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Stockman rips press over MIA claim
Rep. Steve Stockman says he has not been missing in action this month and blasted the media for claiming that no one knew where he was .
The Texas Republican slammed an Associated Press story last week that detailed him missing every vote in Congress since Jan. 9 — 17 in all — and reported that he had been virtually unseen in Texas, where he is mounting a primary campaign from the right against incumbent Sen. John Cornyn.
Story Continued Below
In fact, Stockman told Breitbart News, he went on a trip with four other members of Congress to Egypt, Israel, England and Russia.
"There was five of us on the trip. They were laughing at the whole 'Steve is missing' thing," Stockman wrote Breitbart in a text message from London. "In Egypt the press conference was covered by AP, Bloomberg, [National Public Radio], [the New York Times], Reuters, Wall Street Journal, just about all of MSM," an abbreviation for mainstream media.
( PHOTOS: Senators up for election in 2014)
But the firebrand Republican said the 10-day trip was not why he missed the votes in Congress. Other members of the trip did not miss votes last week.
"I missed votes because I don't have a zillion dollars like Cornyn and have [to] campaign," Stockman told Breitbart. "But I wasn't missing. The Dallas Morning News covered my talk and Cornyn's tracker was there. Both the press and Cornyn knew where I was."
Stockman was referring to Jan. 14 event, mentioned in AP's story about his absence, that followed another scheduled appearance that he had skipped.
"You must be conservative when you're meeting with the media and the media claim they can't find you. Reporters knew of trip but claimed otherwise. We decided to hold out and see how long reporters would pretended they didn't know I was on official business," Stockman wrote in the text.


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How do you define success?
Success for me is defined as the sum of all parts, (i.e. the small efforts and sacrifices I put in to training every day) coming together in one particular moment. Success is the rewarding process of when I achieve a major goal in this way.
What inspires you? And where do you find your inspiration?
I find at different times I'm inspired by different things. However I'm mostly inspired by people who make a difference in society through their hard work and dedication. On a day to day basis I'll always look to my family and friends for inspiration and motivation, especially my lifelong friends who have been there for me since before I started swimming.
Could you tell us about your success? What is the short-story of your success?
From about the age of 15, I really applied myself to competitive swimming and really thought about swimming as a career. At 18 after I finished high school I made the decision to move to Sydney from Port Macquarie to train with Brant Best (I thought this was the best option to take my swimming to the next level.) It was definitely difficult moving away from my family and friends, however it certainly paid dividends as I became the 100m Freestyle Australian National Champion in 2010 and the 100m Freestyle World Champion in 2011.
From here I was then fortunate enough to attend the London 2012 Olympic Games (My debut Olympic Games.) where I won the Silver medal in the 100m Freestyle finishing just 0.001 from the Gold medal and I won Bronze in the 4x100m Medley relay.
For 2013, my goal is to try and defend my 100m Freestyle title at the World Championships in Barcelona and hopefully swim faster than any swimmer before me.
Do you have a "5 rules" to follow and keep on being successful?
1. Success is never created alone.
-It's extremely important to have a great support team.
2. Success is the sum of small parts added up every day.
-You have to commit 100% to training every day; you'll never achieve your desired results if you take shortcuts.
3. Always remember where you came from.
-I truly believe that all of the relationships and experiences that you have along the way (good or bad) are an important part to your eventual success.
4. Always work harder in training than your competitors.
-I always try to go that extra distance in training; this way when I'm standing on the racing blocks about to compete I know that my preparation has been better than the swimmer standing next to me.
5. Never rest on your laurels in sport.
-I'm always looking for ways to improve in training and always looking at techniques to push myself to be better than my competitors.
Do you have advices for the young generations?
Make sure you have a support team around you to keep you motivated.
Enjoy the journey, embrace every day and don't just focus on the end point.
Do you have a key sentence/motto about success?
"I've never known a man worth his salt who, in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline." Vince Lombardi
How important time is and has been in your life? And what does time represents for you?
In swimming, time is everything. Time is the manner by which my performances are measured and rewarded. I've definitely learnt that the smallest unit of time e.g. 1/100th of a second can mean the difference between agony and ecstasy.
« Positive thinking and start your day with a smile. »
How do you deal with time questions in your work?
Given the nature of my sport, I'm constantly questioned by the media and my support team about my goals and aspirations, Many of these goals are time focused e.g. Becoming the fastest 100m Freestyle swimmer in history (46.91seconds). The benchmarks in my sport are all time related. However in saying this, it's important that I don't fixate on this one aspect of my sport. I know that if I put in the hard work my times will come naturally.
How Maurice Lacroix is a natural continuum of your everyday life? What place does it have in your life?
Maurice Lacroix has a very important part in my life, as for me it represents growth, development and maturity. As I've grown older my tastes and style have changed and matured, I believe this is represented in the Maurice Lacroix watches. I feel the association makes a positive connection with the development of my career as a swimmer. The association further continues the undeniable link between my career and the concept of time.

subset: commoncrawl


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I'm sharing you the items that were in my Jolly VoxBox. These were all items that were sent to me for testing and reviewing. I love trying and testing out new things and of course sharing with ya'll my opinion. So let's begin.
1. Skinny Cow Chocolates- ONLY 130 CALORIES for those ladies who have a sweet tooth and is watching their calories. They are filled with peanut butter in the center..reminds me so much of Reese's Peanut Butter cups. I got a sweet tooth and I do watch what I eat so this for me feels less of a sin. They are so delicious.
2. NYC HD Color Trio Eyeshadow. I did a simple look using this palette and added a little black to create more depth to the outer V and lower lash line. Good color pigmentation.
3. Rimmel Show Off Lip Lacquer- It definitely has a smell to it. I can't exactly pin point the exact smell but it's not horrific. It's more like a fruity smell. It applies smoothly and has good pigmentation. Downside to it is the applicator. I don't like that it has a little hole at the very end, now this might have been done to allow more product to go on the brush. Overall it's a good product.
4. Puffs Tissue- To be completely honest, I don't ever purchase tissue paper. If you do then these little packs might be good for you as you can put them in your purse.
5. DuckTape- Great for the holidays because they have a nice pretty patterns. If you are creative then you can find many ways of using this unique tape.


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Refresh your casual attire with the rubber logo crew sweatshirt from Versace Jeans. Crafted in a soft cotton, this piece is designed with long sleeves and a crew neckline. Featuring the brand's logo in a tonal rubber to the chest, this sweatshirt would be a welcome addition to your off-duty collection.
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Melody Ross revealed on her personal blog on July 15th that she departed Chatterbox, the company that she founded, back in April:
It still has not been made public so I won't go into all of the details, close family and friends know…but as of last April…….I am no longer with Chatterbox….the company I founded and built and love, and after I was done running it and owning it, I had a wonderful contract to lead the vision of it and design all of the products….in April, it was time for that to be over…..not sure the future of my tender and sweet and oh-so-been-through-the-ringer company….but, I will sure let you know as details unfold…I really love and respect the people who own the brand now, and know that they will do what's best for Chatterbox…..For now…the information that is mine is that as a family, it was time for me to go and to do what's been in my heart for a very long time…..
Chatterbox was purchased by Ultra-Pro, also the parent company of 7 Gypsies, in December 2007. Chatterbox had previously brought in an investor in November 2006 to take control of their business operations. At that time, Ross reverted to solely a creative role in the company.
So how is Chatterbox moving forward without its founder? That is unclear. The Chatterbox blog has not been updated since April 3rd, and no sneak peeks have been seen of new summer releases. The company is also not listed as an exhibitor at CHA-Summer, although Ultra-Pro brand 7 Gypsies is.


