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Well it's falls to me and it's a joy to kind of open up our conference and draw your attention to "Why every true Calvinist must affirm a biblical ecclesiology and reject church- growth theory." That would be a summation statement of what I want to say to you. If you believe that God is sovereign in salvation, if you believe that Jesus meant what He said in Matthew 16:18 when He said, "I will build My church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it," if you believe that Jesus spoke truly when He said in John 6, "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will not cast out and of all that the Father has given Me, I lose none but will raise him up on the last day and no one can come to Me except the Father who sent Me draws him and I will raise him on the last day," if you believe the words of our Lord that God has chosen and determined who He will redeem and has, as the Scripture says, written their names down in a book, the Lamb's Book of Life, even before creation, if you believe that Jesus will receive all those whom the Father draws and gives to Him will keep them, lose none and raise all at the last day, the question is...how does church-growth theory fit into that?
Sovereign election has already been determined. It has determined who will be saved and constitute the regenerate church. That was done in the councils of the Trinity before time began.
Furthermore, our Lord has fully propitiated the just anger of God over the sins of the elect by suffering in full the righteous judgment for all their sins. Scripture teaches that the death of Christ was an actual atonement, an actual satisfaction, not a potential one. Scripture teaches that the sinner for whom Christ died has received by grace alone the gift of a true and real payment for all his sins, fully borne by Christ. It is biblical to use words like "real, actual, definite, particular and specific" with reference to the atonement. Christ's substitutionary sacrifice was the divine work of the Trinity to accomplish redemption, not merely to make it possible, to procure salvation, not merely to make it optional. Jesus Christ, according to Scripture, actually bore the penalty for all the sins of all whom the Father chose and all whom the Father chose He will draw and all whom He draws will come and all who come Christ receives, and keeps, and raises.
Christ certainly did not do on the cross the same thing, make the very same provision for the people in hell as He did for the people in heaven. This is what Scripture affirms. Defending that is for another time, that is nonetheless what Scripture affirms.
That leads then to the necessary conclusion that I want you to think about today in our opening session, that since the Lord has determined His church, draws His church, regenerates His church, justifies His church and brings His church through sanctification to eternal glory, this is all a supernatural work. It is also true and revealed in Scripture that this supernatural work is not apart from means through which God does His work and in which we all participate. It is nevertheless the Lord building, regenerating, giving life, granting repentance, giving saving faith to His church and it will not fall short by one soul.
The question for us then is this...as the Lord builds His church, by what means does He do it? And secondly, has He revealed the means to us? If we are the under-shepherds of Christ, if we are ministers of Jesus Christ, if we are the called and the gifted by the Holy Spirit to be the human instruments by which Christ builds His church, then we need to understand how it is that He does that. We're compelled to get in line with the divine pattern.
Now I will acknowledge that there are many, many ways to build the first church of the tares...many ways. Behind which Satan is the real power. And it can be done very effectively. The church of the tares can be very effective, it can be big and it can be enduring. The Gnostics did it and it's still around. The Roman Catholics have done it and its still around. The liberals have done it and its still around. The cults have done it and its still around. The church of the tares is actually bigger than the church of the wheat. And today those who call themselves evangelicals are busy doing it.
And there's a long list of locations called churches where tares assemble in increasing numbers with a scattering of weak wheat stalks among them. The successful assemblies of tares will eagerly market their skill at tare development. It can be very seductive to those who are motivated by numbers or pride or popularity.
So, if you want to take a shot at competing with the rest of the tare pastors to see how many tares you can get in a building, there's ample information, lots of seminars, plenty of books and data on the Internet that you can draw down to work on building your church of the tares with a smattering of wheat.
However, if you serve Christ and you recognize that He is the one head of the true church and He it is who builds the church by divine design, determined by the Father, energized by the Holy Spirit, then all you want to know is how can I be useful to Him in the building of His church. And I assume that's why you're here and not somewhere else. So we're back to our one essential issue, how does Christ build His church and has He revealed that to us? Or are we in the dark? Is there some wiggle room here that allows for some of the contemporary approaches to this?
Well I'm happy to say to you, the answer is not vague, the answer is not obscure. When you ask how does Christ build His church, the answer is not debatable, it's not complicated, it's not even difficult. It is simple, it is straightforward, it is so clear that it is inescapable. It is so singular as to make every one of us duty bound and accountable to the Lord of the church for faithfulness to His will and His means so clearly revealed. If you are caught up a little in chasing every passing fad for church growth, if you are buying the bags of church growth stuff that clever entrepreneurs and marketers are selling, if you're reading every survey that comes out and doing your best to analyze culture, you're trying every device to increase numbers, I sort of want to throw the gauntlet down today and ask you to make a choice. If you want to build the church of the tares, you're on your own, get all you can. You want to be a means by which Christ builds His church, that's a different thing all together.
