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All Electrical Courses
We offer the widest range of electrical training courses and qualifications in the UK. Choose from our course packages, core qualifications, commercial electricians courses or specialist contractor courses for the more experienced electrician. Alternatively simply use the search function in the red bar above to search our courses. We are the UK's premier specialist electrical training provider for a reason. Last year more people passed our range of City & Guilds electrical courses with us than any other training provider in the UK.
This 18 day course package contains training in installation, building regulations, inspection and testing plus the essential 18th edition wiring regulations course that will be necessary to work as a domestic installer. All 4 of the courses in this package are accredited by City & Guilds.
This 25 day course package includes 6 courses. You will receive training in installation, building regulations, inspection and testing, 18th edition wiring regulations plus more training on electro-technical science and PAT testing.
The 18th Edition went live on the 1st July 2018. It is the very latest update to the wiring regulations and is an essential qualification for anyone working in the electrical industry. We offer this course in 8 nationwide locations.
Our Blue package contains the same courses as our Bronze course plus a C&G qualification for installing domestic EV car charging points. Break into this growing market to complement your domestic installer work.
This 23 Day solar PV training course package is structured to allow you, as a new entrant into the electrical industry to become a Solar Panel installer and enter an exciting growing market.
This is the very latest course for those wanting to become an electrician. It is run 2 weeks on 2 weeks off over 30 weeks and covers the training elements required to work on both domestic and commercial installation. This course has now replaced the City & Guilds 2330's. To become fully qualified you will need to complete an NVQ and AM2 in industry.
This 1 day 18th Edition update course brings those with the 3rd amendment up to date with the latest wiring regs. This course only covers the changes to the wiring regulations since the 3rd amendment but you still take the full 2382-18 exam.
This electrical course is aimed at practicing electricians who wish to gain qualifications in Initial verification as well as Periodic Inspection, Testing and Reporting. This course has been re-introduced in 2017 and now replaces the City & Guilds 2394/5 qualifications.
This course is ideal for those looking to take their first steps to becoming a fully qualified electrician working in both commercial and domestic environments. It covers a wide range of practical skills plus much of the essential science.
Take your 18th Edition online and then sit your exam in centre. This is the equivalent to our 3 day 18th Edition course. The price of this course includes the course, all fees and 1 exam session in one of our 8 centres nationwide.
This package consists of the 4 courses from our Bronze package plus PAT testing too. We have added this course package due to popular demand for both our Bronze and PAT testing courses.
Take a short online course and then contact us to book your exam to pass your 18th Edition wiring regulations. We offer 2 different types of online course so you can choose the best one for your needs.
This Level 3 electricians course is ideal for those who have already completed their Level 2 2365 course or Level 2 2330 Tech Certs. It is ideal if you are looking to progress to an NVQ and AM2 at a later stage in order to gain JIB grading.
This 5 Day electrical course is for new entrants to the industry. It is an overview that can be your first step to becoming a fully qualified domestic electrical installer.
This weekend course is the same as our 1 day 18th Edition update course but simply delivered on a Saturday. The course covers the changes to the regulations since the 3rd amendment and is an ideal way to gain the qualification if you want to minimise time off work and get it done quickly.
This is one of our most popular electrical courses. This 5 day course is theory based and covers a wide range of installation topics and how they relate to the Part P building regulations. This knowledge is essential if registering on a Part P scheme.
This Part P electrician's course is for experienced candidates only. If you are looking to upgrade your knowledge and qualifications to encompass the Part P building regs, then this short Part P course will be ideal.
This practical & theory course is intended for inexperienced electricians and domestic installers. This can be a difficult subject and this electrical course seeks to demystify it and provide you with a certification in inspection & testing.
This is the most advanced electricians course that we offer. It is a level 4 qualification covering the design and installation of electrical systems.
This electrical course is designed to give electricians the confidence to take and pass their C&G 2391-52 course and assessments. If you need to brush up on your practical inspection & testing skills then this course is ideal.
This electrician's course is focussed purely on periodic inspection & testing and replaced the older 2391-10 Inspection and Testing courses during 2012. This course is intended specifically for experienced electricians or installers.
This course is ideal for the experienced electrician or domestic installer who have carried out in inspection and testing but require clarification on the process required to complete the documentation. This course is usually delivered for companies or when a number of students require training.
This PAT testing course is ideal for those who wish to take control of the entire portable appliance testing within their company or offer a stand alone service to companies. It is open to all and can be a viable way of providing additional skills and earning some extra income.
This 3 day PAT Testing electrical course is designed specifically for those with little or no electrical experience. The course content is identical to our 2377-22 & 32 PAT testing course but with an extra day to provide you with a foundation in the subject and increase your chances of passing first time.
This PAT testing electrical course is very similar to the 2377-32 & 22 but only contains the operator exam. This course is open to all including non-electricians and domestic installers.
This is our second foundation electrical course which can help you on the path to becoming a qualified electrician or domestic electrical installer. It will help you understand the science behind the practical skills and is a very good way to gain a quick overview of some of the key principles.
This 1 day PAT Testing course is focussed on the practical aspects of PAT testing. It will provide you with the practical skills and the background knowledge needed to carry out PAT testing.
This course is for experienced electricians only who already have passed their level 3 2330 and simply need to book their NVQ assessments.
This BPEC course gives you plenty of practical 'on the roof' training in order to provide you with hands on, practical experience of installing solar PV equipment.
This full course includes the 2399-13 installation unit and the 2399-14 fault finding and maintenance unit. This is the complete qualification if you want to be a Solar Panel Installer.
This 2399-01 foundation course covers a range of renewable energy technologies. It makes a great entry point for anyone starting out in the industry.
This solar PV course will provide you with both hands on practical training & theory of the City & Guilds qualification. You will be taught on our full scale single storey roof. You will able to use this course in your application for MCS accreditation in solar PV technology.
This course is designed for competent electrical staff who need to understand how to work safely in accordance with HSG 85 - Safe Working Practices when working with Low Voltage Systems. You will cover the regulations and safe working practices to ensure compliance with EAW Regulations 1989.
This course can only be taken as an extension to the 2399-13. It aims to give you the knowledge of correctly maintaining and servicing solar PV equipment, allowing you to provide a valuable added maintenance contract service to your customers.
Any installation of a PV system over 16A per phase will be subject to different engineering recommendations and procedures than a domestic scale installation.
This 1 day course is for anyone who wants to gain the knowledge and understanding of renewable energies. It is particularly useful for marketing, sales and admin staff.
This course combines the NICEIC health & safety training and certification with hands on experience of fitting solar panels on our specially designed training roof.
Our Roofers Solar PV course will give you the skills and the knowledge to identify and fit solar panels on commercial or domestic roofs. You will get hands on training on how to fit solar PV equipment using roof ladders and harnesses.
This health & safety course is classroom based and provides you with all the essential health and safety knowledge required for fitting solar panels. This includes working at height, manual handling, some COSHH elements and NICEIC certification.
This course is designed for competent electrical staff working in a healthcare environment who wish to understand how to work safely in accordance with the Safe Working Practices when working with Low Voltage Systems. You will cover the regulations and safe working practices to ensure compliance with EAW Regulations 1989.
Ideal for the practicing electrician, this course will show you how to install a range of conduit systems which are commonly found in commercial environments. These are sometimes found in domestic outbuildings too and can provide you with extra skills to offer your customers.
This course is suitable for domestic installers and practicing electricians. It will show you the key elements to ensure safe external installations in both the home and commercial buildings.
This electrical course is highly useful to anyone who works with electricity and wants to learn the electrical regulations. We usually deliver this course for companies either in house or at our premises.
** Price above shown is an early bird price. This course is delivered in partnership with Gate Safe and will equip you to assess if an automated gate is safe for use and prevent any unnecessary accidents
This is one of the electricians courses which will train you to be a fully qualified electrician able to work on both domestic and commercial projects.
This course is very similar to the City & Guilds 2365 course. Trade Skills 4U deliver the knowledge training units of this qualification following which the learner must also complete an NVQ and AM2 Assessment.
This course is the EAL equivalent to the C&G 2365. Trade Skills 4U deliver the knowledge training units of this qualification following which the learner may choose to complete an NVQ and AM2 Assessment once working in industry.
This 2394 electrical course is a level 3 QCF qualification. It is essentially a testing and inspection course covering initial verification, inspection and testing and 3 phase inspection and testing.
** Plus 2 days worth of assessments. This electrical course package covers training on inspection & testing as well as periodic inspection and testing. As an advanced electricians course it is ideal for experienced installers especially those looking to gain JIB grading as an approved electrician.
Available to TS4U customers only. Want to join the NICEIC or ELECSA but don't have a level 3 NVQ or a higher level inspection and testing qualification such as the 2394/95? You may want to take an Online Knowledge Assessment (OKA) to guarantee you can move forwards with your application.
This course is designed for domestic installers and teaches you some key practical skills such as how to terminate SWA cable as well as how to install domestic EV charging points.
Install, fault find and inspect and test electric vehicle charging points. This really is an exciting new sector from which existing electricians can generate extra income.