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As leaders from around the world gathered in New York City for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, President Obama flew to New York for a different reason: to impress the ladies of "The View."
Thankfully, he left Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai while he yakked it up with Barbara Walters and friends.
At least he has his priorities straight, right? Wrong!
During one of the most volatile times in the Middle East, and just weeks after one of our ambassadors was killed in attacks on U.S. embassies, our president should have chosen world leaders like Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, or Mohamed Morsi, the first leader of Egypt to be elected democratically, rather than Hollywood stars.
During his visit to New York, Obama did not hold a single meeting with any heads of state, compared with 2011, when he held 13 such meetings. It's clear that he's in full campaign mode, capitalizing on the opportunity to smile for female voters.
When he did address the U.N., on Sept. 25, campaign politics made their way into the speech. In this, his final international address before the November election, Obama declared that the U.S. would not back away from aiding transitioning countries in the Middle East, despite the killing of four Americans in Libya and the countless other acts of violence against America in the region.
Instead of taking a strong stance against the violence aimed at America in the region, once again Obama showed mercy and compassion toward our enemies. In his address, he said that he would "challenge the world to confront the root causes of rage exploding across the Muslim world," and that this is the defining choice "between the forces that would drive us apart and the hopes we hold in common."
Not once did the president mention the word terror.
Mr. President, remember, it was terrorists who stormed our embassy in Libya and murdered Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, and it was Al Qaeda who released the videotape urging Muslims to murder Americans during a time of weakness.
And let's not forget the coincidental fact that these attacks took place on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.


text: From Venezuela to Vermont News Home 12.04.13 By: Mark Tarnacki For a time, the needle on Lino Oropeza's personal compass bounced one direction, then another. Computers felt like his natural calling. His parents had an accounting business in his native Caracas, Venezuela, exposing him to advanced computers at home from early youth. He was programming by age eight. But enrolling out of high school in a college computer-engineering program proved a wrong turn. Computers were one thing, but math and physics left him cold, so the school invited him to leave. Unfazed, Oropeza partnered with a classmate to launch a computer maintenance, software development and networking business. Quickly he was experiencing "what the world would call success." Good money, job security. "And still I felt some emptiness," he says. Maybe, his mother suggested, he should return to church, which he'd stopped attending amid the demands of a new business. Oropeza decided maybe she was right, so he got involved at his childhood Caracas parish, Holy Trinity, founded and run, as it so happens, by Edmundites. When he was 10, Lino had announced to his parents he wanted to be a priest. They'd consulted a psychologist, who determined their son was normal, well-grounded and as serious as a boy his age might be on this topic. But Rev. Ed Dubriske, SSE '60, his pastor, gave solid advice: "Grow up, live your life, go to college and if you still want to be a priest then, come talk to me." Now, returning to church a decade later as an adult, he says, his vocation "came back strong" during a parish retreat's forgiveness ceremony. "I started liking life again," he says. Another close priest friend told him his vocation sounded legitimate, but he really needed to try full-time service work before going further. Oropeza spent a year running a church-sponsored house for kids from remote villages that needed a place to stay on weeknights so they could go to high school. He loved it, and decided to enter diocesan seminary. The Edmundites had no novitiate then, and therefore weren't recruiting, he says, or he'd have tried that first. But four years of seminary-study later, Oropeza happily heard from Dubriske that the Order would welcome him, along with two other Venezuelans who'd shown interest. And so, after a year of guided discernment by a spiritual advisor who was neither Edmundite nor diocesan, he joined the others to visit Vermont, meet the community, work on their English in the Advanced Linguistics program and see where it led. The others got homesick and left eventually, but Oropeza felt he'd found his right path. He entered novitiate, took classes to complete a philosophy degree in 2011, and on August 15 this year at St. Anne's Shrine in beautiful Isle LaMotte, on a perfect summer day, took perpetual vows to enter the Society of Saint Edmund. Fast on his heels is a young American-born novice in earlier stages of Edmundite vows: Michael Carter '12 made his temporary three-year vows at the same August ceremony at the shrine, which is run by the order. Carter was with Oropeza this year at Boston College, also studying for Edmundite priesthood and ordination. "I love it with all my heart, but I also cannot wait to get out after this year and start my ministerial life," Oropeza says, noting how his full-time summer stint in Clinical Pastoral Ministry at Burlington's Fletcher-Allen Health Care taught him things he never could have learned in a classroom. While Oropeza knows his story is atypical in many respects for a modern Saint Michael's student, he also sees in it many key elements that impact the hearts and careers of every graduate. In each student's case, he says, it's a matter of having found the right place to find your right path by way of strong academics, service to others, an accepting and affirming spiritual climate, and good healthy fun. Oropeza says he's taken up snowboarding with a vengeance thanks to the college's popular low-cost-pass deal with Smuggler's Notch. "Now I love winter," he says. To relax, he'll sometimes play his four-string Venezuelan guitar called a cuatro. In warmer weather you'll find him flying two-string stunt kites as a hobby, his iPod earphones plugged in as he prays and thinks, "just enjoying nature and God's creation." "It's not only about your major here, but about how that major connects with everybody else and with everything else in your life," he says. "In Venezuela, the computer courses were narrow on one topic but there was no perspective. I think the liberal-studies core at St. Mike's gives you an ample view of the big horizon to know what's going on in the world."


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PLEASE GOD... Save me
from my job.
No. Thou shalt save thyself.
And I will.
I just screwed this Danish guy, Jakob, for a whole one-hour conference call, slapped him on the face --over the phone. Threw every point he made right back at him (this idiot) and people around me were watching me with surprise. I feel good about that. He's been irresponsive and arrogant since last week when he took over the work, and my patience with people has limits.
The joy I'm getting from screwing this guy is not enough to love this job though.
My ex-manager called me again tonight offering me a job at a company that I've praised here before. He described how he thinks that new project is great, pushing hard for me to join them, and at a certain point callimg me inexplicable and almost crazy for rejecting the yet-to-come offer without even asking for more details. Well, if I rejected that other offer, why not reject this one. But aside from a number of reasons for my rejection, I'm just totally demotivated, and am not willing to try another blunder. Need a big change.