And the heartbreaking reality is that I am not going to show you anything you don't know. I'm not going to tell you anything you haven't had in your own hands and before your eyes for years. It's not even hidden. It's not even under some subtle Greek nuance or some obscure historical contextual reality. It's just a plain message. Christ said He would build His church, the book of Acts describes how He did that. So let's turn to the book of Acts.
Is it too obvious, too junior-high Sunday-school class level to say that the book of Acts was given to us by the Holy Spirit to show us how Christ build His church not in theory but in reality, practicality? This is exactly how the Lord went about building the church that He promised He would build.
Now I want us particularly to see the amazing story of church growth in the early chapters of Acts. This is the greatest story of church growth in history...in history. And this is only the beginning. There's a hint at how big this is going to be in chapter 2 verse 39 where Peter says in his sermon on Pentecost, "The promise is for you and your children and all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself." That is...that's the key to this whole passage. In that verse is divine sovereign election. In that verse is effectual call. In that verse is the substance of everything I said to you in the opening few remarks about the fact that the Lord is building His church and it's for you and it's beyond your generation and it's beyond your nation. It's for those who come after you and those who are far away from you. This is a...this is an almost infinite verse. It goes on and on and on throughout all of history to generations and generations and generations and places and places and places until finally we get to heaven and we see that people are there from every tongue and tribe and people and nation, gathered around the throne and worshiping the Lamb. This is a hint at how this church Christ is going to build will extend itself through generations and across nations.
Now how successful was Christ's effort in the early church? Let's go to chapter 1 verse 12. "They returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet where, you remember, Jesus had ascended near Jerusalem, a Sabbath's day journey away. When they had entered...they went up to the Upper Room where they were staying, that is Peter and John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with His brothers who had now come to faith. And at this time Peter stood in the midst of the brethren, a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together."
So, if we just start in Jerusalem, we have a hundred and twenty people...120 people. It doesn't last long. Chapter 2 verse 41, "So then, those who had received his word were baptized and there were added that day about three thousand souls." That's within hours. The church goes from 120 to three thousand. The Lord is building His church.
Go to verse 47, end of the verse. "And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved." Those who were being saved. You go to chapter 4 and verse 4, "And many of those who had heard the message believed and the number of the men came to be about five thousand." And you can add to that women, the number is growing and growing.
You come to chapter 5 and verse 14, "And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number, or to the church." Now it's in the multitudes of thousands and tens of thousands.
You come to chapter 6 and verse 7, "And the Word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith."
Now we don't have time to keep going. Chapter 9 verse 31, chapter 12 verse 24, chapter 16 verses 4 and 5, chapter 17 verse 12, chapter 19 verse 20, and even when you come to the very end of this wonderful, wonderful book in verse 31, preaching the Kingdom of God goes on and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness unhindered. And the church continues to grow.
So when I say that the simple obvious theme of the book of Acts is to answer the question...how does Christ build His church?...you can see it. There's great attention given to how the church grew. Now it will be helpful for us to go back and identify the components that produce this kind of stunning growth. And remember, this is coming out of no history. This is the first generation church.
What are the elements? I want to give you several of them to think about and I want to just kind of provoke your thinking and hope you'll have some helpful discussions through the week. Number one, and this is important, they had a transcendent message...they had a transcendent message. This is so obvious that it may actually embarrass many of us who have forsaken it. They had a transcendent message.
There's an underlying reality here of which I briefly remind you, 1 Peter 1:23, "You are begotten again by the word of truth," right? We all affirm that. What is the agency that produces, that is the means by which the Spirit produces salvation? It is the Word of God. How can they believe unless they hear? And faith then comes by hearing the Word of Christ, Romans 10. So we understand then that salvation comes by means of the Holy Spirit using the message and that message is a singular message. Agreed? It's a singular message. If you preach any other message...what? You're cursed. Any other gospel, you're cursed. So we have this singular message which then by definition must be a transcendent message.