Need to learn more about 3 phase systems? Then this 1 Day electricians course is ideal for those with existing experience of electrical installation.
This course can be a useful addition if working in corporate environments. Data cabling spans a number of skill-sets but is often outside an IT departments remit. This leaves a gap for the experienced electrician.
This short 2 day course is ideal for practicing electricians. It gives you the skills to successfully install trunking, conduit and wiring systems that are widely used in commercial and domestic settings.
This course packages combines both the emergency lighting and fire alarm courses together over a 4 day period saving you both time and money and allowing you to add to your skill set.
This is one of our specialist courses designed with the experienced electrician or domestic installer in mind. It will allow you to work specifically on emergency lighting projects and even specialise in this area.
This course has been specially developed for electricians and domestic installers. It will allow you to work specifically on fire alarm systems and following this course you could potentially specialise in this area.


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In June, Fantagraphics Books will publish a collection of Norman PettingillÔÇÖs work. Comic fans may remember that Robert Crumb published some of PettingillÔÇÖs cartoon drawings in Weirdo in the mid-ÔÇÖ80s. The idea of publishing an entire book collecting PettingillÔÇÖs work was first broached to me by Johnny Ryan, a Pettingill fan (and the cartoonist behind Angry Youth Comics and Prison Pit), a few years ago. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is the repository for most of PettingillÔÇÖs work, and agreed to help us put together a book. Johnny wrote a brief appreciation; R. Crumb loved PettingillÔÇÖs work and wrote a brief introduction. But, so little is known about Pettingill himself that I felt the book required a short biography of the man ÔÇö so I wrote one.
There has been very little written about Pettingill, making it difficult to put together a story of his life. I had only previously read ÔÇťA Visit with Norman PettingillÔÇŁ by Rodney Shroeter from Comic Art # 3 (2003), which was useful but also problematic: it charted the broad arc of PettingillÔÇÖs life in desultory fashion, but also contained inaccuracies and internal discrepancies. I was able to separate fact from fiction by interviewing PettingillÔÇÖs sons, Bud and Jack, and by consulting a lifelong friend of PettingillÔÇÖs, Jim Pink, all of whom proved generous with their time and helpful.
*This is the latest draft, which may be slightly revised for publication.
Tags: Comic Art, Johnny Ryan, Norman Pettingill, Robert Crumb, Weirdo

subset: commoncrawl


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2018 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport in Calgary, Alberta, $25,999
General Information
- Engine4 cyl.
- TransmissionAutomatic
- Body StyleN/A
- DrivetrainAll wheel drive
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CARFAX Canada is Canada's most trusted vehicle history report.
A CARFAX Canada report gives you full details about a vehicle's past when you buy or sell a used car.
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This was the 2nd (and final) article I wrote for Bleacher Report a few weeks ago when I was thinking about applying to be their Ravens corespondent in 2009 (before I realized I couldn't live off the peanuts they are paying for the gig). Enjoy.
In 2008, the Baltimore Ravens boasted the NFL's No. 11 scoring offense. NFL can also stand for "Not For Long," though, and as we've seen time and time again, teams that fail to evolve and adapt from one season to the next do not remain on top for long.
In his first year in Baltimore, offensive coordinator Cam Cameron showed just why he is considered one of the best offensive minds in the game. Despite lacking the kinds of weapons he had during his days with the San Diego Chargers, he made the Ravens, a team with a long history of offensive ineptitude, an exciting, big-play team.
So how will his game plans be different in 2009? Let's take a look at some possibilities.
The first likely change will be the "opening up" of the playbook for quarterback Joe Flacco. The success enjoyed by Flacco in his rookie campaign was due in large part to Cameron protecting his young signal caller. Ravens receivers ran primarily short-to-medium routes, and Flacco was not asked to make many complicated reads or throws into traffic over the middle of the field.
Expect that to change this season.
Flacco's arm strength has never been in question, and his progression in diagnosing coverages and finding the open man is evidenced by his 13:5 touchdown-to-interception ratio over Weeks 7-17. Cameron will continue to ease the "training wheels" off Flacco, and the second-year player will have to prove that he can handle the increased responsibility and pressure.
Flacco will also benefit from the addition of Michael Oher, the first round draft choice from the University of Mississippi. Considered a top-10 talent in this year's draft, Oher is expected to challenge for the starting right tackle position immediately.
In 2008, right tackle was a position of weakness for the Ravens, as they were often forced to keep tight ends in to help either Willie Anderson or Adam Terry, who each saw playing time, with opponents' edge pass rushers.
If tight ends are blocking, then they aren't running passing routes, and as a result, Flacco often had as few as two options to throw to when he dropped back.
If Oher, a guy who has been bragging about being able to stop Dwight Freeney since he was in high school, can step in and hold his own, Ravens tight ends Todd Heap and the newly signed L.J. Smith, both very capable pass catchers, can become favorite targets of Flacco and draw defensive attention away from the receivers on the outside.
One of the staples of the Ravens' offense in 2008 was their own version of the "Wildcat," the "Suggs Package." Named after a comment made by linebacker Terrell Suggs on a Baltimore radio show, the "Suggs Package" featured former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Troy Smith taking the snap from center, with Flacco split wide as a receiver.
The Miami Dolphins got the most media coverage for the formation, and it seemed just about every team around the league tried some version of it. Having Smith, though, who would likely have been the staring quarterback on opening day were he not derailed by an illness, really gave the Ravens' version of the specialty offense an element that the "Wildcats" of other teams were lacking.
One of the most exciting plays of the entire NFL season featured Smith hitting Flacco in stride for a 43-yard gain against Oakland in Week Eight.
However, this offseason the Ravens signed former Miami Dolphin John Beck to compete with Smith for the backup quarterback position. Many around town feel that Beck may be the better long-term solution behind Flacco.
The Ravens, like many teams, prefer to only have two quarterbacks on the active roster on game days. So if Beck outperforms Smith in training camp and gets penciled in as the No. 2, will the "Suggs Package" be a thing of the past?
Not so fast.
On more than one occasion, wide receiver Mark Clayton has been the Ravens' "emergency quarterback" on game days, even throwing a 32-yard touchdown pass in Week 13 against Cincinnati. Even if Smith isn't available to run the gimmick, don't underestimate the creativity of Cam Cameron.
The Ravens' ground attack faces some uncertainty and likely changes as well going into the 2009 season.
Although officially listed as a fullback, Le'Ron McClain was the team's leading rusher in 2008, with 902 yards and 10 TDs. His bruising style and nimble feet drew comparisons to former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis.
The Ravens, though, did not re-sign Lorenzo Neal, who, by filling the blocking fullback role, allowed McClain to line up as a tailback. The loss of Neal may force McClain back to his more natural position.
If McClain is indeed used in more of a blocking role in 2009, his share of carries will have to be absorbed by Willis McGahee and Ray Rice. Each of them possesses his own unique strengths, but neither is capable of wearing down opposing defenses like McClain did in 2008.
McGahee had some tough luck with injuries last season and will need to prove that he can return to the feature back role after being more of a complementary player for the first time in his career in 2008.
Rice was enjoying an impressive rookie season before being injured in Week 14 against Washington. Used mainly as a third down back, Rice showed a great "nose for the sticks," moving the chains on many occasions.
His best performance came in Week Nine at Cleveland, when he ran for 154 yards on 21 carries. He had double-digit carries only one other time all season though, and he still needs to prove that he can handle those kinds of touches on a consistent basis.
For a fanbase that finally got to watch an offense that seemed to know what it was doing in 2008, all these changes can make us a bit uneasy. Ravens fans just need to have faith, though, that the mind of Cameron and the arm of Flacco will continue to power the offense through these transitions.


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Districts throughout southwest Ohio are welcoming mobile technologies into their teaching practice – through one-to-one tablet and laptop experiments; through changing practices around students' own mobile devices; and through use of E-Books and cloud computing. These technologies bring enormous changes for teachers, administrators and technology coordinators. Learning for the Mobile Age is CET's response to the need for an introductory workshop that addresses some of the challenges brought on by mobile learning.
CET is developed Learning for the Mobile Age in three different formats: A five-hour face-to-face workshop, a blended learning format (first 1.5 hours in person, followed by online work) and a fully online format.
Thanks to support from the Ohio Department of Education, this workshop is now free of charge to all public school staff; $125 for staff from private schools. Workshop length: Five hours; certificate provided.
This is the fully online version of the workshop. After you submit your information, you will be sent a link to continue registration for this workshop.


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1. Re: View payload and header data in the tableAndy Taylor Oct 20, 2008 4:43 AM (in response to Markus Lutum)
Or does those blobs contain serialized/crypted objects?
yes the message is serialized.
2. Re: View payload and header data in the tableMarkus Lutum Oct 20, 2008 5:20 AM (in response to Markus Lutum)
Does anyone know a configurable web application (war) which can be used to monitor jms queues. I used hermesJMS a bit but I am searching for a web based solution.
Thx for hints.
