, the highest ideal was the servant of the state. And the ancients would have designations or symbols that would identify the Gospels. And so Mark had the symbol of an ox because an ox is a beast of burden. You have Matthew. Matthew is typified by the lion because he is royal and he is majestic. And it's a picture of an apologetic. Matthew is an apologetic to the Jewish readers. That's why he writes very often quoting Old Testament Scripture and says it has been written or as it has been written. When you look at the Gospel of John, John was written to combat the Gnostic heretics who had been creeping into the church. And so it emphasizes Jesus Christ as being deity or God in the flesh. You see that in the very first chapter and he's identified that way throughout the book. His symbol is the eagle because the eagle is a symbol of royalty and deity. The Gospel of Luke though has as a symbol a man. And the reason it has as a symbol a man is because Jesus Christ is presented here in the Gospel of Luke as being the ideal or perfect man. Luke was writing to Gentiles and so he writes from a Gentile perspective. And the Greeks identified with his portrait of Jesus Christ being the perfect man. And his favorite title for Jesus throughout this particular Gospel is the Son of Man. Now the date of the writing is somewhere in the early 60s. It's been stated that he wrote between 60 and 70 AD. One of the reasons why it's believed that it is no later than 70 AD is because the Jewish temple was destroyed in 70 AD and as he writes both in Luke as well as in the book of Acts he doesn't speak concerning the destruction of the temple. And so the date is somewhere between the 60s and the 70s. Now this or before 70 AD. This is the only Gospel that refers to Jesus as boyhood. This Gospel stresses Jesus' ministry of compassion to the sick, to the brokenhearted as well as to the mistreated. And it also gives insight into Jesus' ministry to women.  And as a result of that we have a tremendous amount of information that's going to be given to us as well as instruction from it. So let's begin our study here in the Gospel of Luke at chapter one and again we're going to be looking at verses one through four. He begins here in verse one by saying, inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which are most surely believed among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first to write to you an orderly account, most excellent theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. And so during this time there were people who were beginning to attempt to write concerning the life of Jesus Christ. And not all of the writings during that time were factual. Not every one of them actually could be trusted. As a matter of fact we have some of the residue of that even to this day in some of the writings that were put out by Gnostics and others. And so what he's doing is he's given a detailed account. He's more than likely going to be using other sources. He uses sources like the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark. He also speaks to people, he interviewed people who were alive and knew of the ministry of Jesus Christ. And what he does is he compiles their information in order that he might form this gospel. That's what he says in verse 2 when he says, as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word delivered them to us. And so he compiled various sources but those sources were accurate. And he's writing this as an accurate historical account of the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want you to notice that he makes it very clear that the things that he's reporting are the things that he says are most surely believed amongst us. In other words he's positive that his writing is authoritative and can be believed. These are the things that we have surely believed. These are the things that we hold fast to. When he says we are surely believed, we have surely believed this, the words surely believed means we have been fully convinced by this. This account of the life of Jesus Christ, the things that we believe have fully convinced us of their truthfulness. This isn't a myth, this isn't a fable, this is not a story, this isn't something like that at all. What this is is a historical account of the life of Jesus Christ. And what I'm doing is I'm presenting to you a historical account of Jesus that is accurate. It is accurate because there are people today who are going out writing accounts of the life of Jesus Christ who have not done their homework. And so he's saying I have spoken to eyewitnesses. These are the things that I have gathered together to commit to you theophilus in order that you might know these things and that you might know the certainty of it. Notice how he says in verse 4 that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed so that you might have full confidence, that you might have security and safety, that you might know that the word that I'm giving to you is accurate and so you can safely trust in it. This is something that you can surely believe in. This is something that you can hold fast to. This is something that will transform your life. This is an account of the life of Jesus Christ that is written in an orderly fashion because as you listen to this you will understand his life and by believing in his word concerning him will bring security to your life. The question is asked sometimes, why should we even study the Bible? What's the purpose of doing that? Well the reason that you study these things is so that you might have certainty. The reason that you study these things is so that you might surely believe.  God's word is intended to provide you with that. God's word is intended to provide for our spiritual walk and we should be led by the word of God and not our opinions and not our feelings and not our emotions. There are numerous people who are actually led by their opinions. I mean they have entrusted their eternity to their opinions. God's word has been given so that we might have security to know that God is capable of communicating his mind and heart and his actions to us and if we hold fast to those things then we can have a safety in Christ. We can know him for sure, we can have a relationship with God that is stable. So Luke is a gospel. The word gospel speaks of good news, great news, wonderful news, outstanding news and this message of the gospel is intended to bring a security and safety in Jesus Christ and is intended to communicate to us as the word of God does. In 2 Timothy in chapter 3 verses 16 and 17 Paul said it this way, Paul said all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good word. All scripture given by inspiration of God, inspiration there, Neustas speaks about all scripture being God breathed and God has given to us his word because it is profitable to teach us how to live, to reprove us when we do wrong, to correct us so that we go in the right direction, to instruct us in ways that will produce a life that is known for righteousness so that we might be completely and thoroughly equipped because God intends for us through his word to do works of service that bring honor and glory to him. Paul in Romans chapter 15 verse 4 said it like this, he said whatever things were written before were written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. And so God has given to us his word, we can have a certainty, we can surely believe in these things because his word came to us from eyewitnesses and ministers of the word of God as they have been delivered. And so God gave us his word, God gave us his word for a variety of reasons including one very special reason and you need to mark this one down so that he might bless your life. In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy in chapter 5 verse 29, God expresses his heart to us and he says to us, oh that they had such a heart in them that they would fear me and always keep my commandments that it might be well with them and with their children forever. That they might fear me, that they might obey me so that their lives are blessed and not only their lives but the lives of their children too. He said that they might have this and see that comes from the word of God and God's word is certain, God's word is something that you can trust, God's word is something that I can hold fast to and rely on. Jesus in Matthew 2435 said heaven and earth will pass away but my words will by no means pass away. So I can and you can, we can trust God's word and so this is what we're looking at here in the Gospel of Luke. Luke has very carefully taken in hand to commit to us the things that he has thoroughly investigated in order that we might have certainty, that we might surely believe, in order that we might be able to live lives that are blessed by God. And so he begins here in verse 5 and continues by saying, there was in the days of Herod, the King of Judea, a certain priest named Zacharias of the division of Abiyah. His wife was of the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth and they were both righteous before God walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless but they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and they were both well advanced in years. And so it was that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord and the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. So we're introduced to two people here, Zacharias and Elizabeth. The name Zacharias means the Lord remembers. The Lord remembers it would be carrying the connotation of the Lord remembering his promise. The name Elizabeth is a word in Hebrew that says, my God is a promise. And it's a picture that God is absolutely faithful. So what we have here is an introduction of two people from a priestly line. You have a man who is a priest and his wife but both of them are descendants of Aaron who is the priestly line of Levi. All direct descendants of Aaron were priests but there were so many men that the priesthood actually had to be divided into 24 divisions. You see that in 1 Chronicles in the Old Testament chapter 24. As he speaks about Zacharias and Elizabeth, notice verse 6, it says they were both righteous before God walking in all the commandments and the ordinances of God blameless. What this is intending to do is to reveal the character. These are people who are declared righteous before God. These are people who were not just outwardly righteous because outward righteousness is pretty easy. You can put that on very easily. It's not difficult at all to have an appearance of being a pretty good person or even a religious person.  