What is plain is that the message of the early church transcended all languages, all nations, all cultures, all societal norms, all contexts, all levels of education, all notions about status. It transcended everything. And remember this, please, there was no global village. You understand that national identity was fixed and unmixed in many, many cases. They didn't have media to wash away all the differences in the sort of universal mentality that we're used to in our exposed culture. There are hard lines drawn between people groups and languages and societal norms and behaviors and forms of entertainment, etc. There was no mass media creating world norms. There were deep-seated distinct, cherished, ingrained, cultural perspectives all over the globe and they had no effect on the message...no effect. Jesus said, Matthew 28, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Make disciples, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." And all those great commission passages.
Go back to Acts 1 now verse 8. "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." You'll receive power for evangelism when the Holy Spirit is come upon you and you will be witnesses of Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the remotest part of the earth. You notice the utter indifference to language, societal norms, social issues, racial barriers, they don't exist. The power of the Spirit and the power of the gospel, that's all that is necessary. You can take that message from where you are in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.
In chapter 2 and verse 5, the Jews were in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. Sure, they would have had some commonality in their Jewish religion but they would have also had some very distinct characteristics in terms of societal experiences. They were all there at this particular time at Pentecost. And you know what happened, the power of the Spirit of God came and they were speaking in languages and it is noted in verse 8, "How is it that we each hear them in our language to which we were born? Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, and Cretans and Arabs can be thrown in, we hear them in our own tongues speaking the mighty deeds of God." All that is necessary for the power of God to be released in a situation is that the truth of God be proclaimed. It is irrelevant what the cultural expectations are.
And then Peter preaches his sermon and at the end, verse 36, Acts 2, "Let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. And when they heard this they were pierced to the heart." Who was pierced to the heart? All these people from Jerusalem and from all these other countries. Peter simply proclaimed the truth concerning Christ and did an exposition of Psalm 16. Right? That's what he did. And they were pierced to the heart. And they said, "What do we do?" And Peter said, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." It is a message of sin and repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what nation you're from, it doesn't matter what language, the message never ever changes.
"For the promise...there we are in verse 39...is for you and your children, for all who are far off in the Gentile world, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself." We know who is going to respond to the message, the ones the Lord calls to Himself. And with many other words...many other words, "He solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them saying, 'Be saved from this perverse generation.'" Not only did he not identify with the generation, he said you've got to be saved from it. There were those three thousand souls that were added by God that day to the hundred and twenty.
The message is transcendent. You say, "Well what are the practical implications of that?" It didn't matter whether he was talking to Jews or Gentiles, the message never changed. And you can follow that through the book of Acts. It doesn't matter whether Paul's talking to Gentiles, or synagogue talking to Jews, the message never changes. The Jews said, "That's a stumbling block." First Corinthians, right? The Gentiles said, "That's foolishness." Paul said, "I will continue to preach only Christ and Him crucified." It's immaterial. The message never ever changed. Why would you do anything to change the message? First Corinthians 2, "When the natural man understands not the things of God." You're talking to the dead. If our gospel is hidden, 2 Corinthians 4, it's hidden to those that do not believe.
So, the Apostles went out with absolute disdain for...here comes the buzz word....any contextualization at all. The modern cry for contextualization is a curse...it's a curse because people are spending all their time fussing around with trying to figure out whether they should have holes in their Levis and a skull and crossbones on their Tshirt as if that's a means to drawing in the elect. Are you kidding me? This is a curse, instead of spending all their time trying to understand the biblical context.
The Apostles and the prophets of the early church took their transcendent message from Jerusalem to Rome, from the biblical literate to the biblically illiterate, from slaves to slave owners, from bond to free, from Jew to Greek, they crossed hard national, social, cultural lines and the message never ever, ever, changed. It was the Word of the Lord.
Contextualization...I call it Zip Code ministry. Is that what you want? We're big in our zip code. The message of Jesus Christ is transcendent. The message of the church is transcendent. The message of the Word of God is transcendent. You have the Bible in your hand, you must affirm the message transcended its original culture. It crosses the world. It ignores all the nuances of social order. It ignores all the peculiarities of style. It never descends to clothing and musical styles as if that had anything to do with Christ building His church.
So, I pose this question. Can your message go to any person, every person? Not only in your zip code but in your town, in your state, in your country, and can you take the message you preach on Sunday any place in the world and preach it? Does your message ignore all the trends and fads and pop cultural superficial icons and bring heaven's truth down in its full alien reality? Can you take your sermons anywhere on the road and preach them? That's been one of the most wonderful things. I've preached my messages just about everywhere on the planet, from the high mountains of Ecuador to the sophisticated business buildings of Hong Kong and I never changed the message. I do the same...I take the same notes that I preach here. Nothing changes. Grace To You radio is on a thousand times in the English speaking world, around the world, and a thousand times in Spanish around the Spanish speaking world, books translated, I don't know, 30, 40, 50, 60 languages, Study Bible, 8, 9, 10 languages now being translated into Chinese and Arabic. This is not remarkable, this is just the way it ought to be. This is the way it ought to be. Or should there be a warning label on your CDs, "This message destructs in five seconds?" Or, "Discard three months after the date?, or a week after?", or whatever. Pretty obvious, isn't it?