3. Re: View payload and header data in the tableNoel O'Connor Oct 20, 2008 7:46 AM (in response to Markus Lutum)
You could look at the Jboss ON (Operations Network) product. See http://www.theserverside.com/news/thread.tss?thread_id=51222
4. Re: View payload and header data in the tablepasanperera Apr 3, 2012 7:40 AM (in response to Markus Lutum)
If you want to get the javax.jms.Message (or any other message types that you have added to the queue) the following will help.
Note that most of the source is copied from JDBCPersistenceManager class in package "jboss-messaging-1.4.2.GA-SP1
Write a query to retrieve all columns from JBM_MSG
if (rs.next())
long messageId = rs.getLong("MESSAGE_ID");
boolean reliable = rs.getString("RELIABLE").equals("Y");
long expiration = rs.getLong("EXPIRATION");
long timestamp = rs.getLong("TIMESTAMP");
byte priority = rs.getByte("PRIORITY");
byte[] bytes = getBytes(rs, "HEADERS");
HashMap headers = bytesToMap(bytes);
byte[] payload = getBytes(rs, "PAYLOAD");
byte type = rs.getByte("TYPE");
MapMessage m = (MapMessage)MessageFactory.createMessage(messageId, reliable, expiration, timestamp, priority, headers, payload,
protected byte[] getBytes(ResultSet rs, String column) throws Exception
// Get the bytes using a binary stream - likely to be better for large
// byte[]
InputStream is = null;
ByteArrayOutputStream os = null;
final int BUFFER_SIZE = 4096;
InputStream i = rs.getBinaryStream(column);
if (i == null)
return null;
is = new BufferedInputStream(rs.getBinaryStream(column), BUFFER_SIZE);
os = new ByteArrayOutputStream(BUFFER_SIZE);
int b;
while ((b = is.read()) != -1)
return os.toByteArray();
if (is != null)
if (os != null)
5. Re: View payload and header data in the tableLars Bilger Apr 4, 2012 9:36 AM (in response to pasanperera)
would you say this solution is suitable for production code or just for debugging? Would it work for retrieving all messages in a clustered queue? It might be just the thing I'm looking for - see my post at https://community.jboss.org/thread/197924. But I feel like this is meddling with JBoss internals, so maybe it shouldn't be used in production?
6. Re: View payload and header data in the tablepasanperera Jun 8, 2012 1:55 AM (in response to Lars Bilger)
Hi Lars,
Sorry for the late reply. I haven't used it in production. Well are you refering to licensing issues is it? Well personally I never felt so as I have been only using their methods. Please correct me if I am wrong as I may use it if I need in the future. Technically I dont see any issues as I am only trying to view the messages.
7. Re: View payload and header data in the tableLars Bilger Jun 8, 2012 2:58 AM (in response to pasanperera)
Hi Pasan,
Thanks for your reply. I was rather thinking about maintainability and stability - what if we move to a newer version of JBoss and they change the way the messages are internally stored? As this seems to be no public API, I guess they could change it any time. Then we would have to change our code as well.
We ended up creating our own database table to log whenever a message is produced or consumed, so we keep track of the existing messages "manually".
8. Re: View payload and header data in the tablepasanperera Jun 8, 2012 3:21 AM (in response to Lars Bilger)
Yes Lars there is a problem as such and its good to know how you solved the problem.
Chances of it affecting our application is very small as we use only a specific version & we wouldnt change it, so was not concerned about it.
Thanks for pointing it out, If I use it, I should actually document it somewhere.
9. Re: View payload and header data in the tablekebishishabi weng Jul 3, 2012 11:55 PM (in response to pasanperera)
very good !
it's works ! thank you ,by the way,what is the method about "bytesToMap()" is it likes 'getBytes()' method?


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CHICAGO (AP) — A federal measure responding to the Veterans Affairs scandal calls for new VA sites, including a new research center at the agency's Chicago-area hospital.
The proposal for the research facility at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Medical Center west of Chicago was included in a bill that U.S. senators announced Thursday.
The measure comes amid furor over long patient waits for care and falsified records covering up the delays at various VA hospitals and clinics. The bill would allow the VA to lease or build 26 medical facilities in 18 states.
A Hines spokeswoman isn't commenting about the possible new research center, citing the pending legislation. But Sen. Dick Durbin's office calls that project much needed, given that Hines' existing research building is nearly a century old.


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I just setup W3 Total Cache S3 CDN (origin push) and most of the URLs are being rewritten correctly but we have some custom plugins where the URLs are not being rewritten. How do I grab the rewritten URL of W3TC from another plugin? I'm currently using the following code to grab the image:
wp_get_attachment_image_src( get_post_thumbnail_id(), 'car-thumb');
I'm assuming there is a filter of some sort that just replaces the original "origin" url with the asset URL on the S3 bucket but I've been unable to find where in the code.


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Monarch Insider No. 27-CAA Tournament-Semifinal report
By ODU Athletics
March 6, 2011
Monarch Insider #27 - CAA Tournament, semifinal report
It's on to the tournament finals for the Monarchs once again, to face a familiar foe
Brendan O'Hallarn Monarch Basketball Insider
I'm exhausted again. This time it was only two games, but the tension and the drama and the noise and the anticipation means I'm ready for another early night. Old Dominion handled Hofstra this afternoon 77-69, in a game that actually wasn't as close as the score indicated. Unlike Saturday's Delaware game, which hung in the balance with 10 minutes to go, I never got the sense the Monarchs were in any danger of losing to the Pride.
That didn't make the outcome any less satisfying, and now a familiar foe awaits the Monarchs in the tournament final Monday night.
My small, loyal core of readers knows that last year when we played VCU in the Tournament, the game was so tense and emotional I actually burst into tears when it was clear we were going to win. Here's last year's blog: http://www.odusports.com/ot/living-like-a-monarch37.html.
Well, hopefully if I'm crying again on Monday night, it's tears of joy. We play the Rams again, after they stunned top-seeded George Mason 79-63. Before the game, I floated from table to table, chatting with Monarch fans at the Alumni Association party across the street at the Richmond Convention Center. I told everyone who'd listen that we were going to beat Hofstra.
"Their center Greg Washington is 215 pounds. What's he going to do with Frank Hassell?" I said, as my closing argument for nervous Monarch fans. (Note: though a few ODU fans tease me as being a relentless optimist, I wasn't nearly as confident before the Delaware game).
Anyway, Frank Hassell proved to be simply too much for Washington and the rest of the Hofstra front line to handle. The Pride center fouled out, but he wasn't having much luck stopping Frank the Tank anyway, who finished with 22 points. Hofstra's wonderful guard Charles Jenkins got his points, finishing with 16. But he was matched by an unlikely ODU scoring star, point guard Darius James. ODU coach Blaine Taylor said he loved seeing James have a chance to fill the scoresheet.
"I was happy to see it from my standpoint. Darius has had to give himself to the team night after night, and not get as many shots as some other guys. Tonight, the way the Red Sea parted there -- they were worried about our posts, they were worried about our wings - he was there to take advantage of it like Moses," Taylor said.
At Tallwood High in Virginia Beach, James played on the wing, and averaged 20 points a game on a state semifinalist team. He can score, but knows his primary role on the team is to facilitate and distribute. He said the points are great, but he's more excited about the win.
"Tonight we came in and everyone settled in more, and once you see your first couple of shots going in, the hoop looks a little bit bigger. That wasn't the focus on me, I wasn't thinking about how many points I was scoring, how many points anyone else was scoring, at the end of the night, I just wanted us to have more points than them," James said.
ODU fans have been boisterous and knowledgeable for the two games in Richmond, knowing exactly when to rise to the moment to urge on the Monarchs. Expect a big crowd to make its way up I-64 on Monday, dressed in blue and white, ready to try and out-scream a horde in VCU black and gold.
I'll be one of them. I sit on press row, so I won't be screaming. But hopefully, I'll be crying again.
Brendan O'Hallarn, an employee in public relations at Old Dominion University, writes Monarch Basketball Insider. To see other stories, please see the Monarch Insider website, at http://www.odusports.com/ot/monarch-insider.html. If you would like to share your thoughts about ODU basketball, or have a story you'd like to see Brendan write, contact him at firstname.lastname@example.com.


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Open your Bible to Revelation chapter 3 and we are looking at verses 7 to 13, the letter from the Lord Jesus to the church in the city of Philadelphia. In our study of this section of letters to the churches, these churches in cities in ancient Asia Minor, we have learned that each one of the churches was unique. Each of these churches had distinguishing marks. Because of that, each provides for us a sample of the kind of churches that exist throughout all the history of the church. As I have reminded you every time, these were real cities with real churches...but also they set for us seven samples of kinds of churches and thus our instructive for the church throughout all of its history.
For example, we've seen a church which fought valiantly against error, fought against heresy, hated evil, but was condemned for a lack of love. We've seen a church which exhibited love only to be condemned for a lack of sound doctrine and a tolerance of sin. We've seen a church spiritually alive in every way only to be killed physically, martyred for Christ. We've seen a church physically alive in every way only to be spiritually killed by sin. We've seen a church that thought it was poor but God says it is rich. In our next study we will see a church that thought it was rich but God says it's poor, destitute of holy things.
