How Christians Gave The World Smart Phones

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things, they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

The Curse of the Ground and the Reversal of Babel

Now that is amazingly post-mill from Apple, however, everybody in that video is humanist. Some of my favorite people, Jim Henson, for example, they're all humanists. Christian Scientology was Jim Henson, and then you have Gandhi and all that.

The thing is, though, those are not the guys who changed the world. It was Christians that came before them and they just kind of leapfrogged based on the foundation that Christians made, and that's what we're going to demonstrate here.

So then, this was Noah in the Bible. When Lamech lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from the work of our hands, from the painful toil of our hands.

Relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. His name means that the curse of the soil will be reversed. The pain, the toil, the suffering from work, all that will be reversed. So the question one has to ask is, well, when was that curse reversed?

Now, if we're covenantal, we would say, well, we are covenantal, so we would say that it would be at the covenant of grace. Genesis 8, and this was after the flood. He builds the ark, God curses the entire planet, floods it, and then it says in Genesis 8, and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.

Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done while the earth remains. See time and harvest cold, heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. So we see right here, as soon as it gets off the flood, the promise of his name comes into effect.

So it's kind of like, it's this immediate reversing of the curse of the ground. I never again curse the ground because of man. We know the garden that the ground was cursed, there were thorns and thistles.

And a lot of people still think there's that sweat and toil of the ground is still present and active, and there's still effects of it. But essentially, God stopped it at that moment. That's when he will never do it again.

It'll never happen again. And it actually happened that earlier. And then what we had was people started to use, they started to build great things. They started to do great things. And then we get to the Tower of Babel.

And the Lord said, behold, there are one people and they have all one language and is only beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down in their confused language so that they may not understand one another's speech.

So the Lord dispersed them all over the face of the earth and they left off building the city. Therefore, its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there, the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth.

So we have here the men after the flood. Men are gathering together. They're building, they're creating, they're building a tower. And God says nothing will now be impossible for them. So God already said he will no longer curse the ground.

So now what does he have to do to stop the evil of man? He has to stop their communication and their ability to communicate freely. And so we see this. I want you to see this is papyrus. This was invented in 3000 BC.

So this was right around the time of the Tower of Babel, right around either before or after the flood. Probably before the flood, papyrus was invented. And this remained the dominant communication technology for 3 ,000 years.

In fact, go to the next slide. This is a book, New Archeological Discoveries by Camden Coburn. He says, but in all the years since linen paper came into common use, in the eighth or ninth century of our era, it has never been honored as was the humble papyri of that first century which received the autographs of the apostles and evangelists as they told the story of the man in Nazareth.

So think about it. Papyrus was invented in 3000 BC, and up to 33 AD, 70 AD, they still use papyrus. That is a significant lack of communication advancement. 3 ,000 years, same form of technology. So this is in Acts 2.

Now they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.

And they were amazed and astonished, saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of these in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and the Lamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia.

I don't know how to say that, honestly. So Egypt and the parts of Libya belong to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytites, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own language the mighty works of God.

And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? This was a reverse of the curse of the Tower of Babel. So the Tower of Babel, everyone was together, and God dispersed them.

Here, every nation under heaven is there, and God unites them with language. And from that moment on, I believe that there's been a significant increase in the ability to communicate across the nations.

And it's because of Jesus' ascension. It's because Jesus is seated, because he is king. And now I'm gonna show you how Christianity is responsible for your cell phone, and it's awesome. So next slide, please.

Gutenberg, the Printing Press, and the Bible in Every Hand

So paper was not invented until 100 AD, after the death of Christ. So 3 ,000 BCE, they invented papyrus, used for 3 ,000 years. Can you imagine a technology that you've had your cell phone for 3 ,000 years and there's just no technological advancement?

That's what it was. I really believe there was a supernatural suppression on communication technology until Jesus came back. I think God, because of the hearts of man, because man were so wicked, God limited the communication abilities of man until Jesus came back and he reversed the curse at Pentecost.

And then you had a mighty transformation in terms of communication. So 100 AD, they finally invented paper. Paper didn't really catch on until it got to the Gutenberg printing press, when they needed paper.

They needed a really nice, strong material. And so next slide, please.

There it is.

