Please sit down. Thank you very much and welcome to the White House. It's always a pleasure to welcome America's entrepreneurs to our beautiful national home set on these lovely grounds. I know the high-risk, rough-and-tumble world of business that you come from is no rose garden, so you deserve to spend some time here once in a while. As a matter of fact, there are some words of hospitality from our Latin American friends. Mi casa, su casa. My house is your house. Well, I can say that literally because it is your house. It's all America's house. Since this is World Trade Week, there couldn't be a better time to receive you and to present the well-deserved E and E-Star awards for achievement in exporting. America's future growth and prosperity depend on how well we find open and compete in foreign markets. Exports mean jobs for our people, profits for our businesses, and growth for our economy. Already one out of eight manufacturing jobs and one in three agricultural jobs relate directly to exporting. Yet 90 percent of American manufacturers, 90 percent do not export at all. We believe there are tens of thousands of American enterprises, many of them small and medium-sized businesses like some of yours, that could compete successfully in foreign markets, but they don't. There's a $2 trillion market out there that's just waiting for us. We have the talent, the skills, and the products to compete. We just need to encourage American business to take up the challenge. Those of you here have been in the forefront of the export effort so far, I know. We hope your highly successful and profitable examples will encourage others. Our administration has a plan to help our exports. First, we're laying an economic foundation of non-inflationary growth, incentives and thrift. Second, we're working with our trading partners to open more markets to you and to move toward trading practices that are at once more free and more fair. Third, we've taken the lead in assisting international financial and trade institutions. We hope that by encouraging more stable and growth-oriented economies abroad, we will not only create more international demand for our goods, but we'll also bolster freedom, democracy, and security. One of the legislative achievements I'm most proud of is the Export Trading Company Act. Inacted last year, it's already providing thousands of small and medium-sized businesses with new opportunities in foreign trade. By removing impediments to trade and permitting more efficient sale of American products abroad, we believe this act will increase our exports by up to $11 billion by 1985, and that could translate into hundreds of thousands of jobs for our people. But the real key to export expansion lies in the efforts of people like you who have the vision to see an opportunity in the gumption to take the chance. We're all grateful for your initiative and cheer your success. Congratulations to not only the awards you present today, but in the hard work that won them for you. And now it's my privilege to present these E and D star awards for excellence in exporting. But to do that, Paul, you'll have to lend a hand. All right. I'm delighted to do that, Mr. President. The first awardee, Atlantic Antibodies Inc. Scarborough, Maine. This company is an excellent example of a successful smaller exporter. It developed a very effective export marketing program overcoming many problems such as tariff barriers and foreign competition and exporting its diagnostic products used in clinical and research laboratories and accepting the award, Mr. William Dixon, President. Mr. President, our second awardee is CRS Group Inc. Houston, Texas, an architectural engineering firm that exports well above the 14.7 percent average for the top 500 firms in the design industry through innovative marketing techniques that successfully deal with a multitude of non-tariff obstacles and through perspective and perceptive understanding of local needs and customs. Particularly significant is this company's specifications calling for U.S. materials and equipment which generate billions of dollars of exports for other American companies. So accepting the award is Mr. Thomas A. Book, the chairman. The Colonial Beef Company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This small company, in addition to exporting 25 percent of its own meat products, is actively working with the U.S. Meat Export Federation and the United States government to pursue furthering meat exports from all American companies and accepting the award, Mr. Lewis E. Waxman, President. The Heart Seed Company, Stuttgart, Arkansas, is a family-owned firm exporting 34 percent of its soybean seed to 24 markets worldwide, developing special products for specific markets. Especially significant is this small company's penetration of the Japanese market, accepting the award, Mr. Jacob Hartz, Jr., Chairman Emeritus. Manitowoc Engineering Company from Manitowoc, Wisconsin, increased its exports of crawler cranes and excavators to 41 percent of its total sales at a time when that industry's exports were declining. Making arrangements for training and spare parts, which are often overlooked by many American firms but certainly not our foreign competitors, attributed it to their success. And accepting the award is Mr. P. Ralph Helm, the President. The next awardee is the National Association of Export Companies, receives a new award for export service. This organization has done an outstanding painstaking job assisting small and medium-sized exporters and is now working with them to establish export trading companies. Accepting the award is Mr. Andrew N. Ferretti. Beach Aircraft, Wichita, Kansas, has done such a steadily superior job of exporting its general aviation aircraft and aerospace products that this is its second award, the President's E-Star Award for Continued Excellence in Exporting. This large company is making a major contribution to our balance of payments through the dollar volume of its sales and accepting the award, Mr. William Rutherford, Vice President for Government Relations. Next, Mr. President, the Florida Department of Commerce in Tallahassee, Florida receives the Presidential E-Star for Export Service in recognition of its continued excellence in promoting exports in the state of Florida and serves as an example for other states to follow in promoting their exports. Accepting the award, Mr. Wayne Mixon, Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of Commerce. And last, but certainly by no means least, the Los Angeles Harbor Department of the Port of Los Angeles, San Pedro, California has provided a large number of marketing and promotional and educational services to all exporters and especially assists and encourages smaller and new exporters. Growth and cargo exported from the harbor should continue to increase at a rapid rate as a result of development of a container transfer facility, a coal exporting facility, and ocean container terminals. And accepting the award, Mr. Ernest Perry, Executive Director. Mr. President, that completes our candidate. Well, thank all of you again. And I know it's getting warm out here in the Rose Garden. We had our spring one day a couple of weeks ago. It's now summer. God bless you all. Thank you. Mr. Mayor, how are you? Nice to see you. Mayor Bradley, it's nice of you to come. Yes, sir. All right. Okay. Mr. President, thank you so much. Pleasure.


Let's look at the character of Herbert Pocket. Now, Herbert Pocket is a young boy when we first meet him who is of a similar age to Pip. And in fact, when they first meet, they do have a fight in the courtyard of Miss Havisham. Now, whilst he's of a similar age to Pip and also when Pip does move to London, he is basically one of the few genuine friends that Pip makes, and Pip recognizes the value of his friendship. He comes from a vastly different social background. So whilst Pip is working class and poor initially, Herbert Pocket is a relative of Miss Havisham, hence he is part of upper class Victorian society. Now whilst in contrast to Stella and Miss Havisham, he is presented as actually a very kind person and a kind gentleman, we can also see that he's able to see through pretence. He was able to recognize Kompison did not have good intentions for Miss Havisham in the run up to her wedding. However, even on her wedding day, he was banned from attending the wedding because Miss Havisham would not listen to him. However, he does of course reflect later on that he was right and he's a good judge of character. Now, Herbert Pocket also is a good judge of character in terms of who he ends up marrying. So he ends up marrying Clara, who in disposition and character is more of a very typical Victorian woman. She's very kind, very passive, very caring and this is in stark contrast to Stella who Pip in Herbert knows that Pip fell in love with but she misleads Pip and ends up marrying somebody else. Now, when it comes to writing about Herbert in great expectations, either for your course or career exams, of course, you do need to be very well versed in his character. Therefore, I have selected the most relevant quotations to remember when it comes to his characters or the word level analysis that you can do for his character. So let's begin with the first quotation and this is how he is described by Pip because remember that they share the lodgings also later on when he grows older and when he gets an inheritance in London so he shares lodgings with Herbert Pocket. In other words, he lives with him. And Pip states, Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. Now, the word level analysis you want to do here which emphasizes just how much of a positive influence Herbert Pocket was on Pip is words relating to the semantic field of friendship. So you've got companion and friend. So Herbert is, aside from Joe Gargery, Herbert is another person that really genuinely cares for Pip and really looks out for him and Pip really recognizes this and is grateful for it. Now, the second quotation to remind for Herbert Pocket is when Pip tells him what a hopeful disposition you have, said I and this is Pip speaking to Herbert Pocket. He's so amazed by just how happy, how positive Herbert Pocket is. Now, the word level analysis you want to do here is the adjective hopeful which shows how good, kind his nature is. And of course, also you want to make the structural point that this is an exclamatory sentence whereby we can see Pip really admires his honest and open nature. The third quotation to remind for Herbert Pocket is when Pip states, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so assuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being puffed up. So here we can see that Herbert is described by Pip as being very ambitious. He wants to make a fortune and one of the reasons that he wants to make a fortune is so that he can be able to marry Clara and provide her with a very good life. Now, Pip basically really admires his work ethic. He admires his focus on making a fortune. Don't forget that Pip also does give him some money from the inheritance that he gets in order to set up his business abroad, okay? Now here we can see that Pip really admires and looks up to Herbert Pocket. And we can see also that Herbert has a very positive outlook. Now, the word level analysis you want to do is focusing on the pronouns and the repetition of the pronouns his where we can see that Pip really admires his character and his positive and really happy disposition. The other quotation for Herbert Pocket is when he reveals that he never trusted Kompison. He never trusted that he was a true gentleman and he was going to always betray Miss Havisham. He states, no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ellipsis, no varnish can hide the grain of wood. So here he's basically saying that he could tell by the fabric of Kompison's character even if Kompison tries to basically try to cover up that he's a good person. Of course, he learned that he jilted Miss Havisham at the altar. But Herbert