And so we've seen all different kinds of churches. And they can portray for us the way the church always is. There are those churches known for their stand on sound doctrine but without love. There are those churches known for their love without sound doctrine. There are those churches that fight against evil. There are those churches that tolerate evil. There are those churches that are spiritually alive and suffer for their testimony. There are those churches that are spiritually dead and suffer nothing because no one persecutes a dead church. There are those churches that think they have very little but they have a lot. And those who think they have a lot and have nothing.
Now in the study for tonight we come to a church that was faithful. Along with the letter to the church in Smyrna over in chapter 2 verse 8, this letter, chapter 3 verse 7, to Philadelphia is written to a church that needs no warning, that needs no chastening, that needs no threatening because here you have a true church. Two of the seven churches have nothing condemning them in the letter because they are the regenerate church. The church at Smyrna, the church at Philadelphia were faithful, godly, loyal, effective. And we see these two churches as the models throughout all of church history of good, solid, regenerate, faithful churches.
I don't want to make a point that really isn't here but it does strike me that the blood-bought, redeemed, saved church is in a chaotic mixture. Did you notice that? Only two out of seven, only two out of seven were completely faithful. Now if that's some kind of a typical percentage, then the weak, sinful church is the more common church. But this church is a blessing. Let's read the letter.
Verse 7, "To the angel, or the messenger, of the church in Philadelphia, write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut and who shuts and no one opens, says this, I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut because you have a little power and have kept My Word and have not denied My name. Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not, but lie, behold, I will make them come and bow down at your feet and know that I have loved you, because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world to test those who dwell upon the earth. I'm coming quickly. Hold fast what you have in order that no one take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God and he will not go out from it anymore. And I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God and My new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
Letter number six carried by messenger number six, here designated by the term "angel," angelos, which means messenger. As I told you, this group of seven men left John on the isle of Patmos carrying these letters back to the seven churches along with the whole book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And as they reached their cities, the group became smaller. Now there are only two left and after this letter is delivered there's only one left to deliver his letter to the final church at Laodicea.
As this letter is given, it is given to a faithful church. Always these letters identify the correspondent, first of all. Let's look at that in verse 7. "He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut and who shuts and no one opens, says this."
The Lord never introduces Himself by simply using His name. He never says, "I the Lord Jesus Christ say this." He always introduces Himself with a description of His character, a description of His person. Up until this point, every description has been drawn out of chapter 1. Every description in the initial note of each letter has come out of chapter 1, something that described in chapter 1 is pulled in to chapter 2 and 3 to describe Him again, until now. Here we have the letter that does not draw its description of the writer, who is the Lord Jesus, from chapter 1. This is a unique description. It fits this faithful church. It has four distinct elements. It is very Hebrew. It is very Old Testament in its nature.
First of all, verse 7 introduces the correspondent, the Lord Jesus, the one who writes, the author as "He who is holy." Now this refers to no other than God. Such absolute holiness belongs to God and God alone. If you go back into the Old Testament you see this. God repeatedly is identified as the One who is holy, thinking most of Isaiah chapter 6 because it's so familiar. We read these words, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." His attribute of holiness being repeated three times...perhaps to emphasize that attribute which is most inimitable to His character. He is called the holy One in many passages. Isaiah 40:25, Isaiah 43:15, Psalm 16:10, Habakkuk 3:3 He is called the holy One. This identifies Him as absolutely sinless, absolutely unstained, unblemished, flawless.
In Revelation 4:8 if you take the trip in chapter 4 into heaven you'll hear the four living creatures and they say this, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty." Clearly then it is the character of God that is described as holy. He is holy. What does it mean? Separate. From what? Sin. The word holy means separate and He is utterly separate from sin, thus He is utterly unlike us.
To take that a step further, this is also a common title for the Messiah. In Mark, for example, chapter 1 we read that Jesus in verse 21 went in to Capernaum and He began to teach and He entered into the synagogue. They were amazed at His teaching. He was teaching as one having authority, not like the scribes. Verse 23 of Mark 1, "Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit." Here's a demon-possessed guy and he screams, and this is what he says, "What do we have to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us?" And he's speaking on behalf of other demons. And then he says this, "I know who You are, the holy One of God." Even the demons know His messianic title. He is the holy One of God.
In Luke 1, quite another testimony, this One not from a demon but from Mary. Mary talking to the angel and asking, "How can this be because I'm a virgin? How can I have a child?" And Mary came to believe and affirm what the angel said, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God." The demons call Him the holy One. The fallen angels call Him the holy One. The holy angels called Him the holy One and Mary, of course, affirmed it.
In John's gospel, chapter 6, toward the end of that long chapter in verse 69, Simon Peter says, "We have believed and come to know that You are the holy One of God." We find this repeated as well in the book of Acts where Jesus the Messiah is designated as the holy One. Peter says in Acts 3:14 to the Jews, condemning them, "You disowned the holy and righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. You chose Barabbas over the holy One. And so it goes.
Jesus identifying Himself as the holy One then is saying I am God. The Lord Jesus shares the holy, sinless, pure nature of God. He is God. He is God the holy One. Because He is holy, listen carefully, He can't tolerate sin. First Peter 1:15, "But the holy One who called you says be holy yourselves in all your behavior." The holy One demands holiness. He can't tolerate sin. That's fascinating to me. Why? Because He introduces Himself as the holy One and obviously He is separate from sin, cannot tolerate sin, and yet looks at this church with His penetrating eyes and His omniscience indicated when he says, "I know your deeds," and as holy as He is, and as omniscient as He is, He gives no rebuke, He gives no threat, no warning, no judgment, no condemnation on this church. This speaks well of them. If the holy One commends this church, indeed they are to be commended.
Secondly in verse 7 He introduces Himself as He who is holy and then says, "Who is true." He who is holy who is true. You find that combination in chapter 6 verse 10, "How long, O Lord, holy and true?" Holy and true. The combination of those two attributes is repeated many places in Scripture to identify God. God is often described in the magnificent attributes of absolute holiness and absolute truth. In fact we find that description all through the book of Revelation. You can see it in chapter 15 verse 3, "Great and marvelous are Thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty righteous and true are Thy ways." You see it in chapter 16 verse 7, you see it in chapter 19 verse 2, verse 11.
What is the point? Here is the Lord Jesus Christ who is holy and even though He's absolutely holy and cannot tolerate sin, looking at this church there's nothing to rebuke which tells you what a wonderful church this was. Not that they were perfect, but that they were faithful and they were dealing with their sin. Not only that, He is true, He is true in Himself. He is the author of truth. He is the revealer of truth. And He looks at this church and He has the highest premium in the universe on truth and He has nothing to condemn them about. Here is a holy church. Here is a church committed to the truth. In fact, in John 14:6 John calls Jesus by His own words, "The way, the truth and the life." In the midst of so much that is false, in the midst of so much that is perverted, in the midst of so much error, the Lord Jesus is truth.
And there's something even more there. The word that is used, alethinos, can also have the idea of genuine, authentic as opposed to that which is fake or unreal. So you have the true One, the genuine One, the real One, the true Messiah, the true Son of God, the genuine God, the One who is truth in all He says, truth in all He does. The One who has placed the ultimate premium on truth, the One who says, "I have exalted My Word above My name," Psalm 138:2. And this One looks at the church and finds them only to be commended. What an encouragement. The reason, I think, that Jesus selected these descriptive terms for John to write is because this would be an immense encouragement to this church. The earlier church in Smyrna, they were encouraged to find out that the first and the last, who was dead and has come to life says this. In other words, they were going through some terrible persecution and Christ encourages them by introducing Himself as the One who gives resurrection life. Here He encourages the Philadelphia folks by saying, "I am absolutely holy and I put a premium on truth, and My holiness and My truth have scrutinized you and there is nothing to condemn." And that poses the reality for me and for all of us that it is possible for a church, a human church, a church with people like us to be looked at by the Holy One and the true One and to be commended.
And while we want to admit that we are human and that we fail, and we struggle and we sin, we must see in this the graciousness of our God and of our Lord, to see in us something to be commended.
There's a third descriptive phrase used of Christ. "He who is holy, who is true...I love this...who has the key of David." Who has the key of David. Now David symbolizes the messianic office. In chapter 5 verse 5 and over in chapter 22 verse 16 of Revelation we read about the root of David. This is the key of David. But it also has messianic significance.
A key is a very simple symbol in the Scripture. Whenever you see a key, you can equate it with authority. And if the word "authority" gives you problems, try the word "control." Whoever has the key has control. Whoever has the key has authority.
And here Jesus says I'm the one who has the key of David. I'm the one who can open the treasure house and pour out on you royal riches. You see how congratulatory the whole spirit of this is? I think again sometimes we assume that the Lord is never happy with any of His churches. Not so. There's no such thing as a perfect church because there's no such thing as a perfect person. And if there's not even one perfect person, then every church is an assembly of a whole lot of imperfect people.