You can have the appearance of being righteous and it's not hard to do that at all. A lot of people do that and they do that habitually. They have the outer appearance. They might carry the Bible. They might go to church regularly. It isn't difficult to have an outward appearance, but what he's speaking about here is that people had an internal righteousness. These were people who were walking in a righteous fashion. These were people who were walking according to the commandments and ordinances of the Lord God and it says they were blameless, meaning that they were people who indeed had a heart that had been transformed by faith. They were motivated and purified by faith in the Lord God. So it gives us a picture of a righteous couple. This verse 7 though, they had no child because Elizabeth was barren and they were both well advanced in years. The Jews put a large premium, a very high premium on having children because children were inheritance of the Lord and the fruit of the womb was his reward. They recognized that barrenness is actually being something that would cause great sorrow. These were people who were righteous and these were people who were blameless, but this is an old couple who more than likely are past their child-bearing years and they have had no child whatsoever. So Elizabeth at this point is living in great sorrow and even shame in the Jewish community because she hasn't had a child. It's impossible for her now to become pregnant. She's old and more than likely infertile. But his greatest desire would have been to be a father and his great desire for his wife would be that she would be a mother, but it was not to be. So it says in verses 8 through 10, so it was that while he was serving as priest before God in the order of his division, according to the custom of the priesthood, his lot fell to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord and the whole multitude of the people was praying outside at the hour of incense. Now the priests would serve for one week and then they'd be off for several months and then they would serve a second week through each calendar year. And as they did that, that would be fulfilling their priestly duty. The only time they would come in, if you will, when they were not supposed to be there was during the major feasts like Passover, Pentecost or Tabernacles. Because there were so many priests, a priest would burn incense before the Lord if possible only one time in their entire years of service. In other words, it wasn't something that every priest had an opportunity to do. And for them to have the lot fall on them so that they were the ones who were capable of going in to the temple there and to offer incense before God was an incredible blessing and privilege. I can't think of anything. I couldn't think of anything that would be equal to that in our modern day life. For them, the honor of doing something like that was the dream of every priest, to be able to go in and to offer up incense. Now part of the reason why it was a dream of every priest to be able to do that is because incense in the Old Testament as well as the new represents the prayers of the saints. And so this was the time of prayer. So he would add his prayers to the prayers that were being lifted up at that time and he had a very special place as he went in there and began to lift up prayer before the Lord in the lighting of the incense. It was something that was of incredible value to him. Now, you need to understand that when Zacharias was in there at that time and the incense was being presented to the Lord, that this is a man who would have been fully and completely taken by what he's doing. His attention is going to be fully on what he is doing at that moment. It's not distracted by anything else. And there he is as he's in front of the altar of incense. Now as this is taking place, verse 11, then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled and fear fell upon him. So imagine yourself. Again, I can't imagine this, but I'll pretend that I can. If I was there in that moment of offering my hearts for God, and I'm in this, the most holy place that I could possibly be in at that moment.  You better believe I'd be scared.  There's no way that you would stand there and continue shaving if an angel is next. It doesn't work that way. Whenever you study the Scripture and you see angelic visitation, very often the visitation is accompanied by great fear on part of the persons who are being visited. You see that over and over again. You see that in Revelation chapters 19 and 22. You see it in various places throughout the Scripture. You see it in Mark 16. You know, the people are afraid when an angel shows up. Matthew tells us that the men who were guarding the tomb when Jesus Christ was resurrected, when the angel appeared, they were like dead men. I mean, there is a tremendous fear associated with the appearance of an angel and that's what's taking place here. And so the angel is, and I want you to notice verse 11, by the way, the angel is there on the right side of the altar. The right side of the altar is called the place of honor. And so there is a very special thing taking place here. Zachariah sees him. He's troubled. Fear falls upon him. Verse 13, but the angel says to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall call his name John and you will have joy and gladness and many will rejoice at his birth. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord and he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will also be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Do not be afraid, Zacharias, your prayer is heard. What prayer are you praying? Well, there's at least two prayers that we can be aware of. One is he's praying there. He would be praying for the redemption of the nation of Israel. He would be praying for that because we know that later on in the same chapter if you'd like to turn a page in verse 67, verses 67 through 69, his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying, blessed is the Lord God of Israel for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. And so one of the things he would be praying for would be for the redemption of Israel. But there's another thing that he would be praying for and that is that his wife would become pregnant. That's obvious that Zacharias didn't have any other children because once you've had one, I don't know if you'd be praying for a second one. I'm just kidding, of course, kind of. To have a child, his great desire is to have a child.  You might find this interesting what the name John means. The name John means Jehovah has shown grace. The name John speaks of the grace of God. And John is gonna be a mighty man. John is gonna be a man who goes before Messiah. He is the one who is a forerunner. He's the one who goes before him, preparing the way for the Lord. And I wanna give to you right now a very practical approach to these verses here. I wanna give you something that might help you in your walk with Jesus Christ. And as I was looking at this passage, I was remembering some of the things that the Lord has placed on my heart in the past that I wanted to repeat to you tonight.  Seven things in the life of John that could be a blessing to you because these are things that God used in his life and things that God can use in ours. And I wanna give you these things because I think it will help you to appreciate what God can do in a person's life. The first thing I wanna show you here as we look at this is that John is a person who has a godly heritage. One of the things that went into his life that made him very special in the way that he was used by God, one of the things that he could look back on is a godly heritage.  He had somebody who he could look to in his life, a mom and a dad who had a life of faith and service of God. And that's something that I think is a tremendous advantage in anybody's life. If you had a godly mom and you have a godly father and you were raised in a home that honored the Lord, you have a tremendous leg up on anybody else. You have a tremendous advantage because you were raised in a household that believed in God. You were raised in a household that had faith. You were raised in a household that would serve him.  Those are tremendous advantages and there's something that we ought to be grateful for. Now not every person has that. Not everyone was raised in the Christian faith. It's been said it is a blessed thing for some of us that we can look back on a father's example and a mother's example with nothing but genuine gratitude to God for both. But there are others among you who in looking back must say, I thank God I was delivered from the evil influence to which I was subjected as a child.  But ask for the grace that in your own house you may walk with a perfect heart. You know we have to have this advanced desire to not only walk with God ourselves, but to walk in such a way that our children will see the living testimony and witness of our faith in Christ so that they might long to have the same relationship with God that they've seen their mother or their father have. And one of the things that I see in the life of John is he had godly parents. These were people who lived for God, served God, and so what a tremendous advantage for him to have been born into a family like that. If I do not have that as my heritage, well as a believer I can make that the heritage for my children. If I didn't have that as I was growing up, well I can make certain that my children have the advantage of the thing that I wish that I would have had as a child myself. So the first thing I see in this man's life is a godly heritage. The second thing I see is found in verse 15. Notice it says he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He will be great in the sight of the Lord. We see something about John as his ministry grows and we see more of him which we'll see here in the Gospel of Luke. But this is a man whose desire was not to please other men. This is a man whose greatness came from his desire to please God. He was great in the sight of God. This is a man who was not spineless. This is a man who was strong in his faith and his convictions. And if I'm gonna be strong in the things of the Lord it just begins with me establishing priorities in a right fashion. I have to have my spiritual priorities in a correct order. We need to seek God first. You know the Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 that he seeketh first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. This is what we need to do is we need to have a spiritual priority. One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord that I might behold the beauty of the Lord. There needs to be this desire in my life to seek after the kingdom of God first. If I'm gonna be used by God then I need to have a knowledge of the relationship that I have with God so that I might love him with my whole heart, soul, strength, mind and that I might put that into practice by caring for other people. John had that. He wasn't spineless. You see moral courage and spiritual conviction comes from having a sold out heart to Jesus Christ. The reason that a lot of people have fear in their communication of the gospel is because they frankly know that they're not living up to its claims and they don't wanna be a hypocrite or perhaps they're afraid to share because it may put them in a position of having to live the message out consistently. So some people don't speak about the Lord very much because they're afraid of being hypocritical. I found out a long time ago that if I'm gonna be used by the Lord then I need to put my words and my walk together to do the best that I can to walk in the grace, love and goodness of God, his mercy and I thank God for it every day it's renewed, his mercy is renewed and his compassion never fails on a daily basis. But what I need is I need to have a mentality of not fearing man. I need to have a mentality of wanting to please God and if I have that as my priority then God will even make my enemies to dwell in peace with me. But the bottom line is to learn to have spiritual priorities. When I look at the life of John this is a man who was great in the sight of God. That tells me that he wasn't a man who looked to be great in the sight of other men. He was not a man pleaser, he was a God pleaser. He wanted to bring honor and glory to the Lord and God's testimony concerning him is that he is great. He is great in my sight. A third thing we see here in verse 15 is he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. This was a man who was not open to any artificial stimulus. This is a man who was separated to God and he didn't cater to the desires of his flesh. Every once in a while I will have either get news of or conversation with somebody who basically wants to argue about the liberties that they have in Jesus Christ and sometimes they want to argue about their freedom to drink.   