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All right. Um I had a discussion with one of my kids a little while ago. My, my uh well, I have twins that are oldest for one of my oldest sons. Uh It's a fine thing to say if you don't preface that with their twins, one of my oldest sons uh was echoing some things he had heard me say and I happen to believe those things are true deeply. Um I don't actually even remember what the topic was, but that was my reflection at the time and I pulled him aside and I said, hey, um it's really good to believe things that are true, but there's a difference between believing something and having a right to say something. And sometimes, especially when it's particularly difficult truth for people to hear. You have to have a filter on how freely you say it to other people. Uh That's for a lot of reasons. But the part I was focused on with him, I said, uh some things can only be said by those who have a right to say them. Um Actually, so this just came to my mind. So I have to look it up one second. Um Yeah. So Deuteronomy 2929. Uh I, I really like this verse. It's, it's got some deep stuff in it. Uh The secret things belong unto the Lord, our God. But those things, uh some translations say God knows all secrets, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our Children forever that we may do all the words of this law and there's a law, a law declared in heaven that um specifies the conditions of revelation and the rights of revelation. What I mean by that is there are rules about what you can reveal under what conditions. And um yeah, anyway, so I I didn't get that deep with my son, still kind of young, very proud of him though. He's a good boy. Um So there are some things that you need to pay the price to say. And I wanna make a video now addressed to those who have been the subject of persecution, specifically persecution for living out what they believe the Lord would do in their place. And so uh Luke 622 this is from the Geneva Bible. It says blessed are ye when men hate you and when they separate you and revile you and put out your name as evil for the son of man's sake. Um And this could probably be rendered better um put into more no normal language. Um But when you love someone and I don't mean that in the narrow sense, like romantic or anything when you do things for other people's benefit. That's, yeah, that's a good one. You mean you do things for other people's benefit and um they treat you poorly in return or other people treat you poorly as a result of what you've done. The Lord says, blessed are ye a lot of these blessed are es you know, it's a promise for one day maybe. Um And I do know that we can get to the point where we are so experienced with the eventual fulfillment of the Lord's promises that we can interpret them in real time as already fulfilled. And that is a profound blessing and a a blessed state indeed. But there is a uh a period when that's not so forthcoming and you can feel immensely alone and uh the Lord himself was not immune from this in his mortal ministry. But I want to share what I hope are some words of comfort in Luke 817. Uh This is from the new living translation says, for all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. And I wanna tell you a little bit about how that's going to happen because I hope that it can bring you comfort. I see a lot. And one of the things I see is I see people who are going through things and they feel alone and I know what they feel. And uh it's not always apparent that uh you can see things and feel like you have no, no ability to do anything about them. What you can do about them is not always apparent, but this is something I can do. And I, I pray that somehow the Lord brings this message to people that need it because that's one of the ways I'm limited is I don't have unlimited ability myself to carry things to people. So I do what I can and I trust on the Lord's promises that when we do everything that lies in our power, that we can have the utmost assurance that he will do whatever it takes for the rest of it to get done. And I've seen that so many times anyway, Winston Churchill. He is an interesting character to cite or bring up when talking about this topic because he's, he's fallen out of modern favor. And in fact, in another, the guy of the book here within arm's reach somewhere. Um In another video, I mentioned this book, uh what's it called Saviors and Generals? Uh It's the secular book is extremely good though, by Victor Davis Hanson about, it's a history book. It's about um it, it has vignettes of people who have done very important things historically that they, they turned the tide in whatever their situation was. Um And a common theme among them is that these people were treated like rubbish before and after whatever it was that they did. And, uh, Churchill is definitely in that camp. You know, a lot of people, they're made for a certain moment in history and they come and they do their thing and then people treat them like garbage thereafter. And, uh, that says a lot about people and, and there's a lot that can be said about human nature. But anyway, Churchill has fallen out of favor a lot recently. It's been a significant, significant shift, but even just right after the war, uh he fell out of favor and significantly from where the regard people held him in during the war. And uh if there was a quote, I was reading this fantastic biography that I don't have on hand. So I can't recommend the author. I don't remember. It's on another bookshelf, it's outreach. Um But one of his close friends, a lady, I don't remember her name. Um She said something like with most people, you , what you see immediately is their best part. And uh over time, your perception of them decays because you see the not so great parts. So, so you come to say I'm, I'm very much paraphrasing here. What she said was eloquent and, and nicely written um is concise too, which I am not. Um But people have a long tail. I like distributions. I like drawing graphs with my hands and you see the best part first and then you see everything else. And unfortunately with most people, we do a bar chart with my hand if you got your access. So most people start out with the best they have to offer. And then over time you actually go negative. You're thinking that this guy's got sour opinion of humans. I sure do. Jesus said in John two that uh well, it said about him that he didn't let the praise of men affect him because he knew what was in their hearts. And that that is a, that is an idea that penetrates me deeply. I just wrote a post about this, but I, I will say a lot about it now and in the future, you can't love someone without giving them weapons that they can use to more effectively hurt you. And um unfortunately because of human nature, what this means is proportionally speaking, the more you love other people, the more other people are going to hurt you. And so there needs to be a counterbalance for any of that to be worthwhile. The counterbalance is Jesus Christ. But um hopefully I can bring that into more practical terms here because it's not some far off thing that's sort of magical and futuristic , although I think it's kind of magical and there are a lot of parts of it that pertain to the future. Um Let's tie it into the real world here. So back to Churchill, this lady said the more you get to know this guy, the more impressive he is. And, uh, if you've read any of his many quotes, uh, it's very evident that this guy was not a chump and, uh, whatever his faults may have been and I'm sure there were many targets that people could throw darts at. Um, then, and now one fact is indisputable and that is that among the many people that criticize him, it's hard to find even one that did anything close to what he did. And then that is a secret about criticizing other people wisely. It is extremely unwise to criticize someone whose works, you know, exceed the nobility of your own. And what I mean by that is you say like, well, if you're criticizing an aspect of someone clearly, that aspect is poorer than it is in you. So whatever that facet of character is, you know, why would you criticize someone when you do the same thing? Well, we read in Romans too. Paul says, do you criticize people for doing the same thing that you do? And then he not only keeps that narrowly defined as the same exact thing, he, he widens the the span just a bit and he says these sorts of things are just as bad as these sorts of things. And when you're criticizing people about this, you really shouldn't if you're doing this. So there's that people absolutely do that. This is why Jesus went nuts on people for being hypocrites but even sidestepping that, which is extraordinarily common. Um, you know, if someone does that overtly, I, that's a pretty glaring fault and that can be addressed rather easily. But I think the, the deeper thing that I'm trying to get at, it's a little higher in the pyramid. Um, and that is, it, it, it's a little less obvious and, and it's also very important. Um, the Pharisees focused on nitpicking Jesus. That's a gracious way of putting it. But the things they attacked him for, well, I guess they have many flavors but, but the thing I wanna zoom in on right here is, is uh a lot of the things that they attacked Jesus for, they were specific actions where they believed what he was doing was wrong and that what they did in that situation was right? So your understanding of good and evil, it's an understanding. It's based on the, the perception of reality. You have your, your awareness of reality it's based on. Um Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Um, a lot could be said about that but um um sorry, just got a huge flood of thought on something unrelated. Uh I got pack it away. Um So your understanding is, is situational and specific to you. Um So they were criticizing him on things that they thought that they did better. Now. That's all well and good, except they completely ignored the massive volume of circumstance of situations where he did better than them and they knew it. So none of them could heal the blind. Heal this, uh, make the blind to see, make the deaf to hear, heal the sick, raise the dead, none of them. But they felt morally superior because they washed their hands before eating and he did not. No, you should think that that's absurd. And how could people be like that? And then go to Romans two and read Paul and ask yourself, do I do the same exact thing? It breaks my heart is when I see people out there and they're, they're taking their heart out of their chest and they're holding it up for all the world not to see. But they're saying if this helps you shirt and they read about Jesus and they say, hm, I think that this is like this one thing I can do in my life and I'm gonna go do that and then people hate them for it and they say terrible things about them. You get these people online, you know the internet who it really brings out the worst in people. It gives him AAA really thick mask to hide behind and they feel safe saying things to people that they'd never dare say to their face. And so they come out and they just start ripping at people, tearing at them. But these critics, they've never done anything like that. They've never taken