The Lord built His church with pure, simple, straightforward gospel truth. The Corinthians, of course, they were very bothered that Paul wasn't contextualized. That ate at them. And he couldn't have cared less. He didn't care at all. John the Baptist was a little out of touch with his society. I don't think he found a whole lot of folks wearing camel's hair, so were all the Old Testament prophets for that matter. And so was Jesus. And please, do not appeal to anything in people that is innate to their fallenness. Wherever their corruption goes, don't go there...don't go there. The true gospel has to be alien, it has to be alien.
There's a second characteristic of the church...the church that Jesus built that comes out in the book of Acts. One, a transcendent message, two, a regenerate congregation...a regenerate congregation. There's an odd idea.
Is it too obvious to say that the church of Jesus Christ is an assembly of true believers? To call an assembly of non-believers a church is preposterous, outrageous. The Lord only adds believers to the church. There's a serious defect in a so-called minister content to be proud of assembling non-believers and calling them a church. Something deeply wrong there. Modern evangelicalism seems to exhaust every imaginable and unimaginable means to attract and collect non-Christians into a building and then call it a church and call it church growth. Maybe there's a better way to identify these places, let's just call them non-churches. Maybe it's just an evangelistic event.
But I want you to see that in the early church it was about a regenerate congregation. Chapter 2 verse 42, "They were continually devoting themselves to the Apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer." What do you have here? First of all, you have three thousand people that were saved, added to the church, three thousand people who made a public confession of Christ, and three thousand people who were baptized. Okay? And then you have three thousand people who were doing nothing but those things that are connected to spiritual life, the Apostles teaching, fellowship. That's the interchange of ministry, the one anothers, the spiritual gifts, breaking bread, coming to the Lord's table and prayer. That's a real church...that's a real church. They were doing what real Christians do.
You probably read some time back about Willow Creek saying that they've been doing it wrong all this time. And so now they're going to find another way to try to do it. So they had a conference with Brian McClaren and they're going to come up with a new way to collect non-Christians and call it a church. That's not a church...that's not a church. Here you have together all those who believed, engaged in spiritual ministry, everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, many wonders and signs were taking place through the Apostles, and all those who believed were together. That's a key line...all those that believed were...what? That a church...that's a church. And they had all things in common. They actually got a point where they actually sold property and possessions in order to give to people who had need and day by day continuing with one mind...there it is again. They were all together. They all believed. They had one mind. They were devoted to the spiritual disciplines, even taking meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart. This is the real deal, praising God, having favor with all the people. That's a church. That's what you want in a church.
And what is the result? Verse 47, "The Lord was adding to their number day by day." With a transcendent message, the Lord added three thousand in one day, day by day hundreds more, each week, in a matter of weeks, thousands and tens of thousands.
The Lord defines His church as an assembly of regenerate believers, totally devoted to Christ, true worshipers gathered for spiritual purposes, engaged in the spiritual disciplines. I love this, they were continually devoting themselves, continually being the operative word, to these spiritual disciplines. This is a far cry from what goes on in the non-church today. An event is designed for unbelievers and there are a few straggler believers in the assembly of tares getting nothing to lift them up from their spiritual weakness. But the Lord builds His church from the foundation of true believers.
There's a third element in the book of Acts. When Christ builds His church it is marked by a transcendent message, it is marked by a regenerate congregation, and it is marked by a valiant perseverance. It is marked by a valiant perseverance. This is something you've got to see a little balance on.
The church does not, as its primary objective, seek to be popular with the world. Would you agree with that? Obviously. Jesus said that they're going to kill you because they killed me. They're going to hate you. Get ready for persecution in the Olivet discourse that He gave, Luke 21 He talks about this persecution that's going to run between His first coming and His Second Coming. And it's going to escalate and escalate and escalate, that's just the way it's going to be. He reiterates that in John 15 and 16. And so we understand that all who live godly in this present age will suffer persecution. We understand that.
But there's a balance with that as well. It's an interesting thing. The church does not seek to be popular with the world. It knows that in its true expression, it offends sinners, right? The essence of our message offends sinners. But it is also true that the world can have a basic respect for Christians. We find that. Acts 2:46, having favor with all the people. The people could appreciate integrity. They could appreciate honesty. They could appreciate virtue. They could appreciate kindness and the graciousness that goes along with being a Christian.