Pocket states that he understood that this man was never a true gentleman. He only relied on deceptive appearances to deceive Miss Havisham which he did successfully. Now here we can see that he's a very good judge of character and this is illustrated when you're doing word level analysis in the repetition of the words no here as well as here. And also we can see that he understands as a judge of character and understand the fabric of Kompison's character. His internal traits was rotten. He was a bad person because he uses the metaphor grain of wood. He's basically saying no matter how much you varnish a grain of wood you can't hide what it really is. If it's oak wood, even if you put varnish you can never misguide somebody and say that this is oak wood. So of course what he's saying is that Kompison was never really a gentleman and he recognized that even before he jilted Miss Havisham at the altar. The other quotation for Herbert Pocket is when Pip states, Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way ellipsis and natural incapacity to do anything secret and mean. And of course here we can see that he's actually a really kind person and this is a massive contrast to Miss Havisham and Estella who were very mean, who were very horrible. They were quite malicious. They plotted against Pip as well as other people. Herbert is a complete contrast. And of course here what Dickens is trying to show is that not all upper class people were bad but equally not all working class people were negative, okay? So we can see here Herbert comes from a more upper class background but he's actually a very good person. Now this is illustrated when you're doing word-level analysis in the juxtaposition of the terms frank which means honest, open versus mean. And also the word secret and mean belong to the semantic field of cruelty and what Pip is saying is that he was incapable of doing anything for all he was a good person. The final quotation to bear in mind with Herbert's pocket and this is when Pip realises that he's a genuine friend that really cared for him is when the story states and when Pip states, Herbert received me with open arms and I'd never felt before. So blessedly what it is to have a friend. So here we can see that Pip really values his friendship especially when he now realises just how hollow, how fake, how false upper class London society is. He realises that he was misguided and assuming that just because he became rich everything would be amazing. Everyone around him would be a good person and with good intentions but actually realises all those people were all very forced to him including Miss Havishem Nasella. However, he is really grateful that Herbert was good and kind to him. Now the word-level analysis you want to do here is the use of hyperbole by Pip to show that he's really great for his states. I had never felt before. So of course he talks about how Herbert was so kind. He received him with the kindness that Pip has really never experienced before, okay? And this is shown in the hyperbole. And of course also you want to focus on the abstract now in friend which shows just how much Pip values Herbert as a genuine friend and companion to him. Particularly in a society that is very duplicitous, is not honest and of course Pip then realises that he can't always rely on appearances to just believe that everybody who's upper class is a good person. However, Herbert is shown to be a very good person and a very kind and caring friend to Pip. So that's it when it comes to key quotes to remember and the word-level analysis you can do when writing about Herbert pocket's character in great expectations.


Alright, so I've been asked to talk about why Atla Shrug, I think, I believe, is such an important book. And there's so many things you can say about this topic. And I can do many hours of presentation on why Atla Shrug is important. So I want to specifically deal with two questions, kind of a personal, at the personal level, why I think Atla Shrug is such an important book for particularly young people, but really everybody to read. And then at the political level, why I think it's so crucial from a political perspective, how Atla Shrug can help shape a society, help shape a political order in the right kind of way. And I'll just start with a personal story. How did I read Atla Shrug? So I don't know how much you know about me, probably not much, but I was born and raised in Israel. And when I was 16, like almost every Israeli in the mid-1970s, I was a committed socialist. I was a committed collectivist. I was a committed immorality altruist. So I was everything I ran was against. And a friend of mine handed me a copy of Atla Shrug and it changed my life. It changed everything about my life, from my philosophical ideas to where I chose to live. I chose to live in the US, not in Israel, to what I ended up doing in life. It impacted everything because that's what philosophy does to you as an individual. Philosophy gives you the principles by which to live your life. And all of us have a philosophy, whether we know it or not, whether we thought about it or not. We are all guided by a set of ideas. For most people, 90% of the people unfortunately. That set of ideas is never thought out. It's never made clear. They never actually think about it as a philosophy of life. They just absorb it from their parents, from their teachers, from their professors, from their friends, from the culture at large. And they live. But they don't have anything explicit. They don't have specific ideas to help them guide themselves through life. In some sense, what happens to them is somewhat accidental. They don't think it through. They don't articulate for themselves. And they never know, because they don't think it through. Whether they're on the right path, on the wrong path, whether they have the right philosophy, the right ideas, are the wrong ideas. They just passively absorb it. So my first recommendation to end everybody, again, particularly if you're young, is don't let that happen to you. Whatever set of ideas you choose in life, choose them. Be conscious of them. Decide that they are right for you, that you want to live by that set of ideas. And that's what I did for me. That's what I was sure did for me. It's articulated a set of ideas, and initially, as I was reading at the shrug, that wasn't convinced. But it made clear that I had to make a choice. I had to decide. I had to articulate for myself what kind of life I wanted to live. And of course, by the end of the book, I was convinced that who I used to write. And I guess 40 years later, I still am convinced. But again, whether you agree with that or not, I encourage you to use the opportunity of reading at the shrug to go through this process of thinking. What is my life about? What am I living for? And how should I live it? And make it yours. Make it your choices, your decisions, rather than just absorbing what the culture feeds you. Because most cultures are not very good. So you're absorbing a lot of not very good ideas. Because most cultures are not very good because most people don't think about the ideas that they get. And this has been going on for hundreds of years, so a lot of not thinking has gone on. Now, Ayn Rand presents us with a very specific set of ideas about our personal lives. And the first most important question she asks is what should you live for? What is morality? What is ethics? What is the white code by which one should live? Ethics and morality are code for living your life. It's a code of values to make important decisions in life. So she asks every one of us to think about and choose what is the code of ethics? What are the principles by which we're going to live? And if you look at the world around you, if you look at what our culture tells us we should live for, it tells us that we should live our lives for the sake of other people. That the standard for morality is not our own good, but the good of others. That what virtue is, what goodness is, is being selfless. The culture tells us that goodness, morality, virtue is about self-sacrifice. It's about denial of self. And you see this everywhere from religion to secular philosophy. I mean, when I was little, my mother taught me, I'm a good Jewish mother, think of yourself last, think of others first, be selfless, sacrifice is good, sacrifice is noble. And this is everywhere in the culture. We're urged to sacrifice for the common good, for the public interest, for the state, for the country, for your neighbors, for your friends, for anybody, but yourself. The idea is to live for the sake of others. That's what morality has been, that what morality is, almost for that. So if you're an entrepreneur, if you're very successful in business, you should feel guilty. And most entrepreneurs and most successful people, at least the people I know in America, do feel guilty. Why do they feel guilty? Because all they've done, because to be successful, this is what you have to do. They've kind of followed their own interests. They've done what they passionately believe in. They've made money, God forbid. They've made money. I mean, if you think about, I like to use my iPhone, if you think about Steve Jobs, right, why does he make this? To make money, a lot of money in this. Profit margins, very high. But it's not just money, what else is it? What's that? Idea, he loves this, right? This is his idea, his value, his passion. He loves to make beautiful things. Love, unfortunately, is not around anymore. But this is about Steve Jobs. He doesn't care about me. He doesn't care about you. He cares about Steve. He happened to make something beautiful that's good for me and good for you. But he made it for himself. And he helped me and he helped you and he made the world a better place. But that doesn't count because at the same time he made money for himself and he enjoyed it. So our culture tells him, okay, that's okay, but you have to feel guilty about it. You have to redeem yourself. And how does he redeem himself? Well, Steve Jobs is not around, but let's take Bill Gates as a Bill Gates redeem himself. He starts a foundation and he starts giving his money away quickly. It's like buying himself into heaven. And now we think he's a good guy. Now he's wonderful. Is he changing the world? Not really. Not like he did it in Microsoft. But now he's a good guy because he's not bad at it. Because we don't like self-interest. So, now, you know, Bill Gates, we still don't like that much, right? Because while he's giving his money away, he's still rich. He still lives in a big house. And the worst thing of all is he looks like he's enjoying it.  Right? When was the last painting you saw of a saint who was smiling? Saints always have arrows in them. So if you want Bill Gates to be a saint, what would you have to do? Make him suffer. Yeah, he'd have to give all his money away, move it to a tent, and bleed a little bit. And we'd name streets after him. We'd build statues for him. None of us would want to be him. But that's a whole different thing, right? We'd still buy him. Like we'd buy a mother tracer.  Nobody.  I really asked a simple question. Why? Why should I live for other people? Why should I sacrifice? Why should I be selfless? Why is their life more important than mine? Why isn't creating and building and making more important than giving? After all, you can't give until you create and make. Isn't the creating more important? Isn't what Bill Gates did at Microsoft and what Steve Jobs did at Apple virtuous and good? Why don't they get statues for that? So she asked this question of why? And there is no answer. Because my life, to me, is much more important than your life's own.  That's fact of nature. I only have one shot at this.  