their, their heart giving it freely to anybody. They've probably never even seen their heart if they did give it, they probably don't have much to give because they haven't worked on themselves yet. They haven't yielded sufficiently to the spirit of God, which you can do substantially without yet explicitly believing in Him. And that's why many publicans and harlots will go to heaven before the Pharisees. And there are many of all three groups today. So anyone who, it seems anyone who had, uh well as uh someone's interactions with Churchill grew their opinion of him also grew. Now, I wanna tell you that there are many people on the earth today who are like that, even though they're in the extreme minority, they exist and they're numerous. So all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. So many people today would collapse on the ground and fear and regret and utter shame. If what was inside them was publicly known, I get a laugh. That's a very serious comment and lighten it up. You'll laugh when I see these people in the spandex outfits with the, the cyclists. This started not too, too long ago, but oh, it was weird and I think it's still weird and look if it's you more power to you, there's not, I guess there's nothing like do what floats your boat, right? Do, do what you sincerely believe is good. And if you sincerely believe this is good, who am I to judge you? But I think it's goofy when people who are not sponsored by any company wear cyclist outfits with company logos, like they're sponsored. You know, I'm not saying like my work gave me this thing where they, I'm, I'm wearing a free T shirt right now. It has a company's name. I zipped it up because I don't want to incriminate them. I, I know people at this company and I, yeah, they don't sponsor this message. Um It's a, it's a comfy t-shirt so good for them . Anyway, um, these cyclists and they wear the uniforms and uh I don't even remember why I brought this up because it's just so comical to me that I lost my train of thought. Um Oh, I remember now. Ok, sorry. Thanks for bearing with me. It's 2 a.m. It's 218. Um I will say though side note, it's very important. If you believe in truth and you love truth, you need to be open minded in how it comes. And you know, if you're watching this video, like you, you're probably not the kind of person that struggles with this, but maybe, I mean, if you haven't read my books, you might be still, but you have to give allowances for how things come because um the more narrow minded you are and rigorous, rigid, rigid and the format things have to come in for you to listen to them and I don't mean believe them, I just mean give them a chance, right? What, what form can the seed of faith come in? You know, the Lord came to me once. Uh this was, I really value this experience. I like farming. I'm no matter where I've been in my life and I've moved around so many times. I always found some corner of dirt, you know, as a kid begging my mom if we weren't in an apartment, um Can I plant a garden? Can I plant a garden? It was always heartbreaking to move, you know, one time it anyway, um I had this beautiful garden and it was right before harvest and we moved again. But I just kept planting seeds wherever I went. But uh the Lord came to me. So I know something about seeds, right? I know something about gardening and he had his hands cupped and in his hands, there are all these seeds. And he said uh uh there's, if I read this, I've got a pigeon brain. If I read it from my, my journal, it'd be much more beautiful. So, but he showed me these seeds and he said, what are these? And I said they're seeds, right? Like whenever the Lord's talking with you, you want to get the easy questions right? Because you know he's gonna hit you with something. So like get points with the easy stuff. It's like when you take an exam, you start with the questions, you know, right away and then you've got all the time for the hard ones at the end. Um You, you, you lock in your one and two point questions where you can, that's the strategy. But I said, they're seeds. And he said, what kind of seeds are they? And I said, I don't know, Lord. And he says, well, how would, you know? I thought easy question. I said, you plant them and he said, so it is with people, you said you got to give him a chance before you know who they are, you gotta give him a chance. And I got it. I understood at that time, I was going through a really hard time with one specific situation. One specific person in my life I care about a lot. So you gotta give people your heart because you don't know, you don't know what they'll do with it until you do. And you know most of the time they're gonna hurt you there, you're gonna give them your heart, they're gonna take it and they're gonna throw it on the ground, they're gonna stomp on it. And that's actually , that's the easy outcome. That's actually not as bad as it can get. The worst outcome is when they, they take your heart and they treat it carefully and they respond, they receive what you're willing to give for a time and then they stomp on it. So, um, you just, you just do it again and you do it again because it, you can't, I said when you love, you can't love someone without giving them weapons to hurt you, you also can't help someone further than you love them. So you get to pick what, what are you in this for? Anyway. Back to the logos. My question for you is how differently would people act if , instead of Goofy Spandex and company logos that actually aren't sponsoring them, if they had uniforms, race car drivers are like this too. Um, if they had uniforms that were, um, I don't know if you can hear that. The dogs just started howling. So that's great. That's gonna wake everybody up. Um, usually they're like an alarm clock at 530 but sometimes I have to go in there and quiet them down when they decide that it's time to get up before it is. Anyway, if people had these logos on them, that's an interesting word. Wow. Uh, that, um, clearly demarcated the dark secrets within and not everyone's secrets within are dark. It turns out just most people, some people like Churchill have, um, I'm not setting him up on a podium, by the way, like, he's a secular figure that did a lot of good. And so I think he's a good example because you don't have to be perfect. Oh, that's a deep, you don't have to be Jesus to um to make the world a better place than it would be without you. You should try to be like him. That's the easiest, most direct path to do that. But I'm saying you don't have to be indistinguishable from Jesus to do some good in this world. You can start doing good immediately no matter where you are, where you stand. But if you had a logo on you that showed the deepest aspects of who you are, the things no one knows about. Would that be good or would that be bad? In other words, how would it affect people? How would it change the way people see you and how they treat you? Um Jesus is the best example in all things, there will come a day when every knee bows the most hardened evil person you could ever imagine or you've ever met, they'll kneel before him without any compulsion. How can that be? Because the deep parts of him will be revealed to them and how I'm about to tell you all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. So if I don't get too distracted, we're gonna talk about how that happens long term and what the little uh foretaste we get of that short term. So this is a big deal. That's why I'm cracking a little smile. God's got a sense of humor and those to the extent that we're like him. We do too, but it's not the way people think it is. Um But I love it. I really do. I love God's sense of humor. So the first thing that's going to happen in the future, it's the following. This is from DNC 2911. The Lord says I will reveal myself from heaven with power and great glory and with all the hosts thereof and dwell in righteousness with men on earth. 1000 years and the wicked shall not stand so enoch and Zion will come and when they come, all the righteous people who have lived and not been resurrected yet and all the righteous people that are still alive, they'll be taken up to meet him. And when this happens, the earth will change and what it's like here and part of that change. And it's not too hard to imagine and it doesn't require parsing too many details to um get the point when you have greater light. Excuse me, I really need a drink of water. When you have greater light, you also have greater understanding. They're, they're tightly coupled. They can't be separated. And uh with that understanding comes um greater awareness, not just of what is and what could be, but what was it all comes together? Enough, said enough, you could say a lot more about that. But that, that's probably enough for a point for a purpose right here. All right. Next, next verse, maybe you knew that already. So let's get into some stuff that maybe you don't know. So this is from DNC 88 uh at some point in the future, again, detail is not super important, but it's a future date. So the Lord comes down for 1000 years amongst all this. Um There's seven angels that um I call them the governing angels. Some people call them archangels. I don't um I don't know whatever you can get into Greek and meanings and things, but there's in my, in my book, there's one archangel and his name is Michael. Um And the other ones are subordinate to him. Um How do you prove that? Well, there's a lot of things you could say about this, but for now I'll just point to the temple furniture and the candlestick in the holy place and it had seven lights. Um Michael's the main stalk. So he's one of the seven and all the other stalks come off of him. That's really important, but not to our present conversation. Um Anyway, so there's seven angels and these angels have a lot of responsibilities. Um But I'm just gonna focus on one and that is their job to be the maybe caretaker is the best word uh over the human probation, we'll go with that. So, uh DNC 88 starting at verse 108, it goes through the first angel sounds his Trump. The second angel sounds his Trump and so forth. And this is, there's a lot about end times and stuff in this. So I, I don't want to go into all that, but I just wanna say that there is a period where these angels are sounding their trumpets. And actually this happens a few times. But this is one specific cycle where the, the purpose and content of these trumpet blasts is that they reveal the works of the 1000 years over which they're responsible. And their job as a caretaker includes a very important duty of being the recorder for those 1000 years. So the first angel sounds and reveals, it says the years of all living and revealed the secret acts of men and the mighty works of God in the 1st 1000 years. And then shall the second angel sound His Trump and reveal the secret acts of men and the thoughts intense of their hearts and the mighty works of God in the 2nd 1000 years. So these things, the sorry, the these trumpet blasts will result in every person knowing the secret acts of men and the mighty works of God in that time span. And we don't have to get into the mystery of how that happens exactly. But the outcome is that everyone knows the details of what happened. And it's not just