I've discovered this. In my experience, my experience obviously isn't universal. It's just limited to my own but in my experience when I've had discussions with people who want to argue about the liberties they have it's usually because they're not walking in the spirit. It's usually because they don't share. They don't get into the word of God. They don't pray. They don't have fellowship. What they want to do is they want to use the grace of God and basically extend it over their sinful life. They want to continue living in sin and go to heaven and I've had more than one conversation over the years with somebody who wants to argue about the fact that it's okay and the Bible doesn't forbid it and it's our right to drink and I see that and I've seen that over the years many, many times. Many times. You know, I had my own battle with alcohol. That's no secret. My testimony is obvious. I've shared it with you. I abused alcohol for a number of years and even after coming to Christ I on occasion would drink and sometimes I drank to excess and I made excuse for it. I said it's okay. I can still remember when I went into the military and I had a toothache and I told one of my friends. I was a brand new Christian. I was in a Christian of more than three months and I went into the army and I had a toothache and my friend said, why don't you go to the dentist? And I said, I don't trust military dentists. Just take me to the liquor store. So I went and I trusted Dr. Bud and Budweiser and I justified it in my own sight. I said, you know what? And the Bible says that Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach's frequent illnesses. You know, so a beer or two is not a bad thing. I was a brand new Christian looking for kind of like loopholes to continue walking in the flesh, you know? But you know, after a while I began to discover that I might be able to find some loopholes here or there but I certainly didn't have the joy of the spirit. I certainly didn't have the peace that I used to have with the Lord. I most certainly was not sharing the things of Christ with anybody else. I was compromising my walk. This individual here, John the Baptist was a man who didn't give himself over to stimulation of any sort that was artificial. He didn't drink wine nor strong drink. That's another way of simply saying that he was a man who was sold out to the Lord. He was separated to God and did not cater to the desire of his flesh. Some things may be lawful, Paul said, but not all things build up. And he said, and I'm not gonna be brought under the bondage to anything. It's been said, I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church. This was a man who was separated to God. He didn't cater to desires of the flesh. The fourth thing you see in verse 15, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. His sinful flesh was under the control of God's Holy Spirit. And because he was filled with the Spirit of God, he would do that which is pleasing to God. In Galatians chapter five verse 16, Paul says, live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the sinful desires of the flesh. My encouragement, even as we gathered together last week to you is always gonna be the same. Walk in the Spirit. Open your heart up and say, God, fill me with your Holy Spirit. Lord, I wanna walk in the power of your Spirit. You have a Holy Spirit that will work in me, that will cause me to live a life that is pleasing to you. Lord, I wake up in the morning with old memories and inclinations of the flesh and a variety of other things that I'm gonna battle with all day long.  And so Lord, in Jesus' name, I'm asking you right from the beginning, I'm asking you, fill me with your Spirit.  What made him great? That God would use him, God filled him from his mother's womb with the Spirit of God and so that he could be used by the Lord in a way that was mighty. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 16, we see a fifth thing. It says he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. This is a man who has a mission of evangelism. This was a man who went out preaching repentance. This was a man who was not a compromiser whatsoever, had boldness and courage by the Holy Spirit who filled him in a message that came from heaven. And this is a man who had an eternal framework because he knew that he had a short time to live. And he didn't have that much time that he would be able to donate or use in the service of God. And therefore, he knew that his mission was to turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He was an evangelist. He was a man who was preaching the word of God to people. You see, ultimately Paul says it this way. He says in Philippians chapter two, verses 10 and 11, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. He had a heart to see people saved. Now, I should hasten to add, when I say that to you, I realize that not every person in this room is an evangelist. I know that God gives a multiplicity of gifts and not every person in the body of Christ receiving your spiritual gifts that he's given to you is an evangelist. I know that. I know that it's been stated that probably somewhere around 10% of the body of Christ has the evangelistic spiritual gift. I understand that. Not everybody here is called to be an evangelist. I mean, I don't expect that I'll be seeing your name in lights one day at the Anaheim Stadium. You know, replacing Greg Laurie and your name there. Now maybe if that happens, that's cool. Get me a seat up there on the platform, love it. But I don't know, maybe God will use you that way.  But on the other hand, you may not be and I may not be called as an evangelist. But I can do the work of an evangelist. That means that I can be a witness. You see, the Holy Spirit comes upon you, Jesus said, so that you might be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Do you recognize your home if you've got unbelievers there as being your mission field? Do you see it that way? I hope you do and I'm sure most of you do. It's a mission field. Now that doesn't mean that you're constantly pushing the gospel down your unbelieving relatives or friends throughout. Of course you don't do that, but you do pray for them. But you do live in an awareness of that, that they don't know the Lord and you're the only Bible that they're gonna read. You're aware of that, so I'm sure you live in such a way to bring honor and glory to God. You may be the only evangelist on the job site. You may hate the job that you have, even though it's the job you prayed to get. But you may hate it. But you know God placed you in that position to be a light in a very dark place. You may be the only testimony that somebody has of a real living Christian. You're going to school when you're on the campus there, instead of trying to be the coolest person on campus, it may be that God has placed you there so you can be a light in a very dark place so that you can live in such a way that people will see that you're sold out to something other than the latest trend. You see, you need to see yourself that way. Because if you do see yourself that way, then God can use you in a marvelous way. See yourself as a person that God is going to use to turn the hearts of people back to him and watch what God will do with your life. That's how John was, he was an evangelist. And also in verse 17, he was one who brought a remedy to a broken, broken family. Notice it says in verse 17, he will also go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. His greatest desire was to bring God into the family, God into the family of Israel. I've shared this many times but it bears repetition at this point because it illustrates the point I'm trying to make. And it's this, the gospel can bring a uniting of a family. And when I came home, that day after getting saved, the very first thing I did in my home was to tell my mom and my dad and my sisters that I loved them. And then when my mom went off into the bedroom because my dad and mom and my sisters were in the den there watching TV and I saw my mom walk past me and she went to bed and she later told me she went to bed before she went to bed, she did a rosary for me because she knew that I had gone crazy. But as my sister Madeline was there and Rebecca with me in that bathroom and Rebecca was washing my hair and I was babbling on, I started sharing God did something today. What did I know? I mean, it was like eight o'clock at night, I had gotten saved around four in the afternoon. I had been a Christian for around four hours. What do you know in four hours? Nothing. But as I was there washing my hair, babbling on, whatever it was that was being said had such an impact that my sister Madeline who was 16 at the time went home, rather went to bed and when she went to bed that night, December 27th, 1970, she said to Jesus Christ, whatever it is that you did in my brother I want you to do that in me. You can have an impact almost immediately when God places on your heart a desire to live for him. It can happen almost immediately. And do you know that I did not know that my sister Madeline committed a right to Christ on that night? I thought she did it weeks later. I thought she did it when we took her to Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa and she went for it at an invitation there. But she told me just a few years ago, she said, no, you think that I got saved at Costa Mesa, David, I got saved the same day you did. She said, because I saw what God did in you because she knew me and knew the way I was, the sins that I hid from other people were very open to my sister Madeline. She was very aware of the way that I was. And she said, and when I saw how radically different, how radically different you were, she said that spoke to me because it wasn't very much before that it was probably maybe two months or three months prior to my getting saved that I had gone to the mountains with some friends and I had dropped some hallucinogenics and I had come home and I was just still, still flying. And I came home and I was telling Madeline some crazy things, we need to go drop some acid into the water supply so that everybody in Whittier can feel what I'm feeling right now.  I don't even know who this guy is. And I still remember just babbling on telling her all kinds of crazy things and how the world can be changed if my plan were to be put into practice. And just a few months later, there I am, washing my hair, telling her Jesus Christ is king, Jesus Christ is the Lord, he's saved me tonight and he's transforming me and I can even sense it right now. And that's what brought our family together. That's what made my family that I was raised in. That's what made my family a family.  And so my mom was saying to me today, she said, you know, honey, she said, she said, I had a great marriage with your dad. She said, but like I say, it really began after we got saved. It really, she said the day daddy got saved, he looked at me and he said to me, this is what my mom was saying, I don't think she'd mind me repeating this to you. She just told me this today. She said, the day your daddy got saved, he looked at me and with new eyes, and he said, you are the most beautiful thing. I love you so much. And she said, from that day on, she said, our marriage really took off because that's what the gospel will do in somebody's life. It transforms. 24 years together, it was 24 years of being married. Actually no, it was 25. And then it took off. That's what John wanted to bring, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, bringing the family together to worship God. I wanna be used by the Lord. And when I look at these passages, I look for things in it that can help me to have that wish fulfilled. And that, I believe, is something all of us can take advantage of. May God provide for us, if we didn't have a godly heritage, well to produce one. May God work within us so that our desire is to please him and not man. May we be those who do not open ourselves up to artificial stimulus. And may we be filled with the Holy Spirit. May we have an eternal framework. May we be those who are open to seeing the Lord work in our lives. And finally, may we not be respecters of persons. Because he was the one who preached with conviction and he wanted to make people ready to meet the Lord. And because that is true, he preached repentance. And that is what this nation needs. But if this nation is ever gonna turn to the Lord, it's actually gonna begin in our hearts when we as members of this nation turn our hearts completely to him first. So may God work in us so that we might learn these very basic lessons and serve him all the days of our life.