In chapter 3 of the book of Acts, when, of course, there was a healing, Peter and John were there in the temple. Verse 9, all the people saw him walking and praising God and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms. They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. There are similar indications of the wonder and amazement of people. In chapter 4 verse 21 they were all glorifying God for what had happened.
So there's a sense in which people do see the church and see amazing evidences of transformed lives. They may see a drug addict, an adulterer, they may see someone with a dissolute life of criminal, somebody out of jail. They may see someone totally transformed, even families see members transformed by the power of Christ. That's why in chapter 5 verse 13 it says they held them in high esteem.
So, from, I guess you could say, from the personal level, at the level of the people, they can see and realize that there's a transformation. And I think that's what Jesus meant when He said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." There's a platform, isn't there, for evangelism based upon the credibility of your life. So there's that element there as well.
Second Corinthians 4:2, Paul says that he's commending ourselves to every man's conscience. We want to live lives of virtue and character, showing the power of Christ. Like the German philosopher said, "Show me your redeemed life and I might be interested in believing in your Redeemer." So I think there is something to say critical for that. First Timothy 3:7 says even elders are to have a good reputation of those who are out...with those who are outside the church.
But alongside that general awe or that general esteem, or that general respect, and we've all experienced that at the hands of some of the most non-Christian people, they respect us because they see virtue and manifest character, etc., etc., but alongside that while they respect us for the evident power in our lives or the evident difference in our lives, they resent us for the message. They resent us for the message. The resentment comes at the point of the truth preached and proclaimed.
So, in the modern strategy you go big with the number one idea that they like us because we're nice, and if you just pull back the message, they'll keep liking us. But if you're honest enough to give the message, the message is a damning and judgmental message. And so it was in the book of Acts. Verse 36 of chapter 2, "Therefore, let all the house of Israel, says Peter, know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus, whom you crucified." When they said, "What shall we do?" Peter said in verse 38, "Repent and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." And then in verse 40 he goes on solemnly testifying and exhorting, "Be saved from this perverse generation." Don't go to hell with everybody else. And he's talking to religious Jews. He's talking to religious Jews.
Chapter 3 verse 17, Peter again, "Now, brethren, I know you acted in ignorance just as your rulers did also, but the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and He may send Jesus the Christ appointed for you." Again the message clearly is repentance. And it's the same again in chapter 4, "Let it be known to you...verse 10...and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this name this man stands here before you in good health." Again there is this continual tone of indictment. The same in chapter 5 verses 17 and following. You can read it on your own.
So the picture that emerges here is this, there is necessary a kind of integrity and personal virtue that's manifest in the life of the church in the world. But the message when preached faithfully and honestly and directly is rejected. It is hostile. It is offensive.
There's a trend today in reading about it to eliminate the Law from evangelism. I don't know if you've been listening to this going on a lot now. Let's not talk about the Law because absolutes offend people. Proverbs 16:6 says, "By the fear of the Lord, one keeps away from evil." And you only know why you should fear God if you know what God demands. I don't think you can take the Law out of evangelism. I know that's the new idea, but I don't think you can do that. One, because you're going against the work of the Holy Spirit. John 16, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, judgment. Those are all legal issues. That's the Law. You also have an ally in the human heart if you're talking about the Law because according to Romans 2:15, the Law is written on every heart. There's even an ally in the unregenerate man with regard to the Law. And in addition, he has a conscience that excuses or accuses him based upon how he responds to that Law. There's much more about that in the epistle of Paul to the Romans.
We can't back away from the idea of sin, righteousness, judgment, calling for repentance, forgiveness, escape from hell, not perishing with the perverse generation. This is an offensive, narrow, exclusive, condemning message. It puts all those, listen, all those who do not believe the gospel into the category of being damned forever. And all people who propagate any other kind of religious idea except the true gospel are hypocritical, liars, who are damned themselves. There's no way around it. We are called to alarm the sinner...to alarm the sinner.
And what's that going to do? That's going to create persecution, hostility. Jesus said, you're going to have to take up your cross if you want to follow Me, you're going to have to hate your father, your mother, your sister, your brother, those of your own household, even your own life. This message is very hostile. And the early church felt it big.
Look at chapter 4. "As they were speaking to the people and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead." That's the gospel and its ultimate end, eternal life. "And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day because it was already evening." There they are preaching the gospel and the authorities come and arrest them and put them in jail.