So the problem is significantly compounded. But it is possible, it is within the realm of reason and biblical revelation to assume that the Lord can look at a church and feel like it is worth celebrating. How encouraging.
He introduces Himself as the one who can unlock the treasure house and by His sovereign authority and His sovereign power open up its riches to those He chooses. He has the key to all the riches. And He will dispense them at His own discretion.
There's a note of sovereignty in this, by the way. There goes along with that authority a certain amount of sovereignty. He can determine who gets into the treasure house to experience the blessings.
This phrase also seems to put another feature before us and that is this, that the Lord Jesus also has complete control of the entrance to David's house. And this, I think, may be a secondary implication here, but I wouldn't be faithful to my own understanding of Scripture if I didn't give it as much latitude as I can. I think if we take it back to Isaiah 22:22 it has to do with opening the treasure house which means pouring out blessing and pouring out blessing to those who are deserving.
But I see also in this the possible implication that this key unlocks David's house. What is that? The kingdom. That Jesus Christ not only is able to bless His own who are faithful, but He alone can open the door to let anybody into the Kingdom. No one comes unto the Father, He said...what?...but by Me. If you're going to come, you've got to come by Me. Jesus said it another way, you remember in John's gospel He said, "I am the way," John 14. In John 10 He said, "I am the door." Here He says I have the key, I have the sovereign authority to let you in the Kingdom. And there He's talking about salvation, coming into the Kingdom of Heaven. He's also talking perhaps eschatologically about letting you in the great future messianic kingdom. In both cases He has the key.
Obviously there was some hostile Jews attacking this church, verse 9 calls them a synagogue of Satan. And they would have denied that Jesus had the key of David. They would have denied that He could open the treasure house of God's blessing. They would have denied that He only could give entrance to the Kingdom. But they were wrong. Jesus, it says in chapter 1 verse 18, had the keys to hell and death. And here He has the keys to salvation and blessing. He could send people to hell. Or He could open the door and send them to heaven. He can shut the treasure house or He can open it.
Believe me, He came with the purpose of opening the door and letting people in the Kingdom, opening the treasure house and pouring out riches. That's why He said, "I am come that you might have life," that's salvation, "and have it more abundantly," that's the treasure house. I want to let you in, that's life. I want to pour out the treasure on you, that's abundant life. So, the Lord Jesus, the holy One, the true One, God a very God is the source of salvation and the source of
And then a fourth element is given, and this one, too, is very rich. Again it describes the author back in verse 7 as the One who opens and no one will shut and who shuts and no one opens. I just love that. What that simply means is that whatever He does, that's it. If He opens the door to the Kingdom to somebody, nobody can shut it. If He shuts it, nobody can open it. If He opens the door of blessing and pours it out, no one can shut it. If He decides to leave it shut, no one can open it. Only He has the power. And here you see His omnipotence, His power. Without Christ, no salvation. With Christ, no one can stand against His saving purpose. Without Christ, no blessing. In Him we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies and no one can gainsay it, no one can stand against Him.
There's another component here that I feel I need to share with you. I believe there may be an implication here, and again I can't be dogmatic because it's hard to know every detail since it doesn't explain it all. But it also could say here that He opens and no one shuts and shuts and no one opens in terms of doors of opportunity, for service, for evangelism. In fact, in verse 8 He even makes that application and that's why I think you've got to see it in verse 7, He says, "I've put before you an open door which no one can shut." In other words, I've given you an opportunity. You say, "Well maybe He means the open door of salvation and that's what He's talking about. Or maybe He means the open door of blessing and rich treasure." That may be. But it's very possible also that He means the open door of spiritual opportunity for service and evangelism because in verse 9 He describes a marvelous evangelistic enterprise that's going to take place.
But in any case, whether it is His saving work, whether it is His blessing work, or whether it is His opening and closing doors of opportunity of service and evangelism, the point of this statement is that He opens and nobody else can shut it. He shuts it and nobody else can open it. He is sovereign, El Shaddai, the Almighty God. And as we noted in our previous studies, He is the one who is absolutely sovereign. We saw it in chapter 1 in His moving through the church, sovereignly controlling the church.
If you go back to the Old Testament you will read throughout the Old Testament of the sovereignty of God. You hear those very familiar and majestic words of Isaiah the prophet in chapter 46 as he speaks about God's almighty and sovereign power. Remember the former things long past, I am God and there is no other. I am God there is none like Me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying My purpose will be established and I will accomplish all My good pleasure. In other words, God is saying...Look, I'll do exactly what I want and no one can stand against Me.
So the correspondent or the author is the Lord Jesus Christ. He identifies Himself as God, holy God, true God, sovereign God, powerful God. What a commendation. God who is all of these. That God sees them, knows them and looking at them closely through His holy eyes, through the eyes of His truth, through His sovereignty, through His power, He finds nothing to rebuke and nothing to correct and nothing to condemn and nothing to chasten and nothing to warn them about. What an unbelievable encouragement this is to faithfulness. What a happy day it must have been in the little church, and it was a little one, we'll note that in a moment, in the little church in Philadelphia when the guy got up and read that. You can imagine that as he read the first few words...He who is holy, and true and has the key of David and opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens, says this...that they were beginning to cringe, figuring holy, true, sovereign, powerful God is going to nail us for something. And they flow through waiting for the one paragraph that never comes.
God looked and they were not perfect. But God looked and they were not wanting. The key had opened salvation. The key opened blessing. The key opened opportunities for service and evangelism. And they were faithful.
So we meet the correspondent. And His identification is encouraging. It encourages my heart. Secondly, let's look at the city. What do we know about this city of Philadelphia, not to be confused with one in our own country? Philadelphia was located about thirty miles southeast of Sardis, the church described in the prior letter. It was founded about 189, 190 B.C. by a man named Attalus who was king of Pergamos and he came over and founded this city. He had a very unusual love for his brother. Because of the unusual love that he had for his brother, he was nicknamed Philadelphia. And since he was the founder of the city his nickname stuck.
This land was rich in agriculture, had noticeable elements of volcanic ash because it was on a very, very active volcanic line. The city actually stood on a hill, on the slope of a hill looking over a long valley. It, like our own area, had experienced numerous earthquakes. The people who lived there were devastated on many occasions by massive earthquakes that literally destroyed their city and it was rebuilt on a number of occasions. They were used to aftershocks, they were used to not knowing what to expect in the movement of the earth.
The city moving fairly well east from the hub of Greco-Roman culture and pushing its way into the Orient, really, was kind of an outpost for Greek missionary activity...and I don't mean the spiritual kind, I mean selling the Greek culture to the Orient. It was kind of the Far East Outpost. And what they wanted to do was spread the Greek language. And they did. By 19 A.D. the native language, Lydian, was gone and the people spoke Greek. They pushed Greek culture to the Orient.
The city was located on a trade route, not only a trade route running to the east but what was called the Imperial Post Road where the mail went, where all the messages went. It was an Imperial Post Road stop throughout the first century, even now when this letter is being written. At one time during the Byzantine era historians tell us it was the single greatest trade route in Asia Minor.
Just to give you a pinpoint of history. In A.D. 17 a powerful earthquake destroyed twelve cities in the area, including both Sardis and Philadelphia. So it would have to been rebuilt by the time John is writing in about 96 A.D. The people lived in a fear of earthquakes.
Around A.D. 60 Laodicea was totally destroyed by an earthquake. Emperor Tiberius had helped to rebuild Philadelphia and so they erected a monument to him. We might say the place shook a lot but the church stood firm.
And that leads me to the third point, the church. What about the church? What do we know about the church? Basically nothing except what's in this letter. There's no mention of it anywhere in Scripture. People always want to know how it was founded. There is no answer to that. Probably back to Acts 19:10 again, the tremendous effective ministry in Ephesus and the Word of the Lord spread throughout all Asia Minor. Somehow when Ephesus was being planted and strengthened in the three years of the ministry of Paul, some people left there and went to this city of Philadelphia, planted a church, and that's all we know. The character of the church, we're going to see.
The fourth point that we've been dealing with in our little outline about these letters is the condemnation...and there isn't any. Like the church in Smyrna, nothing. So there's nothing to discuss except to say it doesn't mean the church was perfect. It just means there was no glaring flaw.
So we turn them to the fifth point, happily after all that we've been through with the condemnations in the last few letters, to the commendation. This is absolutely thrilling material. There are some gems of truth in this assessment of their commendation by the Lord in verses 8 to 10.
He starts out with those familiar words, "I know your deeds," and it's almost a reminder of the fact that...Look, I know the real story, folks, I don't read your press releases. I know what you're really like.
Omniscience again. The holy, true, sovereign, almighty, omniscient Lord knows everything there is to know. It's a penetrating look. And with all of that He only commends them. And He commends them for several things and I'm going to give them to you because I think they're still the things for which the Lord commends a church.
I would like to believe that our church is like Philadelphia. Not like Smyrna so much because we're not a persecuted church like the churches in eastern Europe or other parts of the world but we're probably more like the church at Philadelphia. I would like to believe we are. I wish the Lord would write us a letter. I'd like to read it. I don't know what He'd say but I hope it would be something like this one.