I live it in mine. My life is the most important thing to me. There's nothing more important than it. So for Iron Man, the question is not how should I sacrifice? How should I live for others? How do I do things for other people? It's how do I make my life the best life that I can live? How do I take the 100 years that I'm on this planet? You guys are young, so you probably got 100 years, I don't know about me. How do I take that time and make the most of live the best life that I can live? Achieve happiness and fulfillment. Live. Live a life worthy of a human being with everything that we as human beings are capable of. And not to suffer and bleed and give, but to make and create and thrive. And that's the message of after short. It's take your life and make the most of it. Live. Live. And the question is, and the question morality and ethics as a science should answer, I don't know how many philosophy students stay out here, but it should answer because it doesn't. It's not how they teach morality and philosophy today. But what morality and ethics should teach us is how to live. Because it's not obvious. It's not easy. There are a thousand different poles in different directions. The things that are motivating us. What is a good path and what is a bad path? What should I do? What shouldn't I do? What should be the principles that guide me to what's good and avoid what's evil and what's bad? That's a science. And this particular observation is not necessarily new to Iron Man. Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, had the same kind of project in ethics. His goal of his ethics is to achieve eudaumonia, which is flourishing or happiness for the individual. And he says there's one road that leads to a successful life and then many roads that lead to an unsuccessful life. And you have to figure out what the road is. And this is exactly what Iron Man is proposing. So she's proposing values and virtues that help us achieve success in living. Now what are those? I don't have time to go over all of them, but I just want to give an indication of the most important of them. What is the most important value that you guide our lives? That's objectively the most important value for every human being? Time. What's that? Time. I can't control time, unfortunately. Time is what it is. Human being himself? Well, but what makes possible for the human being himself? What makes possible every value that we have? What makes possible for us to take advantage of time, to utilize time better? What makes possible this building and these lights and the fact that you've got a university and a projector?  It's pretty cool. What makes possible these things? I mean, we're a unique animal, right?  I mean, just look around the room. That's a joke, but anyway. We're weak. We're slow. We have no fangs. We have no claws.  We can't. What do we do? We have to build. We have to make tools. We have to have strategies. We have to have, we have to hunt. We have to build traps. We have to think. Everything is about thinking. Every product that has ever been made by human beings is a product of human reason, of human thought. We have to figure out how to build a trap. We have to figure out how to build. Who has a gene for making weapons? Which would be useful in Ukraine right now, but I don't think you have that gene. Nobody has a gene for building weapons. We don't have a gene. You know how to make clothes? Anybody know how to make clothes? I don't know how to make clothes. I certainly don't agree with me. I have to figure it out. How to skin an animal. How to dry the pelts. How to cut it up and shape it into... I don't know how to do it. Or take cotton and weave it. All of that's some genius that I think of at some point. Agriculture? We don't know how to do agriculture until somebody figures it out. So the thing that makes human possible, human life possible, advancements in human life possible is reason. For Iran, everything is about thinking. It's about reasoning. It's about figuring out what's good, what's not good, what's the right path, what is the right path. And the people who use their mind consistently are real heroes. Think about Atlas Shrug, most of you have read it. Think about Reardon, figuring out Reardon metal, spending hours testing, trying, failing over and over and over again. For 80 years, to develop the metal. And it's all a product up here. It's all thinking. And that's what makes him heroic. He's struggling against nature and he beats it. He figures out how to make something new that didn't exist before. That's his heroism. It's the fact that he's using his mind to better his own life and by doing that, bettering all of our lives. That's what Steve Jobs did. They are heroes. Not because they give money away. Not even because they make our lives better, although that's a nice plus. It's because they make their own lives better. And because they do it by using the tool that is uniquely human, which is the human mind. Do you know what the theme what Iman said the theme about the Shrug was? The theme about the Shrug, the meaning about the Shrug, is the role of the mind in human life. Because what is the strike and if you haven't read the book, you know, plug your ears, what is the strike of? Who goes on strike? The people who are using their minds. And when they go on strike, what happens to the rest of society? It collapses. Because without the mind, there is no society. There is no economy. There is no economic success. There is no economic progress. There is no life. So before we get into the political, the essence of Atlas Shrug for an individual is use your mind to live the best life that you can live. Be rationally long-term self-interested. The way to be self-interested is to be rational and long-term. Honesty and integrity and justice and pride and independence and so on. All just applications of the idea of rationality to different parts of your life. Why be honest, for example? Just do honesty quickly. Why should you be honest? Why should you be? Because honesty is about facts and reason and rationality demands facts. There is a expression in computers that's like this. Garbage in, garbage out. Garbage in, garbage out. If you put garbage into a computer, you get garbage out.  Not good. Not rational. Not reason. The reason, to be honest, is you want good stuff going in. You want the truth. You want facts. That's true to yourself but that's also true in your relationship to other people. You want relationships based on facts, not on fantasy, not on lies, not on pretend but on truth, on reality, on facts. And when you don't live that kind of life, what happens to people who lie? Anybody here ever lie? I don't really want to know.  It doesn't work. Lying usually leads to more. Lying. Choosing not one lie. Right? It's usually a series of lies. You usually get caught which is not good. Not in personal life. Not in business. But even if you don't get caught, there's now, whoever you like to, there's not a barrier. There's something that is unpleasant, doesn't work, makes you feel bad because you can't really communicate with the other person. I mean, try this as an experiment. Take somebody you really, really, really like and spend a couple of days lying to them and see how that works. Or go into business and try lying through a couple of days in your business. Lying is unbelievably self-destructive. It's bad for you. It's not rational. That's why it's wrong according to Iron Man. Because it's not good for you. So for random, you should be self-interested. Neither sacrificing yourself to other people, but also not asking other people to sacrifice themselves to you. Be independent. Live for yourself.  What kind of world does a person like that want to live in? What kind of world does he need to live in? If reason is your standard, if reason is where all values come from, what is the enemy of reason? What makes reason impotent? Somebody said something. Restrictions. And I would phrase it a little bit a little bit differently because there are all kinds of restrictions. Cursion, force, is the enemy of the mind.  Try building a bridge. Try programming a computer. There's very little you could do with this once you have a gun at the back of your head. Cursion restricts a forced restriction of any kind. Restrict the human mind. When people are afraid to express themselves because they might go to jail because of their ideas, they think less about the ideas. Because if I can't express their ideas what's the point of thinking about them? If certain products that I make need some government regulator's permission make the product because through the LLC the more restrictions, the more coercion, the more force in society the less thinking in society. So if we value reason and if we each one of us value our own lives then what kind of society do we want to live in? In a society in which there's no coercion. In which we are free.  Left, right, center, the most authoritarian government in the world is power for freedom. Nobody is ever against freedom. So what does freedom mean? It means no coercion. It means no force.  As long as you're not ruining other people. As long as you're not violating this right to think and to act on their own behalf means following pursuing your reason, or in pursuit of your values. That's what freedom means. And that's what the idea of individual rights means. Individual rights means freedom to act in the pursuit of your values. Nobody has a right to stop you. Nobody has a right to limit you, to restrict you, to tell you that's not allowed. Simon says, Simon politically advocates for a political system of freedom. A political system in which the men of the mind all types from industrialists to artists to authors can think and produce and act and do what they believe is in effect their long-term rational best interest. And the only such system that's ever come about in human history is the system of capitalism. It's the system that the founding fathers of America tried to create. That's how logic said it did create. It's a system where government is limited to protecting us instead of being allowed to coerce us to protecting our rights, our property rights, our right to action, our right to live, our right to think, our right to pursue happiness and otherwise leaves us alone. That's freedom. Freedom is not replacing one authoritarian government with another authoritarian government. But the one authoritarian government happens to be, I don't know, my ethnic group, but not the other people versus ethnic group. How many of you have seen great parts? Anybody seen great parts of the movie? Too few to use as an example. Maybe a few more. So great parts, the Scottish, you know, they're fighting for freedom. But what does it mean? Nothing. It means we want to be ruled by a Scottish king, not an English king. Who cares? He's a king. So freedom means freedom of the individual to act on his own behalf. And the only system of government ever to recognize that was the original American system of government. And that is the original system of government which implicitly at the shrug is advocating for. It's advocating for freedom for producers, freedom for creators, freedom for builders, freedom for individuals to live their life as they see fit. Without mother government telling them what they can and cannot do without mother government inspecting them, regulating them, controlling them. So from an individual's perspective at the shrug there's a book about living your life to the fullest. About taking advantage of all the potential that is within you. It's about committing yourself to the pursuit of your own happiness. Committing yourself to your own flourishing to your own success as a human being. For a political system at the shrug there's a book about creating a political system that allows every one of us to pursue his own happiness. To exercise your own reason in the pursuit of the values you think are necessary for your life. So it's very unique in this sense because not only is it a great story, an exciting story, but it has this profound philosophical message that has implications for each one of our lives and for the political system we live under. I don't know of any other book that has anything close to that and certainly no other book that presents this specific