Now you would conclude if you were in a church-growth strategy session, that is not good for selling the church. If people think that they're going to jail if they believe this, that's not good...that's not good. We want to be popular. We want to be accepted with everyone. We want to be accepted not only with the neutral people, we want to be accepted with all the other religious people. We want the Jews to like us. We want the cultists to like us. We probably have the same Jesus the Mormons do anyway. We have the same God that the Muslims do. We want everybody to like us so that this doesn't happen because this is counterproductive to evangelism.
Look it's tough enough to get them to believe something that is foolish or a stumbling block. It's tough enough to tell them they have to be slaves to Christ in a world filled with slaves where they can see the abuses of that and what it meant. And then you add to that that if you do believe and become a part of the church, you might be arrested, put in jail, and executed. That's not going to work.
Oh yes it is. Verse 4, "But...very important little word, right?...many of those who had heard the message believed and the number of the men came to be about five thousand." Persecution does not retard the church because people don't come to salvation because they think it's a soft way. They come because the Spirit of God draws them because they are chosen by the Father. If you go through the book of Acts, chapter 12, Herod laid hands on some who belonged to the church in order to mistreat them, you know the whole story of Herod. And it's told in chapter 12. Come down to verse 24, "But the Word of the Lord continued to grow and be multiplied."
The church has a valiant endurance. It has a valiant perseverance in the face of persecution, the gates of Hades cannot stop it. The gates of Hades is a euphemism for death. Even the threat of death cannot stop the church. We don't need to mitigate the cost of becoming a Christian.
Number four, it's a little frustrating because I have more thing I want to say but I need to be done here...number four, the church growth plan in the book of Acts, the way Christ builds His church, involves a transcendent message, a regenerate congregation, a valiant perseverance, and fourth, an evident purity...an evident purity.
And let me tell you what the danger in the early church was. You want to know what the really big danger was? The big threat to the early church, this will surprise you, it wasn't persecution, we just read that. They arrested them and the church grew. They arrested them and the church multiplied. That wasn't it. The biggest threat to the church was this, there were so many signs and wonders, there were so many miracles attracting people that unbelievers might come to church for the wrong reasons. That's the deadly danger.
There are a lot of sick people, lots of people who were infirm, diseased, disabled. Miracles were going on in there. Signs and wonders were going on in there. Listen, this is beyond a light show. This is beyond a rock band. This is beyond a skit or a drama. This is the real deal and the fear in the church was that unbelievers would come in and they already knew that the Lord said that the devil would sow tares. The church was in danger of being leavened by the world. So the wonder of it all had to be mitigated with fear. In fact, the fear had to be so powerful and so great that it stopped non-Christians outside the door. This is absolutely upside down from modern church growth strategy. They could really draw a crowd if they chose to. But there had to become such a deadly dread and fear that unbelievers wouldn't dare go in to the church.
Acts 5, God Himself provides the horror. I like this story. "A certain man named Ananias and his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property. Kept back some of the price for himself with his wife's full knowledge." In other words, they didn't have to sell it, as the story tells, they didn't have to give it all but they did sell it and they did say they were going to give it all and they didn't, kept back some...deception. "Bring in a portion of it," verse 2, "Laid it at the Apostles' feet." That's how they took the offering, the collection in the early church in Jerusalem, they laid it at the Apostles' feet.
Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land?" He acts like an unbeliever and that pollutes the church. "While it remained unsold, didn't it remain in your own. After it was sold, wasn't it under your control? Why is it that you have conceived the deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God. And as he heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last. Huh, he dropped dead. Of course, the next line, "Great fear came on all who heard of it." That was the reason for it. Ananias was a sacrificial lamb to send a message to anybody who thought he could willy-nilly roll into the church and live anyway they wanted to live. You're liable to drop dead in there.
"And the young men arose and covered him up and after carrying him out, they buried him." And there lapsed an interval of about three hours and his wife came in. Come on, how long does it take to do your hair? Are you kidding? Three hours? That will tell you whether she was a true believer or not, you know. She's going to make her show because when she gets there everybody is going to being wowing her husband for this big gift. I also like the fact that church went on over three hours. How wonderful is that? I mean they take him out and bury him and they're coming back in and she's walking in, looking fine. Has no idea what happened.
"Peter says to her, 'Tell me whether you sold the land for such and such a price.' She said, 'Yeah, that was the price.' Peter said to her, 'Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test. Behold the feet of those who buried your husband are at the door and they'll carry you out as well.' She immediately fell at his feet, breathed her last. The young men came..." this is not the normal duty for early church ushers, but this is the way it was working out. "The young men came in, found her dead," probably said to each other this is getting ridiculous, how long are we going to do this? "Carried her out, buried her beside her husband." And here's the point, "Great fear came upon the whole church."