He says there are several things that characterize you. First, power...power. I know your deeds, He says, I know you, I know how you work, I know all about you. And then you'll notice further down in the verse He says, "You have a little power." You have a little power, a little dunamis, a little dynamite, you're a dynamite church.
Now you say, "Well now wait a minute. It sounds to me like He's saying you're pretty feeble." No, it is best to understand this because it is a commendation as simply saying...You're not very big, you're not very large, but you've got power. You're small but mighty. This is a small church, no doubt just a few. But they had had some influence in the city. This isn't a sin issue. He's not saying you have a little power and you ought to have a lot of power. He's saying you've got power for your smallness, you have spiritual power, you're just not very large. You..all alone you're not going to change the world, but you've got a little power for a small group.
It's not unreasonable to assume that they were much like Jesus' description of His disciples in Luke 12:32 when He said to them, "You're a little flock, you're so small." This little group had some power. They may have been few in number, most likely were. Probably poor. Probably low class. Probably general run of the mill undistinguished citizenry. But isn't that the stuff power comes from? Doesn't that remind you, it certainly does me, of 2 Corinthians, that great principle that the Apostle Paul identifies in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 9 as he gives his own testimony of the some of the struggles in his own life and he sums it up by making this great statement..."Therefore I am well content with weakness, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties for Christ's sake, for when I am weak then I am strong." And he says back in verse 9, "I boast about my weakness that the power of Christ may dwell in me." Sometimes in the weakest vessel comes the delivering of the greatest power...like a grain of mustard seed, maybe. Spiritual power was flowing in that church.
What does that mean? It means lives are being transformed. That's what it means. People were being changed, powerful spiritual movement. You have power. That's what I would wish for our church, wouldn't you? To have power, to see the transforming power. We see that, don't we, in our baptismal service, that's power. People come in this church and they sit in a chair, that's a very physical thing to do, and they hear we talk, that's a very physical thing to hear, and they just sit there, it's a very physical thing...there's a guy there who is just a human being and he's talking and he's saying just these words and I'm sitting in this wooden thing with cloth on it and this is just a brick place and it's all very physical, but amazingly the power of God flows and lives are changed. This church had power.
Secondly, it was characterized by obedience. It says at the end of verse 8, you have a little power, you're small but mighty, and you have kept My Word...you kept My Word. They were bound to the Scripture. They did not deviate from a pattern of obedience. I gave you My Word and you kept it, that's just another English word for the Greek word that means to obey...you obeyed it, you did what it told you to do. It reminds us, doesn't it, of John chapter 14 where Jesus defines the nature of discipleship in these words, John 14:23, "If anyone loves Me he'll keep My Word and My Father will love him and will come to him and make our abode with him." This was a saved church. These people obeyed the Lord. That's the characteristic of a believer. He who doesn't love Me doesn't keep My words, verse 23 and 24 sum it up. You keep His words, you belong to Him. You don't keep His words, you don't love Him.
In John chapter 15 the same thing is repeated again, verse 13, "Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends, now you are My friends if you do what I command you, if you obey My words you're My friends, you're My children, you belong to Me. These people were obedient. They were bound to the Word. The Word was preached and they applied it.
That's always been a thrilling thing about our church. I remember a number of years ago when I was preaching a series on the family out of Ephesians in the early eighties. And some of you will remember that it stirred up a huge controversy in the city of Los Angeles. And you will remember that we were picketed by some women who were calling me a chauvinist and they were parading in the patio with signs and you remember that the networks were here, ABC, NBC, CBS, and they were going around with microphones interviewing women. And then they would play it on the news. And one night I was on the news, the NBC news when Jess Marlow was the anchor on NBC and they interviewed me quite at length about what in the world kind of church is this, what are you people saying about women being submissive to their husbands, and women being keepers at home and raising babies and that women find their fulfillment in the bearing of godly children? Where are you coming from? This is absolutely bizarre kind of alien information. And they were really on our case.
And it hit the front page of the Times Newspaper that I was a chauvinist. And I didn't know it was even coming till I picked up the paper and saw it there. And you remember so many people came in the next few weeks, we had to take the choir out of the choir loft and seat people up there and they were all over the place to hear this raving maniac. And so they were interviewing these people and I was eavesdropping on one interview and it was so wonderful because they were interviewing this lady and they were saying..."Well why do you come to this church? Why do you sit there and listen to this? Certainly you don't accept this, do you? Certainly you're a liberated woman, you're not going to stand for this."
And her answer was very simple, "Oh," she said, "it's very easy for us to accept this because, you see, we already accept the fact that the Bible is the Word of God so whatever it says we obey." And, you know, the reporter was just absolutely non-plussed and turned to me and put the microphone under my mouth and asked me a question. The next time when I was on Jess Marlow he sat me down and the first thing he said to me was this, this is how he started the conversation, "We have noted that the women in your church seem intelligent." That's what he said. How in the world can you get them to buy this stuff? That was his opening shot. His closing one was even more strange, he asked me what I thought of the uniforms on the Ram cheerleaders. Now where that came from, I'll never know.
But the whole...the whole idea, the whole idea of having a congregation of people who just do what the Bible says is what pleases the Lord of the church. This is an obedient church, you keep My word, what it says you do.
There's a third element, not only did they have power and obedience, but they had loyalty. He says you haven't denied My name. Now I suppose they were under some kind of pressure. I wouldn't doubt that there was some heavy persecution from the synagogue of Satan in verse 9 as designated, that would be a local Jewish synagogue and they would be hammering like crazy on these people in this little church, trying to get them to deny in fact that Jesus was the Messiah. I don't know who all the detractors were or the persecutors or the intimidaters, or how even fierce the persecution might have been, but through it all He says, "You have not denied My name." You stuck up for Me. His name, as I have noted on many occasions, means all that He is. You stood by Me. You were faithful. You were loyal. I love the attribute of loyalty. It didn't matter what it cost them.
Revelation 14:12 says, "Here is the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus." They persevere. They hang in there. They don't deny His name, the mighty, powerful name of Jesus Christ, the name which is above every name, the name that causes ultimately every knee to bow. They do not deny. It doesn't matter what you do to them, they won't deny it. They won't recant their faith. They were loyal.
And then the fourth component, endurance. This church had power, obedience, loyalty and endurance. Verse 10, "Because you have kept the word of My perseverance." I like the way the NIV translates that, it's clearer. "You have kept My command to endure patiently."
It wasn't always easy. Sometimes it was hard. Lots of things come in and out of the life of a church. Some people patiently, faithfully, perseveringly endure through it all. Some don't. This church did. You were there in the good times and you were there in the hard times. You were there when everything was going up and you were there when everything was going down. That is a very, very wonderful characteristic of spiritual strength, it endures. It takes the bad times, it takes the trials, it takes the difficulties and stays faithful.
This is the kind of endurance that our Lord Himself displayed. In fact, you could even translate this with that kind of emphasis. You have kept the word of My perseverance in the sense that you have done it the way that I did it. If anyone ever persevered, it was Jesus, right? He endured faithfully, patiently until they killed Him. The patience of Christ, the endurance of Christ is certainly our model of ultimate endurance. In 2 Thessalonians 3:5 Paul prays, "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the endurance, or the steadfastness of Christ." So He is saying you have kept My command to endure patiently...there's another nuance, too, you could throw in there, you have kept My command and My example of enduring patiently. Either is possible in the Greek and so maybe the Holy Spirit wants us to take both.
The Lord requires this. We read about it so many times in the gospels, how He asked for His followers to endure. I think of Matthew 10:22, "You will be hated by all on account of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end that will be saved." This is a faithful church, this is an enduring church, through trials, persecution, faithful Christians took it all patiently in hope of God's care and God's deliverance.
So here's a little church, not big, not famous in the world, but there was really nothing wrong, nothing scandalous, nothing devastating. They had power, they had obedience, they had loyalty, they had endurance. And because of this the Lord gives them some absolutely astounding promises.
Look at verse 8, "Behold, I've put before you an open door which no one can shut." Because you have a little power, kept My word and not denied My name, because of these qualities, first promise, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut. And that ties right in to how He introduces Himself in the prior verse.
Well what does that mean? Let's go back and say what we said before. Kingdom admission, you have a place in My Kingdom. This is evidence of your genuine salvation. I see your power. I see your obedience. I see your loyalty. I see your endurance. And I say to you the Kingdom is open to you and nobody can close it. I welcome you to My Kingdom, I welcome you to the sphere of salvation by grace through faith and some day I'll welcome you into My earthly messianic Kingdom. The Jews may try to shut it. They may try to keep Christians out. They may try to keep Gentiles out. They can't. What's the promise? Eternal salvation, eternal security.
Then there's another element also. Remember I told you that the idea of the key that opens can be the treasure house? And perhaps He is saying here there is an open door not only into the Kingdom but an open door into the treasure house where you can collect all the blessings that are yours in Christ, Ephesians 1:3.