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We're continuing in our study of a general subject is the Bible believable. And we're studying our God breathed Bible. The doctrine of inspiration. We believe this book is the breath of God that He breathed out even the words. And we said that in studying the inspiration of the Bible, we would study two facets. First of all, definition and secondly, defense. We would define it and then we would defend. Now we saw two Scriptures that clearly gave us a definition of inspiration. The first one perhaps the most familiar was 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God." Or better translated, "All Scripture is God breathed." All of it, past, at the time this was written, present at the time it was being written, and future Scripture which was yet to come after Paul had completed 2 Timothy.
All Scripture, all holy writing is the breath of God. These are not the words of men. These are the words of God written through human instruments. But no less the word of God. We saw also an important passage in 2 Peter 1:21. "For the prophecy came not at any time by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved or born along by the Holy Spirit." Those two Scriptures tell us that the Bible is the breath of God and that God used human instruments and kind of carried them along in making sure they put down accurately His word.
Inspiration then is the Bible as authored by God through human instruments. And we believe that because men wrote the actual words and because they actually came out of men's minds makes them no less the word of God or the words of God than had God spoken them Himself. God used men and chose from out of their experience and their own vocabulary the very words He wanted in the holy book. And so this is the God breathed word.
Now we said last time that there are a lot of people who want to define the Bible as inspired. You ask them, they say oh I believe the Bible's inspired, but they have a different doctrine of inspiration. And we said that inspiration is not natural inspiration. It's not a high level of genius that produces a book like this. It's not thought inspiration. It's not that God just gave them a general thought which they put in their own words that would mean there were errors in the word. And if you've got errors in the communication process, you can't get the thought across. Some people tell us the Bible is partially inspired, only the spiritual parts and all the history isn't inspired. But if we can't believe the part that we can verify in history, why would we believe the part spiritually that we can't verify? And then others would say the Bible is inspired existentionally. That is, it's inspired when it hits you. You're really the key. If you get a big message out of it, that's inspiration. The reader is inspired rather than the word of God itself.
Others say and criticizing us really most of the time for the verbal plenary view of inspiration that it's mechanical dictation that we believe that God just cranked out words and men wrote like robots, automatons. And we deny that. We say inspiration is the doctrine that teaches that the holy writings of God, Old and New Testament, inclusive and exclusive are the very words of God in total and every part is the very word of God. This is all of the word of God there is, all of this is the word of God and every word in it is the word of God. And that covers it. As a result of this, therefore, Scripture is infallible. That is it does not lead you to wrong conclusions. It is inerrant. It has no mistakes. It is complete. Nothing is missing. It is authoritative. That means it is binding on men. It is sufficient. That means it does not allow for any lack of information that is germane to godliness and it is effective. It produces what God intended it to produce. And so we defined inspiration. Now, I want to go to the second step tonight and I want to defend it. And we're going to just kind of imagine that we're in a courtroom tonight and we're going to be putting the Bible on trial, as it were. And we're going to call in some people to give testimony to the veracity and the truthfulness and the authoritative, infallibility of the Bible. We're going to, in fact, hear from three different witnesses. The first is a multiple of people. The second is a single one, and the third again, a single one.
But there are three areas of testimony that are going to come into this courtroom tonight to corroborate the fact that the Bible is the word of God. Now we're going to begin, first of all, with the testimony of the Bible writers. That's point number one. The testimony of the Bible writers. The first people that we want to hear from, and as I was studying this, I had to find a place to start. How do you go about defending the Bible?
Well, the first place to start would probably be with the guy that wrote it, the human instrument because he would probably have some opinion about what was going on, wouldn't you agree? I mean, it would seem that the writers of the Bible should have some idea about what inspiration was. They must know whether they wrote this, whether it came out of their minds or whether it came from God, so their testimony is extremely important.
Well, you know, as you begin to look at the testimony of these 40 plus writers who wrote over a period of 1,500 years, living in such separation had really no opportunity for corroboration in many cases. You find some startling and astounding things that are true regarding these men. The writers of Scripture, for example, were often unlearned men. Very often, they were the simplest kind of men without any formal education.
They were not great classical philosophers. For the most part, they were not brilliant geniuses at high levels in some kind of enterprise. They were basically simple people, fishermen, farmers, tax collectors, and so forth. Yet these men and this is the amazing thing, these men wrote with an absolute confidence that what they were writing was the word of God. Now that's astounding.
Several thousand times in the Bible in one way or another, the men who wrote the Bible claimed to be writing the word of God. You say, well, I don't understand what's so significant about that. It's only a claim. But here's what's significant. When you study the Bible, you find that what is impressive about it is that there's no self-consciousness about their claims.
I mean, if I were to sit down and write something that I would say hey folks this is the revelation of the word of God. Now yet people would say well, I mean, who do you think you are? I mean, there would be a certain self-consciousness. I would probably say, well, now, now, this may sound ridiculous, but this is the word of God. Or you might say, you know, you may find this very hard to believe, but God actually gave me these words.
You know, a simple farmer out of the middle of nowhere sits down and writes the word of God if he made it up, you know, he's going to...he's going to put in a little bit of self-consciousness about it to try to defend his right to do this. You know the amazing thing, all through the Bible there is none of that self-consciousness. There is none of that effort to try to convince us that this really is the word of God. They just crank it out, make the claim, and that's it.
And the absence of a defensiveness and the absence of a self-consciousness, speaks of the fact that they weren't trying to bolster their claim. They weren't trying to get over some hump of credibility. They just confidently wrote it and signed it and that was it. It just says "thus saith the Lord," and away it goes and there's no...there's no disclaimer on it. There's no self-consciousness about it at all.
Such direct claims of inspiration on the part of writers are impressive and the view of their limited backgrounds. For the most part, they had very limited formal education; they were in no position to do exalted writing. How could such men ever pen something as magnificent as this? How could common men ever come up with anything to touch this? Why do you know that all over the world throughout history people have studied this for its literary value alone? It shows a genius that's not matched in any other writings in the history of the world.
You mean a bunch of farmers got together and did it on their own? A bunch of fishermen? How could men have known such great truths? How could they have made such unbelievable claims of speaking for God if God had not truly spoken through them? You know when Peter and John were in Jerusalem and they were preaching, I mean, they were firing out all kinds of fantastic things, and Peter went before the Sanhedrin, you know, and he gave him that wonderful message and they were expecting to bring him on trial and he really put them on trial. He said, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved." And they couldn't believe it. And they said wait a minute, how can these people know so much? They're ignorant, unlearned Galileans. What do they know?
But Peter didn't go to the Sanhedrin and say now, I realize we're ignorant, unlearned Galileans and you're not going to believe this, but could I speak to you from God. None of that. There is just an air of infallibility. There's an air of authority. Thiessin said and I quote from him, "How could uninspired man write a book that commands all duty, forbids all sin, including the sin of hypocrisy and lying, denounces all human merit as insufficient for salvation, holds out as man's only hope, faith, and the atoning death, physical resurrection and present intercession of Christ, condemns all men to Hell for all eternity who reject this one way of salvation and persist in sin."
You mean somebody was a hypocrite and wrote a book about hypocrisy and said all hypocrites spend forever in Hell? No, men don't write books that damn themselves. The Bible is the library of 66 different books written by 40 plus authors over 1,500 years. All of the authors with perhaps the exception of one and maybe two were Jews. All of them are writing out of the Jewish background, and yet the Bible has universal appeal.
Two Bible writers were kings, two were priests, one was a physician, two were fishermen, two were shepherds. Paul was a Pharisee and a theologian. Daniel was a statesman. Matthew a tax collector. Joshua a soldier. Ezra a scribe. Nehemiah was a butler. And on it goes.
All different people, all different times, all writing with the same authority, brought together a whole, never contradictory developing the same perfect theme and that whole is the word of God. The Bible contains history and when it contains history its right. It can be historically verified and we'll get into that in our later study.
The Bible contains science and when the Bible talks about science, the Bible is right. The Bible says "He hangeth the world on nothing," and the Bible is right. The Bible talks about medicine. And it gives laws of health far back as Exodus and you know doctors today can verify that particular prescription for healthy life. The Bible talks about ethics. The Bible talks about practical wisdom and all throughout history these things have been verified as true.
Now the writers claim to be inspired of God. They claim to be writing from the breath of God, and if that's true, then it's easy to understand the Bible. Do you know that? And if, in fact, God did write this, it's easy to understand it. Now if He didn't write it, man is it hard to understand this. You know why? Could you believe 40 different guys and 40 different times all writing their own thoughts agreed? Could you believe that all those people wrote 66 books over 1,500 years and all came out with the same answer to everything?
Now you may want to believe the Bible, but if you don't believe God wrote the Bible, then you tell me who did. It is astounding. I mean, it was until William Harvey that we discovered that the circulatory system was what kept you alive in the Bible. In the oldest book it says the life of the flesh is the blood.
Then there was Herbert Spencer who came along about 1903 and made the great categorical discovery that everything in the universe fits into five categories, time, force, action, space, and matter. That was the categorical discovery. And he said that everything that's in existence can be put into that category, one of those five. And everybody said wonderful Herbert, you've done it again.
Well, it was wonderful of Herbert. Moses did it in the first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, that's time, God, that's force, created, that's...that's action. I'm not a scientist, you realize that. The heaven's, that's matter, the space, and the earth that's matter. First verse of the Bible it took Herbert until 1903. The Bible has a lot of interesting things to say scientifically its right. Oh the higher critics used to say oh the Bible can't be true. The Bible can't be true, why it says such and such and such, and that never happened and then somebody discovers an archeological dig and there they find that the Bible was right.
Now if God didn't write it, you tell me who did. And then there's prophecy, how are you going to deal with that? How are you going to deal with it when you go to the city of Jerusalem and you stand there and you see the eastern gate all sealed up and then you read the prophet in the Old Testament that said this gate will be sealed up and there it is sealed up? Or how do you handle the prophecy that Babylon would be destroyed? And Babylon was the greatest city in the world. That kind of a prophecy would have poopawed as an irresponsible statement. As I said before, that would be like saying the boy scouts are going to knock off New York. I mean it just couldn't happen. Babylon couldn't be destroyed and you know what, it was and is and it isn't any more. If God didn't write this book, you tell me who wrote it.
You got a worse problem if God didn't write it trying to figure out this mystery because this is a toughy. But if God did write it, it's easy to understand, right?
Now, let's look at these writers. What did they claim? Let's look at the Old Testament writers. Did the Old Testament writers think they were writing the words of God? Let's call into our little courtroom here the Old Testament writers and hear what they have to say. Thirty eight hundred and eight times they said that they wrote the word of God. Now do you think they were trying to get a message to us?
Three thousand eight hundred and eight times they refer to their words as the very words of God. One should be enough, 3,808 times is plenty. If you had a trial and you brought in 3,808 witnesses, you probably would have a pretty substantial case. Someone even tallied the actual claims to inspiration. I mean, the very actual claims and they said there are 680 of them in the Pentateuch. There are 1,307 in the prophetic books, 418 in the history books, and 195 in the poetic books. And that totals at least 2,600 explicit claims that they were writing under the inspiration of God.
After the giving of the law Moses said, and I quote Deuteronomy 4, "You shall not add unto the word which I commanded you, neither shall you diminish from it." This isn't my word. Don't you add anything to it and don't you take anything away from it. Deuteronomy 4:2. Listen to Deuteronomy 6:1, "Now these are the commandments, the statutes and the ordinances which the Lord your God commanded to teach you." He says "These are from God that you might fear the Lord your God and keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you." In other words, Moses said, I'm only telling you the word of God. Verse 6, "And these words which I command ye this day shall be in thine heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, shall talk of them when ye sittest in thine house, when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou risest up, shall bind them for a sign upon thine hands and they shall be as frontless between thine eyes and thou shalt write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates."
These are God's words and these are to be treated with sacred care. This is the word of God says Moses. And again in Deuteronomy 12:32, "Whatsoever thing I command you observe to do it thou shalt not add thereto nor diminish from it." You cannot add to the word of God said Moses.
In Amos 3:7, the prophet says, "Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing but He reveals His secret unto His servants the prophets." Amos says God reveals what He's going to do under the prophets, revelation from God. What about the New Testament writers? Do they believe what the Old Testament writers believe? Did they really think they're writing the word of God? Did Paul really think that when he wrote his letters?
Well, first of all, what did they think about the Old Testament? What did the New Testament writers think about the Old Testament? Did Paul think the Old Testament was inspired? Listen to this, there are at least 320 direct quotes in the New Testament directly out of the Old Testament. Three hundred and twenty times New Testament writers quote the Old Testament.
Now listen, at least 1,000 times they refer to the Old Testament. So there you have it. They believed that the Old Testament was the revelation of God. They directly quoted it 320 times and referred to it at least 1,000 times. In Romans 15:4 listen to the words of Paul. "For whatever things were written in early times were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope."
Paul says whatever was written back there was written for our learning. It was Scripture and it was written to give us hope. Peter said, "Holy men of God wrote as they were born along by the Holy Spirit." Peter believed the Old Testament was inspired. A writer of Hebrews says, "God who at sundry times and diverse manner spake in time passed unto the fathers by the prophets."
The writer of Hebrews believed the Old Testament Scripture was the word of God. James, James describes the authority of the Old Testament when he says in James 4:5, "Think ye that the Scriptures speak in vain?" In other words, he's saying you better believe what the Old Testament says. Paul gave witness to the perfection of the Old Testament when he said regarding the law of God in Romans 7:12, he said "The law of God is holy, just, and good." And he said he loved the law of God, he delighted in it.
The author of Hebrews does the same thing. He presents the word as living, effectual, penetrating and he goes so far as to say it judges us, we can't judge it. Now there are many illustrations in the New Testament of how New Testament writers used the Old Testament and they referred to it.
Now look at Acts 7:38, just to show that these things are every place. Well, you have to go to 37 first. "This is that Moses who said unto the children of Israel a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren like me. Him shall you hear. This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him in Mount Sinai and our fathers who received the living oracles to give unto us." God wanted to give His word. He gave it to an angel, who gave it to man, who gave it to us. That's the sequence. Now it goes further than that, just to give you another illustration. Acts 13:34, "And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead now no more to return to corruption, he said in this way I will give you the sure mercies of David, wherefore, he saith also in another Psalm, thou shalt not allow thine holy one to see corruption."
David said that, but here it is a attributed by Paul to God. So in one reference of the Old Testament, David speaks, in the New Testament Paul says God said. It is God who speaks. It is David who speaks. It's the same thing. That's inspiration. Now it goes in the book of Acts, I'll just give you one more, 28:25 the last page of the book of Acts.
"And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word." Here's what he said, listen. "Well spoke the Holy Spirit by Isaiah the prophet." Now again, it is the Holy Spirit speaking through a human instrument. Now there just in a simple look, I gave you five indications that the New Testament writers, the New Testament preachers believed that the Old Testament word of men, the word of the prophets was in fact the word of the Holy Spirit and there are many more.
They're all written by men in the Old Testament, all spoken by men in the Old Testament, all attributed to God in the New Testament. And this is interesting, Genesis 12, I think might serve. Genesis 12, "And the Lord said unto Abram get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I'll show thee and I'll make of thee a great nation. Bless thee make thy name great. Thou shalt be a blessing. I'll bless them that bless thee, curse him that curses thee and these shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
The thing you should notice is prior to the Abramic covenant, the Bible says "Now the Lord had said unto Abram." Who said this? The Lord did. Now to show you an interesting little comment on that, Galatians 3:8, listen to what it says. "And the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles through faith preached before the gospel unto Abram saying in these shall all nations be blessed."
Now here Paul says, the Scripture says it. In Genesis 12 it said who said it? God said it. Now watch this, whatever the Scripture says, what, God says. And every often in the New Testament and there are other illustrations of it, when you look at a scriptural passage, it is indicating to us in the New Testament that this is what Scripture says and if you compare it in the Old Testament, you'll find it's what God said. You know why Paul did that? The only reason that we could ever allow for Paul to do that was because he habitually in his mind identified the voice of God with the written Scripture. Do you understand that? The reason Paul would call a statement by God, the statement that Scripture says is because he in his mind equated the word of God with what? Scripture. That's basic.
Beloved when you open the pages of that Old Testament, you are reading what God says. Is that exciting? I mean, that's a communication. Now there are also other examples where New Testament writers refer to Old Testament. Let me give you another thought. Do New Testament writers ever say that other New Testament writers are inspired? What about that? Is there any testimony from New Testament writers to other New Testament writers? There is, there definitely is.
Let me give you one. Are you ready for this? 1 Timothy 5:18, this is interesting. 1 Timothy 5:18, and you've probably read this verse many times and never thought of it in this light because maybe you never looked it up. Listen, verse 18, "For the Scripture says," and here's Paul and he quotes it, "thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain." Now you know what that principle is? That's the principle that comes from Deuteronomy 25:4. So what is Paul is saying about Deuteronomy 25:4? What does he call it? Scripture.
Now you say what's the point of the verse? The point of the verse here is pay the preacher. Don't muzzle the ox that treads out the grain. In other words, if you want the ox to do the job, you've got to stick something in his mouth, feed him. That's the point of the passage. But he says this, "And the Scripture says thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treads," and the Scripture says, "the laborer is worthy of his reward." You want to hear something interesting, you say what Scripture says that? Now listen to this Luke 10:7. Now hold on to that thought, you got it? He says the Old Testament Deuteronomy 25:4 is Scripture and so is the New Testament Luke 10:7. Here is New Testament writers corroborating New Testament Scripture as Scripture. And that's a quote from Luke 10:7.
Paul calls Luke Scripture, isn't that exciting? And so when Paul says all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, later on in his second letter he not only means all Old Testament, he means Luke and everybody else that's New Testament Scripture. So he calls both Old Testament and New Testament Scripture.
Let me give you another one, this is really exciting. 2 Peter 3:15, tremendous statement. And Peter's going along here and he says "And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation." Aren't you glad that the Lord is patient? Aren't you glad that the Lord hasn't brought judgment? It isn't because He can't, it's because He's gracious isn't it? Not willing to issue judgment.