As traders, we are always looking for a trading edge, but with the sea of information out there, a lot of your charts, when I see them, they usually end up looking something like this. Unfortunately, there is no magical pale, or in this case, chart pattern or indicator that can magically make everyone a profitable trader. I'm rich. What we must do as traders is try to fit the puzzle pieces together by using historical data, human psychology, and analysis to find the most probable trades. In today's video, I will be going over the best and most reliable chart pattern and the worst and least reliable chart pattern. According to a study by Cody Hein, done in 2020, who tested 10 years worth of historical data and over 200,000 chart patterns. So let's jump right in to today's video. What's up guys? I'm Jay and welcome to Bitcoin Daily. The goal of this channel is to empower you with the knowledge and resources to help you get to that next level. So make sure to subscribe, like, and share this video. So let's start with the worst and least reliable chart pattern. So the only results from these tests that were included were once they were considered to be complete, which usually means a full break of a support resistance area or trend line. So the difference between the best performing and most reliable chart pattern and the worst and least reliable is pretty big. The most reliable chart pattern that we will be discussing hits on a 83% rate, while this one only hits on a 54% rate. In addition to that, this unreliable chart pattern is a very, very commonly used that I see all traders always using and it's pretty much a 50-50 play. So the worst performing and least reliable chart pattern is the pennant. A pennant is basically when there's a strong move in a direction and then consolidation. After the consolidation, there's usually a move in one direction or the other. As you can see two trend lines form, which create a resistance and support. Now there could be a bullish pennant or a bearish pennant depending where that strong initial move comes from. So the initial move is up and then starts the consolidation into that pennant, then that's considered bullish. If it's the other way around, then it's considered bearish. So this is considered basically a continuation pattern. So people are usually looking for a continuation in the same direction as the initial move. However, Heinz study shows that pennants only hit on a 54.87% bullish pennant patterns and 55.19% on bearish pennant patterns. That means that when you see one of these pennants, you have a 50-50 shot of getting the trade in the right direction. Now you have to be careful because bull flags and pennants look pretty much the same. However, one usually forms a sideways channel while the pennant usually forms this symmetrical channel that has lower highs and higher lows. The confusion comes in most textbooks that show bull flags and pennants. They're usually right next to each other. So for example here, you can see a bull flag and you can see a bullish pennant. They look almost identical. So you have to make sure to distinguish the difference between the two. Again here, the flag has a channel while the pennant is forming, well, a pennant. The reason it's important for you to know the difference between the two is because the flag has a better hit rate and is more reliable than the pennant. You can see in the study that bull flags and bear flags hit at about a 67% success rate. Alright, so now that we've covered the worst and least reliable chart pattern, which is the bull and bearish pennant, it is time to talk about the most reliable chart pattern. This chart pattern hits at a 83% success rate. Now before I show you guys the most reliable chart pattern, make sure to smash that subscribe button. If you want to make money either trading through crypto passive income or just want to stay up to date with the latest money making trends in crypto, I upload a video almost every single day about these topics. So please smash that subscribe button so that you never miss another opportunity to make money in crypto again. In addition to that, I try to answer every single DM that I get on Twitter and on YouTube in the comments section. So if you guys have any questions about anything that's covered here, drop it in the comments. I also have a free discord channel for like-minded individuals. So if you guys are interested in that, you can join, link is in the description. So the best and most reliable chart pattern that hits at a 83% success rate is the head and shoulders and inverse head and shoulders patterns.  The head and shoulders pattern is defined by two swing highs which make up the left and right shoulders and a higher high between them which makes up the head. The inverse head and shoulders is of course this just upside down. Now the two shoulders don't have to be at the exact same price, but the closer that they are in price, usually the more accurate that this pattern is. The pattern is complete once the price breaks through the what's considered the neckline of the two lows in the shoulders or the swing highs if it's inverse. As you can see in this example, the support or neckline doesn't have to be exactly horizontal, it could also be sloped to the downside or even the upside. Usually the target in this pattern is after it breaks down from the neckline, the target will be the same distance between the neckline and the head, then you just basically move that here to the breakout and that's what gives you your target. So let's look at a real world example in Bitcoin last year where we had a head and shoulders pattern on the daily chart. Now in these real world case scenarios, they usually look a lot uglier and not as perfect as in the textbooks, but they play out the same. So you can see the left shoulder, the head and the right shoulder, the neckline and what happened when we broke beyond that neckline. If we were looking for a target, we would go from the top of the head to the neckline and then place this at the breakout point. You can see that that would have gave us a price target of around $39,000, but this ended up going all the way down to $29,000. Head and shoulder patterns are usually reversal patterns. So look for them at the peak prices or towards the bottom. That is usually where you will find them. The higher the timeframe, usually the more accurate they are. With all that being said, if you guys are interested to learn more about trading, then I recommend checking out my trading tutorial playlist. Here I've done over 61 videos on different trading topics, including how to calculate your position size properly, how to trade with leverage, and even videos about me trading live and my thought process throughout the entire trade. And if you want to know exactly what trades I'm taking in real time every single day, then you need to join my mentorship program. In this group, I share every single trade that I take with my complete trading plan, entry, stop loss, take profit, all of it. I teach you how to trade the right way using proper risk management and position sizing so that you never have to worry about blowing up your account again. In addition to that, I show you guys exactly how I'm playing the bear market and investing for the long term, how to set up your portfolios, and any other opportunities that I come across. Now, there are limited spots for this because there's so many people that want to get in, but there's only so many that I can work with at once. So if you're interested, go to the link in the description below. I'm telling you guys, crypto is a once in a generation opportunity. The way it is right now, the easy opportunities to make money will not last forever. So please, if you're interested, click on the link in the description below. If not, I strongly suggest that you watch the next two videos that are put up on the screen because those are the videos that YouTube thinks you should watch next. Thank you guys so much for watching. As always, peace and love.