This right here is the most significant communication device ever made. This device is what's responsible for every single thing that you read. Every single time you pick up a book. Every time you post a picture in a forum pub with your library.

It is because of Gutenberg. And this man was committed to this idea that it was foundational, that everybody got to see the word. Everybody should be able to look upon the scriptures. Everybody should be able to read the Bible.

And so go to the next slide. We don't really hardly know anything about Gutenberg, mainly because there weren't really books before he was there, before him. So we really don't know anything about his history.

We really don't know much about his faith, honestly. You could probably make the case he was Catholic. But God suffers in a multitude of souls whom his word cannot reach. Religious truth is imprisoned in a small number of manuscript books, which confine instead of spread the public treasure.

Let us break into the seal which seals up holy things and give things to the truth in order that she may win. Every soul that comes into the world by her word, no longer written at great expenses by hands, easily palsied but multiplied like the wind by the untiring machine.

So he had an incredible passion to get the Bible into everybody's hands. And before then, there was literally a street where you would just see like scribes running with stacks of papyrus and paper and the scrolls.

And they had blisters on their hands from all the writing they would do. And there was a street, I think it's in Germany or it's in Gutenberg, where there is this street, it's called like the Scribes Lane or something like that.

And it's actually where the scribes would like run around and like they would just go from place to place and pick up paper and stuff. And so he was responsible for getting them out of a job. So you can blame him.

Next slide. Time Magazine called Gutenberg the man of the millennium, the most important person in the past 1 ,000 years. His invention transformed and changed everything that we have. Science, technology, math, everything.

And it was all because he believed that the Roman Catholic Church shouldn't have the Bible. Now if he was not a Christian, I'm sorry, if he was a Christian, which I kind of think he was, I think he kind of had a strongest taste for the Catholic Church based on what we know of him and what he did.

One of the cool stories is like he wanted the printing press to be abundant and he didn't want the Catholic Church to shut it down. So he went to him and said, hey guys, you know what this can do? This can print papal indulgences.

And so that's how he got the permission of the Catholic Church is he pitched him that. And they're like, papal indulgences, that's awesome. And then he went and started to make Bibles on the back end.

So if you get mad at Lecrae for being on BET or something, just think about what Gutenberg did. So, next. Okay, so this is, do you all know who Stephen Fry is? He's like a rabid atheist in the BBC, he's a documentarian filmmaker.

He hates Christianity, he hates God, he has all kinds of stuff and bad jokes about it. And this is on YouTube, actually, you can watch this. It's just YouTube, Stephen Fry Gutenberg, the whole thing's on there.

This is by the BBC, and he actually goes and tries to make a printing press. So he goes to a guy who actually carves an actual printing press, and then he goes to someone who actually hand makes the paper.

And then he actually goes to someone who actually creates the lead typeset. And so, but this is what he said of the printing press. And so his goal was to actually print a page of the Gutenberg Bible, a copy in exactly the style.

So it's a great documentary, but this is what he said of the printing press.

The fruit of Gutenberg's work can be seen all around us, but it's more important than that. For everything that our culture and our civilization depends on starts with Gutenberg's invention. And this was his calling card, one of the first and finest books created using his

Everything our culture rests on is because of that one invention, right? So I could stop the talk right there and I could say, that's it. That's why you have your cell phone, cuz Gutenberg's printing press, Christianity, there you go, we're done.

But it's a lot more to it, so let's go to the next slide. Telegraph, I just learned this in the past two weeks. This is gonna mess you up, this is trippy. Okay, so the speed of communication from Gutenberg's printing press.

So Gutenberg gave us the ability to distribute content, but he didn't give us the ability to do it quickly. And so, here's exactly what you have. You had the invention of paper, and then you had the invention of the printing press in 1492, around 1500.

Within just 50 years, there were 20 million books on the planet. And then Martin Luther came right at the time, the peak of the printing press, when it was just everywhere. And there's a book called Bran Luther, by the way, that if you really wanna read, it's really good.

It talks about how Luther actually marketed himself. So if you were to go in a bookstore in Germany or in Europe and you were to look on the bookshelves, right away you would see Luther's book, right away, cuz he made sure that it was bound a specific way and that people could have access to it.