like an earthly historian, we write a history book about that 1000 years. These people know very um they know um they fully know the mighty works of God in that time and they fully know so everything that God did and why we didn't do them, why. And I also know all the secret acts of men during that time. So this horror of normal people to be known, it's funny, the more righteous you are, the more you want to be known, the more wicked you are, the less you want to be known. And we read that uh the, the, one of the blessings of the righteous is to, to know as you are known. And then you can flip that around and to, to, to, uh to be known as, you know, and it's one of the many things in the gospel where if you have held this out as a possibility, you'd get the most diametric responses of people like who would want that, like show me the door. I'm gonna run as far away as I can from this. And then some people would just break down in the limits of joy that they can, they can uh withstand because it was so fully, um fill every desire of their heart. And the, the other weird thing about that righteousness spectrum is, is um another weird thing is that desire. See, there, there are so many things about people that you just can't know unless and accept you come to know God and to the extent you do. It's amazing. And the differences among people, the diversity and not in a good way. Uh This kind of diversity is not our strength. It's uh it's how, just how, how positive a person can be, how good they a person can be because we're made in the image of God. You get to know God. You can't help but impute that possibility to all people that you see, you, you see their potential to the extent that, you know, the goodness of God. So, so I don't mean the goodness of God is here and you can know a little of it or a lot of it. That's absolutely true. But it's not a continuum. You think God is this good? He's not, he is so much better than that. He's so much better than that. And, and you can go like this, right? And, but you can't move in, you can't increase in an understanding of His goodness without automatically seeing so much potential in all people and things. And there's an aspect of that. That's wonderful . And it's heartbreaking too because it's so far from what people achieve desire or even perceive. And in fact, they turn away from far less anyway. Um, so most people crumple up into a ball and they do and they want the mountains to fall on them rather than have people see who they really are. Because one thing about humans is we're really good at lying to ourselves. And um the last thing a liar wants is the truth and what you'll find about people who live in external deception is they only get there by first achieving internal deception. The last thing they want is a mirror that shows them the truth about themselves. They will run from that. They will do all sorts of evil things to good people. If there's any such thing as a good person, but they will do evil things to examples of good, to smash that mirror, they will do whatever is necessary to, to perpetuate the illusion. Because the, the deeper into it you go and the longer you hold on to it, the more pain it causes you when you see the truth in a way that overcomes your walls of lies. And uh so people do that anyway, my point is we don't have to go through all seven angels. There will come a time when all these things are revealed. And I told you earlier that even the most hardened wicked people will bow their knees to the Lord and Savior Jesus Jesus Christ. And why is that? I've never heard anybody talk about why that is. But here's the reason the fifth angel oversees the 5th 1000 years, the 5th 1000 years is a period where Jesus Christ lived on this earth. He conducted his ministry as immortal. And because each of these angels is acutely aware of the mighty works of God in that 1000 years. And that's among the things that he reveals. The fifth angel will reveal the details of the Mortal Ministry of Jesus Christ. You say, well, I mean , that's all in the Bible. It sure isn't, it sure isn't. So John, the revelator said at the close of the book of John that he was aware of so much more that Jesus did. But uh excuse me, the, the um the limits of the medium were such that he could not write out all those things. And uh we know that at least Peter James and John had experiences with the Lord that are not recorded in the New Testament because we have snippets of them like being taken on to the mount of transfiguration and the, the details of, of what occurred, there are not recorded. So there's much more to know in content, but also the conveyance of these details will be far different because it's one thing to have a book and it can just sort of be shut and left on the shelf. Um And it's another to hear truths proclaimed by a messenger of light whose glory is such that you do not have the power to disbelieve what they're saying . All knees will bow in that day. All right. So how does this have anything to do with people who are suffering from false persecutions today? Well, and by the way, and when those people dwell with the Lord for 1000 years, you can bet that they're gonna know an awful lot more about all people and things than they did at the beginning of the 1000 years. And that is in fact a central part of the purpose of that time period. Um And more could be said about that, but not right now. All right. What about today? So if Winston Churchill, if a person can get to know Winston Churchill enough to say in his defense because people were criticizing him even back then look, say what you will about this guy. But I know him really well. And maybe I don't know all there is to know about him. But I can, here's my finger graph. Again, I can tell you that the more I get to know this guy, the more noble he sees in my, in my sight and any person that's honest to any degree will recognize how rare that is because it's almost impossible to meet a person and to think more of them by coming to know them better. Go ahead and think for yourself. All the people, you know, of all the people, you know, who is that true for? Who do you know that has become better in your eyes through knowing them better. This is actually an enormous clue to identifying the people. God has put into your life for the purpose of providing greater light to you. So they don't frequently know who they are, but you can know who they are with tools like this. This is you have to learn, you have to become a student of human nature and learn to see the clues because truth is obscured. But it's, it's never invisible. It's um it's a lot like when the Lord announced himself after his resurrection on the American continent, he had to do so three times . But as it was, as a father, the father announced the son three times and it wasn't clear the first time, it just sounded like thunder. And then there's a little more clarity the second time. And then it wasn't until the third time that people heard the voice enough to, to uh discern the words. But even then when they saw Jesus coming out of the sky, they thought it was an angel, right? So we, our uh perceptions of things, the most positive way I can see it is we need to see it as a continuously improving process, not an event. And you get into big trouble when you think that whatever it is, you know, is all there is to know or all that's worth knowing, then everything we know is incomplete or incorrect. And that's a good thing because it means that we have access to better things all the time anyway. Um So truth leaves clues and God is so gracious. He's just, he's just, you know, bread, crumbs , the Hansel and Gretel bread crumbs through the woods. He's flicking bread at us all the time like we're ducks, but we don't eat the bread because we have better things to do, right? We just gotta pay attention and you go to a lake, you start chucking bread at ducks. They freak out and they will attack you because they want that bread. We gotta be more like the ducks in that regard. So I've given you a clue. People who improve the more, you know, them, they're very rare but these people that get persecuted, you know, and there are people out there that, that uh they deserve the criticism, right? Sure . That's, that's possible for sure. But who are the lightning rods that get the the criticism? I mean, who in jesus' day was criticized more than Jesus who right? There are reasons for this and it, it doves tail dovetails into satanic strategy. It's really hard to take out truth directly, but you can , you can uh chip away at the things that it rests on in the minds of common people. And yes, I do mean that derogatorily in this case, but normal people, um they don't have the perception to see what is good and uh truth comes from heaven. Goodness comes from heaven and also perception of goodness comes from heaven. It all comes from higher, all of it and it, it echoes down in a network. OK. Uh Jesus said, you know, rejoice because the Holy Ghost is coming. He'll take what's mine and he'll give it to you. Why was an intermediary needed? Because uh sorry, I'm mentioning this in passing. It's actually an enormous huge deal that you've never thought about. Ok, the world doesn't know, but I'm telling you how it is. Um, it was not a gift, it was a gift in the sense that they had rejected something greater and he was graciously giving them something lesser. The Holy Ghost is a tremendous gift on our way up. But if you had the benefit of being face to face with Jesus for three years, it's not moving up in the world to, to have the gift of the Holy Ghost. And I'll tell you another mystery right here. Just random dude on youtube. But I'm telling you this is the truth. The Christian world wraps their head in pretzel knots trying to figure out when the Holy Ghost came and why and why wasn't it? And you know, the old Testament says David had it. How do we, you know, maybe prophets had it, whatever that is. Prophets have the Holy Ghost, they're special people, they're magicians. But you know, everyone else just didn't have access to it because God changes, but he's not changing God. He's always the same. And uh you know, yeah, spend your Sundays listening to people like that, please. And then be surprised when you don't get anywhere. Um The reason the Holy Ghost um was not present, uh It, it was present during the ministry of Jesus. Look at what he said to Peter. He said it's the revelation that you know, that I'm, I'm the Christ, the son of God. Well, how did Peter give revelation? There's no holy ghost, you say? Well, Peter is special. Ok. Here's another theory that is actually true and makes actually makes sense. Unlike every other thing that anyone has ever said about this that I've ever heard. When you offend greater light, you can't have the Holy Ghost. So it's not quite a light switch situation. It's a dimmer, but it's a dimmer with a vengeance. The phrase from the scriptures is the Holy Ghost will, will not always strive with man. God can't inhabit unclean temples, et cetera, et cetera. Um can't tolerate the least sin, et cetera while you're with Jesus face to face and you're not receiving what he's giving you when you're resisting it and you're rejecting it, you're not going to be worthy of the Holy Ghost. The time period, the 50 days