Is that out? Oh, no. Oh, no, we're not gonna make that. How did we? How did we make that? What? How did we not die? Hello, everybody, I'm EvilRabbit. We're here on a set of Corsa taking a look at Goosey's Togay traffic server. If you guys follow me on all social media, all that's found in the description box below Let's get to it. So this is the Public traffic, the scuba, three lines. Oh, AI Traffic server, and we're gonna go full send. I don't think I've ever really done a Togay Runs with that traffic on so this should be very interesting Like I said, it's all over the place. Oh, there's an Audi Definitely is so much more different Than just, oh, he died Let's not hit him Because not only do you have other players that are ripping this, you got giant trucks Like that Better go through that looks it looks like he had hit that Toyota following this old R32 Putting the Moza R21 to work With the Moza shifter and handbrake as well You can't see anything behind this R32, but it's fine We've got a little bit of an uphill Hand them going on here.  There's a car I haven't driven these world that drift worse street cars with the R21 yet, so this is definitely a Quite different. Is that like a service road? I don't think I've ever driven this track uphill before either Oh, that's a wall. Oh my god. That's a lot of traffic around that Audi on the outside of that guy Oh, that's quite nice This is quite fun We did catch back up to this R32 that we were all on the inside almost dying. I Can't see anything Oh, he died. Oh, no, that's truck Well, that happened so we would be officially dead But that leaves short. Oh No Is that guy? Oh, he's waiting for people. I think he's waiting for the R30 R32 Cruise bounce it all over the place though. Oh We're gonna go around this Camry, I don't know if we're gonna make that Kind of did don't hit that guy. We're gonna go wide. Oh, no Geez, oh, yeah, this is much more terrifying now with traffic I feel like we almost wall tap that truck through this corner Through that last quarter this server is definitely a lot of fun I'll leave the link for the server and everything and his discord as well I cannot see where I'm going at all Man lost it. Oh Somehow saved it. The R32 is still there. It's a lot of fun though. How we survived that How is that guy not dying? Oh Oh Oh, there we go. He keeps going massive angles. I'm not sure how he's not. Oh, we're not gonna fit Now we can go. Oh Geez. Yep. Yep. We got it. We're good. That was definitely a Scary moment gear ratio. I feel we're putting this R21 to work And now they don't hit that out of the left foot break I think we left everybody behind That was purpose. Oh We meant to do that.   Oh That's a wall We cannot rotate fast as a head-on check that car was by freaking out like oh my god. There's an S14 drifting. Oh My dude behind us just died. Oh That was uh, that was pretty funny actually So this is definitely been a very very fun interesting experience to say the least Is that out? Oh No, no, we're not gonna make that. Oh How did we make that? What? How did we not die? Oh, it was so good cut through traffic on the uphill. Oh Man, maybe she gets follow me on all social media all it's found in the description box below.  Oh That's the end Now we need to go back downhill. Is that uh, we're gonna end up catching up to all that traffic that we just passed through and maybe some other drifters On the way down Definitely a fun server There's truck a little bit more realistic style to okay with having Graphic at the wall. I mean we made it. Oh, nope. Oh, we didn't make that I think that'll do it here for this episode here on a setting course up And she gets found in all social media watch found scoop from box below and always thank you guys come back for another episode People rabbit. I'll see you guys on the track


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Leo, do you want to? There we go. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean, CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action, and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday, 4.30 PM Pacific, 7.30 PM Eastern on CodePink YouTube Live. Today's episode is titled, Is the Crisis in Ukraine Forcing a New US Approach Towards Venezuela. My co-host today is CodePink Latin America Policy Specialist, Leonardo Flores. Our story was inspired by news from Saturday, March 5, when a group of senior US officials flew to Venezuela for a meeting with President Nicolas Maduro's government to discuss the possibility of easing sanctions on Venezuela oil exports as the Biden administration weighed a ban on imports of Russian gas and oil. The trip was the highest level US visit to Venezuela in years and came as the United States was seeking to isolate Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Venezuela, Russia's most important ally in South America, was a significant supplier of crude to the United States before exports were crippled by sanctions imposed by Washington. Joining today's conversation is our friend Carlos Rón. Carlos is Venezuelan Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America, and we're so honored to have you back with us, Carlos. Welcome. Thank you, Terry. Pleasure to be with you guys and to be able to talk a bit more about these recent events. As always, you know that for us, our relationship with the United States and having an opportunity to speak directly to people in the United States is, of course, very important. So let's start with, I mean, you can imagine.  I mean, it was just, oh, it was shocking in an exciting way and in a very hypocritical way when the news broke of this meeting on March 5. Can you tell us how that came about and maybe some background at what led up to this acceptance of this meeting? Sure. So like you said, on March 5, these news broke out of a meeting that took place between high-level US government officials and President Maduro, also other high-level officials from the Venezuelan government. It was perhaps the first meeting in a very long time of this high-level representation. I believe that we can say there's a lot of changes going on throughout the world. I think we're definitely in a new era of many situations that are going on. I think it shows the failure of that maximum pressure policy that was implemented during the Trump administration in the sense that it didn't amount to what the US had wanted as an objective. And of course, it ended up hurting a lot of Venezuelan people. I think that now this new administration that's been a bit over a year in government hasn't really changed policies up to date. None of the so-called sanctions of unilateral course measures have been lifted or changed. But there was this very important first meeting between government officials. So I think it shows that at the end, we've always been right in saying that the best ways to communicate or to establish a policy between Venezuela and the United States is through the channels of diplomacy, is through speaking rather than through aggressions. I think if there's always room for communication or for dialogue, if it comes in a respectful way, Temaduro stated a couple of days after the meeting when he came on to live television to speak to Venezuelan people about these issues, he said it was a cordial meeting. It was a diplomatic meeting. It was a respectful meeting. And I think that's very important for us to point out. Venezuela has never been against diplomacy. Venezuela has never been against speaking. What we've been is reacting, of course, against aggressions. I mean, you have to remember in the last three, four years, we've undergone attacks like a blackout that came out of an attack to hacking our electrical system and attempted an invasion by mercenaries, US trains, some of them coming from Colombia, coup attempt led by Guaidó and López. Like all these things, all these forms of aggression. And of course, we're going to react and we're going to have a strong position against them. But what we've always continuously stated is that we're open to politics. We're open to diplomacy. We're open to speaking on another term. So this visit, I think, represents a victory for diplomacy in a sense. That is not to say that things have completely changed or that this is the beginning of conversations. And we'll see if they continue and if there's the political will to continue them. But I think it is definitely an important new moment where diplomacy is the least in this moment. Triumphing over all the other types of aggressions. To me, this meeting was really interesting because in the days just before the meeting, you had President Biden extending the US national emergency with regards to Venezuela, the one that calls Venezuela an unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States, which is patently absurd. You also had the United States and Colombia engaging in military exercises, maritime exercises with a nuclear submarine right off of the Venezuelan coast. So what does it say that on the one hand, finally, after so many years, you have the United States willing to speak with Venezuela? I read in the media that it was the first visit by a White House official since the late 1990s. So over 20 years. And so on the one hand, they're willing to meet. But on the other, they're still kind of keeping this pressure on Venezuela. And then right after the meeting, a few days later, you had the Colombian President, Ivan Duque, come to Washington where the news was announced that Colombia was named a non-NATO major ally of the United States, which carries with it all sorts of implications for the defense industry and for the Colombian economy. So what do you make of the United States kind of talking to Venezuela, but that at the same time almost increasing the pressure in some ways? Well, I think, I mean, I can't speak to what's on their minds and really what the objective or the purposes that is. I mean, we can say that this is a first advance or first achievement in diplomatic terms, but like I said before, it's by no means the recomposition of relations or the, you know, everything is over and there's a new relation. What I think though it does is definitely call for or show the need to re-engage in that type of approach and approach for diplomacy rather than all these aggressions rather than, you know, the military threats next door. You know, I think because I feel the response even the way President Maduro addressed nation and, you know, and talked favorably about this type of communication between the two countries should show people and leaders in the United States that there's a lot that we can gain from diplomacy and much more than we lose when we resort, you know, to these other, when they resort, let's just say to these other types of aggressions and so forth. If there's a long path I believe to, you know, ahead, even if conversations continue, even if, you know, we can come to some understandings, but I think again, the diplomacy is the key where, you know, in which we should establish relationships. And I think that it was, it must have, it is very telling that the United States finally realized that they needed to come to this approach. It was them that requested the visit and it was very well tuned in the sense that, you know, under these circumstances, the circumstances of communication with respect, we are willing to sit down and talk and listen and dialogue. You know, it's fascinating to me. I mean, and it's not been overtly discussed in the U.S. media, well, to some of us on the progressive and leftist news, yes, but the meeting was with the Maduro government, not the Guaido government that has been recognized by the United States. I mean, that's basically a de facto recognition that Nicolas Maduro is the democratically elected president of Venezuela, which is huge in and of itself. It's huge in and of itself. I completely agree. I think it was quite important because when we settle along all this time, you know, there really isn't another government.   