So it wasn't just what he said, it was how he presented his brand, how he created for himself an image that people could recognize right away. So you had that, and then this is just literally about 300 years later, 300 to 400 years later, after the printing press.

You have Samuel Morris, and go to the next slide. This is from Samuel Morris' family member compiled all his letters. He wrote a lot of letters, and he hated writing letters cuz it took too long. The speed of communication at this time was 1 .4 miles per hour.

So if you wanted to send a message to our church at Apologia, it would take you six hours to get a message to Apologia from this point. Like that's, I'm sorry, from the studio. Where our studio's located?

From here, six hours just to deliver a message. And we can deliver a message right now to China, to anywhere in the country instantly. We can do a selfie live stream on Facebook, and everybody in the world can see it instantly.

So this is a combination of his letters that he wrote. He hated writing letters, they were way too slow. And what I want you to see, this is compiled from his family. He says, I think that the letters, notes, etc., which I have in the preceding pages brought together.

A clear conception of Morris' character can be formed. The dominant note was an almost childlike religious faith. A triumphant trust in the goodness of God, even when his hand was wielding the rod. A sincere belief in the literal truth of the Bible, which may seem strange to us of the 20th century.

A conviction that he was destined in some way to accomplish a great good for his fellow man. Samuel Morris was a Calvinist. His parents, Jedediah Morris, went to Yale University. Samuel Morris went to Yale University.

Yale University was started by Jonathan Edwards, who was post mill, he was Presbyterian, and he was responsible for a lot of the worldview of the nation at the time of the founding of this country. And so you could even say that it was Edwards that actually gave our country freedom of speech, so if you wanted to go from 1400 to 1700, you could include freedom of speech that a Christian gave us.

Because he was one of the dominant forces and his worldview and his preaching was really what was responsible for most of the Bill of Rights was based off of his preachings. So we have printing press, freedom of speech, and then we have Samuel Morris, who was a Calvinist, raised Presbyterian, remained that way.

Here's what happened, Samuel Morris was a painter, he was a modern day Steve Jobs, he was an inventor, an artist. And so main thing he did was he did paintings, and while he was away painting, he got a letter that said that his wife died.

Actually, go forward one more, sorry. Okay, there we go, so his wife died. And when his wife died, the letter states at the bottom, you need not hurry home, nothing here requires it, we are all well and everything will be taken good care of.

Give yourself no concern on that account, finish your business as well as you are able to do it after receiving this sad news. So that was from his father. Essentially, by the time they wrote the letter and it got to where he was, the funeral was already over.

So could you imagine like your wife dies and then you get a letter that says, hey, your wife is dead, the funeral's already gone by the time you get this, so don't worry about rushing home. And that traumatized him for the rest of his life, that he wasn't able to be there when his wife first fell ill or once he wasn't able to receive that message.

So this is a letter that his mom wrote him when he was a child. Says, we are very desirous, my son, that you should excel in everything that will make you truly happy and useful to your fellow men. In particular, by no means neglect your duty to your Heavenly Father.

Remember what has been said in great truth, that he can never be faithful to others who is not so to his God and his conscience. I wish you constantly to keep in mind the first question and answer the excellent form of sound words, the assembly catechism.

What is the chief end of man? The answer, you will readily recollect, is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Let it be evident, my dear son, that this be your chief aim in all that you do. And you may be so happy as to enjoy him forever in the sincere prayer of your affectionate parent.

So, I find this really fascinating because they're using the catechism. His parents are using the catechism to say, whatever makes you happy, do unto the glory of God. So they didn't say, go into ministry, that's how you glorify God.

Or go do, be a missionary, or go be a pastor, that's how you glorify God. Just whatever makes you happy. And so Samuel Morris became a painter and artist, and that's what made him happy, and that's what he did.

And he glorified God in that. He was really well known for his paintings. And then he became an inventor. So go forward. This is the telegraph. I can't stress this enough, but you have to think about this.

The speed of communication was 1 .4 miles per hour. And then the telegraph is invented. And that day, the speed of communication went to 286 ,000 miles per second. That's how radical of a transformation that is.

And this is still the main form of communication that we use today. It's just different. The Internet is ones and zeros being transmitted quickly across lines. And so it's just the exact same system. We've just improved upon it.