You know what you do when you go to church? You don't go to church and lie to God. You don't go to church and lie to the Holy Spirit. "Great fear came upon the whole church." The church has to live in fear and awe of the holiness of God and upon all who heard of these things. That's exactly what it said back in verse 5. The word went out of that church through that area, through that community, through that city.
"And at the hands of the Apostles, many signs and wonders were taking place among the people and they were all of one accord in Solomon's portico." The church always one accord. All who believe are together. They have all things in common. They're engaged in the spiritual disciplines and they're having a wonderful time together.
Verse 13, the Lord got what He wanted, "None of the rest dared to associate with them. However, the people held them in high esteem." There's that balance. Don't go there, you might die. That's a far cry from, "Let's go there, it's fun."
You say, "Well, that will church growth. What kind of a strategy is that?" Verse 14, "And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to the church." Why? Because that's not a human thing.
The Lord builds His church around a transcendent message, a regenerate congregation committed to purity. You know, you have to be so careful in the church. The first instruction in the church is Matthew 18 and it says, "You would be better off drowned with a millstone around your neck than ever to lead another believer into sin." That's what Jesus said. The first instruction to the church is don't cause one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble. You as a pastor, you as a church member never want to be responsible, directly or indirectly, for leading another believer into sin. Even the holy angels watch the face of the Father who shows His concern for His little ones and they're dispatched to their aid because He doesn't want any of His little ones to be devastated. As a pastor, I want to have joy with my people. But church is not about being a jokester, it's not about funny, clever pop jargon, it's certainly not about coarse, gross dirty talk.
It's so interesting to me to watch the flow of church growth. It starts out with sort of meeting people at their social level. They need associations, friends, singles need to meet singles, let's have restaurants for them, let's have recreation. That's the first wave that connects with them socially.
The second wave goes a little deeper and says, "No, they've got all these felt needs, you've got to have 45 Twelve-Step Programs, so let's connect psychologically." So the new wave of church growth says, "Let's connect psychologically." And now we're in the third wave which says, "Let's connect sensually. Let's connect them at their visceral gut level, the level of their over-exposure to immorality. Let's laugh at crudeness and rudeness. Let's tell dirty jokes and let's say explicit things on the pretense of identification, having planted evil thoughts in their minds, then trying to recover them."
The new church-growth plan seems to be to identify people with people at the level of sensual lust, explicit speech that panders to the flesh followed by a transition to the truth. Worldliness, simple thing, anything said or done that appeals to the flesh...anything said or done that appeals to the flesh. That's why James says, "Stop being so many teachers for theirs is a greater condemnation." If you can't control your mouth, you shouldn't be doing this.
Holiness....pursuing holiness, that's what we do in the church. We take the high ground, a holy people, people set apart. True shepherds grieve over sin. True shepherds don't lead their followers into fleshly thoughts. True shepherds grieve over the sins of their people, like Paul did. He says, "Who has sinned that I don't feel the pain?" They long for their holiness. Galatians 4:19, they're never satisfied until Christ is fully formed in them. They want to present the church a chaste virgin. Godliness is the high ground. You deal with sin, you confront sin. You pursue holiness, you pursue godliness. And the Lord will add to His church. He always does cause it's His church.
Finally, a transcendent message, a regenerate congregation, a valiant perseverance, an evident purity and a last thought, a qualified leadership...a qualified leadership. Again the trend is against this in church growth...in the church of the tares movement...unqualified people, untrained people, untested people, people with little or no accountability.
But look at Acts 6. Very familiar. The need to minister to some Hellenistic widows brought this about. And in verse 3, there's a call for leadership because the Twelve, Matthias having replaced Judas, don't want to neglect the Word of God. So they say, "Select from among you, brethren, seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom we may put in charge of this task. We will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. And the statement found approval to the whole congregation." Of course, because it's a real church.
When they wanted spiritual leaders, they wanted spiritual leaders. They wanted what all Christians want. "And so they chose, Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit." Isn't that what we were looking for? What are you looking for with leadership in your church? "And so they chose these others, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, Nicolas a proselyte from Antioch, these they brought before the Apostles. After praying, they laid their hands on them." They weren't looking for men full of business savvy. They weren't looking for men full of marketing experience. They weren't looking for secular wisdom on what sells, secular strategies for successful enterprises. They wanted men full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit, able to minister to people the Word of God. That's how the Lord grows His church.