between his resurrection and when the Pentecost happened, it was a time of repentance and they were qualifying themselves for something less that was still something more than what they had previously received. The Holy Ghost has always been available for all mankind since the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, it's always been available under the same exact conditions. And so if you see changes in the degree to which people receive that manifest the gifts and so on, 100% of the change is in the people, not in God, it goes for all of the other gifts anyway. Um, so back to, uh, old Churchill, if it's a case that you can see greater good in, in, in someone over time, if that's possible, which it is. And, uh, completely secular people have figured that out. Although they're super rare, you know, it's rare enough to know someone that gets better with time and, and I don't mean improves through time. Although that's another clue. That's another who we could get off on a, I'll tell you a quick story. I had a close associate once knew this person very well and I said, uh they were dating someone that they absolutely did not want to be with and it was for a very long time. I sat down with them and I said, I said, why are you doing this? Like you're not into this? What's the deal? And I felt bad for the other person? It's like, what, what the heck, what the heck. That's all I can say about that. Whereas my younger son coined the term, what the heck is, what the heck. And uh anyway, so what are you doing? You don't wanna be in this? It's not fair to this person and uh sorry, um I wanna leave that one alone. Sorry. Um No, I'm not. Ok. Sorry. So, so when I pause like that, there's like a billion thoughts going through my head. Um It's tricky . Uh, when I was a professor I had to get quite good at muting those thoughts because when you're in the middle of a lecture on some complicated topic, I was a computer science professor. Um, it's, it's, uh, you can't just derail like that. So I, I had to get used to kind of numbing the, like, put up horse blinders and just go for it. But I'm not sure if my students would have said I was pretty good at that or not, but probably not. Um, but if they knew how bad it could have been, they, they would have been impressed. Um, what I said to this person was, look, why are you still here? And they said , well, there's all these things about this person. I'm with that. I don't like, but maybe they'll change one day. I said, ok, you've been with them for how long years and years and years? What track record do they have of massive fundamental change in their lives for the better change it all let alone for the better because one is super rare. One's like uncountable, small, rare. None. Well, guess what, like do you play the lottery because you should or find some other way to waste your life because you're investing massively in something. You have no reason to believe in unreal. So they didn't believe in that. And it was just, it broke my heart. I cared about that. I care about a lot of people. I, I cared about this person. I was like, look, go get your happiness in life, like, find out what you want and go get it. What, what are you doing? Ah, we, we are so, we're so, um, we turned to sit in things that we know, do not lead to what we want. Go read through faith and then I don't have to rant about this. I don't know why so few people have, have dug the jewels out of that book, but it'll change. It's fine. I read at night or look through it. And I just think there's a really cheesy old movie called Chariots of Fire. But this guy is a priest, I think, I don't remember, but he decided he wanted to be an Olympic runner and he felt like that's what God wanted him to do. And he said something like uh huh, I'm getting choked up at a recollection of a quote from a cheesy movie, but that's the way it is . He said uh when I run, I feel God's pleasure, something like that like his approval because he was saying he was using this gift that he had and he didn't get to choose the gift as far as he knew. He's just nearly as a fast runner. And when he ran as fast as he could, he felt God smile. I've seen the Lord smile and I've seen him smile at me for the things that I've chosen to do. And specifically he in, in the moment the occasion I'm thinking of he was smiling because of the things that I suffered for his name's sake. And I've also seen the Lord weep and I saw him weep for the things that I suffer for his name's sake. And I know that he is mindful of each of us. That's not a powerful enough word once I was fooling around with a pellet gun and this was recent enough that I'm embarrassed because I'm getting long in the tooth. This wasn't a simple kid mistake. But you know, sometimes we're just not thinking and we do stupid things. I think I do this a lot stupid things when I'm not thinking. Uh So I guess it's something we can always be better at. But I was just sort of, I was siding in a rifle scope on a pellet gun and I shot a bird by accident. And that sounds like a ridiculous thing. I won't go into the details to try to redeem myself here and I felt so heartbroken about it. I felt so bad. There's a lot more to that story. But my point is if a human being can feel so concerned about a little tiny annoying bird and there are a million of those things flying around all the time. How much more does God care about each of us? So logically, you can build a case for God's concern and compassion for each of us, but I've seen it, I've seen his face, I've seen him weep and I've seen him smile for, for, for me and he does that for you. So, finding, finding your race to run and, and seeing him smile , I mean, even figuratively in, in lesser stages of that or greater stages which exist what could be better anyway. Let's try to wrap this up. You all have lives to live and I need to get started on my day. Um But it's Sunday. I don't even think we're gonna wait to publish this. This is October 2nd. I think I have videos out to the middle of the month. But I try to, my kids asked me, dad, why do you, why do you space these out? I say because people won't watch them. It's just you gotta operate under the constraints you're given anyway. So what about the people who are being persecuted? Now? Do they need to wait until the events of the 1000 years are revealed or until hopefully we end up in Zion with the Lord for 1000 years? No, you don't. Excuse me. Um No, you don't. Um Revelation is a process. And if you think about how that process works, it's successive, it's incremental and there's usually an instrument and maybe that instrument is a cup like Joseph in Egypt or Sear Stone, like Joseph in New York or um or dreams or visions. Uh But a lot of times that instrument is a person. It's either a mortal person or uh an angel in the typical traditional sense. Um The Holy Ghost is always involved and sometimes it's the sun, sometimes it's the Father. A lot of times it's random things in creation. You can look at a sunset and get revelation or rainbow or a rain storm or any of these things because God is in and through all of his creations. It's a beautiful thing. It's such a, it's such an unlimited well of truth, good and beauty. But anyway, my point here is that the, the echoes the pattern here is um inescapable in the 1000 years. There's an angel, there's seven angels and they each reveal, reveal the works of 1000 years. Well, if they didn't, would you know them? Like, what do you know the events of this 1000 years, the mighty works of God and the secret acts of men and then the deep things of buried inside of people, do you know them from the other 6000 years? Probably not. OK. So there are things done through them that would not be doable otherwise, uh it'd be absurd to think that there's no effect that would not otherwise be done by living with the Lord for 1000 years. I mean, if you think that you're gonna come out of that, the same as you went in, I don't know what's going on and what you're thinking. I don't know, you spend 30 seconds or two seconds with him and you'll never be the same . So the Lord is so good. He is the definition and the fulfillment of good. But the instruments that the Lord uses are not limited to the future, they're the same instruments he uses today. And if the Holy Ghost can enable supernatural discernment in a person, there are numerous scriptures from that indicate that uh through the spirit, you can know when someone's lying, you can know the thoughts and intents of their heart. There are so many examples of this in scripture. So do you think, you know, when, when all this criticism is getting hurled at you? It's absolutely the case that the majority of people that are criticizing you are doing way worse things than they're accusing you of in their own lives. And that's, you know, sidestepping the fact that their accusations are probably very wrong. In fact, if Jesus is any indication of what we can expect, even when we slide down the intensity slider , the closest approximation to the truth is probably absolutely opposite of whatever they're saying. Jesus was accused of blasphemy, for instance, he was accused of insurrection, he was accused of um doing inappropriate things with women. He was accused of, I, I don't mean sexually. I don't know if, well, I don't wanna get into this. There's some, there's some secrets here, but I don't wanna get into this. But let's just keep it in what's apparent and widely accepted. You know, he was ta talking to the woman at the, well, which in modern terms is no big deal, but back then it was a really big deal and she was a Samaritan. Uh he was accused of all sorts of things and the truth was the opposite of all of those things. So the closer you get to the Lord, you could expect that you will be not just falsely accused, but, but the very opposite of what you actually did, that's what you would get accused of. He was falsely imprisoned. Um And on and on. So if the Lord can reveal the thoughts and intents of man to other men through the Holy Ghost, men and women people, then um don't you think that there can be people today here and now who see through the lies and who can see you how you really are. Truth is successive. It's progressive. Um You could say it's hierarchical, the more you know, right now, the more God can teach you. So people will know you how you really are too uh proportional to their relationship with the Lord. I'm gonna just throw out some axioms here. I don't have these written down . I keep looking down, but it's just because I'm thinking um here's some axioms, I'll just rattle off. You can't know yourself more than you know, the Lord, the more you know the Lord, the more you know all people and all things, the more you learn about anything, the more you learn about God, the more you learn about God, the more you learn about all things. I may have already said that. Sorry if I'm repeating myself. But do you get the point? It's all connected. So what's my point? Very few people know anything but very little about the Lord. But there are people who know him and as you come to meet and know these people, they will know you. I have met total strangers before and in five seconds, I can tell them more about themselves than they ever realized for themselves. And that is