philosophy. So encourage those of you who haven't read the book yet to read it. I know it's long but it's worth it. Those of you who have read it it's always good once in a while to read it again. Maybe 10 years or so after some experience in life people I know who read it every few decades, you get something different out of it because your experiences now are different. But more importantly than reading it again I encourage you to take the idea seriously and to think about it. A read from a fine man's non-fiction, particularly the virtue of selfishness and capitalism not an ideal, I don't know if they're translated into Ukrainian, but if not that's a project worth doing so they will be, I told and apply them. Live your life based on these principles. As I said in the beginning you got one shot at this. We all have one shot one attempt at living make the most of it. Achieve happiness do what you believe rationally is really in your own long-term selfishness. Pursue your own happiness and help create a political system that allows everybody to pursue their own happiness. Thank you all. Alright we've got plenty of time for questions so in English or in Ukrainian. Thank you for the speech. I'm a supporter of Yren's ideas but I've been wondering why Yren has so far failed to have the mainstream thought and maybe you have an explanation for that. I've had this critique that basically one of the reasons is that Yren supporters have so far failed to use like a reverse scientific apparatus to write like very fundamental books and that scientists, professional philosophers would take seriously. Okay so the question is why haven't Yren's ideas entered into mainstream philosophy? Why aren't they discussed in philosophy departments? Why aren't they part of the philosophy curriculum? Why aren't they engaged in the philosophy journals? And one explanation for that that people usually existing philosophers articulate is that we, those who defend Yren's philosophy have failed to articulate the philosophy in scientific philosophical detailed way in a kind of way that philosophy is dealt with in the language of if you will contemporary philosophy. So let me say a few things about this. One, I mean let me just try to explain why I think Yren's philosophy hasn't entered mainstream philosophy which I don't think that's the reason but I think the reason is it's a revolutionary. In many ways Yren's philosophy turns philosophy on its head. It turns it upside down. It challenges 2,000 years of philosophical thinking. Now there were good philosophers over the last 2,000 years born. But Yren challenges every single one of them on some pretty substantial issues. She considered herself really in a sense an aid to Aristotle to Aristotle's thinking. And Aristotle's ideas or your philosophical ideas or a system of ideas are not particularly popular in academic philosophy. I mean people study Aristotle and they don't study Aristotle from the perspective of these are true ideas. They study the technical analysis of what he did and didn't write. But she challenges the conventional model of use which are all altruistic in one way or another or egalitarian which is just a form of altruism. She challenges much of the metaphysics and the epistemology particularly post Kant and as a consequence of all that she challenges the politics. Now, what about rigorous analytical writing on Iron Man's ideas? First of all, such writings do exist but they're being ignored as well. Whether it's Leonard Peacock's Objectives on the Philosophy of Iron Man or the analytics aesthetic dichotomy that he wrote an essay about which is pretty technical and addresses technical philosophical issues. They're still ignored by conventional philosophers and I think again, they're ignored because not only are Iron Man's conclusions different than the way philosophers look at the world today but her methodology is different. And I think it's going to be a long time unfortunately, decades probably before academic philosophers accept her methodology which is much more reality you're in. But you see, Immanuel Kant and I'm not going to get too technical with you guys but Immanuel Kant has never human reason for reality and we've never recovered since. So it's hard to talk for philosophers if they don't quite accept that what we observe with our senses is reality as it is. And therefore all of Iron Man's conclusions that come from observation from observation of a reality he believes is real. If you don't believe that there's nothing to talk about and that's part of the problem with it's hard to have a conversation with a conventional philosopher because almost all of them are Kantians. And let me, so one more point and that's it but things are changing. So in America today at the University of Texas in Austin in the philosophy department there is a chair in the study of Iron Man a chair in the study of Objectivism the name of a philosophy. That didn't exist 20 years ago so that's new. They are fellowships for the study of Objectivism in a number of universities around the United States often in philosophy departments. And Rutgers University which is the number one, number two philosophy department in the world they are now going to have an annual conference studying Iron Man's ideas where academic philosophers will come in to discuss, agree or disagree but to discuss them. So the beginnings of that change of her ideas entering into the world of academic philosophy is happening as we speak but it's going to take a long time. Next question to you Do you agree that society described as a sort of part of the book maybe called kind of capitalistic in the U.S. so a kind of ideal society but not socialistic as both other U.S. are capitalistic. So do I think that the society described at the end of Alistar is a capitalist utopia not a socialist utopia but still a utopia as an ideal. I think utopia is a dangerous word and I agree with ideal but I don't agree with utopia so I think it's an ideal but even Gold's Gulch is not a society Gold's Gulch is a small group of friends who are living together. Iron Man never said that that's how a society would look like. It's something within a society for example Gold's Gulch has no government but Iron Man was a strong believer in government she was not an anarchist so Gold's Gulch is some ideal of how human beings should interact and the criteria by which they should live but not as a full-blown society Iron Man never wrote us a model of that which presents that ideal society fully worked out. Utopia implies something that can never really be achieved. I believe that the world of Iron Man because her philosophy is derived from reality can be achieved in reality so I'm an idealist and I believe ideals can manifest in reality can exist in reality can come about. It's going to take a long time I will never see it I won't see it in my lifetime I don't know that you'll see it in your lifetime but it will happen someday because the truth I think wins out in the end and I think Iron Man's vision for us is a true vision yeah Thank you for coming to Ukraine Thank you for lecture I suppose you travel a lot all around the world and I'd like you to ask whether you can name the countries that succeeded in all the important Iron Man ideas except the United States so so no country has succeeded in following Iron Man's ideas or Iron Man's ideas because of course the United States which is the most capitalist country in history came before Iron Man and part of Iron Man's ideas were developed by looking at the experience of America and saying what's good what's not good and how do I abstract away the principles that made America successful and form a philosophy around that and next time we try America let's get it right because the founders got a few things wrong slavery for example so the question I would say what country in the world is most capitalist or most free I think is a fairer question to ask and I think it's I think it's very difficult to say because some countries have a lot of economic freedom but very little political freedom Singapore is a good example lots of economic freedom contract law is respected as an entrepreneur you can pretty much do anything you want start a business choose your amount of wealth people are very wealthy in Singapore average GDP is very high in the capital and you're free economically in business wonderful business environment but you don't want to speak against the government you don't want to shoot gun in the streets right I don't know there's a famous case where somebody threw his gun on the floor in the streets of Singapore and they got kinged whipped so how do you free in some regards not free in others you know people compare the United States and people love to compare the United States and Sweden and Scandinavia and they say Scandinavia socialism and America's capitalism looks socialist and works fine neither one of those statements is right the United States is not capitalist it's got lots of regulations lots of controls and more every year it's far from capitalist and Sweden is not socialist indeed in many ways Sweden has more economic freedom than Americans do it's easier to run a bank in many businesses there's more freedom in Sweden than in America taxes are high in Sweden but other than Sweden you don't have protection for free speech they have hate speech laws I don't know if you have hate speech laws in the Ukraine do you have hate speech laws you do not really okay you guys can argue about it later really really bad thing to have hate speech laws America doesn't have that so that's a good thing so there are all these things that are balanced it's hard to figure out but if you had to push me on which one is the freest I would say Hong Kong because Hong Kong at least as long as the Chinese let it it has incredible economic freedom you can do pretty much anything you want from an economic perspective as long as you're not hurting other people great respect for poverty rights great respect for contract a real independent judiciary it's weakening now because of the Chinese influence so it's less independent but relatively independent judiciary which is the key to the rule of law which you guys need in Ukraine a completely independent judiciary not influenced by political pressure and at the same time you also have free speech you can demonstrate you can you don't vote right so the only thing you don't have in Hong Kong is voting I don't think voting is the most important thing in the world I'm going to vote next year in the American election I'll have two losers to choose between I don't know Hillary Clinton and some Republican losers now they have Hong Kong freedom than the choice between those two it's not perfect I'd like them to be able to vote at least on certain things but in California for example we vote on everything so they want to raise taxes everybody votes we all vote they have referendums so we all vote so guess what you have referendums to increase taxes on the rich how does everybody vote absolutely yes do you think rich people vote to raise their taxes or lower their taxes raise their taxes rich people always vote to raise their taxes so when Obama ran for president last time he promised to raise taxes on rich people 8th of the 10 richest counties in America voted for Obama in California we raise taxes on rich people just the state tax from 10% to 13% huge increase 30% rich people voted for raising their taxes why? because they feel guilty they've made all this money they've been all successful they're happy God forbid they have to pay a price so the politicians say you're happy you made a lot of money look over there if you don't raise your taxes we're going to have to cut education spending we're going to have to cut welfare and it's going to be your fault and they feel guilty so they pay I say Hong Kong oh the other one I love is New Zealand and I love New Zealand primarily because it's beautiful anybody seen Lord of the Rings movies? that's what New Zealand looks like those mountains and forests, that's