But there's that third element. And I think maybe that's what He has in mind here when He says, "I have put before you an open door which no one can shut," and He's saying I'm giving you service opportunity, I'm giving you evangelistic opportunity. You're going to be an instrument for salvation.
I'll tell you, folks, that to me is the greatest thrill. Do you know I talk to pastors who go through a year in a church and never see someone come to Christ? There are some churches that probably haven't seen somebody come to Christ in years because God isn't opening any door for them. But where you have a church that is powerful and obedient and loyal, enduring, the Lord says the first thing I'm going to do for you is open up the door of opportunity.
An open door, by the way, was an image that Paul used a lot. And he used it when he wanted to talk about freedom for proclaiming the gospel. In 1 Corinthians chapter 16 and verse 9 he says, "A wide door for effective service has opened to me and there are many adversaries." That's the door of service. In 2 Corinthians 2:12 he says, "When I came to Troas for the gospel of Christ and when a door was opened to me..." And it was a door for service, ministry, evangelization. In Colossians chapter 4 he says in verse 2, "Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving, praying at the same time for us as well that God may open to us a door for the Word."
So, the key opens a lot of things. It opens the Kingdom. It opens the treasure house. It opens opportunity for ministry. And the Lord says to this church, you're powerful, you're obedient, you're loyal, you're enduring, I'm going to open the door of opportunity and I'm going to use you as an instrument of salvation. I'm going to use you as My ministers. And that little city on the trade route, on the Imperial Post Road was in a vital location for spreading the gospel. It had done very well in spreading the gospel of Greek culture, now it could spread the saving gospel of Christ.
And then there's another promise that has to be related to that point regarding opportunity for evangelism, look at verse 9. You've got to love this. "Behold," and he uses that word three times in this letter like...Wow, can you believe this? "I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan who say they are Jews and are not but lie, behold, I'll make them come and bow down at your feet and know that I have loved you." Whew...what He says is the very Jews that are persecuting you are going to get saved.
There was a local Jewish synagogue there. In the Old Testament, Psalm 74:8, they called the synagogue the synagogue of God. I'm sure they still called it the synagogue of God, only Jesus says it's the synagogue of Satan. They don't worship God there, they worship Satan. They don't know it, but they do.
Go back to chapter 2 verse 9. It was the same kind of thing that the church in Smyrna had. There's another mention there of people who say they're Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Listen, I'm telling you, the Jews can persecute the church mercilessly. They've done it all through the years of the church's life and even still it is done. But I'm going to take those people in that synagogue, those Jews, He says who say they are Jews and are not but lie. What in the world does He mean by that? Well they claim to be true Jews, sons of Abraham, sons of God. They lie. Genetically they're Jewish, legally Jewish, ceremonially Jewish, spiritually they're not. And he is a Jew who is one inwardly, the Scripture says. And circumcision is that which is of the heart, Romans 2:28 and 29.
So the church was being hit by the hostility of this group of Jews who hated the fact that they were saying that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus is God, because the Jews had cried for His blood to be shed, they wanted Him dead. And so He says...Behold, I'm going to take that synagogue of Satan, those who say they're Jews and they aren't but lie, behold...He says it again...wow, He throws this interjection in again...I'll make them come and bow down at your feet and to know that I have loved you.
Bowing down at someone's feet was the ancient posture of a humbled, defeated enemy. I'm going to bring these enemies in and they're going to bow down at your feet. That imagery is so vivid...the vanquished foe, the humbled antagonist, the defeated enemy.
Perspective on that comes if you look into Isaiah. Let me just share this and we'll draw this to a conclusion. Isaiah 45:14 says, "Thus says the Lord, the products of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush and the Sabians, men of stature, will come over to you and be yours," he says to the Jews. All these non-Jewish people are going to come and belong to you. "They'll walk behind you, they'll come over in chains, they'll bow down to you, they'll make supplication to you, surely God is with you and there is none else, no other God."
He says all these nations are going to bow down to you. Now that's the things the Jews thought. They believed that all the whole world eventually would bow down to them. These nations are going to bow down to you...said Isaiah. Over in chapter 49 verse 23, "Thus says the Lord God, I'll lift up My hand to the nations, I'll set up My standard to the peoples, they will bring your sons in their bosom and your daughters will be carried on their shoulders. Kings will be your guardians, princes your nurses and I'll make them bow down to you with their faces to the earth and lick the dust of your feet and you'll know I am the Lord."
In other words, the whole world of kings and nations are going to bow down and lick the dust on the Jews' feet. Chapter 60 of Isaiah in verse 14, the same thing, "The sons of those who afflicted you will come bowing to you, and all those who despise you will bow themselves at the souls of your feet and they will call you the city of the Lord."
What is Isaiah saying? The day is going to come when the whole world bows down to the Jews. But do you know what the letter from Jesus is saying here? It is saying that day hasn't come yet, for now the Jews are going to bow down at your feet. That would be more than those Jews could bear to hear. It's reversed here. So He says they're going to come, they're going to bow down at your feet and they're going to know that I, God, have loved you. You're the objects of my love.
What's He saying here? Jews are going to get saved in your little church. Some of those people in the synagogue of Satan are going to get converted. That's historically what it meant.
What does it mean to a faithful church? I believe this, listen carefully, I believe that a faithful church throughout the history of the church, faithful churches, have an impact on Jews. You know, I thank God this church probably through the years has had more Jewish Christians than any church I know of across the country. I thank God for that, I rejoice in that. And I think that's because God has blessed our church with this same kind of promise.
But there's even an eschatological perspective here. There is a day coming in the future when the whole nation Israel is going to bow before Christ, right? Romans 11, "So all Israel will be saved." Zechariah 12, "They'll look on Him whom they've pierced and mourn for Him as an only Son and a fountain of blessing will be open to Israel and their sins will be washed away." Historically, this little church saw the synagogue that persecuted Him get converted. Through the history of the church, think about it, Jewish people have been converted, they've come and bowed the knee before the church and said, "Yes, God has loved you." And I want to be in on that love. Just in modern times, in England a converted Jew named Joseph Frye had a dream of being called to reach London Jews. He labored under the London Missionary Society as a missionary to Jews for five years and founded the London society for promoting Christian knowledge among Jews. In 1842 society for the propagation of the gospel among Jews began. In 1876 the Mildmay(?) Mission to Jews, the Kilburn Mission to the Jews in 1896. By the end of the nineteenth century there was one Christian missionary for every one thousand Jews in the British Isles. And God began to give the church Jews who came down and bowed the knee and said yes, God has set His love on you, I want to be a part of that.
I think about Europe, even in the Protestant movement in 1800 in the Netherlands, the London Jewish Society had a tremendous evangelistic outreach. In 1849 Carl Swartz established a mission college to train people to reach Jews. In 1844 the Netherlands Society for Promoting Christianity Among Jews was founded. The first mission to Jews was in Norway was in 1844, in Sweden, 1856, in Denmark, 1885, in Switzerland, 1825, in Germany, 1820 and it's gone that way through Europe to Russia, Poland, Latvia, Estonia. Alexander I was interested in converting Jews and got a converted Russian Jew by the name of Moritz to be an evangelist to his people. In Italy and Spain and Portugal and France and Belgium and Czechoslovakia between 1850 and 1900, tremendous outreach to Jews and many were converted to Christ. In Palestine in 1821 was founded the American Board of Commissioners and the London Jews Society. Jews have been coming to Christ all these years.
In 1902 40,000 Jews in Palestine were under the direct influence of the gospel. In Asia the gospel has gone to Jews in Turkey, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, India, Persia. Over in Africa the London Jewish Society went into Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, on and on it goes.
And we all know about America. And I'll tell you, those churches that are faithful like the church at Philadelphia are the ones the Lord gives an open door to and causes Jewish people to be attracted and bow the knee and say I want the love that God has given you.
So He promises the faithful church, first of all, the door's open to salvation and the Kingdom, the door's open to blessing and the door's open to opportunity for service and evangelism. And the second thing I'm promising you is that your persecutors among the Jews are going to bow the knee to Jesus Christ.
There's another promise, absolutely overwhelming, come back next week, I'll tell you what it is. Let's pray.
Father, we rejoice in our wonderful fellowship tonight as we have gotten a glimpse of this wonderful church. We want to be like this church, not for our own sake but for Your sake. Bless these truths to our hearts, in Jesus' name. Amen.
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Space Station Commander
Joined: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:47 am
Posts: 521
Location: Science Park, Cambridge, UK
I think the altitude record for a rocket plane is now held by SpaceShipOne flight 17P - 112km.
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Spaceflight Enthusiast
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:04 pm
Posts: 2
Location: Saint Cloud, Minnesota
Just a quick estimate for the lowest possible altitude reachable.