So the long-suffering of our Lord means salvation. The longer the Lord tarries the more can come to Christ. Watch this, "Even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you." Now listen, he says this is...I'm just telling you what our beloved Paul said. As also in, how many of Epistles, all his Epistles? "Speaking in them of these things which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable rest," watch this one, "as they do also thee," what, "other Scriptures." Now wait a minute. Wait a minute. What is Peter saying?
He's saying all the Epistles of Paul do what the other Scriptures do? What is he then saying about all the Epistles of Paul? That's other Scripture, that's Scripture. Here is one of the great statements on New Testament inspiration. Peter said, "All of Paul's Epistles are inspired just like the other Scriptures." That settles the issues doesn't it?
For Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, that's pretty good. The credibility of the gospels is accorded already in the passage we saw in 1 Timothy 5:18 where Luke is credited as being Scripture. So you've already got the credibility of the gospels, you've already the credibility of all of Paul's Epistles, and now we just took care of 1 and 2 Peter.
You see the New Testament is very careful to substantiate itself. Listen, the apostle Paul gave testimony time and time again about his inspiration from God. Galatians 1:11, he says, "I made known to you brethren the gospel which was preached by me is not after man." No, sir. "Neither received I it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." What I say to you God gave me. God gave me.
Verse 16, "He revealed His Son in me. I conferred not with flesh and blood." The message came divinely. Listen to his own statement in Ephesians 3:3, "How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery." In other words, God gave me this thing himself by revelation.
And he makes this claim over and over again. Another example that might help you to see it is 1 Corinthians 11:23. We read that Scripture when we have communion. It says, "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you." Now what I'm to tell you about communion, I received from whom? From the Lord. Was he around when the Lord was on earth? Nope. That's revelation. Paul claimed to be inspired of God and that isn't just a once in a while claim. He claimed it over and over again.
1 Corinthians 15:3, "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received." In other words, again, he says what I'm telling you is what I received from the Lord. This is a typical statement by Paul. In fact, in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, "For this cause also thank we God without ceasing because when you receive the word of God which you heard of us, you received it not as the word of men but as it is in truth, the word of God." What I said to you, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, you accept it as the word of God.
Now that's either a monumental ego or it's the truth. You know that wonderful passage about the rapture, 1 Thessalonians 4:15? Listen to what he said. "For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord that we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together." "This we say unto you by," what, "the word of the Lord."
Again, he claims an inspiration that God is speaking through him as He did through David and the Old Testament prophets. In Colossians 1:25, "Of which I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you to fulfill the word of God." And gain, his only purpose was to manifest the word of God to fulfill the word of God. The mystery which was hidden from ages and generations now made manifest through him.
And so over and over Paul makes this claim. In 1 Timothy 4:1, he says, "The Spirit speaks clearly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith." Well who was the Spirit speaking to? To him. The Spirit speaks. He could open His mouth and say the Holy Spirit is now saying to you, because that was true. They weren't his words. They were the words of the Holy Spirit. In fact, Paul says in Titus in 1:3 "That in due time God manifested His word through preaching, which is committed unto me." God's word coming through my mouth.
And it goes on and on and on like this in Paul's letters. What about John? I mean, he wrote the gospel of John, 1, 2, and 3 John, Revelation. Well, you know what John has seven times? He has a double signature in all of his two and three chapters at the end of those letters to the churches. It says, "These things saith He." And then John writes the letter, and you know what he says at the end? "Let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." John said it's coming from Jesus Christ through me and when it was all done he said this is the message of the Holy Spirit. John claimed inspiration.
And John writing in Revelation 19:9 said, "These are the true words of God." In Revelation 21:5, he says, "These words are faithful and true." And even at the very beginning of the book of Revelation, "Blessed is he that reads and they that hear the words of this prophecy." The end of Revelation, "If you add anything to them shall be added to you the plagues that are written therein."
Now do you see people the testimony of the Bible writers? Is it clear? They believe they wrote the word of God. Let's go to the second witness. The Lord Jesus Christ, point two. What did Jesus think about Scripture? That's very important. I want to know what He thought, don't you? I trust Him. I want to know what His view of Scripture was. I'm going to just fire off with a whole bunch of things so try to get them down as you can.
First of all, He acknowledged that He was theme of all Scripture, didn't He? That He was theme of all of it. In John 5:39, you remember Jesus said to the Jewish leaders and He said, "You've searched the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life." And then He said, "And these are they which bear witness of me." So first of all, Jesus taught that He was the theme of all Scripture. Revelation 19:10 says, that Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. "The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy." The Bible is all about Him. In Luke 24:44, going down Emmaus Road, the Bible says that He opened the Scriptures from the law and the prophets and the writings and taught them the things concerning whom, Himself. Not only did Christ teach that He was the theme of all Scripture, but He said He came to fulfill all Scripture.
In Matthew 5:17, He said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law of prophets. I came not to destroy, but to fulfill." In Matthew 26:24, He looked at His cross and this is what He said. "The Son of man goes forth." Listen, "Even as it is written of Him."
He commanded Peter to put away a sword and He said to him in Matthew 26:54, "Put that sword away, how then should the Scripture be fulfilled." In other words, He came to fulfill Scripture. His view of Scripture was it was all about Him and every detail had to be fulfilled. In fact, in John 10:35, He made a staggering statement that for me it closes the case forever. In John 10:35, Jesus simply said this, "Scripture cannot be broken." What did He mean? Violated.
"Scripture cannot be violated." What did He mean that? If God said it, it's true. It'll happen. In fact, He even compared the duration of Scripture to the duration of the universe didn't He? He said, "It's easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one tittle of the law to fail," in Luke 16:17. He compared the quality of endurance of the word to that of the universe.
Luke 18:31, "All the things that are written through the prophets shall be accomplished." What was Jesus' view of Scripture? He believed it was the word of God and it was going to fulfilled. And you know, He even believed the very words. I mean the very words. Look at Matthew 22:32 and I'll show you just an illustration. We could show you others. Look at this one. Matthew 22:32, oh these Sadducees were always arguing about the resurrection. And they said in verse 24, "Master, Moses said if a man dies and has no children, his brother should marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there was a guy with seven brothers and the first one he married, the wife died and having no issue left his wife unto his brother and all these single brothers marry this woman and all die."
They couldn't have been too smart. They must have known something was going on. But then they said, "In the resurrection whose wife shall she be," ha ha, see. That was real funny. Seven husbands, whose wife is she going to be when they get up there. Jesus said, "You do err not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." "You do err," what, "not knowing the Scriptures." "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels of God in heaven as touching the resurrection of the dead. Have you not read that which was spoken unto you by God saying I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." And the whole argument turned on the verb am.
"I am the God of Abraham," the present tense verb a me is the issue in the passage. They were worrying about the future and how it was going to be over there. Jesus said, "Don't you know that it says that God said I am the God of Abraham," the present tense emphasis on the verb. God is the God of the living by the virtue of His name. Not I will be the God Abraham. Some day when you get here, I'll be your God.
No, no, the very fact of the verb tense is the argument that supports Jesus' statement. He is the God of the living. So you see Jesus was very concerned with even the construction of the verbs in the word of God. And incidentally, I think you ought to remember too that Jesus put all Scripture on an equal basis with His word. He didn't just say what I say is true. He said in Matthew 24:35, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." He acknowledged the power of the word. When He was tempted by Satan three times, He replied with quotes from Deuteronomy didn't He? He quoted and referred to the Scripture. He said over and over again, "have you not read, did you never read, is it not written, it is written." How many times have you heard those phrases in the mouth of Jesus?
He quoted again and again from the Old Testament. On the cross, He recited the fulfillments of prophecy. Psalm 22 said that when Messiah died on the cross, He would cry out. He would cry out, "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me." Jesus nailed on the cross cried out "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me." You can find it in Psalm 69, Psalm 31 that He would thirst it says in the Psalms. And Jesus cried out, "I thirst." Consciously fulfilling the prophecies. He believed in every word of the Old Testament.
Let me give you another interesting insight, I think this is important. Jesus corroborated the great truths of the Old Testament. Did you know that Jesus confirmed the creation of Adam and Eve? He said in effect that what the Old Testament says about Adam and Eve is true. Matthew 19:4, "Have you not read? Don't you know your Scriptures that He who made them at the beginning made them male and female?"
Now, do you see he corroborates the Genesis account? I don't understand how anybody who believes in Jesus Christ and believes in the truthfulness of the statements of Christ could ever believe in progressive creation or theistic evolution. Jesus didn't believe in it.
He says, "Haven't you read that God created them male and female?" God made a man and He made a woman and He said "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife and they too shall be one flesh." And He corroborates God's monogamist design for marriage as well that came in Genesis.
Jesus substantiates the truth of the book of Genesis. And you know, people say well, it wasn't a really a man. It was really a woman. It was kind of a little allegory and all that. You couldn't believe that and believe the credibility of the word of Jesus there in Matthew 19.
Jesus believed in the real creation as recorded in Genesis. And He substantiates it. You know, another thing that people have kind of denied throughout the years is the flood. They don't like the idea of the flood. So that's a convenient thing to deny. Jesus believed in the Noahic flood, did you know that? Yes, He believed the Old Testament record in Genesis of Noah. Matthew 24:37, "But as the days of Noah were so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered into the ark." You think Jesus believed that was an allegory?
No, He believed it was fact. And so Jesus supported the creation. He supported Noah and the flood. He supported the role of Abraham and his faith. Yes, the Old Testament said Abraham was justified by faith and Jesus supported that very thing in John Chapter 8 when He says in verse 56 regarding him, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see to my day. He saw it and was glad." His hope and anticipation in the coming of the Messiah.
Jesus in John 7 confirms circumcision as taught in the Old Testament. Jesus confirmed the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife as recorded in the Old Testament. Jesus mentions in Luke 17 the salvation of Lot. In Mark 12, the call of Moses. In John 6, He talks about the manna that was provided the children of Israel in the wilderness. And in John 3, He refers to the brazen serpent lifted up in the wilderness by which Israel was healed.
Over and over, and that's only a few friends. Over and over Jesus agreed and confirmed the authority of the Old Testament record. Now, I want you to know something, if Jesus believed the Old Testament, I'm with Him. I believe it. Jesus established the sufficiency of the Scripture to save men. One of the most interesting statements that He ever made is in Luke 16:29. He said, "They have Moses and the prophets," what, "let them hear them." They don't need a special thing. They don't need a resurrection. Let them hear the prophets. That's enough to bring them to the truth. And in Mark 12, He shows that the error for everything is the failure to know the Scripture. Mark 12:24 and 27 says, "Is it not for this cause that you err. That you know not the Scriptures." Jesus said, you err because you don't know them. If you knew them, you would not err and therefore Jesus assigned the Scriptures, the ability to keep a man from error, a righteous quality.
Give you an interesting statistic. One-tenth, one out of ten of Jesus' words were from the Old Testament. Out of the 1,800 verses reported in the New Testament quoting Jesus, 180 of them come from the Old Testament. He believed it. He who is the truth, He who is the word, knew, believed and submitted to the inspired writings with no reservations. Now, I'll tell you something friends, if He did, I'm willing to.
You've only got three possibilities. Number one, there are no errors in the Scripture, okay? That's a possibility. Ready for this? Number two, there are errors, but Jesus didn't know about them and that's why He was so strong on the Old Testament. There are errors, but He didn't know about them. Thirdly, there are errors, He knew about them, but covered them up. Now that's the only choices you have. One, there are no errors. Two, there are, but Christ didn't know them, and He didn't know them then He isn't God and if He isn't God you can throw the whole thing away. Or He did know them, but He covered them up, and God isn't holy is He?
If you're going to have a holy God and a holy Christ, you're going to believe in the word of God. The belief in the deity of Jesus Christ demands a belief in the verbal plenary inspiration of Scripture.
Now, I've got one more witness we're going to call the Holy Spirit. The first two are objective, this one's subjective. Now listen to this. The belief that the Bible is inspired of God is not the result of intellect. It's not the result of a decree. It's a result of the work of the Holy Spirit. Would you agree to that?
Reasons and premises for the authority of the Bible must come from outside the Bible. And you can have a lot of outside arguments, but you'll never believe the Bible until the Holy Spirit does His work in you? Do you know why? Because here's our argument, we believe the Bible's true because the Bible says it's true.
Now, if you're a logician, you're going to say that's a circular argument. I don't believe the Bible's true because I don't believe the Bible when it says it's true. Now, that's a good point. If you don't believe the Bible, you're not going to believe the Bible when the Bible says the Bible's true. Before you'll ever believe the Bible's true, you've got to believe the Bible, and that's the work of the Spirit.
When somebody accepts the Bible as the word of God, it's the work of the Spirit and cause it to dawn on him. It's the best phrase I could think of. Listen, the Holy Spirit has to get us over the hurdle of the effects of sin. You know, when Adam fell, the human race got messed up. We became not stupid, but hostile. We're not stupid so that's it hard to understand truth. We're hostile so we don't want to accept truth, okay?
"Men did not like to retain God in their knowledge," Romans 1 says. And so the preaching of the cross comes along and its foolishness. The natural man receiveth not the things of God. So in order for him to stop being hostile, in order for his abnormal depraved mind to receive the truth of God, it has to be remade by the Holy Spirit doesn't it. So it's impossible by argument. It's impossible by preaching alone to cause anybody to believe the Bible. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. His testimony is not the objective outside testimony, it's the subjective inside.
And I'll be honest and you be honest with me, you believe the Bible because that's just the way you feel inside, right? That's the work of the Holy Spirit. You say does that mean evidence is useless? Nope. Doesn't mean evidence is useless. Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15, "You ought to have an answer to give to every man for the reason of the hope that's in you." Right. And you know that Paul in the book of Acts went around reasoning, alleging and proving. You say, well, now wait a minute, if the Holy Spirit does it on the inside what good does this do? Now listen watch this.
The witness of the Spirit is a witness to something. Okay, you've got to have something there that he can witness to. If no preacher proclaims the message, then there's nothing in the man's mind for the Spirit to witness to. The Spirit cannot produce belief in Christ if the sinner hasn't heard about him. And the Spirit cannot produce belief in the word of God until somebody has heard the word of God. Oh you say are you sure about that John?
Well, I'm as sure as Paul who said in Romans 10:14 this. Listen, "How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?" Now listen, "And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not," what, "heard. And how shall they hear without a preacher." See. So then verse 17 says, "Faith comes by hearing." You see when the evidence is presented, then the Holy Spirit has something to witness to.
Beloved the ultimate testimony then is the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Well, I don't know about you, but the testimony of the Old Testament, the New Testament writers, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit all defending the inspiration of the Bible is solid case for me. Listen to this command. Colossians 3:16, in response to what you've learned to tonight, we'll you listen to this? "Let the word of Christ," what, "dwell in you richly."
Oh what a precious thing it is. Do you know what your mind should be? Your mind should be a tablet where the word of God is written. Let the word of Christ...what's the word of Christ? This whole thing, this whole thing is all about whom? Christ. This is the word of Christ. Let it dwell, enoi...enoi keto, let it be in you at home in you richly, plusious, abundantly. I mean, let this get in deep down and be at home in your life.
Drink it in, eat it, feed on it. Then once you've done that obey it. Obey it. "Be not hearers only but," what, "doers." And listen friend after you've drunk it in and obeyed it, pass it on will you. Will you share it? 2 Thessalonians 3:1, I love this, "Finally brethren," Paul says, "pray for us that the word of the Lord may have free course." Isn't that good? Paul says I've got it in me and I'm obeying it. Pray for me that I can spread it. Free course.
Paul's prayer was to hold forth the word of life. Boy I'm telling you if we really believed what Jesus said when He said "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God," where would be spend our time. The American Medical Association estimates the average American will consume in his lifetime 150 head of cattle, 2,400 chickens, 225 lambs, 26 sheep, 310 pigs, 26 acres of grain, 50 acres of fruits and vegetables.
"Man shall not live by bread alone." Man we are giving it a good shot. An outdoor bulletin board on a church in Quincy, Massachusetts said this, "A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't." You've got a real treasure beloved, so do I. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the precious word. For what it means to us for how it speaks to us. We thank you father for the fact that the Spirit of God takes the word of God and makes it applicable to our hearts. We thank you Lord that the testimony of the writers is that this is in fact your word. Testimony of those New Testament and Old Testament and then that it is the testimony of Jesus Christ and the blessed Holy Spirit that this is the truth of God.
Father, we thank you. We thank you for giving the word. We thank the Son for incarnating the word. We thank the blessed Spirit for teaching the word. Help us to drink it in, obey it, and pass it on. We'll praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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We just received word of an exciting development at the West Side Rail Yards. The Department of City Planning has announced that the City will initiate the process to allow it to acquire the High Line above 30th Street.
The City's decision to pursue the authority to the High Line is a major step towards achieving our ultimate goals: full preservation of the historic structure north of 30th Street, including the 10th Avenue Spur, and completion of the High Line project all the way to 34th Street.
Read the full Press Release [PDF]
To understand the importance of this advance, it's helpful to remember that the City's 2005 acquisition of the High Line south of 30th Street was a crucial step in the preservation of that section. Similarly, we expect this action to lead ultimately to park construction on the northern end of the High Line.
This would have never happened without the tireless efforts of our High Line supporters. When the current planning process for the rail yards began over three years ago, many believed that the chances of preserving the High Line were slim to none. Our supporters came out to countless public review sessions, developer presentations, and City Council hearings, spoke out, and wrote letters. Though there is still much work to be done before the High Line's future is secure at the rail yards, this announcement is a true victory for the High Line.
Special thanks also go to the Department of City Planning, especially Chair Amanda Burden, who has long recognized the value of the High Line to the rail yards site, to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, whose leadership reversed the City policy to demolish the entire High Line in 2002, to the City Council under the leadership of Speaker Christine Quinn, who has been at the forefront of this advocacy campaign, to United States Representative Jerrold Nadler, who has worked towards the High Line's preservation at the rail yards for decades, to Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, and all of our partners at Community Board 4 and Hudson Yards Community Advisory Committee. Without the support of our elected and government leaders, the High Line's preservation at the rail yards would be an impossible dream. Thanks also to the Related Companies, the site's developer, for their recognition of the High Line's value and their work to integrate it into their plans for the site.
The process that begins with this announcement, and ends in the City's official right to acquire the High Line above 30th Street, will likely take several months. Along the way, there will be a number of opportunities for public comment, and we will be urging our supporters to once again show up to support the High Line. You will be hearing from us in the coming weeks about these next steps. We are confident that with your continued support, our hard work will result in the full preservation of this iconic part of New York City's industrial past.
Filed under: Rail Yards |