New Zealand but it's also pretty economically free again, not like Hong Kong but Philadelphia and they speak, you know I like it because they speak English so, yeah as you came back once told that economy and state should be separated in the same way in the structure of the state so who should come back to that explaining this so Einrein once said that economics and the state should be separated just like church and state should be separated and for the same reasons now why should why should church and state be separated? why should the state not have a religion or I would even make it broader why should the state not have ideas the state should not have ideas in my view the state shouldn't be socialist it shouldn't be anyism because that separates people inside because as soon as the state has ideas it means that those ideas have cause of power behind them they're going to cause you if the state is protestant it's going to impose protestance otherwise what does it mean for the state to be protestant? if the state believes in a certain view of education is a good example right progressive education, James Dewey education then it's going to impose that education whatever the state believes it is an instrument of force that's what the state is, the state is a gun every time you think government think gun, big gun actually so ideas and guns have no business together the whole point of the gun is to protect us so that we can have ideas some of the ideas will be wrong the same with economics economics is action how we act in an economic context there's no role for coercion in how we act how we act economically is a reflection of certain ideas that we have the state has no role in that because coercion has no role in it so what I know and believe is that our economic lives we should be free of coercion we should be free of force we should be free of being told what to do and again as long as we're not voting other people the state has no business because the state is a gun so the state should have no economic policy the state shouldn't print money it shouldn't have a central bank it should have no energy policy it should have no education policy it should have no scientific policy it should have a policy about protecting us defending us and leaving us alone so that in education different people can offer different products and different ideas and some of them might be wrong but you get to choose not some bureaucrat just like you get to choose between Apple and Samsung which would be amazing because they both are really really good why? well imagine if a state bureaucracy made this it would be the size of that wall you couldn't they would never work but they couldn't even imagine it this could never come about so imagine for example if the state got out of education actually we get amazing does Apple also still remember the times of Soviet Union? yeah you might remember Soviet cause right? you might remember some of the products of goods used by communism that's the state so you want the state separated from production because that separates them from thinking that separates them from human decision and by the way, and then I'll take the question over there let me just make one more point if you want to be a communist under capitalism that's fine you can get your friends together if you live in a commune nobody has the right to force you not to be there you can each provide according to your ability and each consume according to your need and as long as nobody's using force against anybody else you can have a commune that's the beauty of capitalism you could be a socialist as long as you're not cursing that's fine and if communism is such a great idea it's not a capitalism but it's a lousy idea that's why communists need force capitalism is a great idea that's why we just leave you alone we believe that you'll all be good capitalists but again if you don't want to be that's fine just find another another people who agree with you and go and start a kibbutz if you know in Israel of course the kibbutz never survived the kibbutz has only survived by the government which means they only survived by coercion somebody cursed some people who are very productive to pay for the kibbutz but if they want to subsidize then you want to limit the kibbutz all the power to you I think it's stupid yeah no no there's one question you mentioned that you constantly do one self and think about your own virtue and your own targets so why don't they come here and keep telling all this to ourselves because you also have all those those are the only me because I love telling you all I'm enjoying myself right now this is fun for me I'm here on the stage and hated this teaching, I'm a teacher that's what I love to do that other people gain an understanding of what I'm saying that is the value I get from you it's the understanding and you know I used to teach finance and I enjoyed that so it's not even just about philosophical ideas I enjoyed the process of communication of teaching and knowledge those are my values that's what I love to do some people don't love this then I wouldn't do it I'm not going to say go teach objectivism to the world because it's your duty I don't feel it's a duty if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't do it I also for my own selfish desire want to live in a freer world I want to see freedom happen and if it happens in Ukraine great I don't care where it happens I want to see it and I will need to go around the world and plant seeds and I hope that some of them results in freedom and if I get to see that in my lifetime I'll be very happy it'll make all of this worthwhile but I also enjoy the process but it'll make it even I'll give you all the selfish reasons I always have children I want them to live in a freer world I'm fighting and I love them it's not that it's altruism I love my children they're a value to me I want them, I want to die knowing that they will live in a freer world than I did so I go around the world trying to make it freer for my kids but there's another area I really really enjoy watching successful people happy people people who live life heroes I love Steve Jobs I mean even though certain aspects of a personal life are all screwed up I love my phones I've got an Apple watch I love this stuff and if some of you because of my talk take your life more seriously or like achieve great things that makes me incredibly happy because I get to see that I get to see it and I get to enjoy it through the products you make through the ideas you might have through the music you might compose through the paintings you might paint so whatever productive activity you choose I benefit from it I mean this is kind of an important economic point when other people produce and make a lot of money I'm better off I love rich people assuming they got rich by producing stuff by making stuff because it means that they produced stuff and made stuff that made my life better I use Google every day that the guys at Google are billionaires because my life is better because they're billionaires if they weren't billionaires we wouldn't have Google I mean the two are related you could only become rich in a free society with the values that lots and lots and lots of other people benefit from so if I can help any of you become super rich by making my life better I'm cool with it and that's why I give my speech yeah, second question sounds like a really hard question I understood Jack London and Steinbeck that's what I got one of the great tragedies of human history is that the intellectuals and the authors and the literary figures of the late 19th century and early 20th century how can I be nice about this oh, clue the efforts of capitalism had no clue about human history and what it took for human beings to survive Jack London is a fabulous author I enjoy reading him but he has no clue about the industrial revolution and he mischaracterizes it and indeed he mischaracterizes human psychology and human reason the second book I haven't read the third book by Steinbeck I mean Steinbeck is living in the greatest country in human history the wealthiest country in human history and all he can do is aspire to a socialist utopia which would make everybody equally poor and would destroy everything that was created in the country that he's living in I mean Steinbeck is a tragedy that is such a great writer has such a lousy philosophy and the great sort of route is again it's a misrepresentation of the causes of the great depression so now overproduction let's get to overproduction let me finish the question there's no such thing as overproduction there's no such thing as it's never happened in all of human history unless government does it so in the United States before the financial crisis there was overproduction of housing and we're subsidizing it in a marketplace there's never overproduction because what happens if you produce too much what happens to the price it goes down which clears the inventory out and what do you do do you produce more if it goes down and you're losing money no you go out of business has anybody in the audience ever had a problem to consume stuff if I gave you a bunch of money would you have a problem buying stuff with it no nobody ever has a problem you know when you have a problem consumption when I'm afraid that I won't have a job in the future that the future isn't certain a fear created by government not a fear created in the marketplace and then I stick the money in the mattress in a free market nobody holds holding is a fiction created by Marx and Keynes and doesn't exist in a free market because what do you do if you have lots of money and you finish consuming what do you do with the rest of it you invest it what does investment do well it makes more money but to make more money what does it have to do it has to produce it creates jobs and more production and if you don't directly invest that you put it in the bank what does the bank do with the money it lends it to people to either consume or produce money is never idle money doesn't just sit there ever unless you're so afraid of government policy that you're not going to invest you're not going to give it to the bank or give it out as loans like it is right now but that's because of government created uncertainty so the whole liquidity trap the whole story that Keynes tells is to be polite nonsense and Hayek proved it wrong back in the 30s but nobody listened Hayek it's about time they started listening to free market economists and stop listening to mohawks and Keynes because they're wrong and there's never been an example of there was no over production in the great depression there just wasn't there was no underconsumption in the great depression what there was was massive stupidity on the part of government horrible policies that created the great depression we have 10 more minutes I've got two more questions he had a question and this kid's this guy had sorry but I just I'm only one man who should be more disciplined than others so when do we have to leave yeah okay I have one question about make the questions really short why did you choose finance and what should be in your decisions why did you choose finance by accident my life was a series of accident I was an engineer but I wanted to get to the United States one of the consequences of reading after struggle so I wanted so studying was the way to do it what I liked about engineering was the management side of it so I went to get an MBA so I got an MBA and when I did MBA I took finance classes and really liked them and my finance professors liked me so they convinced me to get a PhD in finance so I enjoyed it so I got a PhD in finance because I enjoyed the combination of math and practicality and my research ideas my research was mainly in corporate governance and primarily focused on banking and today I actually am a part manager of a hedge fund that invests in banks long short banks in the United States and that's how I make a little bit of money we had a question and then okay these two short ones okay short I have a question and I want to know what you do no I told them I told them to do they asked me three things they should do right away I said privatize to anybody at any cost including foreigners open the borders up let capital flow in sell it to the Germans anybody but the Russians I guess sell it to anybody who wants to buy it privatize everything under the sun in Ukraine should be in private hands second I said deregulate get the government out of the business of business just eliminate regulations across the board third a flat tax get rid of that get rid of sales taxes have one flat income and a corporate tax just a flat tax and then I said there should be no the Ukrainian government should have no they didn't like this but they should have no department of energy no department of commerce no department of business relations they should free those sectors up so if you're worried about energy privatize it that'll get entrepreneurs that'll get capital that's the solution our government policy decided we had a whole discussion on wind farms but I think it's inefficient that's the short yes I've got only two uncomfortable questions I wanted you to get between Russian and Soviet so how many comfortable questions did they ask you there I mean comfortable questions they asked me in Russia well let me give you an example of what a comfortable question they asked me they asked me what I think of Putin and I had to think about I need to leave the country which was not very positive so that was the most uncomfortable and you could tell people in the audience would not I mean some are very supportive but they were not comfortable even in supporting what I said because I mean there's freedom of speech it's a tension over