Velocity Airframes for the XL are quoted as weighing 1700-1800 lbs, I believe the IC propulsion unit weighs ~460 lbs or so, but we can neglect that and assume that some of this weight difference is compensated by the rocket engine(being made for sustained use, it's probably got a low T/W ratio, much lower than 100) and tanks. It's been stated that the tanks carry 500 pounds of oxidizer and 500 pounds of fuel, which means they are probably 30" tanks, whereas I think AA usually uses 36" tanks. The Mark II & III were qouted by Peter Diamandis as getting 2 minutes of propulsion. With this much propellant and a very rough ISP estimate of 220-270, this works out to 2000-2500 lbs thrust, what has been qouted multiple times.
The Velocity airframe has a Vne of ~200 knots, so assuming a weight of ~2700 lbs and thrust of ~2500 lbs, the vehicle should easily be able to sustain a climb rate of 100-150 m/s.
Again, this is a very rough estimate, but I would say the absolute minimum ceiling they could reach would be about 15,000 m, within 2 minutes.
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Space Walker
Joined: Mon Sep 21, 2009 10:43 pm
Posts: 146
Location: Webster, TX
lol of all the vehicles to have slipped my mind.
So far i've had not luck finding altitude and time-to-climb records for ground launched rocket planes (not launcehd from a mothership)
While it's really nothing more than a publicity thing, to be able to claim those would be a fun endeavor.
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Mac Miller(1992 - 2018)
Mac Miller (1992 – 2018) was a popular
who just released his fifth studio album titled "Swimming" in August which debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200. The album featured the single "Small Worlds." Miller was about to start a US tour in support of the album on October 27 in San Francisco. His 2016 album, "The Divine Feminine," charted at number 2 on the Billboard 200 and featured guest appearances from Kendrick Lamar, Anderson Paak, and Ariana Grande. Miller and Grande were in a long term relationship from 2016 until earlier this year. Miller's real name was Malcolm McCormick and he was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on January 19, 1992.
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Flux node agents share the most essential and basic capabilities of the traditional, but minimalist IRC-based bot in several ways: they regularly phone home to announce their continued availability, they check for updates, perform download operations, and allow for the execution of arbitrary commands on the local operating system by a remote attacker. However, almost without exception, fast-flux Command and Control (C&C) activity observed in the wild thus far has been HTTP protocol based.
The ability of Fast-flux agents to proxy or redirect TCP services appears to be an outgrowth from the redirect functions of legacy IRC bots that possess optional UDP proxy or redirect capabilities. The bundling of these features enables a fast-flux service network to become a powerful criminal tool and helps to make the fast-flux service network operator less easily detectable. The fast-flux front end nodes will either act on command or execute hard-coded instructions to redirect inbound traffic received on configured ports to a specifically chosen upstream fast-flux mothership node. Several fast-flux service network operations have been observed maintaining distributed nodes that act primarily in performing availability and connection quality tests of individual flux-agents within the fast-flux service network. For an example of the development cycle of fast-flux malware, refer to Appendix A. For an example of the infection process for the malware, refer to Appendix B. Below we summarize two commonly used malware that have adopted fast-flux capabilities.
The networks based upon these malware variants have been erected to provide a robust platform for sending large volumes of unsolicited email (spam). They have been very successful in this goal and employ advanced techniques such as the constant automated creation of many malware variants to frustrate anti-virus signature creation. Infected machines download these updates on a regular schedule in order to increase the amount of time it takes for a system to be cleaned and taken offline. These updates must be hosted on websites, so if their public IP addresses remain static, the update sites can potentially be taken down fairly easily. Until recently, a strategy of auto-generating pseudo-random domain names which moved around was used to protect such download sites. Starting in May 2007, the criminal organization behind this spam business moved to a fast-flux service network model. This group is now hosting their DNS services and malware download sites via fast-flux service networks and appear to be enjoying continued success in their criminal endeavor.
The biggest competitor of the Warezov/Stration gang is perhaps the criminal organization operating a very large spam sending network based on the family of malware variants dubbed Storm/Peacomm/Peed. They employ a UDP-based P2P model for botnet command and control. This is a highly robust way to operate a large distributed network if the complexities of managing peer lists and minimizing latency can be overcome. They have also employed novel techniques to counter anti-spam solutions, such as generating image-based spam on the fly on the endpoints flux-agent nodes themselves, rather than simply relying on template based messaging. These images are randomized in ways which frustrate the OCR (object character recognition) technologies used in some anti-spam products and have been most commonly used to facilitate fraudulent pump and dump stock spam schemes. In June 2007 this group was observed attempting to modify their P2P network to support fast-flux style networking. This is a significant advance for spam-sending malware and requires further study.


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PrehypertensionSkip to the navigation
Topic Overview
What is prehypertension?
Prehypertension is blood pressure that is higher than normal but not high enough to be high blood pressure . It is a warning that your blood pressure is going up.
Blood pressure is a measure of how hard your blood pushes against the walls of your arteries. Blood pressure that is too high (also called hypertension) harms your blood vessels. This raises your risk of heart attack , stroke , kidney failure , and other health problems.
Blood pressure is shown as two numbers, such as 120/80 (say "120 over 80"). The top number is the pressure when the heart pumps blood. It is called the systolic pressure. The bottom number is the pressure when the heart relaxes and fills with blood. It is called the diastolic pressure. An ideal blood pressure for an adult is less than 120/80. High blood pressure is 140/90 or higher. Prehypertension is between ideal blood pressure and hypertension. You have prehypertension if your top number is 120 to 139, or your bottom number is 80 to 89, or both.
What makes blood pressure go up?
Experts don't know the exact cause of high blood pressure. But they agree that some things can make blood pressure go up. They include not getting enough exercise and being overweight. Eating foods that have too much sodium (salt) and drinking too much alcohol also can raise blood pressure.
What are the symptoms?
Blood pressure that is higher than normal does not cause symptoms. Most people feel fine. They find out they have higher-than-normal blood pressure during a routine exam or a doctor visit for another problem.
How is prehypertension diagnosed?
A simple test with a blood pressure cuff is all you need to find out your blood pressure. The doctor or nurse puts the cuff around your arm and pumps air into the cuff. The cuff squeezes your arm. The doctor or nurse takes your blood pressure while letting the air out of the cuff.
After measuring your blood pressure, your doctor may ask you to test it again when you are home. footnote 1 This is because your blood pressure can change throughout the day. And sometimes blood pressure is high only because you are seeing a doctor. This is called white-coat hypertension . To diagnose high blood pressure, your doctor needs to know if your blood pressure is high throughout the day.
So your doctor may ask you to monitor your blood pressure at home to make sure that it actually is high. You may get an ambulatory blood pressure monitor or a home blood pressure monitor . These devices measure your blood pressure several times throughout the day.
How is it treated?
Heart-healthy lifestyle changes can lower your blood pressure if you have prehypertension.
To lower blood pressure:
- Do not smoke or use other tobacco products. If you do smoke, talk to your doctor about treatments that can help you quit.
- Stay at a healthy weight. Lose weight if you are overweight. Losing as little as 10 lb (4.5 kg) can help lower your blood pressure.
- Be active on most days of the week. Try to do moderate activity at least 2½ hours a week. Or try to do vigorous activity at least 1¼ hours a week.
- Eat a healthy diet. The DASH diet is an eating plan that can help lower your blood pressure. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. It focuses on eating foods that are high in calcium, potassium, and magnesium. The DASH diet includes lots of fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains, fish, and poultry. Your doctor may suggest that you talk to a dietitian if you need help planning what to eat.
- Limit sodium. For good health, less is best. Most people shouldn't eat more than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day. If you limit your sodium to 1,500 mg a day, you can lower your blood pressure even more. footnote 2 Your doctor will tell you how much you can have. Do not add salt to your food. Limit processed and canned foods, such as soups, frozen meals, and packaged snacks.
- Limit alcohol to 1 drink a day for women and no more than 2 drinks a day for men. If your blood pressure tends to go up when you have alcohol, your doctor may suggest that you do not drink any alcohol.
Other Places To Get Help
Related Information
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. (2015). Hypertension in Adults: Screening and Home Monitoring: Final Recommendation Statement. http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/Page/Document/RecommendationStatementFinal/high-blood-pressure-in-adults-screening. Accessed January 21 , 2016
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture (2015). 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans 8th ed. http://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/. Accessed January 12, 2016.
Other Works Consulted
- Eckel RH, et al. (2013). 2013 AHA/ACC guideline on lifestyle management to reduce cardiovascular risk: A report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines. Circulation. http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/early/2013/11/11/01.cir.0000437740.48606.d1.citation. Accessed December 5, 2013.
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2008). 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans (ODPHP Publication No. U0036). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Available online: http://www.health.gov/paguidelines/guidelines/default.aspx.
- Weber MA, et al. (2013). Clinical practice guidelines for the management of hypertension in the community. Journal of Clinical Hypertension. DOI: 10.1111/jch.12237. Accessed December 19, 2013.
ByHealthwise Staff
Primary Medical Reviewer E. Gregory Thompson, MD - Internal Medicine
Martin J. Gabica, MD - Family Medicine
Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine
Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine
Specialist Medical Reviewer Robert A. Kloner, MD, PhD - Cardiology
Current as ofDecember 19, 2017
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Current as of: December 19, 2017