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Plant Your Flag in a Faraway Place
The sleepy coastal towns of northern Mozambique have old-world charms and near-deserted beaches that remind travelers of the joy of discovery.
For a certain breed of traveler, just ticking off the continents isn't enough—after all, where package tours go (and they go almost everywhere these days), the hordes will follow. That's why a handful of die-hard explorers are making their way to the remote, beautiful—and largely tour-group-free—coastal towns of northern Mozambique.
The old governor's palace on 1.8-mile-long Mozambique Island, just off the country's northeast coast, is filled with treasures once carried along Portugal's Far East trading route: ornately carved wooden furniture from Goa, waist-high porcelain vases from China, and glass chandeliers from Murano, Italy. But visitors to this former capital, referred to as Ilha (il-ee-ah)—from its Portuguese name—don't need a museum to see firsthand the island's vibrant interplay of past and present.
Beyond the 50 cannons perched on the crenellated walls of the enormous, 16th-century coral-rock fort, women wade in the turquoise waters daily at low tide, collecting mollusks to prepare for dinner, while children scavenge for porcelain shards and beads that still wash ashore from centuries-old shipwrecks (they sell the former at souvenir stands in the village and string the latter into necklaces). And in the nearly two decades that have elapsed since the end of Mozambique's civil war, the country's increasing stability has drawn a wave of entrepreneurial expats to join this and other northeastern coastal communities. These new arrivals are busily restoring colonial-era neoclassic buildings—vestiges of Portuguese rule—and opening small hotels, dive outfits, and restaurants that blend African touches like the ever-present spicy piri-piri chile sauce with European cuisines.
One of these trailblazers is Rino Scuccato, an Italian doctor who founded Ilha's 10-room O Escondidinho hotel in 2003 in a 19th-century whitewashed stone building with high ceilings, large windows, and a courtyard swimming pool. Its restaurant, run by a French couple, serves fresh-squeezed mango juice and seasonal dishes like avocado salad and lemon-grilled local fish such as sea bream and panga, caught just offshore.
About 260 miles north, in the shallow waters of the 32-island Quirimbas archipelago, lies Ibo, another former port laden with picturesque stone ruins where nearly all connection to the outside world is determined by the tides that carry wooden dhows to and from the island. "When I first approached Ibo by boat, all I could see were mangrove forests; then, suddenly, the boat turned a corner, and the white buildings appeared in front of me. It was magical," says Elder Lourenco, a Frenchman who's been living there since 2007. That view convinced Lourenco and his German business partner, Jorg Salzer, to open Miti Miwiri, a nine-room hotel in a two-story house with a veranda that overlooks a mangrove bay and the old town center. Ibo's lost-in-time vibe is the draw for many: There are no ATMs or credit card machines on the island, telecommunications can be spotty, and older mores hold sway (read: Bring a cover-up for that bikini). But the recent increase in 25-minute flights from the region's biggest city, Pemba, may soon change things.
If the islands are all about old-world charm, the mainland coast claims the best beaches. Italian kitesurfing enthusiast Carlo Macchiarulo spent years scouting the area before striking his version of gold—a stretch of ocean with consistently strong winds and safe currents. When he found what he was looking for at Murrebue Beach, 20 minutes south of Pemba, Macchiarulo and his wife, Susanna, put down roots. In 2007, the couple opened Il Pirata, an open-air restaurant serving wood-oven pizza topped with shrimp, and then added three thatched waterfront bungalows later that year. "Even now, when you take a walk along the sand, you can almost imagine that you're the only one who's ever been here," Macchiarulo says. Considering that only six guests can stay on the beach at any given time, that's not even much of a stretch.
Getting There
South African Airways flies direct from New York and Washington, D.C., to Johannesburg (flysaa.com, from $918 round trip); Air Mozambique (LAM) flights to Pemba leave three times a week (lam.co.mz, from $490 round trip). Kaskazini Tourism Services can arrange round-trip flights from Pemba to Ibo (kaskazini.com, from $240).
When to Go
Late spring through early fall is the ideal time to visit; the rainy season is typically November to March.
Where to Stay
O Escondidinho hotel (escondidinho.net, from $70); Miti Miwiri (mitimiwiri.com, from $50); Il Pirata (murrebue.com, from $101).
The official language of Mozambique is Portuguese, though English is spoken in most tourist spots.