that said we're going to be looking today at Mark chapter 15 verses 27 through 32 and I'll begin reading to you at verse 27 read to verse 32 and we'll get into our study Mark chapter 15 beginning at verse 27 with him they also crucified two robbers one on his right and the other on his left so the scripture was fulfilled which says and he was numbered with the transgressors and those who pass by blasphemed him wagging their heads and saying aha you who destroy the temple and build it in three days save yourself and come down from the cross likewise the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribe said he saved others himself he cannot save let the Christ the king of Israel descend now from the cross that we may see and believe even those who were crucified with him reviled him and so again according to the way I normally teach I'll give you a few things to remind you and then we'll move into the the passage before us we know that Jesus has been taken from before the Roman governor a man by the name of Pontius Pilate and he's been led to Calvary and has been crucified there was a night of abuse there was a night of torture he was weakened by the beatings and the scourging that he had endured and as his body had finally given out he couldn't bear the weight of the cross I mentioned to you that the estimate of the weight was somewhere around 350 pounds and he couldn't bear the weight of the cross and as he was carrying it he had come to the Damascus gate and he had to exit that gate and he was going to go off a little to the east to the Mount Calvary but he couldn't carry the cross any further he began to stumble into the weight and so there was a man his name is Simon he was from a place called Cyrene he was passing by and and he saw what was happening he was a Jew he had come to celebrate the Passover more than likely he was unable to find accommodations in the city because the city would have been filled with pilgrims so he had to go out to the countryside and and now it's early in the morning he's coming into the city and as he does so he's uh he's coming past the the gate there and and he sees this uh this group of angry soldiers and and he sees a prisoner that they have with them it's probable that as he saw this it slowed down his pace as he was passing by he would have thought this is a criminal he's on his way to execution but at that moment there was a a soldier who saw him and he roughly ordered him to come and the soldier told him you need to help this prisoner to bear that cross well it would have been like I was sharing with you last time at this time that he was drawn to put his faith in Jesus Christ I mentioned that it was a humiliating thing for a Jew to be forced to carry somebody else's burden but it was through this act that he came to trust in the Lord and as I was looking at this rethinking it and preparing my introduction for today's study I thought it's very interesting how the timing of this event was so precise had he passed by a minute earlier or a minute later this would not have happened somebody else would have been forced to bear the cross with Jesus but instead he was there at the precise moment and and his his life was totally changed he was forced to carry the cross along with Jesus on Jesus's death march it wasn't a decision that Simon had volunteered for but he was forced to do this and being forced to do it was something that humiliated him again the Jewish people hated the fact that they were forced to do such things ordinarily Simon would not have volunteered to do this but he had to so it seems to me that God's timing is perfect this wasn't a coincidence God was opening up the opportunity for Simon to come to faith in Jesus Christ the psalmist in Psalm 37 23 says this the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way when he says the steps of a good man are ordered that word ordered there in the Hebrew it means they're actually directed by the Lord the steps of a good man are directed by the Lord so concerning this scripture one commentator said this he said the the idea is all that pertains to the journey of a good man through his life is directed ordered fitted or arranged by the Lord his course of life is under God's divine guidance and control so what seemed at first to be humiliating and inconvenience had blessed results Simon carried the cross with Jesus and in doing so Simon came to faith in him and not only did he come to faith in Christ but his wife and his sons did also again this has been called a divine appointment like when Jesus was going to Galilee but he needed to pass through Samaria he needed needed to go through this area called Samaria because there was a woman at a well that he had an appointment with see the Jews would normally bypass Samaria if you were to look at a map of Israel and and it's very similar to a map of California just reduced in size then you have northern california central california southern california Jerusalem is in south in the south Samaria is in the central Galilee is in the north and so when the Jews would travel from the north to the south or the south to the north they didn't want to go through the region of Samaria because the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans the Samaritans were what we would refer to or was referred to in the earlier days as as a mixed group of people they were actually not Jewish they during the the Assyrians the Assyrians had entered in and had taken and forcibly removed Jews and had replaced them with several different peoples and so there was a a peoples group that was now mixed with the Jewish group they had created what some have referred to as kind of a hybrid in that there was mixed they were not pure Jews anymore but they were mixture and because they had other gods that had been introduced and they worshiped in a different way and had set up an alternative temple the Jews had no dealings with Samaritans but Jesus was going to go through and as he began to go through there's a reason because he had needs he said I have need to go through Samaria and so when he went through Samaria he had that need because there was a Samaritan woman who was going to be there at the well and as you've looked at John chapter 4 and as you've seen the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman you know that Jesus went in he sat next to a well his men went off in order that they might find some food for him and at that time at noon a woman came and she was carrying a water jug and she was about to draw water for her day now normally the woman would come in the morning or a woman would come at night the reason being because that region is very hot and so the women had the assignment of drawing water for the family oh what a beautiful thought but anyway the women had the assignment of doing that and so as the men were gone this woman comes but John makes a pointed reference to the fact that she came at noon when it's hottest in that culture the women would gather at the at the well together and they would talk they would visit they would exchange stories they talk about their families and the things that are going on that was where the women would have a common place to meet and visit but at noon nobody would be there except for this woman so that gives us insight that this woman who was there at at noon was outcast she was somebody that the women in that village would not have anything to do with and so as Jesus is there seated and she comes with the water jug he says give me something to drink and she looks at him in a kind of a shocked manner even a rude one she says how is it that you being a Jew ask a drink of me being a woman of Samaria and then that's when John says for the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans Jesus begins to have a conversation I'll paraphrase he basically says if you knew who it was who's speaking to you who's asking for a drink calling for your service if you would understand who is speaking to you you'd ask me to give you living water you never have to come back and draw again well where are you going to get this living water from I see that you have nothing to store the water in and she has a conversations with him and she has a conversation with him he finally says to her and go get your husband and bring him back I have no husband she says in this he said you have spoken truly you've had five and the man you're living with right now is not your husband now she instead of saying how is it that you being a Jew and then how is it that you being sir because that's how the conversation goes now she says to him sir I perceive that you're a prophet so as the conversation is proceeding and the men come back and what are you doing talking to this woman and all of that this woman receives the living water Jesus was offering her and she goes and tells the men because the women won't listen to her but she goes and tells the men come and see a man who's spoken to me and told me all things I ever did can this be Messiah see Jesus has divine appointments moments in our lives that sometimes we would consider interruptions inconveniences Simon would have at first considered this an inconvenience but God has perfect timing again they're divine appointments God has divine appointments with us it always amazes me that had he arrived one minute earlier and passed by or one minute later he would not have had this appointment met Simon would not have had that specific opportunity for his life to be changed I would ask you for just a moment to consider how the divine moments and appointments how they transpired in your own life I was sharing I've shared this with John many times I've mentioned this here in our church my brother gets saved he needs a Bible study I began to drive from Norwap to Ontario where he was living I began to teach Bible study to him for a few months and then one day I still remember it I'll always remember it it's one of my special memories one day the door opens I'm sitting in this chair in this apartment front room that may have been 150 square feet at the most just a tiny little room there and the door is on my right side maybe two feet from where I'm seated the door swings open here comes my brother as he opens the door here comes this young woman walking into the