It might as well, you know, history has shown this many times. They could probably end up as, you know, bypassed or even ignored in moments when they're no longer in part of the interests of the US. So I think it is a positive, of course, a recognition.   Yeah, and going off that, I mean, I think it's really interesting, this changing media landscape that you alluded to, because, you know, in the days before, weeks before this meeting and then immediately after it, you had all these articles and mainstream publications kind of changing their tone towards Venezuela. So for example, before the meeting, the New York Times had this long piece, lauding Venezuela's so-called new technocrats. You had the Washington Post and really the most incredible opinion I've ever seen in the Washington Post, where they said it's titled behind US foreign policy toward Venezuela or century old racist tropes or basically arguing that US Venezuela policy has been based on white supremacy. You had an opinion in the Miami Herald of all places calling for sanctions relief. And even Bloomberg is saying, well, now then as well as embracing capitalism, which isn't true, but I think the point Bloomberg is trying to make is that it's okay to approach Venezuela. I think what's important here to recognize is that, you know, if you can so easily change a couple of headlines and a couple of articles in order to show it's not that reality changed in three days, is that reality wasn't being told the way it should be.  As a matter of fact, President Maduro has been since the beginning of this year talking about the renewal of our socialism. We're talking about, we believe we're not at the socialism stage where we want to be. We're in a process of transition towards socialism. But this is a new moment, a new era of transition towards socialism. This is something that we've been discussing, but we've never renounced that idea. We've always said that we are adapting socialist policies to our own reality, to our own context, to our own time, you know, it's a different moment in time. But, you know, we said that.   Like all of a sudden we realized in three or four articles that these things were, you know, Venezuela somehow is not as bad as it seemed, or it's not as bad as they made it seem for all these years. There's the reality here. There's a reality where this is a country that has been hurt, and it's true, they has been hurt by this US policy of sanctions. We have seen a lot of difficulties we could have. And, you know, these things were aimed at the beginning at attacking those things that we had, that the revolution had been able to improve and to better you know, after the years of neoliberal policies, we had strong healthcare, we had strong food and distribution, we had strong education, and all these things started being affected directly by these sanctions.  And it's been a struggle that in the last couple of months or even the last year, we've seen a lot of success in, you know, overcoming these difficulties. You know, for the first time in this whole year, we overcame hyperinflation, you know, this hyperinflation that we're talking about and that this whole year so far has not had those high levels of inflation, you know, and even in despite all these sanctions put into place, we've found ways to be creative and to move around it. So what I think is interesting is that now the US can really or should really start seeing the Venezuela that is really here, the truth about Venezuela, that's what really exists and not this, you know, mythical monster that they've built in the press. It's so, I guess as a US citizen to say it's so astounding and hypocritical and to see the US change. I mean, we are all happy that it's happened, that it was the US that approached the Venezuelan government. But to have, I mean, I would just be very coarse about it. The US has had a policy of basically starving, starving your nation, you know, and denying medical access to medical supplies and technology, all of it, I mean, just on and on and on. And then just, oh, by the way, now we need your oil. It's just, it doesn't say much for the integrity, to me as a US citizen, to me, the integrity with US diplomacy. And I think it sends a very big message to the rest of the world that's like, well, and to a certain degree, I understand this is politics and economics too, you know, everybody has certain interests at one point and then it shifts and, you know, the puzzle gets put back together in a different way. But it's very, it's huge that it was the US that approached the Caracas, that it was Washington that took the initiative out of need. I would say, you know, out of political need, because a lot of people are going to be very upset paying a lot of money for gas this coming summer. Well, I think, Terry, that the issue here is that we have to remember it was never Venezuela that changed its relationship. I mean, and, you know, even since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution, even with President Chavez was here early on, Venezuela, you know, developed its own policies, its own independent foreign policy, developed its own social policies, you know, we went through, we started on this path for socialism and we never broke, you know, we never decided to break, you know, relations, we never decided to change oil trade with oil commerce with the United States. These have all been results of policies that the US implemented towards Venezuela. When we finally decided regulations in 2019, it was because of, you know, something that, you know, it was even something that we were left with no choice. You have a government that in our face is basically saying, we don't recognize, ooh, we recognize this other person, you know, proclaims self-right. It was really, there was no other way but to, you know, to break relations. But Venezuela had never, you know, we've never had this intention, you know, we've always been reliable trade partners.  It's the United States that has to lift the sanctions, the United States that have to allow its companies to operate in Venezuela. It's the United States that has to allow us to access the financial system so that we can, you know, go back and be able to work within that system. It's never, it was never us. That's what I mean. It was never us that placed, you know, these difficulties or these, you know, blocks in the relationship. So if this ends up being a construction, where in some, you know, in the near future, you know, some of these measures are lifted and we start, you know, when we go back to something that we had before, it's what we always, you know, proposed. It's what we always did. You know, it was United States that changed that the maze of changes. And I do think, you know, in the current context, you know, all the issues that are going on the world, you know, we're going to have an energy crisis also because the planet is in itself in a crisis mode. The capitalist is in a crisis mode. It's been there many years. We saw it, we've seen it more in a crude way because of the pandemic. But, you know, in order to stabilize, you know, I think, you know, it will be in the interest of the people in the United States, the movements in the United States, you know, everybody should sort of think, you know, it would be better to go back to diplomacy, it would be better to go back to the other type of relations that we used to have in Venezuela so that things can, you know, kind of stabilize. You know, I think it could be even something that's worth running around, you know? So right now in the United States and in Europe, we're seeing kind of corporate media really demonize not just Russia, not just Vladimir Putin, but also the Russian people. What's the perspective on this conflict from Venezuela and from kind of the global south? How is Venezuela seeing what's going on in the Ukraine? What does Venezuela think about Russia and the Russian people? Look, I believe that we have to start by saying something and, you know, it's very important. We've always believed, you know, we're talking about diplomacy, we've always believed in the promise of peace, you know? And we are, of course, against conflicts. We're very, President Manduro has said it as well.  And, you know, we definitely believe that we need, as an international community, as a global community, we need to do things so that, you know, conflicts scale down so that, you know, we can return to diplomacy. Now, we can't have this conversation without noticing or without realizing that these are issues that have been going on not since February, but that have been going on for many years.  You know, how many people have died in the conflicts prior to this recent operation in February? And those things are not in the news or they don't make the news cycle. And in any case, you know, if you have a NATO that is providing more weapons that is falling for, you know, building up, you know, a larger conflict, then of course, you know, we're all going to feel threatened and this is something that's completely the wrong direction.  