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Welcome to the Tennessee Park Rangers Association Website. By striving towards the vision of the Association, the TPRA has accomplished the following: 501(c)(6) nonprofit status, fitness initiative, emergency contact planners, newsletters, ranger of the year award, housing supplement, monetary compensation plans, central office personnel infrastructure, memorials, policy implementation, service weapon retention, civil service status reinstatement, elevated job requirements, interview process review, legislation review and support (such as handguns in state parks legislation and increase of retirement compensation and dependents in the event of an officers death), retiree acknowledgements, emergency donation fund, social gatherings, and a web page for better communication.
Join us and help us continue to better ourselves and continue to raise our professionalism.
Ranger Association Info
TPRA Board Members
TPRA BY-Laws
TPRA Committees
"To preserve and protect, in perpetuity, unique examples of natural, cultural, and scenic areas and provide a variety of safe, quality, outdoor experiences through a well-planned and professionally managed system of state parks."


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Moderators: Three Stars, dagny, pfim, netwolf
taz71 wrote:I don't understand why Tampa bought out him rather than Malone
Darren Dreger @DarrenDreger 3m 5 years, $4.5 per for Vinny in Philly confirmed.
Tim Panaccio @tpanotchCSN 3m Source says 5 year $23.5 mill for Lecavalier as a Flyer. checking on that
Beveridge wrote:I would love to see him sign some stupid contract in Philly.
I don't think Holmgren looks past one year when doing contracts.
He is in for a shocker when he sees Giroux, Schenn, and Couturier are all RFA next summer.
GDR wrote:Malkin will destroy him like usual, only more times a year.
Boogeyman wrote:Makes sense, his girlfriend lives up the road in New York and plays for the Rangers.
Users browsing this forum: brwi, BurghThing, Crashguy66, danish_penguin, DelPen, Faubert5, KG, PaLionking, Pensfan4life8771, Sigwolf, Skatingpen, stonewizard51, THEREALpittsburghpenguins and 52 guests