room and in a second my life was changed in a second one second this young man from Norwalk driving to Ontario one second when my brother I still hear his voice in my ear I still hear him saying David this is Marie and in one second my life was forever changed because that's how I met my wife one second how many seconds in your life when you didn't and now you do that's God's timing he brings you from here and somebody else from here and somehow he brings that together and now you're one in him or that's how he got how he got to you that's how he you got saved in that one moment you were in rebellion against him and the next moment you're hearing a message that has changed your life forever that's what happened in the life of Simon inconvenience turned into opportunity he bore the cross next to Christ he saw what took place he came to faith he led his wife to Jesus and his two sons were well known in the church of Rome this is a divine appointment well when Jesus arrived at Calvary he was brutally nailed to a cross we saw that he was offered a mild narcotic but he refused to drink it it would have dulled his senses from the full experience so he wouldn't drink he was crucified at 9 a.m. and the soldiers had finished their part of the task but they still had something they needed to do Matthew 27 36 reads sitting down speaking of the soldiers they kept watch over him there so their task wasn't complete they had to keep watch on him why is that because they had to watch to make sure he was not taken down and rescued again that's one of the pieces of evidence that proves the reality of the death of Jesus Christ now the person being crucified would normally have the charges written out they would be written on a tablet placed above the head and in his case it simply says king of the king of the Jews in John 19 20 through 22 it says many of the Jews read this sign for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city and the sign was written in Aramaic Latin and Greek the chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate do not write the king of the Jews but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews and Pilate answered what I have written I have written they would put the prisoners that they were killing in an open place where people would pass by so that all could see the death of this criminal and would be frightened would be warned that this can be your future too if you rebel against Rome and so Jesus was crucified on a busy place where people were coming by and the people are beginning to mock him and speak to him so notice what it says in verse 27 with him they also crucified two robbers one on his right and the other on his left so he didn't die alone he died between two robbers the word robber speaks of a violent man who is capable of murder now Barabbas was considered a hero for his fight against the government you see people have a tendency of celebrating this kind of man and these two men were more than likely a part of the group that followed after Barabbas he was a hero he fought against the government these men most likely had been arrested along with him that will explain to you by the way why Jesus was mocked but these men weren't they were regarded as freedom fighters they were fighting for justice so we will honor men like this even to this day we continue doing that it says in verse 28 so the scripture was fulfilled which says he was numbered with the transgressors now that's a quotation from the Old Testament book of the prophet Isaiah that is found in Isaiah chapter 53 verse 12 you see at the Passover Jesus had quoted this verse and applied it to himself Luke tells us in chapter 22 verse 37 it is written and he was numbered with the transgressors and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me yes what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment he was numbered with the transgressors the word transgressor speaks of a rebel somebody who is revolting against authority he was numbered with the rebels the word numbered means considered or judged accounted as numbered refers to that which is reality it speaks of facts and not suppositions in other words they totally considered Jesus as a transgressor among other transgressors in their mind Jesus was a sinner amongst other sinners that didn't bother him by the way he had made a habit of being around sinners that's one of the things that his enemies had problems with when it came to Jesus Christ in Luke 7 34 it says the son of man speaking of Jesus the son of man came eating and drinking and you say here's a glutton and a drunkard a friend of tax collectors and sinners Jesus had a habit of being with sinners in Matthew 9 verses 10 through 13 Matthew says it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house that behold many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples when the Pharisees saw it they said to his disciples why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners when Jesus heard that he said to them those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick but go and learn what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance he made a habit of that when he was entering into the city of Jericho there was a small man by the name of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was greatly hated by the Jews because he was a very rich tax collector he had made his money off of the Jewish misery and when Jesus said I need to go to your house today there were people there who heard him say that and they began to complain speaking of Jesus they said he's gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner and then Jesus gave the reason why he entered Zacchaeus's house in Luke 19 verse 10 he said the son of man has come to seek and save that which was lost I didn't come to call the well I came to call the sick I came to save that which is lost Jesus didn't come for perfect people there are no such things as perfect people what he came for is us first for we are sinners and he said I am willing to have suffer with you I'm willing to be with you sometimes when we think of those kinds of things we don't realize why they would be so mad when they said this man is eating with these people but all you need to do is just bring that up to the 21st century into our day and you'll understand it a little bit better many of you will go out to eat lunch after church looking out at the congregation I bet many of you will go to Mexican restaurants and so all of us do so you go to the restaurant and they bring a bowl of salsa they bring the chips and what do you do well you eat your salsa and your chips if you like it I do and you may have a person in your life like my Marie who will say don't double dip but anyway and you're eating of the salsa and you're dipping but you're dipping in the salsa with your friends or your family so you run out of the salsa you don't look to the table next to you and see that they have it and go and take theirs and put it in yours why don't you do that well because you probably don't know them and I'm very picky who I dip my chip with it's just the way it is right you don't take strangers we used to calling it call it this is chorus that probably shouldn't say it swapping spit we used to call it that not anymore that's improper but you know what I mean during the time of Christ to share the bowl with somebody was actually more than just eating it was fellowship it was speaking of us having something in common enjoying each other's company that that is why they would say he eats with publicans and sinners meaning he's just like them because birds of a feather flock together because you usually have friends who are like you and these are sinners therefore he's a sinner that's why they were upset and that's why he said the son of man has come to seek and to save the lost that includes us that is me that is you we we are lost and and it's like we were like the kids were there and he sees I must come to your house today it's a divine situation it's that moment that God looks and sees you and says I want you to follow me he went in to save somebody you see by nature all of us are sinners anyway all of us break God's law we do what is natural for us like it says in Ephesians 2 verse 3 that we are by nature children of wrath the psalmist said in Psalm 51 5 surely I was sinful at birth sinful from the time my mother conceived me so we're we're lost we're sinners and God wants to intervene he wants to have that moment where we see him for who he is well by his death Jesus ransomed ransomed us he purchased us and the purchase price was his blood in 1 Peter 1 18 and 19 for you for you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers but with the precious blood of Christ a lamb without blemish or defect now Luke's timeline of these events records that Jesus prayed after being crucified Luke 23 34 Jesus said father forgive them for they know not what they do he was acting as high priest and he was praying on the behalf of those that had crucified him in the midst of all of this mockery in the midst of all of this cruelty Jesus prayed that he's in excruciating pain but he's praying for those who harmed him and in pain surrounded by heartless and evil people he's praying now he wasn't praying for Judas by the way he wasn't praying for the priests and he wasn't praying for Pontius Pilate they they all had different amounts of information concerning him they knew what they were doing he was praying for the soldiers who were carrying out their duties he was praying for the men who are dying next to him he was praying for those who were watching him as he died he could have asked for justice he could have asked for retribution but instead he prayed for mercy he didn't absolve them of their sin but he made it possible for them to be forgiven one commentator said the dying Christ prayed for his enemies the glorified Christ lives to make intercession for us so as this is taking place verse 29 those who passed by blasphemed him wagging their heads and saying aha you who destroy the temple building in three days save yourself and come down from the cross again Jesus is outside of the city gates it's in a place that is filled with traffic people are passing by they're mocking him and they say aha mocking him you who destroy the temple and build it in three days the false charges that had been lodged against him have been spread and the lies repeated until they became fact they're saying you who claim to have such power you're not so powerful now save yourself verse 30 come down from the cross now this mocking fulfilled prophecy concerning how he was treated in Psalm 22 verses 6 through 8 the psalmist said this he said but I am a worm and no man a reproach of men and despised by people all those who see me ridicule me they shoot out the lip they shake the head saying he trusted in the Lord let him rescue him let him deliver him since he delights in him well here in Psalm 22 it's called a messianic psalm the Messiah Christ is presented as saying I'm a worm and no man now the Hebrew word speaks of a particular worm that is called the scarlet worm it also is a word that is used to speak of crimson there's a writer by the name of Henry Morris and he wrote the biblical basis for modern science and Henry Morris said this he said when the female of the scarlet worm species was ready to give birth to her young she would attach her body to the trunk of a tree fixing herself so firmly and permanently that she would never leave again the eggs deposited beneath her body were in this manner protected until the larvae were hatched and able to enter their own life cycle as the mother died the crimson fluid stained her body and the surrounding wood from the dead bodies of such female scarlet worms the commercial scarlet dyes of antiquity were extracted he went on to write what a picture this gives of Christ dying on the tree shedding his precious blood that he might bring many sons into glory he died for us that we might live through him he's pouring out his blood