So all the scientists today that are talking about science gave us the cell phone, science gave us this, science gave us that. It was Samuel Morris, because his wife died, and he was traumatized that he couldn't get back in time for the funeral.

These are the first words of the telegraph that was presented to Congress from Baltimore, what has God wrought? That was the first words. And the context of that passage, number 2323, it says, there is no magic curse against Jacob and no divination against Israel.

It will now be said about Jacob and Israel, what has God wrought? Or what great things God has done? I've thought when it said, what has God wrought, that it was like judgment on our nation. And I thought that was weird that he was standing before Congress saying, what has God wrought?

But so the Holman Christian Standard Bible says, just in case any of you were confused, what great things God has done. It means look at the blessings God has wrought upon our nation. Look at what that is.

And he alerted that to the telegraph. And so, go to the next slide. This is the Smithsonian Institute. Completely pagan, completely liberal. They hate you. They hate God. So, hit play.

The person I want to focus on today is Samuel Morse, who was 63 when this was painted. In 1844, Morse applied for a patent for his telegraph. To show important people in Washington that it worked, he sent a historic message from the old Supreme Court chamber, then in the US Capitol, to his assistant in Baltimore.

The message was, what hath God wrought? And a plaque that has that message is still outside the old Supreme Court chamber today. This invention revolutionized communications. We went from a time when it didn't take days, but weeks and months to communicate messages, to a time when it was instant.

All previous human history before the advent of the telegraph can be described as the great hush. What hath God wrought indeed? This has been Portrait in a Minute.

As she holds up the cell phone, right? So, your smartphone starts with a telegraph. It wasn't too long after the telegraph that we had the phone. And then, I mean, that was 1840s. And then, in 1900, Marconi invented wireless telegraph.

So, we had wireless communication just within 40 years of that. So, interesting story. He was at Congress presenting it, because he wanted Congress to buy it, because he thought it would be, I guess, like a good war thing, to be able to communicate that quickly.

Now, that's just the way he thought would sell it. He's like, that'd be the quickest way to sell it and make some money off it. And the government was too conservative to spend money on stuff like that.

So, they rejected it, and Western Union got it, and it just went all over the nation within like 10 years. But just to give you an idea, the government invented Internet, and they kept it for 13 years, from 78 to 91, until it was released to the public.

So, if the government didn't have Internet, we'd be 13 years ahead. So, right now, in terms of like the advancement of the Internet, if you just think what 13 years ago the Internet looked like, and then just think what 13 years from now will look like, it's because of the government.

So, you're 13 years behind. So, luckily, the government rejected it. It went to Western Union, and it just went all over the country. But it did not go all over the world. Go to the next one. Until this guy, this guy Cyrus Fields, his parents were, they were Congregationalists that went to Yale as well.

They even named one of their child, Jonathan Edwards Field. And I believe, it wasn't a lot of information, but it seemed like that they bought actually the property. They actually owned Jonathan Edwards' residence.

So, they lived on it after Edwards. And so, they were big, big fans of Edwards. He was a brought up Calvinist, and he had a vision. He was actually a very wealthy man. He was one of the top richest people in the country, and he was a Christian.

And he decided that it would be very influential for the telegraph to go all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. And so, some guys came to him one time, and they said, hey, we wanna create a telegraph line from Northern Canada to New York.

And that way, we can take a boat all the way to Northern Canada, and we can extend the communication by like two days. So, they could take a boat to Northern Canada, and then instantly telegraph to New York.

And so, he just looked at a globe and was like, well, that distance is exactly the same from Northern Canada. Why don't you just go across the ocean? And they were like, well, that's crazy. So, here's what happened.

So, he actually raised the money. It was called the Transatlantic Committee or something like that. And he got all these businessmen together. He got, and they invested in this plan. And they took two boats, one from England and one from America.

And they met in the middle with tons and tons of cable, very heavy cable. And in 1857, before they took off, he said, a sort of benediction for the transatlantic cable field turned into the Bible. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder before they started it.

And then they went and they laid it all the way across the ocean. And then go to the next slide. On August 16th, 1858, the first message sent via the cable, other than the technical messages sent by the electricians setting up the system, was Europe and America are united by telegraphy.

Glory to God in the highest on Earth, peace and goodwill towards men. He actually believed, he actually believed this, that if he could unite nations together with a telegraph, that it would bring about peace on the Earth, as God promises in scripture.