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Finally, after two long and rather ridiculous seasons that saw the Winnipeg Jets based out of the Southeast, the league has undergone re-alignment and have the team in a realistic division: The Central. Over the next week I will provide a preview of the Jets new Divisional Rivals, giving you with a brief review of last years' stats, each team's potential opening day lineup, strengths and weaknesses, and a few major storylines (both Jet and non-Jet related). Today we start with the defending Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.
The Chicago Blackhawks
Scheduled Meetings
- November 2nd – Winnipeg
- November 6th – Chicago
- November 21st – Winnipeg
- January 26th – Chicago
2012-13 Review
Record (Point %)
36-7-5 (.802) – 1st in West
24-21-3 (.531) – 9th in East
3.38 – 1st
2.62 – 16th
Goals Against/Game
2.02 – 1st
2.94 – 25th
Power play %
16.7% – 19th
13.8% – 30th
Pentalty Kill %
87.2% – 3rd
79.7% – 24th
Fenwick Close %
5v5 Corsi For %
Opening Day Projected Lineup
Strengths & Weaknesses
You don't win the Stanley Cup by accident folks. The 'Hawks have very few glaring weaknesses in their lineup, and unlike the last time they won it all in 2012 they will look very similar coming into this season. They aren't perfect though, and have a couple areas of concern.
The Power Play
Despite the loaded, high scoring and highly skilled lineup this team will roll out, Chicago's power play remains a bit of a question mark. It finished a very mediocre 19th last year with a 16.7% success rate, and became a major area of concern in the playoffs clicking at a horrid 11.4%. Having such a glaring problem with a team that led the league in goals per game makes very little sense, but it is something that the Blackhawks coaching staff has to figure out.
This offseason, the 'Hawks extended their contract with Stanley Cup Champion goaltender Corey Crawford for another 6-years, totaling $36 million. Yet, I am hesitant to say that the team is set in goal. The 28-year-old net-minder has had up and down seasons throughout his career, ranging from his unbelievable .926 SV%, 1.94 GAA last year, to his .903 SV%, 2.72 GAA season the year before. This trend has followed Crawford not only in the NHL, but in the AHL as well, which leads me to think it was pretty smart for Stan Bowman to go out and add an experienced goaltender should things go south throughout the year, but it's not as if Nikolai Khabibulin is without question marks of his own.
The Blackhawks make up for their lack of overall weaknesses with an abundance of generally self-explanatory strengths:
Puck Possession
Chicago is one of the best puck possession teams in the league. They were near tops in both Fenwick and Corsi-For percentages, which had to be a factor involved with the minimal number of penalties they took (4th least in the league). When you have the puck for over half of the game, you score more, get scored on less, and often win a lot of games.
Goals For & Against
As I just mentioned above, when you have the puck for the majority of the game, you tend to put the puck in the net more, and get scored on less. Even with the struggles of Dave Bolland, and the apparent mis-management of Viktor Stalberg last year, the Hawks scored more goals per game than any other team in the league and got scored on less per game than any team in the league. With the minimal player turnover this year I don't see the goal scoring or puck possession numbers dropping too far, and it would take quite the drop off from Corey Crawford (which is possible) for the goals against to drastically plunge.
Overall Skill
Bickell, Toews, Kane, Sharp, Hossa, Keith, Seabrook. This team is loaded with talent. Goal scoring, puck handling, speed, they seem to have it all. The only way this could hurt would be if too many of them get banged up during the Olympic break. Need proof? Check out this recently released video of Patrick Kane's hands. It's unreal.
Penalty Kill
There is one facet of the Blackhawks that I really wasn't sure where to place. The penalty kill. Yes, they finished 3rd in the NHL last year with an 87.2% kill rate, but they lost a huge player on the unit when Frolik moved to the Jets (Woooo!). Frolik was second among forwards in short-handed ice time with 108:17, with the next guy (Toews) with only 66:35. The 'Hawks will be looking for someone to fill that roll, and if they struggle to do so the penalty kill could drop off a fair amount this year.
Storylines Entering the Season
Can They Repeat?
The NHL has not had repeat Stanley Cup Champions since the 1996-1997 & 1997-1998 Detroit Red Wings. With the introduction of the salary cap it has becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for teams to stick with the same group of guys year for two years in a row. This upcoming season especially, considering the drop in the cap from last year. Yet, unlike the Champion Blackhawks of 2010 that saw major players like Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, and Kris Versteeg forced out due to cap restraints, this years' squad will look amazingly similar to the team that dominated the league last year. Clearly the ridiculous 24-game point streak that the Blackhawks started the year with last season won't happen again (they didn't lose a game in regulation until March 8th for goodness sake). There is no doubt though that this team was far and away the best, most consistent team in the league last year and they are almost all back to try to do it again.
Which Corey Crawford Will Show Up?
With the 6-year, $36-million extension behind him, the pressure and expectations have never been higher for Crawford. Will he be able to level out his play this season and limit regression toward an unflattering mean? Will he continue to improve and possibly have an even better season than last year? Or will he follow his career trend and drop off, leading to a lot of questions and doubt in Chicago? The success of Corey Crawford will likely be a major storyline this year.
Jonathan Toews in Winnipeg
Finally, for the first time in his career, Jonathan Toews will get the chance to play a regular season NHL game in his hometown. It's extremely unlikely that 'Captain Serious' will show any kind of emotion when he steps on the MTS Center ice in November, but there will be a little something inside the 'Hawks captain when he gets to play in a city that has honoured him with a key and has a community center named after him. Expect a lot of 19 jerseys in the stands that night, and a lot of emotion for an early November matchup.
The Chicago Blackhawks are one heck of a team. There is little doubt that this team won't be one of the Central Division representatives in the playoffs, and will provide a difficult challenge for anyone. With another Stanley Cup Championship anything but out of the question (it would be their 3rd in 5 years), we could be looking at a potential dynasty team right before our eyes. And in our Division.