now as this takes place verse 31 likewise the chief priests also mocking among themselves with the scribe said he saved others himself he cannot save let the Christ the king of Israel descend now from the cross that we may see and believe even those who were crucified with him reviled him so not only are those passing by mocking him so are the chief priests these are above all the most wicked these people knew better and they did this to him when you look at this you need to know that the priests were those who led worship services the priests were the ones who taught people how to serve God the priests were intended to serve God and man they offered sacrifices for the people they spiritually cared for them they also were instructed to teach the people God's word in the Old Testament book of Leviticus speaking of the priests in chapter 10 verse 11 he says that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord has spoken to them by the hand of Moses your responsibility is to teach them how to worship God to love God with all of their heart and to love man you're supposed to teach them to have compassion and concern you're you're supposed to teach them what mercy is like you're supposed to be a living emblem of what has said what the compassionate graceful love of God is that's what you're supposed to do but instead these are the worst because they were the ones who are the religious leaders and yet they were the ones who are mocking him in front of the others setting that example to the others and giving permission for them to speak in that way against Christ and there they are mocking a man dying on a cross notice what they say in verse 32 let the Christ descend from the cross that we may see and believe from the beginning they've been asking him once he began to reveal himself to Israel to show them a miracle in Matthew 12 38 and 39 some of the scribes and Pharisees answered saying teacher we want to see a sign from you but he answered and said to them an evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah Jonah was in the belly of the great fish three days and nights he said even so the son of man will be in the earth he's speaking of his resurrection his crucifixion and resurrection you want to sign this will be your sign but they say in verse 32 let them descend from the cross that we may see that we may believe if you are really christ the israel's king come down we want to see if your messiah shows your power descend from the cross jesus wouldn't do it he had come to earth with the purpose of giving up his life son of man didn't come to be served but to serve he said and to give his life ransom for many in first john 3 8 second portion of that scripture it says the son of god appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil jesus had come that he might voluntarily lay his life down to redeem us first timothy chapter 2 verse 6 says that he gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time now verse 32 again those who were crucified with him reviled him at first the two thieves began to join in with the others who are mocking him eventually one of them begins to have second thoughts you see he had he had heard jesus pray he was there listening in the midst of all the pain and the agony and the suffering all of what they were enduring he heard them pray father forgive them for they know not what they do and that may have caused something to go off in his head yes there was a divine moment when simon was there to help carry the cross of christ and there's another divine moment where a man is next to him listening and watching him as he's about to die and he hears him as he's speaking and he heard him as he said father forgive them and it causes him to awaken to something god forgives sin it's god's desire to forgive sin like it says in the old testament book of ezekiel 1832 i take no pleasure in the death of anyone declares the lord repent and live it's like what it says in john 3 17 god did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved as this is going on it's nearing three hours one of the thieves who are on the cross begins to get angry he begins to lash out luke 2339 says one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him saying if you're the christ save yourself in us he had no fear of god he had no sorrow he had no sense of repentance for his evil life he wouldn't confess he deserved punishment he had no desire to repent he said to jesus save yourself in us but there's another thief another thief that's watching christ and as he's watching him he has a different reaction luke tells us in chapter 23 verses 40 and 41 the other answering rebuked him saying do you not even fear god seeing you are under the same condemnation we indeed justly for we receive the due reward of our deeds but this man has done nothing wrong conviction in the fear of the coming judgment begins to overwhelm him this man was a real sinner i mean he was an evil man he again he had joined with barabas more than likely barabas had been set free by the demand of the crowd but these others were not the barabas we are told is one who had in insurrection had committed murder these men could very well have been men who had done such themselves they're called robbers and the word robbers speaks of somebody who does evil including something like murder so these people who are next to christ they deserve the punishment that they're getting robbers was guilty but was set free these people were guilty but they were punished and so as he's rebuking his companion in verse 42 of luke chapter 23 he said to jesus now this is very touching to me he said lord remember me when you come into your kingdom and jesus said to him assuredly i say to you today you will be with me in paradise this thief being touched reveals to us it's never too late god's plan of salvation unfolds while this man is hanging there on a tree on a cross he recognizes his sin he recognizes coming judgment why because he said to the other do you not fear god you see the fear of the of god is the beginning of knowledge heverse 1031 says it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god one commentator said wisdom comes from understanding the holy and righteous nature of god without this knowledge we can't truly reverence god jesus in luke 12 5 said this he said i will show you whom you should fear fear the one who after you have been killed has authority to throw you into hell yes i tell you fear him so this man says do you not even fear you don't fear you should be afraid you're about to enter into judgment and then he recognizes the innocence of christ in his own sinful guilt he had said in luke 2341 we justly we received the due reward of our deeds he was aware of his sin and he confessed that he was sinful roman's 310 says it like this there's none righteous no not one he recognizes who this man is and then he recognizes who he is in comparison he is innocent we are guilty he shouldn't be judged and we deserve judgment because he's aware of his sin and then finally he says to him remember me lord the bible says in roman's 10 9 and 10 if you confess with your mouth the lord jesus believe in your heart that god has raised him from the dead you'll be saved for with the heart one believes into righteousness with the mouth confession is made into salvation what he was doing is he's asking for forgiveness he had heard jesus pray father forgive them they know not what they do so he's simply saying would you apply that prayer to me don't forget me now the words remember me when he says remember me he's saying i've become one of yours he's implying that he had come to trust in jesus christ lord he's saying don't forget me remember the one who once hung by your side never let me escape your awareness jesus i'm asking you to remember me forever and remembering me i plead that you will forgive me remember me don't forget me i always get touched by that i always do don't forget me in my life everybody has there's a reason this guy became what he became he wasn't simply born to kill and steal he became that way there were things within his life kind of led him in the direction of that way of life probably would have continued on like the other thief the other thief wasn't showing any regret or repentance at all just get me off the cross but this man knew that there's no way out of this he knew this is the end of the road for me don't you fear god seeing that you're into the same condemnation and we well justly we we get what we deserve this man has done nothing he saw this he heard Jesus when jesus had prayed father forgive them they know know what they do in the midst of his pain and his agony and when he was going through the pain he's enduring he's praying for others and he sees this men very often when they're about to die when they die and in pain they're doing anything but praying for those who put him to death and this man's watching that it's possible he had heard some things of this man from galilee it's possible he was aware of some of the things that people said jesus did and now he's watching him his eyes upon him he's there dying next to him he realizes he's about to enter into eternity and he says remember me never forget me for with god he never forgets so don't forget me don't forget me don't forget what i went through next to you and jesus looking at him says today you will be with me in paradise i promise you i will never forget you isaia 49 15 can a mother forget the baby baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she is born though she may forget i will not forget you can a mama who's held her baby nursed her baby sung to her baby loved and kissed her baby as she's nursing that baby can she forget that baby god says yes it's possible that she will forget that baby but i will never forget you i remember you i will always remember you lord remember me when you remember me when you enter into your kingdom i say into you today you shall be with me in paradise i will never forget you you're going to be with me because you've become aware of who you are what you've done and who i am and what i'm doing and through this i will usher you into paradise paradise is a word that origin spoke of a private garden it was a place where a king would where a king would invite a favored subject for fellowship it became a way of speaking of what is called eternal blessedness it was another word for heaven it's used various times in the scriptures sang us songs and ecclesiasties neomyogenesis second Corinthians the book of revelation used the word paradise and speaking of this and he's saying to him i won't forget you because today you will be with me you will be with me i've seen people and i'll say at this say this quickly i have i have seen people who just days before they entered into eternity i've seen people who are not perhaps as evil as this as this man this thief on the cross but they had their last moment where they said god be merciful unto me i am a sinner and i need you i've seen that i've ministered to those who have actually done that god forgive me and you can say to them absolutely because when you turn to christ even at the last moment his blood has the capacity of cleansing you from all sin and his holy spirit will dwell within you you will be born again and though you may close your eyes here you'll be seeing him face to face because you've made this confession and that's what this man did remember me never forget me how today you shall be with me in paradise there isn't a sin that jesus christ cannot forgive if you truly repent and ask and you'll say home it's my pleasure to do that even on the cross when he was going through as much agony as he was he was still ministering to people praying for them and bringing them into his kingdom that's the god that you serve loving and caring had he remained in the grave his promise would have been a lie but romans one verse four says jesus was declared with power to be the son of god by his resurrection from the dead jesus christ our lord bless you lord jesus christ