And there's another thing, you know, we don't think the solutions. I mean, we've experienced throughout all these years, these unilateral coercive measures. Now, when you say, you see that every day new sanctions against Russia are announced and new things, well, where is that going to be? Because we have, we know that sanctions definitely do not lead to prosperity, to, you know, to any of the goals that are set except for the, that goal that you cannot admit in public, which is that you want to hurt the people of that country, the sanctions. So at the end of the day, what, you know, if that's going to be the solution offered by the US or we're going to put sanctions and a stronger sanctions than ever on Russia, is that when, who's that going to part? No, nowhere in the world has to have sanctions for anybody but the common people of any of those countries in question. So having lived through that, having lived through, you know, all these attacks, the xenophobia that has spread even in this region against Venezuelans when some Venezuelans have been forced because of the sanctions to migrate to other countries.  That as soon as that's something that you could easily access in, you know, in the North and so forth. Well, having lived through this, we see what's going on in Russia, you know, towards Russia and we're, you know, we understand that this is, you know, this is something negative and that, you know, we definitely don't agree with or we definitely don't support. We have expressed our support to the Russian people, to the Russian government in a sense that we know these actions that are being taken place against them are very dangerous.  So as if this man never reached space, I mean, how ludicrous is this? I mean, how far are we willing to go to accept and to normalize this? You know, we've lived it. I mean, we've seen things against Venezuela, how our own history has been turned upside down by this narrative. Now we see it going on in Russia. Well, when is this going to stop? You know, so I think we sympathize with that, with what we understand what's going on Russia as we live something similar. You are in a really unique position sitting in Caracas and particularly working for the Venezuelan foreign ministry, but being Venezuelan where you and Leonardo both, you have a relationship along history with the United States, which has, you know, and has had a real positive turn of events this month, but you have a very strong relationship with Russia as well I mean, I have seen the, you know, the humanitarian aid that's come into the country and specifically sacks of wheat when, you know, wasn't possible for Venezuela to produce its own food, fertilizing companies were sanctioned. I mean, on and on, anything you tried to do was sanctioned so that couldn't do anything to help yourselves. So how, I mean, that's a really, you sit in a very, very unique place at this moment in history that you are so close to the States with perhaps a, you know, a restoration on the horizon of diplomatic ties, their relationship there, but this really, really important relationship with Russia too. So, you know, I think we have to, you know, I think this was important and I, you know, the important reflection that I've heard during the past couple of days is that we should also, in this current context, try to not be pushed into the lens of the Cold War or the Cold War mentality. You know, the fact that Venezuela, Venezuela, like you said, has a wonderful relationship with Russia. Russia has been a country that has shown solidarity with Venezuela at the worst moments. When the United States blocked our capability of purchasing vaccines through the COVAX method on the United Nations, we were able to obtain vaccines from Russia and, you know, and confront this pandemic. The same way we've been able to obtain health in Cuba from China, et cetera. So the world has changed. This is no longer, first it was no longer a unipolar world. It's no longer a world where, you know, the US is the complete dominant as it was perhaps for some time after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But it's also not the bipolar world of the Cold War. And we shouldn't let ourselves be dragged into that position of, you know, saying, you know, one or the other and, you know, this, because I think that's really hurtful for the rest of the world. You know, I think that we can look forward to having respectful relations with the United States where we can, you know, trade and have exchanges, you know, in the way countries that respect each other should and maintain a relationship of friendship and solidarity and alliance with Russia and with China, with Iran, you know, all these other countries that we've already established relationship with. The world is, you know, we shouldn't fall into this as a country. I mean, we shouldn't fall into the strap of having to choose one or the other The world is no longer divided in those terms. The world is divided in, you know, we as a sovereign nation should really be looking towards where, who can we cooperate with to, you know, obtain true benefits for our people to obtain true, you know, exchanges that are profitable for, you know, both countries rather than seeing, you know, this line we can't cross, you know because if you do your, you're with us or you're with the enemy and so forth, we have to overcome that, that, you know mentality is putting the world into halves. This is another type of world then. I'm like really pleased to hear that. And I think, as I've thought, boy, since this meeting of March 5th, it's like the Venezuelans could really teach the US something here. It is a multilateral world. The US hasn't recognized it. If it has, it's going to take a while to accept it, if ever, in my opinion. But your country is such a great example of what's possible. I mean, you have allies, trade relationships, diplomatic relationships all over the world, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, East West and it's such a beautiful example of what's possible and what's emerging and in a big part of the world, what has emerged, I would say. And that's part of what the US is trying to stop or control, perhaps. You know, I think we learn this from President Chavez's foreign policy. If you remember when CELAC was constituting, which is that space where all of Latin America meets, you know, it was, the government of Colombia was a very, you know, aggressive and there's a lot of distance ideologically from England, another world between Venezuela and that government and many of the other governments in the region. Well, we came together because, you know, common issues and common challenges that we had that we all faced in the same way. I think that that's, you know, we've learned that you don't necessarily have to agree on everything or have the same ideological perspective in order to have relations with another country. I mean, it would be fantastic and I honestly say this and I honestly believe this, it would be fantastic if we, through the process of more communications, more exchanges, we can, you know, again have our embassy back and, you know, again open, you know, a relationship that, you know, Alex Sab, who's a diplomat who's unjustly detained in the United States can come back to Venezuela. You know, it would be great if we could have a normal type of relationship where, you know, we don't have to see things eye to eye. I know, and you all know this, that the United States doesn't necessarily see eye to eye all the other countries has a relationship with it. But, you know, there's a thing about diplomacy and that allows them to have relations. This has always been the aspiration of Venezuela. You know, we don't, we've, and we've never said to anyone, we want to impose our world view on you. We want to impose our model or political model on you or social model on you. We have an experience, you know, you're welcome to learn from it and to do what you want that would help you, but we've never tried to impose anything on anyone. And I think that's the world we should strive towards.  I'm glad you mentioned Alex Sab, because as we know last fall, you know, between August and October, the Venezuelan government was engaged in dialogue with the Guaidol faction of the opposition. And this dialogue ended when the United States illegally extradited Venezuelan diplomat, Alex Sab. But just after this meeting on March 5th between the White House and President Maduro, the president announced that, you know, the dialogue with the opposition would restart. But not only that, he said he was gonna expand it to not just include the Guaidol faction, but also the, what we can call the more moderate factions of the opposition. Can you talk a little bit about this new dialogue that's gonna happen and what that means that might mean for Alex Sab? Sure, I think, well, first of all, you know, we firmly maintain our position in the sense that we believe Alex Sab has been unjustly detained, that, you know, he must be freed, he must be liberated, he must be able to come back to his family. Now, President Maduro said, you know, if we talk about dialogue, he said in live television after the events of March 5th, if we talk about dialogue, we must also be the ones to give the example. So, and that's when he said, you know, he announced that we would come back to dialogue with all sides, all those that are interested in dialogue for a better political moment for Venezuela, for, you know, to improve these communications. So I think what we see is, you know, there's a necessity to not only discuss things with that group that's represented by the Guaido Unitary Platform, but there's a lot of other actors here in Venezuela that are important to take into consideration. As a matter of fact, if you look at the results of the November elections, you'll find some quite interesting numbers where you'll see that the amount of votes of the opposition that is sort of aligned with the Guaido factions and the amount of votes of another opposition that has not called for sanctions but that has continued to participate in politics in Venezuela, they're kind of, they're almost equal in numbers. So this myth that Guaido represents the opposition or it's the main opposition, that kind of withered down during those elections. And that is part of, as a result of people not identifying with a sector that's calling for more sanctions for blockades and for all these unconstitutional ways out of, you know, government. I think that if anything that has been shown throughout all these years is the commitment of the Venezuelan people to a democratic process and to democratic processes. So it is only fair and I think legitimate that if we're going to have a national dialogue then the nation must be better represented, both, you know, government and the different factions of the opposition. Well, it's a great project and I just have to say that it's really for our audience that hasn't been to Venezuela. It's really a testament Carlos to you and your people what has happened in Venezuela since 1998 and what you have lived through with this economic warfare placed on you by the United States. You know, Venezuela is a nation of people still to this day despite everything. And it's very palpable when you walk the streets of Caracas but not just Caracas, any city throughout Venezuela. You can really feel that people are Venezuelans first. They love each other and their country. And I remember maybe 10 years ago maybe less than that, talking, I had come back from the delegation from Venezuela and I had a chance to meet with my congressman, Jared Huffman in California. And I said, you know, we're just kind of sharing the experiences I had in Venezuela with them. I said, you have to understand there's never going to be a civil war in Venezuela. It's not going to happen. These people are not going to fight each other. They see their country first. And I would say a lot of this US foreign and economic policy directed towards you and your country has made it stronger. It's a stronger sense of nationality. And I think that's true for other countries that are suffering enormous economic warfare imposed by the United States as well. It has the inverse effect that it's intended to have. That doesn't excuse the daily hardships, extraordinary daily hardships in a few years that I witnessed.  