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I used the caramel in place of the jam layer that sits between pastry and frangipane and it behaved well –not making the pastry soggy and adding such sweet jamminess to the tart that I wonder if I could ever go back to jam. (Note to self: yes you will go back to jam because that only requires unscrewing a jar, whereas the raspberry caramel gave you anxious, tense moments peering into a pan of boiling sugar. Stop being pretentious.)
I added raspberries to the frangipane to add a hit of freshness and acidity and I think it ended up looking rather splendid (again, note my modesty!) Perhaps it isn't the most Easter-looking bake but I really fancied something bakewell themed.
You could serve this at room temperature with cream or warm for dessert with ice cream. Every time I say about serving dessert warm with ice cream you should picture Mr CC in the background shouting, 'or custard. Custard would work.' He likes custard. A lot.
60g ground almonds
110g unsalted butter, cold
50g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons cold water
150g caster sugar, plus an extra teaspoon for sprinkling
100g ground almonds
2 eggs
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
50g plain flour
Handful of flaked almonds for scattering on top
200g fresh raspberries


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Mayor's Office
Mayor Chris Beutler today recognized the Lincoln Police Department (LPD) for receiving its eighth national accreditation and for being honored with the prestigious Flagship Award. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) presented the awards March 26 in Bethesda, Maryland. CALEA selects agencies for Flagship status based on past awards, current assessment and overall professional standing in the public safety community.
"The men and women of the Lincoln Police Department deserve to be recognized for their hard work, integrity and dedication to serve the citizens of Lincoln," said Mayor Beutler. "LPD personnel can take great pride in their continuing efforts, and the people of Lincoln can count on their police department being one of the most professional in the country."
Reaccreditation is a three-year process voluntarily undertaken by law enforcement agencies. LPD has been nationally accredited since 1989, when it became the first law enforcement agency in Nebraska to achieve that status.
"CALEA thoroughly examines our employees, our practices and our policies," said Police Chief Tom Casady. "Being reaccredited verifies our continued compliance with the leading set of standards in the law enforcement profession."
CALEA also presented Casady with the Egon Bittner Award, given to those who have commanded an accredited agency for 15 or more continuous years.
CALEA's Flagship Agency Program is designed to acknowledge public safety agencies that have demonstrated success in the accreditation process. The program also serves to provide other agencies seeking accreditation with examples of "best practices" to address compliance, policy development, file maintenance and other issues relating to the accreditation process.
Lincoln is one of less than ten cities in the U.S. to have all three emergency service providers nationally accredited.
More information on the City's emergency service providers is available at lincoln.ne.gov (keywords: fire, police, 911). More information on the accrediting agencies is available at calea.org and cfainet.org.


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Adapted from a recent online discussion.
Question: Is it ever OK to veto one of your significant other's friendships? My boyfriend is thinking of getting back in touch with a friend of his who was an alcoholic who self-destructed and refused help - at which point my boyfriend ended his friendship with him.
I do not want an alcoholic in my life, I can't see how this is a good idea, and I'm not comfortable with this at all.
Hax: Er, major piece of information missing: Has the friend since gotten sober, or is he still abusing?
Be careful, too, how you throw those absolutes around. "I do not want an alcoholic in my life" is the kind of thing that inspires people to say, "I do not want judgmental people in my life." Someone who gets and stays sober is still an alcoholic; is that person also unworthy of you?
Reader: No, it is not OK to veto one of your significant other's friendships. The only thing it is OK to do is to remove yourself from situations you don't want to be in. You cannot control anything another person does/says/thinks. I believe this is Rule No. 1 of Hax. And to quote Monty Python, Rule 2, same as Rule 1.
Hax: Yep, that, thanks.
You do have the right, in exceptional situations, to object strenuously (reference to a different kind of cinematic comedy) to a friendship and ask your partner to end it. The classic example is someone with whom your partner cheated on you, or someone else who deliberately tried to harm you or the relationship. If you are not personally injured by this objectionable friend, then I see the bar as pretty high - abuse, for example. Child pornography. Animal cruelty.
Of course, when you get to any of these points, you're often right back to "remove yourself from situations you don't want to be in," relationships included.
Reader: Just because the boyfriend is going to see his former friend, doesn't mean the girlfriend needs to. Do they not ever socialize apart?
Hax: True. However, if experience says that an innocent-sounding "going to see his former friend" will quickly morph into receiving wee-hours phone calls to bail out a still-drinking alcoholic friend, then I think a little leeway on this is fair.
For the last word, I'm throwing in a third movie reference: "You'll never be a first-class human being ... until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty." (http://bit.ly/GQ6Q5N)
Question: My father recently passed away. My adult stepdaughter, who has always been somewhat of a challenge, has known my father just about all her life, and texted me a message of condolence. I am having a hard time with that. I know she is of the "social media" generation but isn't that taking it a bit too far?
Answer: I could easily agree, but instead I urge you not to look for reasons to be disappointed in people. You will always, always find them.
Instead, please look for reasons to be grateful: Your always-challenging stepdaughter thought of you and expressed her sympathy.
I'm sorry for your loss.


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Taking the time today to thank every man and woman who has served our country through the military is something we all should attempt. On my side this includes my brother and three of my uncles. We should respect and admire their service, regardless of whether or not we agree with the circumstances under which they served. My uncles were in the Koren War. My brother was in during the Gulf War. It is not really their duty to question why they are where they are. They just do.
The military was never something that Afrocity was born for. I thought about it once and even took the test after college- had a recruit officer come to my apartment. He gave me an aptitude test on his laptop. I did well but I never made the next step. He called to ask what was the problem and I told him I suspected that I would be worse than Private Benjamin. Trying to diminish my hesitancy, the recruit officer had a "female officer" contact me. She explained that she was 5 feet tall and 99 pounds- which was smaller than I. Still Afrocity chickened out and went to graduate school instead. Fatigues and nights in the trench would not agree with my personal aesthetic.
Why was I considering the Army anyway? I asked myself that question and realized no matter what my justifications were, it would not be for the right reasons. Frankly, it was for the free room and board and the benefits a soldier received when she gets out. What was 4 years? After all somethings last longer than that right? Graduate school costs were skyrocketing and I already had debt from undergraduate days. Serve your country and take the money and run..
However, I knew that my heart would not be in it. I knew that I was coward and could not endure boot camp, or waking up at Oh-five-hundred hours.
So I did not enlist and I did it for America.
Aren't you glad that I loved my country enough not to give it the awful gift of Afrocity in the service?
For those who did serve through the military, thank you. Thank you for keeping us safe and sacrificing your time and personal lives for Americans. You veterans are more of a man or woman than I will ever be.
God Bless.
Autographed Letter Signed,


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This cozy organic terry hooded towel is ideal after your baby's bath. It's great for drying off baby and it will envelop your little one with comfort and warmth. 100% organic cotton terry. Includes one 30" x 30" hooded towel and one 10" x 10" washcloth. Machine wash.
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