And so, that was his motivation. I was watching a documentary on it, and he said he had a idealistic view of business. He had a view that if you had a lot of money, you could do great things, not just make profit.

And so, obviously we're okay with making profit, but you make profit, and then so you can do great things. And Cyrus Fields was a very wealthy man, and he used his money to really change culture completely at a foundational level.

And so, next slide please. This was the first telegraph sent to the Queen of England from James Buchanan. It is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than ever won by conqueror on the field of battle.

May the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of heaven, prove to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between the kindred nations, an instrument designed by divine providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world.

In this view, will not all the nations of Christendom spontaneously unite in a declaration that it shall be forever neutral, and that its communication shall be held sacred in passing to the place of their destination, even in the midst of hostilities.

So as the president, talking about how this telegraph is gonna bring about religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world. And that's exactly what we see happening now, because the transatlantic cable paved the way for Google to add data lines across the ocean, so you can access internet and data centers all over the world.

So there's still transatlantic cables. That's still something we still do all the time. And they're actually, I was just reading they're trying to build some in Virginia Beach or something that go to other ends of Europe.

So we're still creating transatlantic cables all over the place. And this was the first message that was sent on one, after the glory to the God in the highest one. Now the first transatlantic cable that he did actually failed.

He had a Unitarian scientist that worked with him that thought that he just needed to boost the signal with tons of batteries, and it actually blew the cable. So if you always say Osiris Fields was a failure the first time, it was he had a Unitarian universalist as a scientist that blew the cables.

He actually went and got Lord Kelvin, who was a famous scientist we call Kelvin. Kelvin is the instrument of measurement we actually use. And Lord Kelvin actually helped him develop scientific equipment to lay the second line across that worked perfectly.

And so the first one he was almost, they actually thought he was a hoax. And none of this happened, and there were conspiracy theories that said he just took everybody's money and laid a fake line across the water that didn't do anything.

But the second one actually did work. And this was actually sent on the first one because it worked for a few hours, essentially, so this got out. So next slide. This is an interesting article. I don't know anything about this guy, but when I was looking for these guys in Christianity, this kind of came up.

This was Fred Burton Smith was leader of the YMCA in 1919, which was Christian back then. The C actually meant something. And so it says, in centuries past, the segregations of nations made easily possible the existence of one type of politics, society, commerce, and religion in one hemisphere or continent and an entirely different one in another.

Communication was so slow and uncertain that the people of one nation could hardly expect to know what the contemporaries were doing upon the other side of the world. James Watt, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, Cyrus Field, Thomas Edison, Giglamo, Marconi, and the Wright Brothers, little realized the strange effect the introduction of their discoveries would eventually to have upon the religions of the world.

Rapid transit cable, wireless telegraph, and the printing press have made the whole world smaller than was a single country in New York State in the days of the Revolutionary War. The young men of the schools and colleges of Illinois know vastly more about China than their fathers or grandfathers knew about Kentucky 50 years ago.

And now it's in 1919, and now we have the Internet. We can find out more about China than they could way, way quickly. And this was actually one of his motivations to be a missionary. It was written in his book on reasons to be a missionary.

And the advancement of technology was listed as the reason, because we could know more about the world, and we could get that information to people now way easier than before. And so the people who were on a Hindu island or a Hindu whatever, if we went over there and we made a Christian nation, they could get access to all this information and technology a lot easier.

So I just thought that was really interesting in 1919 for him to be talking about technology and its use for the gospel back then. And see, I think a lot of the problem is you guys work at a job, and you're trying to feed your family, and you go to your pastor, and you say, Pastor, I'm just, I'm discontent.

I'm just not handling it well. I'm just tired of working nine to five every day on the grind, trying to support my family. And the pastor says, well, you just need to love Jesus more, right? Like, well, you just need to find contentment in Jesus.

That's what you need to do. What if Jesus is trying to tell you that you don't need to be working for somebody, but you need to be hiring people? You need to be innovating. You need to be creating. You need to be technologically innovating and creating things.

That's maybe what you like to do. So often, we're just like, well, get in your job, find contentment in Jesus, and if you have discontentment, it's not because you're not supposed to be doing that, but it's because you're just not loving Jesus anymore.