And it's a really beautiful thing. I think the people of Venezuela are great people. I think we've shown resilience well these years. It hasn't been easy. It has a lot of consciousness that has come to be the essence of motivating people to continue struggle. But it's also, it's a conviction that you're doing the right thing and that you have the right to choose your path. And I think that's primarily what guides us. In the end, like I said, what we want is prosperity for Venezuelans. We want people to have a dignified life. And we don't want to be in conflict with anybody around the world. We are a peace-loving nation. We haven't been in conflict since our independence movement with any other nation. I think what we're trying to do is really build a different society and a different society that is built on solidarity and other principles, cooperation, solidarity, these type of values. We live in a world right now that I think is deeply struggling to find its values.  And, you know, in trying to construct a socialist society, we've learned that to survive, we've had to rely on the values of solidarity, on the values of cooperation, on the values of people helping each other out and trying to really stick through it together and not just each on his own. So I think that what has allowed us really to resist, and it may sound a bit romantic, but it's really not, you know, I say it from not from a figure of speech, I say it from what I've seen and what we live through. What has allowed us to survive this has been sticking together, has been, you know, a real unity and cohesion of the people and those are the values that I think are needed for the challenges that we have ahead in the world. And then, Carlos, we really wanna thank you for appearing on WTF with us. This was a really great conversation. Lots of insights into what's going on in Venezuela and just, you know, that spirit that you mentioned of the Venezuelan people, of their ability to resist and come together in the face of such great adversity. Well, thank you very much. So it was a pleasure to be able to talk to you and hopefully, you know, we'll move. Hopefully we can find ways to increase these efforts and diplomacy and, you know, so that we can once again have a stronger, more fruitful relationship and bridges with the people of the United States. Thank you so much. It looks hopeful in this particular moment. We're all kind of... Well, I think that, you know, things are, we have to take things always one step at a time to be realistic and to... But we always act with hope as our guide and, you know, because we need to believe that things are going to develop into more positive ways. So, you know, we always march towards a positive horizon. Thank you again. I'm so happy you had time for us today. Always a pleasure to see you and talk with you. So I wanna remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. We broadcast every Wednesday evening on CodePink YouTube Live at 7.30 p.m. Eastern. And also don't forget to catch CodePink Radio broadcasting every Thursday morning, 11 a.m. Eastern on WBAI out of New York City and WPFW out of Washington, D.C. Thank you, everyone. And we'll talk with you next week.


The fear of failing, I was cured, healed, delivered from it. The first time I really failed in the disastrous way on the first attempt to fly around the world in the balloon. And after six hours, I was down in the water, ditching in the Mediterranean, losing my balloon. I had the impression at that moment that I couldn't be more ridiculous. It was the ultimate failure and it was like a vaccination. From that moment on, I was free to try everything I wanted. It was really a liberation. I was trying to achieve the first ever round-the-world balloon flight. And finally I made it. Until the moment I landed, it was like the dream of my life and at the moment I landed, it started to be like a step to make something else. And that's actually the moment where I decided to launch the Solar Impulse project to fly around the world in a solar powder plane. That means with no fuel at all. When you have an idea, you need people to participate in the realization. You need a team. And the first reaction is maybe to try to convince people to support you. And when you do that, you fail because convincing people means you're going to fight against the part of them that would like to say no. I believe that to motivate, you have to share the purpose and show that what you do is not only for you. It needs to be useful to a maximum possible number of people. When you fly around the world in a solar powder plane, you demonstrate what you can do with clean technologies. People want to live with a short-term personal advantage. Give them the possibility to have the best life they want to have with cleaner technologies, more energy efficient technologies, with renewable energies. And Solar Impulse is exactly in that vein. You give hope to people that there are solutions. You show that climate change is a profitable opportunity. You can do better without fuel than with fuel. Let's go for this clean technology revolution.


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Data collection is fundamental to every branch of science. In order to construct a reliable record of climate spanning a century or more, we need to understand how the observations are influenced by non-climate factors, such as changes in the instruments and their environment. For example, on hot summer days, urban areas are noticeably warmer than rural areas, or even city parks. This is called the urban heat island effect and it's a real effect. Urbanization creates darker surfaces which absorb sunlight rather than reflecting it back to space. Urban areas also have less moisture to cool the air. A number of other factors including waste heat from human activity also play a role. We've built a lot of cities over the last century. When rural weather stations are surrounded by urban sprawl, that can lead to an increase in the observed temperatures at that station. But does this significantly affect our measure of climate change? As an initial check, let's look at a map of global temperature trend of the 20th century from the Berkeley Earth Project. Red areas are warming and blue areas cooling. We can see that some areas have warmed more than others. We can also get a good estimate of human development from satellite images of the Earth at night, showing light pollution from our cities. Let's compare that to the warming map. The areas showing the fastest warming are often areas with very little development, for example the Arctic, the Amazon Basin and Mongolia. Some areas with a lot of development show little warming, like China and the southeastern United States. There is also warming in the oceans. The oceans dominate the surface of the planet, but we don't build cities in the oceans. NASA has done a detailed analysis in which they adjust urban stations to match the nearest rural stations. Here is what the global temperature record looks like using different methods to identify urban stations. The results are almost identical. Another study by the UK Met Office compared temperature trends for still and windy days. The urban heat island effect has most impact on still nights. They found no significant effect on global mean temperatures. These studies and other evidence all tell us that urban heat islands have a minimal effect on the global warming trend. Even so, there's a myth that urbanization and not the greenhouse effect is responsible for a significant part of the 20th century warming. So what is the fallacy in this case? It's the fallacy of jumping to conclusions. Just because localized urban warming could affect the temperature record does not mean that it does. To determine whether 20th century warming is due to urban heat islands, we actually have to look at the data. And the data tell us that the effect is small compared to the total warming over the last century. Another point of confusion arises from the fact that scientists make corrections to the weather station data. Why do we need to correct weather station records? The result of any observation is determined by a combination of what is being observed and the instrument that is being used. If there is a change in the instrument, this will affect subsequent observations. Scientists apply adjustments to observations to address changes in station location, instrumentation and operating practices. They do this by reconciling temperatures before and after the change with observations from other nearby stations. For example, if a weather station is moved up a hill, it may record cooler temperatures than before the move. We need to adjust for that so that the data before the move is comparable to the data after the move. Otherwise, we create a false cooling effect that does not correspond to reality. Even though the adjustments are justified, we can check whether they are significantly affecting the global temperature record. Here is a comparison of the temperature record with and without adjustments. We can see that the adjustments do make a difference, but the difference is small. So adjustments are necessary to maintain a true record of temperature changes. However, one myth claims that these corrections are responsible for a significant amount of the warming over the 20th century. This is another fallacy of jumping to conclusions. Scientists do adjust the observations, but only when there is good scientific reason to do so. And the adjustments only make a small difference to the global mean temperature. We've looked at a couple of myths involving possible problems in the temperature record. In both cases, the effect is much smaller than the warming signal.