always awkward for the both of us. And most times, of course, I don't say a dang thing because everything is gated . The Lord has rules for how he reveals things and how those to whom he reveals them must reveal and not reveal them. And the more of these rules you learn and obey the more he gives you because you're a safe source. They are Twitter blue checks in heaven. Um As the dogs are howling again, the song of my people, I don't know if you can hear that anyway. I'm off on side thoughts again. So many truths have kind of a two way path. For example, if you, if you were alive in the time of Moses and you knew him personally, you'd see in him both an example of what is better and a pathway for you to become better. So it's a, it's a two way, it's a two way resource. If people are persecuting you for living out your best understanding of what Jesus would do in your place, I want to give you a two way resource. The first resource I just talked about, there are people on this planet right now who will know exactly who you are and with them, you will have the comfort of being known as you really are. But maybe more importantly, and those people are rare and uh the further you go with the Lord, the rarer, they will be those who uh know him better than you do to put it bluntly. But you don't have to subject yourself to the rarity of things to encounter the flip side of that bidirectional relationship, which is the more you're persecuted for doing what you believe the Lord would do in your place, the more you can comfort others who are in the same boat, but they're earlier on the path than you because you were that person that you're searching for to help you with comfort. Does that make sense? I will tell you something here. Um When Gabriel came to Daniel, I suppose there are a few ways you could read that story, but in one potential interpretation, it killed Daniel and he had to be miraculously raised , but it at least really hurt him and he had to be miraculously raised. Um So imagine what it's like to be Gabriel to stand in the presence of the Lord, which is a, a uh a rich description and I don't have time to go into it. This is a very rare thing for someone to be on that level. And so to have a greater knowledge of an experience with the Lord than almost anyone and yet to be so limited in your direct ministry because when you appear to people, you kill them because your glory is that great. Um So someone right now is thinking, wait, hold on, Jesus can appear to people without killing them. Why couldn't Gabriel? Well, we're talking uh today he could short version. Um Well, I'm not gonna edit this video but I take that back. Don't quote me on that. I wanna zoom out a little. Um I, I will say here, you know, we talk about putting limits on things and I was, I was ranting about being open-minded before and, you know, being gracious in our, our willingness to let people make videos at 2 a.m. when they're brains are still not wired. Um 11 of the limits we put on people though is, is a willingness to let them grow, let them be humans that are fallible. Um, growing creatures subject to improvement . It's a real funny thing to shackle someone to anything they previously thought and to discredit them based on them, changing their minds because if you really think that God is anything like he actually is. I mean, why would you think that any person knows all there is to know about anything? And if you've known him in the least, how could you not think that we're just gonna constantly be learning and growing and changing our minds on things? And that should be a, if someone doesn't change their minds, that should be a, a red flag. Not, not the other way around. If you're never wrong about anything , like are you really valiantly trying to build and refine your model of understanding? So I think, I think we get that reversed. But um yeah, I retract my comment before and I wanna zoom out and I'll just say this. Um And the reason for this is I, I'm actively avoiding saying things that I am not supposed to say right now. Yeah. Um But I will say there will come a future date when you look back on these things. And the answer is yes, I already knew about that. Um Anyway, uh righteous people who lived before Jesus did um when they died, righteous people who died before Jesus did. That's more accurate. You, I'm not gonna tell you why I'm smiling about that but righteous people who live. Well, I will tell you. So there's this thing translation and not all people die and some people's bodies are transformed so that they get to stay here until the Lord comes back again and thank God for that because they perform a very important ministry here. And it's, uh, it's a spiritual office to which we should all ascribe to retain. But it's something that's absolutely repulsive to all that are not filled with the love of God. And unfortunately, most people who say they'd want that, they really wouldn't want that . And that's why they don't get it because God is so gracious and he's got autocorrect on our prayers. I don't know if you know that, but you ask for something stupid and you can get in a lot of trouble. But when your heart's in the right place, I thank God so many times for not giving me what I asked for because in those specific instances which I'm referring to, he knew I wouldn't be asking for it if I knew what he knew. In other words, the desires of my heart did not align with what I was asking for. But my understanding was deficient enough that I was asking for things I didn't know were unwise to ask for. And this is I, I'm sorry, we're ranting here. But this is, this is important stuff. All these side tracks I've gone on today with the exception of the weird cyclist outfits. These are important things, folks, and it can only be held back so long. I was writing yesterday. Now, we're like four layers deep. I'm glad I'm a programmer because I understand stacks and we could go back. Uh huh. When you dam up a river, you have to restrict the water that's coming out of the dam in order to fill the reservoir. Right. And all the water that comes out of the people in the southwest are learning this hard lesson. Right. It's like, how many times do we need to learn? Don't build cities and deserts don't conduct land wars in Asia, you know. Anyway, um, things that should be really obvious to everyone but aren't taught in schools. Um You, if you dam a river, you have to deprive the flow of downstream water in order to fill the reservoir, no matter what you do in the future, you only have as much water as you've deprived downstream to save. So people in the Southwest are learning this unfortunate lesson, but that is not the way it works with God. And when he takes you out of the mix, so you can search a phrase in the scriptures, the prophets withdrew and um people really uncomfortable with the term profit. I don't like using words that other people use. Period. I like coining my own words because then I know they haven't been co opted to mean something else. One of the cheapest tricks the adversary uses is to co opt language. Language is so important. Wow, huge topic. Uh I, I have AAA long, I think I already said this somewhere. I have a long file that I've been tracking around to just note some language anyway. Um, now we're exceeding the stack and we may never get back. Um, it's a cheap trick of the adversary and it's crazy effective. It's like cigarettes. No one should ever get addicted to cigarettes because you, like my parents smoked growing when I was growing up, I never tried cigarettes. Like, why would I want what they obviously cause? Right. My parents could not smoke and, uh why would anyone try or meth? Like why would you ever try meth? Like what, what is one good reason for that ever? Right. And it's not that I don't have sympathy on people that get roped into that. I'm just saying there are a lot of things Satan has in his toolbox that work way better than they should. It's like an angle grinder. Uh If you don't have one, you should, you can use that thing for everything. And if you catch one at harbor freight on sale, it's like eight bucks. There are so many things like angle grinders that can be used for good. But Satan seems to be the only one with half a brain to use those things as often as they should be. And co-opting language is like his angle grinder. Um You see this everywhere because words are also a to this is actually nice. These things are folding into themselves better than, than I could arrange. Um Language is another two way tool. It um it can, it can call you into something higher, but it can also restrain your thinking. So, so we can invite you to think thoughts that you never would have thought before. But it also puts you in a box because you can't use a word without putting a box down. It's a, it's a finite handle for an infinite idea. All ideas are infinite but words are not infinite and nothing here is infinite. It's, uh, it's all finite. And so, um, anyway, um, now we, we got, this is where I wish I could pause my phone. But unfortunately, um, the apple folks haven't figured out that that would be a useful feature and I'd go look back at the video to get myself back on track here. I know where I wanna go, but I'm not sure how we got to where we are. Um So whenever I'd get lost in the woods in the army, the tactic is you have to double back to the last place where you knew where you were on the map. Um The last place I know where we were was uh talking about how, when people persecute you for what's what you believe to be, right? Um It actually empowers you to help other people who are persecuted less than you. Um, so rejoice in that and maybe all the other things were things that it just wasn't meant to say right now, rabbits water dams. The Holy Ghost is like, no, you're supposed to say that and you're an idiot, but I'll help you and, uh, thank you for that. So you can't fill a dam, a reservoir without depriving the water downstream and you never get more of it. It's just a fixed resource, whatever that upstream river is bringing in, it's all you're gonna get. But now I'm realizing I didn't actually mention rabbits before. You're all like this, dude. It's nuts if you haven't figured that out yet. But it's great to be crazy. Um, I'd rather be crazy than what people call sane today. Anyway. I think you can make a clear case that that's objectively better. Um, I kept rabbits for a while and, uh, I should say we in this household, my job is to build and to destroy. Um, and unfortunately everyone else has to maintain. So, um, built a rabbit hutch, built a bunch of rabbit cages. Awesome Fort Knox. Rabbit cages had this whole system . We're gonna keep worms like it was a closed system where you keep compost worms to help rabbits waste a lot of food and their, uh, their poop doesn't have fully digested. There's still a lot of goodies in there. That's a weird thought. Uh, worm goodies, not, you know, for people, but the idea was we were going to, to have these compost worms and we had like gutters to, in little traps to catch all the poop. And, um, we're gonna cycle through these worms and then dump the worm castings form a rabbit poop. Plus half the worms. We keep half of them to breathe into the chicken coop. And then in the spring, like all this beautiful chicken