And that's the furthest from the truth. If you have discontentment in your job, you're to love God and do what you want. That's what the quote says, love God, do what you want. If you're in a job and you don't like it, it's not a contentment issue, it's probably that you shouldn't be doing it.

And what we need to really do is we need to take our Calvinism and we need to apply it to business. We need to take our Calvinism and we need to apply it to technology. We need to take our Calvinism and we need to apply it to science and math and all these other areas, and we need to create businessmen.

Why don't we ever hear sermons talking about how to handle money in a way that Christians should be millionaires and billionaires and they should use this money? I was talking to Leah, and she was like, how come we don't pray for the guy who's going to start the business that shuts down Facebook, right?

Why is Facebook and Google and Twitter and all these social media empires, why are they run by pagans? Where's the Christians at? What has happened that we so disconnected ourselves from the innovation of technology that all these new advancements that we have in the world are not done by Christians?

Where are we?

We're still here. We use this stuff every day. But something has changed to where we're not involved in that, and we're not innovators and pioneers. I want you to think, the printing press and the telegraph were not leapfrogs off of other technological devices.

So for example, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, it was the most amazing thing ever, but there were already smartphones. It was just a better smartphone, right? So there wasn't other telegraphs, right?

It was a completely new innovation. We as Christians, we need to be thinking, what's the technology that our grandkids are gonna look at and go? Remember when y 'all kids had the Internet? Like, that's awful.

Y 'all had to use the Internet? That's crazy. What's wrong with you? What is that technology gonna be like? Cuz everything that's coming out now is just leapfrogging off the Internet, which is just leapfrogging off the telegraph.

What's a technology that completely replaces and innovates like the printing press? There was no printing presses. There was nothing like that. The idea to copy a book like that, never even. It's just a completely new innovation.

And so everything else that we have today is not the same in terms of innovation. It was said that from 1850 to 1950s, that time period, or 1970s, there was a guy who, when he was born, when he was a small kid, he looked out his window and saw the American military be defeated by Indians out in the West or something like that.

And then on his deathbed, he saw man walk on the moon. That was the kind of innovation that happened there. And a predominant part of that was, and you can blame Gary North if you hate this quote, that's okay.

But he said that in the 1700s, 1800s, post-millennialism was the dominant eschatology of the nation. And so people thought in ways that were, let's unite the nations, let's build technologies, let's make the world a better place.

And then in the 1900s, you had dispensationalism that came on the rise. It said everything's getting bad, everything's getting worse. And now you have all these secular humanists who are in Apple commercials, and you don't have Christians who are in Apple commercials, which is kind of strange, because we're the ones that gave them that.

Communication, Media, and the Christian Public Witness

So next slide, please. So it goes, what is the purpose of communication? We saw in the Tower of Babel, sorry, the Pentecost, God gave men the ability to speak and communicate, why? To share the gospel, to promote the gospel, to promote Christian worldview, to change the conversation.

If you were to walk into Apologia Studios, you'd see that, it's on a whiteboard, it says, Change the Conversation. So we can see it every day, that's the goal of Apologia Studios, is to get big enough that if Jeff Durbin says homosexuality is a sin, the news media has to cover that topic.

That's the idea, it's not to make Jeff famous, it's to create a platform that so influences the culture in terms of communication, that the gospel can be a central argument that people have to respond to every day on the news, because they just can't get away from it.

And so, this is the CEO of HBO, and I just want you to see, the media knows, the people in media, secular media, they know the purpose of communication. They know the purpose of media, and so you can play this clip.

Our job is making sure that we have the kind of quality on air, that we are very much a part of the cultural conversation, and that people are saying over and over again, listen, you have to be, in order to be a part of cultural conversation, you need to understand what HBO is doing, whether it's, look, John Oliver does a thing, does a rant on Trump called Drump, and we put it up on YouTube, it does 87 million views.

It's extraordinary.

That's part of the cultural conversation. Beyonce drops lemonade, and you know, the social media world goes crazy. That's part of the culture. It's not just one show. It's the brand itself.

Yeah, so there it is. They know it. Media changes the cultural conversation. It's not about creating a great TV show. It's about getting that worldview into the conversation of the culture. Have you all seen HBO's The Newsroom?