compost slash worm casting slash, you know, that all comes out into the garden. And I was like, this is great and it failed miserably, but we gave it a a, we certainly tried Mr Frodo. That was, we, we gave it our all anyway. So I know a few things about rabbits and, um, rabbits. This is way too long winded. Let me just, uh, give you a parable. Right. There was a certain farmer and he had four breeding rabbits and every eight weeks he had, uh, about 24 rabbits to butcher for the family. And then one day his wife decided, I'm not sure this rabbit meat is worth it. And I don't really like the taste and that part of the story is now hypothetical. Uh, anyway, she wasn't the only one. So they all decided together, like, let's take this down a notch and let's not butcher so many rabbits, right? Because we don't really want to eat them and we hate killing things . So, um, all of a sudden they didn't have four rabbits because they kept a few of them from the next, uh, crop. And then all of a sudden they had a lot more than four rabbits. And, um, after, let's say, six months of this. They thought to themselves, you know, we need to start eating 24 rabbits every eight weeks again because we have so many rabbits that we don't have space for them anymore. And even when they ate 24 rabbits every eight weeks, they still found themselves with more rabbits all the time. So it went exponential and that is how truth works. It's not like a stream and a dam. If you dam up truth, it multiplies and it multiplies faster than rabbits. And what do I mean by that? When the, when the Lord sheathes his sword of one of his servants, he's not just taking them out of the game and putting them on the sidelines. What he's doing is giving them a tremendous blessing of involuntarily because a, a person who uh who's full of the love of God will never pull themselves out of the game. If you look at uh at Moses, he knew those people were not gonna make it to the promised land that the Lord had intended the full potential of what the promised land could be, which was Zion. Uh this, you might not know this, this is, this could go under the heading of a secret. But every time the Lord begins working with a person throughout all history, he lays out the red carpet all the way design. And if they don't get there, there's a reason, it's not always the person's fault. He sends people at times and places where um a communal Zion is not gonna happen and there's a reason for that and it's really important, but this is crazy long already. So, and I hate uploading videos on my phone. It's like there's constraints all over life. I do high quality video on my phone and then I have to like , keep swiping it to keep it active on youtube because they haven't figured out how to write decent software or I can struggle with quick time on my laptop. And that is also, it just shuts off all the time. So um I got some feedback, don't make part whatever of whatever videos. Um Anyway, I'm trying folks. So um rabbit, so uh when the Lord sheaths a sword and this is what happens when people persecute you, your audience shrinks and you think like, oh gosh, this is terrible because all I wanna do is help people and now I have fewer people to help, don't fret because what God's doing is uh like with Moses, he doesn't take you out of the game, put you on the sidelines, he puts you back into the fire and he refines you and he makes you better and he barred you with revelation and the these revelations. So when you have um I don't know a phrase to convey what I want. When you have an active, I could say congregation that's not good enough when there is a group of people to whom you are ministering actively. Um, like if you're a parent, right, your kids are these people or, um, you know, whoever you're serving and they're just constantly, you're feeding sheep when you're feeding sheep and you're , you gotta be there and you gotta take care of the flock and you don't really have time to pursue the Lord as you would if you're in a cave by yourself. Uh, it's not just time, but time is a huge piece of it. It's also domain, right? Because if you're feeding sheep, you're what you're learning about is how do I feed sheep? You're not learning about necessarily. How do I be a better shepherd or um um what more can I learn about God? Um or, or whatever? I, I don't really have a good way of explaining this, sorry yet. Um when you get disconnected from this involuntarily, so you think like Nephi, his brothers are trying to kill him, he still didn't want to go Moses, they were really resisting him and he offered his life to the Lord and he said, spare these people or take me. And if you think about 40 years with these people, I mean, that's some serious compassion. So when these people are taken out of these situations, they don't go play golf, you know, they're into the fire again and um they move from dispensing in the tree of life to feeding in the tree of knowledge. There's a way of thinking about it and it's like the rabbits. So this is a really interesting situation because, um, you know, I better stop. I'm gonna end up seeing things and then I'll have to delete the video instead of posting it. Ok, let's get back to this. But my point is if you are, if you find yourself being separated from the people you love and you've tried to help because they're, they're rejecting you and they're persecuting you trusting God because he's actually, it's all part of his plan and he's taking you to a place where you can do even greater good. And uh as a part of that, you have to become even greater good. And a lot of times you can only become so far while you're responsible for people who are in a different place. Um And, and it's great, it's condescension, you know that the world doesn't like that word because it's been co opted. Uh It's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. Um It's my best Trump impression. Um So in Mosiah 817, we read but a seer can know things which are past and also things which are to come and by them shall all things be revealed or rather shall secret, things be made manifest and hidden things shall come to light and things which are not known shall be made known by them. And also things shall be made known by them. Which otherwise could not be known . This is a really important scripture. Those seven angels, they, they are seers in this sense, they fulfill this duty of making secret things manifest that would not otherwise be known. That's a really key word phrase. It's not a word, but we know that there are seer outside of the seven governing angels . There are many spoken of in the scriptures and there are seers alive today um that you don't find them in places where people claim to have them. But uh that's sort of par for the course. You don't go to a university to learn knowledge. You don't go to a hospital to get healthy or a doctor these days . You know, I'm, I'm being, you know, I'm obviously exaggerating just a little bit, but by the day, that's less exaggerative to say that sort of thing. But, you know, institutions build themselves on certain things and they become so corrupt that they're the last place. You'd find those certain things . And it's no surprise that Jesus is always calling out. You can't find Jesus calling, except that he's also calling out. You're blind, you're in Jerusalem. Let me take you out to this pool called sent one who is sent so I can heal you of your blindness, but I can't heal you in this city that's full of hypocrites. You'll never come to see here because all these people are blind. Um You probably learned something today. Um but, but I'm not sure if my objective was met, which I just, my heart breaks for those of you. I've seen things I don't want to specifically name names. But how does the Lord feel when he sees precious few of his sons and his daughters who love him? The, the, the few true humble followers of Christ and just as predicted, the world beats against them like a flood. And of course, this happens. The second you stand up all the Manchurians, the devil's got his strings on his puppets and he stays quiet. He doesn't pick up that. I don't know what that thing is called. The little crossbar thing with the strings for the marionette. He just sets that aside until the right time. He always does the things the best achieve his purposes as far as he understands in that sense, he's wiser than many of the Children of life. But the second a person sets their heart to follow the Lord, he grabs up those, those wooden things. He starts using his puppets because if he can't get inside of you, he'll get you from the outside. And what does he use? He'll use the people who are in his service that are closest to you and he will hurt you from the outside if he can discredit, if he can't shut you down internally to minimize your effect externally. So if we want to be followers of Christ, we need to expect that but also we need to be wiser than that and not allow false accusations and ridiculous things that people say to override our capacity for reason. And circling back to the beginning, we need to correctly analyze the good that these people do and use that to decide whether we're going to take the other stuff seriously. And you should think about all things. It's not like anyone has a a blank check to just be immune from criticism. No one should be immune from criticism but you need to just judge righteous judgment and say, look um OK, this person seems to be doing something that for my values I would regard as wrong and maybe even a boring, but I need to filter that through the lens of, do I really have the full story? Is it any of my business? Like does this change in any way the value of things that I find valuable that this person does? You know if uh we, we, we impose the standard that people have to be perfect to bring us something that is good. What the heck? But when has that ever been true? And if you put that standard on yourself, that's a wonderful tool. Like can you pass your own standard that you're imposing on other people so freely? I mean, if, if that person were to hold you to the standards that you're holding them, would you pass? Are you just hiding behind something online? Cause you're keyboard warrior. It's unreal. If, if you had to be perfect to do any good in your life, we'd all be in a lot of big trouble. Right. And that's presupposing that, that at least some of the criticism is true. But uh it's completely ignoring the fact that what do we know about good and evil? If Jesus came along today, almost everyone who says they're Christian, they do exactly what they did back then. That's really sad. So why don't we act like Christians and why don't we use our brains? And uh I'm not saying give people a pass when they're criticized. I'm saying be just as quick to give them credit for the good that they do as you are to discredit them for the bad that you've heard that they've done or that you're supposing that they've done. I have seen folks get accused for hearsay, like not even, that's not even the right word um for things like, well, I don't , I've never seen them do anything bad, but I could imagine them doing something bad. So watch out. That's ridiculous. But you know, people who are like that, they get what they deserve. We all do in the end, we all do. Uh The gospel is not a mechanism to escape justice. It's a mechanism to render you into such a person that when justice is fulfilled and it absolutely will be, it's to your benefit, not your demise. So we'll leave it at that. But I want all of you to know whoever's watching this and please forward this to people who you know, are in tricky situations. My heart goes out to you. You are not alone. You're not the first, you're not the first. Every nail driven in to the wrist and hands and feet of God's servants. It went through his first. I used to pray. Here's the evolution of prayers in the life of Rob Smith. Step one, Lord, forgive me because I'm a sinner and I'm so sorry. Step two. Lord, this is so hard. Please take this away from me. Please take this away from me. Step three, right? Lord. This is so hard. But I know I know that you love me and I know why this has to be the way it is. Step four. Lord, thank you. We know who you are for doing what you've done and for all that you give me and for all that we can do through you. And what was the evolution, the catalyst for those ships in prayer? Well, I guess you stop sinning when you know it's possible. And when you come to the point where you love the Lord more than you love other things and people and yourself, which is funny because only through loving the Lord more than anything else, can you actually love any of those other things? Really? Um even things you can't love things and live a life where you will never have those things because all things are had eternally through Jesus, let alone loving people. You know , I used to uh another evolution I think like most people I used to think about not like too much, but I had this notion of a one day I'm gonna die. How's that gonna go? I'm not really looking forward to that. I feel like that would be a loss. I wanna stay alive. I wanna stay alive. You know, not unhealthily , but everyone feels that way I think. Right. So I've heard and then one day that changed and, uh, I don't know, I got to the place where death would actually be a relief in a lot of ways and that changed again. Uh, I won't go there though. But, and at that point, my, um, the only thing holding me here was concern for my family because I live my life in such a way that I contribute more than would be had otherwise by them. And I love them, not do anything for them. And, uh, I know it's like to not have a dad and I don't want my kids to go through that. It's all my mom. I have a husband and I don't want my wife to go through that and I know all of them well enough to be able to subtract myself out of the picture and see that and that's not something that I want. And so I pray, you know, Lord, whatever happens, just don't let them go through that. Just keep me here so that they can, you know, be well. And one day I guess he just got fed up with that and he said, look, he didn't say look, but you know, I was, I was just gonna put this in parlance, but he did say, do you honestly think that anything you could do for them compares in any way to what I could do for them? And I was just like, nope , just like that. It had never occurred to me and he had never put it that way. I never thought about it. I never supposed, right? So that freed me from that one. You know, when Jesus tells you not to worry about something. I mean, I suppose you have to believe him, right? And that's not so easy for folks. But anyway, back to the transitions here. So and you love God, stop fighting him and you stop thinking, you know, better than him. Then he leads you to the point where you get into some heavy stuff, some hard stuff. And that's where these people that this video is addressed to, you know, they're dealing with some hard stuff. One of the things that transitioned me out of that though, asking for him to take me out of the hard things which these people for the, for whom this video is, they're either in that category or the next one, I'd assume. And I stopped asking him to take me out of hard things . Because I realized actually, I think the first wave of this was I was in Chile on a mission and I was kneeling down one day and I was praying and I'm a silly person because when I pray, I think God's actually gonna answer me. It's a weird thing. And uh oddly enough, he does so imagine that, imagine taking God at his word on things. But I was kneeling down and I was not offering a prayer just to check a box or hear myself speak. And I said, Lord, I've heard all these wondrous stories about missionaries praying to know where to go. And then they see a house on a street and then they go and they knock that door and I've spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people who just don't really want anything to do with all this. So let's have one of those like, can you show me where to go? And he, he instantly spoke to me and he said, which doesn't happen all the time. That's not the case. He said, said , where have you not gone? And as he said that it was like, it was like virtual reality. I saw every street in the area I was working in and I saw all these houses that we had not been to is like a map or something. I saw it. And that was the answer, right? You can't put that into words. But I was like , thou knowest, right? Some scripture phrase there. That, that uh that's what it means. And uh he said, why are you asking me this? Go do what you haven't done? And I was like, well, what about all the people that are just gonna reject us? He said, in effect, he said, you're not here just to go to the people who are gonna listen to you. Everyone gets a chance. He also said, there are a lot of people who will go to the folks that receive them. That's an assignment that a lot of people will accept. Not everyone will go wherever I tell them, even when they'll be rejected. And all of a sudden, I realized the term of the mission was two years and I don't know how many months in that was, it was less than a year in. I realized, I don't, I don't know how this happened, but it's just the, the understanding he, he put it on me and I saw these ups and downs just in the span of time I had been there. There were times where you get excited and things seem good and there are times when it's like a real drag. And I said, Lord, I, I know what you're doing here and you're giving me this ebb and this flow and these, these breaks these troughs and these brakes and I said, I only have two years here, just take the breaks away. And then, I mean, there's truth in all things. And when I, when I use analogies, like you need to understand it people, Jesus is the example in all things, people don't understand his parables that it wasn't just this really sophisticated way of encoding information that was, that had value at all these different levels. And this was a teaching mechanism to reach all people and also to encode things for a future date that weren't even realized by those people there. And that's a topic. But yes, OK. But language is so limited. When you jack into the channel of the spirit, you're taught so much so fast that you run out of places to put it, you're, you're building nets to catch things because like you, you can't even process stuff, you just set it aside and I don't have a notes pile. But right here, this isn't, there are people in my house and I'm in a weird place and whatever, but visiting um my mom's here to visit. Um So you just, you just like as fast as you can and you have to get really good at at storing things quickly and having systems to come back to them effectively and process, process process. And um when you are into that stream, you have to use things that are, that provide bandwidth beyond words because you're just trying so hard to take these things in the spirit and reduce them to anything that anyone else can relate to, right? Because if you're not in that, like, how do you, the things of the spirit are understood in the spirit? Right? And, and anyway, so, so some, a lot of times I, I mean, I like, I desperately grab anything I can use to try to convey an idea and I hope that we can look past the human disposition to judge the content of something by its um it shall its vehicle. Uh But in the movie Captain America, uh the, the first one, uh there's a scene where scrawny Steve Rogers, he's in that big uh containment tank thing and he's getting blasted by these, these energy beams and he got injected with the super serum and he's screaming because it's, it's so painful and he got warned like this is gonna be super painful, but he knows why he was chosen and he knows what the process yields and he knows the benefit that's going to give to what is important to him, other people. And he shouts from within this tank because they're about to shut it down and he says, no, I can do it, leave it, I can do it. And uh in that moment there, my knee and chilly. And it's funny because the Lord, he reveals things to you way before you have a sense of the magnitude of what he's telling you it's the weirdest thing I could tell you things the Lord told me 20 years ago and in hearing them, you probably wouldn't believe them. But, but if you did believe them, or maybe one of the reasons you wouldn't is because you'd immediately know the magnitude of what he said. Whereas I was just an oblivious dude and I, and really good at maintaining my obliviousness. I am a fool before God. And one of the reasons is to honest people, every time he reveals one thing, it comes with 10 questions that are new. He said, you know, and this is why Moses said to Satan get lost. I have a lot more to ask the Lord like he, he gave me this experience. But I've got nothing but questions. I'm 10 times hungrier than I was before. And I, I mentioned, I mentioned uh clues, truth leaves clues and someone that gets better, the more you know them. That's a clue. Someone who gets hungrier, the more they're fed. That's a clue. That's also diabetes. Um But in a spiritual sense, that's a good thing, right? Um So there are a lot of reasons to cry. Sometimes you need reasons to laugh. And as a father , I have paid the price, we've talked about paying the price to say things. I've paid the price to make dad jokes. Um There's a threshold of consent with unmerited suffering and you have to cross that threshold. There are things that God, there are processes that God needs to expose people to um that are required to obtain all that He has to give that He absolutely positively will not expose you to without your permission and your continued consent. And so the transition from Lord take this away from me to Lord, this is hard, came with the realization and I'm a bonehead and I should have figured this out a lot sooner because I didn't figure this out in Chile. But he put into my heart every, like the framework for this very early, even earlier than that. In fact, um I remember experiences from young like six where the seeds of this were already there. But you, you come to learn that uh all things that he sends those that love him are for their good. But uh there's a lot of verses about this but just, you know, you could go line by line and the things they say and go find scriptures to back them. And I guess there's some value would be some value in that. But uh that's not the right one, but I'm not trying to make a legal case for the things I'm saying the legal cases in my books. Um Can I find it? Oh, this is important now, I'm gonna wanna find it. Uh The dogs are still howling. I don't know how anyone's asleep, still. Ah, sick. This is sad. I'm failing my test here. Sorry. Bear with me, uh I can think of a bunch. But I anyway, um so if you love God, you can absolutely take to the bank the promise that everything that comes your way is not only for your good. I mean, some people will rattle that off and there's scriptures that say that and they'll say, well, it's for my good, that's not good enough. And as you get into these things, you'll see that's not good enough. You need to understand and this is the truth. They're not just for your good. They are the unique pathway to the absolute best outcomes that God has to offer you. It is the gate to everything that comes after. And that's how all things are from God is that you have a gate that you have to go through. It's a unique gate. Every step, there's a unique gate to go to the next. Everything else, everything else is on the other side of that gate. A lot of times that gates suffering specifically unmerited suffering, not the stuff you deserve because that's just, that's just the, the movie that you bought the ticket to see. So if you don't want those don't buy the ticket, but there, there's a whole lot of suffering. That's the gate to everything that comes after and you have to give him permission to put you there and you have to allow him to leave you there. Ok? So what about it's hard. How do you get out of Lord. It's so hard. Uh This one, it's hard for me to talk about. There are a couple ways to say this. I'm just trying to think of the way that will yield the greatest good for you. One time when I was praying saying Lord , it's so hard. I was in this space so time for me, it's not like time for how it used to be. For me, there's I just call it the blur because it's not the intensity of my experience is not measured by the clock anymore. I put on my blog that I reviewed uh through faith the other day, I flipped through this book that I wrote because the Lord told me to, he said, flip through this really quick. I said, OK, so I did, I know why, right? Still don't know why. But in doing so, one of my sons said, dad, when did you write that book? I said, oh, it was a long time ago and I opened the book and it was like 2001. And I said, oh my gosh, this feels like this feels like 15 years ago. I wrote this and I know I didn't write it 15 years ago, but surely it was like six years ago because so much has happened since then inside privately. I mean, people see things outside and they're like, yeah, a lot of things that happened outside the outside, in no way constrains one's experience inside, they're on different uh scales for sure they can be. I guess. I, I don't think they have to be but so whatever it looks on the like on the outside, you just, I mean, let's get some scientific notation out to, to make the mapping anyway. I couldn't believe it so recent, but in the blur. So um there was what feels like an immense extent of time where I was in the Lord. This is hard phase and I wasn't asking for relief. I was leaning on him for comfort and uh he honored that request and in, in many experiences. And so let me share a few of them. So once I was praying and all of a sudden they saw, I saw him um before the crucifixion and and I saw just, it was just the briefest little sometimes when you have visions, the time on the clock, we were just talking about. This is not what I meant, but it's the same idea. Maybe half a second passes in the world here. And you've been gone for 20 minutes or two hours or two days. I've never been gone for two days or, but the 20 minute that happened to me once. Uh but this was really quick. This was the glimpse was as fast as the, the blip of time that passed here. And it was just enough, it opened up and I saw one of the whips land across his back I heard all these details. I've never thought about, I certainly haven't read about them but, and I saw, you know, our skin was, was under tension because our skin is and the whip landed and his les was just broken open, like sharp knife had just instantaneously come right across it. You know, you hear stories about the Lord getting scoured and it's like you're used to hearing these things. It sounds terrible to say, but I saw it and uh what can you say about how, you know, I don't know what to say about how that made me feel. It broke my heart into a million pieces, but it gave me strength and then over time, I guess, you know, we're weak and I'm weak and it wore off and I just was feeling depleted again. I started praying more and more. Lord, it's hard. It's so hard. This was years ago. I mean, it was in the blur but I just wanna make sure people know this isn't recent events from last fall. That's funny. I'm sorry if it's not everywhere. I don't, this is so gross. All tissues. Um People look at that and they're like, oh, I found out what people, like two people found out and they're like, wow, this, it's pretty terrible . You lost your job career. These things people have said are terrible and I'm like, uh, you know, it's kind of you to say and whatever. But like I had two weeks of uh prescribed uh administrative leave. I was like, so happy to have two weeks to work on this book. I was writing ironically, a book on God's Justice which still hasn't been released. It's been done for quite a while, but I have a few other things to finish before it comes out. I was like, sweet paid vacation. I never take vacation. This is awesome. So, you know, I had maybe less than two days of man, this stinks kind of uh I don't know how to describe it. Waves hitting me for a day. But uh I don't know, you, you, well, more of God's goodness, you, you, you know, like you just interpret things differently and you truly overcome people's ability to get, you get to you. Like I know what really happened and I know what wasn't in the papers and uh what was going on behind closed doors and what was said versus what was done and why. But uh anyway, that's not, I'm just sharing this as far as it's relevant to the people. I'm trying to reach with this. But anyway, back to the before all that, I mean, that was nothing compared to all the stuff that privately I've been through uh from the Lord. You don't know hell beyond what you've experienced. It says that right there plainly in the scriptures, it's only known to those who experience it. Let me ask you this. Do you think that the father comprehends all what hell is. Does he know all things or not? The psalmist says, even in hell, you were there, we're talking about the comprehension of God. It includes everything. There are many other scriptural arguments you can make for that. It's not my aim here. But if the father knows it, does the son know it. If the son knows it and he says he does . He also says that the only people that know about this are those who uh I can't remember the exact word. It's something like ordained to it. But read those words carefully because it's clear. The assumption is as you read it, you have the lens on that. This is reserved for people who go to hell because they're wicked. But I'll explain something to you God willing with enough time, not today like good grief. Uh This is gonna have to be for the books. If you allow him to, God will take you into the bottomless pit. And he has a very important reason for doing so. But uh imagine the trust in God that you have to have for that to happen because it requires your continued consent anyway. So the Lord showed me being whipped his, his, one of the whips falling on him and then it closed up right away. That's not help those. I'm not saying that's, those are the same thing at all. I'm just, you know, OK. So uh I started feeling depleted again, more and more of my prayers were Lord, this is so hard. And then one day I was kneeling down, I was praying, I, I had this little stool, I was praying, leaning on. And all of a sudden I saw two ha my eyes were closed. So I didn't see this, this with my physical physical eyes. In this case, I've had all sorts of uh experiences, different, different venues, I mean, uh media, different media. But I also saw my eyes were closed and I saw his hands come right in front of my face and I saw the nails in his hands. I only saw his hands on this occasion. And it's amazing what God can say without saying anything at all. And uh at the time, I was just flooded with this thought that however all that works, I don't know the mechanics, right? So much that I don't know, but the creator of the universe stooped, I was on my knees, he stooped down to show me his hands. And that got me through a lot. It got me through a lot of hard times. And then finally because I'm a doofus and I don't get things for a long time. Finally, the last time, the last time I prayed this is hard, you know, I was feeling depleted again and started praying more and more about this is hard because when you feel like things are that difficult, I mean, it's really hard to move forward in what you have to do in your quiet time when you ought to be productive and learning and contributing. Um I call up my time to go up into the mount. Although usually, you know, there's no mount. I'm just in a corner somewhere on a computer. But, um, early morning time where it's just me and the wavelength I'm on with the Lord, uh stooping down to my level to help me teach me things. Um The last time this climaxed at uh you know, just really, really being derailed from what the good I needed to do because all I could, I just so overwhelmed by how hard it was. Ok? And I saw my head on a piece of wood of, you know, beam across. And as a nail was brought in, I saw his hand and he put it on my, the devil it into his hand first, whether he's told you or not, you need to know what he says to you and what he says to all, no matter what they do to you for my name's sake, they did it to me first and I am with you. Oe even to the end, I don't pray about how hard it is anymore. I thank God that in his uncountable grace, he loves me so much that he lets me have these experiences where I can pour out my heart and soul and completely inadequate sacrifice and demonstration of his love for me to all those going through hard times because people are saying all kinds of terrible things about you that aren't true and all you want is to help them. God bless you. Keep fighting the fight, keep running the race. And I promise you your heart will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's pleasure and he will smile on you. Your heart will be full, full joy. Mhm. It will be full of joy because you'll be given to know the difference it made in the lives of so many people who are kept from your vision because God lovingly gives us opportunities to exercise faith. But more than that, there will come a day or you look into the eyes of Jesus and he smiles at you. Well, there's nothing that can compare to that, to know that somehow in some way, he made his cross a little lighter. Who wouldn't want that be strong, be courageous. Those that are with you are greater than any that can array against you. Because Jesus Christ overcame all things and he gives to all those who love him and who endure to the end. He gives them the tools to do the same.