Look at verse 7, "And the Word of God kept on spreading and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith." That's a great place to end, obedient to the faith. Salvation is an act of obedience to the faith, the body of Christian doctrine that constitutes the gospel. Now all of this, of course, happens in the power of the Holy Spirit.
There's one more consideration, and it is this. There is clear instruction in the New Testament about the kind of church the Lord rejects. Clear instruction about the kind of church the Lord rejects, I'm just going to suggest it to you. It is contained in Revelation 2 and 3. Okay? It is contained in Revelation 2 and 3.
Two churches out of seven, He acknowledges and affirms. Smyrna, troubled and poor and suffering and persecuted and faithful. Philadelphia, a little power, faithful to the Word, hadn't denied His name, they're blessed. There are five churches that He condemns. And in one way or another, He says, I'm going to judge you, I'm going to condemn you, I'm going to put out your light. What are they? Ephesus, no love for Christ...no love for Christ, not driven by a consuming love for Christ. Pergamos, tolerating heresy...tolerating error. Thyatira, comfortable with sin...comfortable with sin. Sardis, programs and no life...programs and no life. And the famous Laodicea, the church at room temperature. Perfect, upsets nobody...lukewarm, popular with everybody, no threat and He spews it out of His mouth. And seven times those letters end like this, "Let him who has ears hear what the Spirit says to the churches." And in 3:20, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock." That's not an invitation to salvation, that's Christ knocking saying, "Do you have a place for Me in your church?" Are you going to be a part of the church where Christ is the head?
Father, we thank You for a wonderful time this morning in fellowship and song, trying to think through some of these wonderful realities in the book of Acts. What an encouraging experience it is to go through this portion of Scripture. We don't have to run all over the place trying to find the secret to how the church grows, it's all here. May we just be faithful to that. May everyone of us here take the high ground, step on the side of Christ building His church and leave behind men building their churches. We want to come along and be the means by which our great Savior does His great work. What a calling. We're unworthy, we're grateful. Give us a great week, we pray in Your Son's name. Amen.
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As Mariano Rivera walked to the mound June 19, a Yankee fan might have felt a pang of doubt. A combined 18 walks and hits had pockmarked his previous five and two-thirds innings over eight outings, more base runners, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, than Rivera had ever allowed over any other eight-game stretch in his major league career.
But on a late-spring afternoon in the twilight of a career, Rivera set down the Los Angeles Dodgers in order — flyout, strikeout, strikeout, the last against Yasiel Puig, the Cuban phenom born a few months after Rivera went pro 23 years ago. And in his three outings since, Rivera has allowed 2 of the 11 batters he has faced to reach base, resuming at age 43 his parsimonious ways, having allowed in his 19 big-league seasons one batter to reach base per inning.
Since his debut in 1995, Rivera has thrown 1,2482/3 innings and allowed a combined 1,253 walks and hits. His career WHIP — walks plus hits divided by innings pitched — is almost exactly 1.00.
How remarkable is that? Of the roughly 1,000 pitchers who have thrown at least 1,000 innings in a span going back nearly a hundred years, Rivera is the only one to keep batters off base at such a high rate. The average WHIP today, according to Elias, is 1.29, a full 29 percent higher.
Rivera's only peers played a century ago. They are Addie Joss of Cleveland (0.97) and Ed Walsh of Chicago (1.00), the only pitchers, according to Elias, to throw at least 1,000 innings and post career WHIPs of 1.00 or less. Joss and Walsh, who retired in 1910 and 1917, played in the dead-ball era, when pitching dominated; Rivera has thrown his cutter through two decades of steroid use and often booming offenses.
Dressing at his locker recently, Rivera said that he knew none of this. He had never heard of Joss or Walsh. He had never heard of WHIP. He was mindful only of runs, not runners.
"I just attack the hitters," he said. "I got to get three outs."
For ages, baseball statistics were similarly simple. Pitchers were measured by little more than wins, strikeouts, earned run average and saves. Stats grew more sophisticated as sabermetrics — the use of advanced statistics whose name is derived from the Society of American Baseball Research — began to take root in the late 1970s.
In the winter of 1979, the writer and editor Daniel Okrent invented WHIP (called "innings pitched ratio" at the time) in conjunction with a game he created to enable fans to assess player performance. (The statistic did not include the small number of hit batsmen, Okrent said, for the simple reason that the Sunday papers did not include them in their weekly statistical updates.)
"I'd always felt that the number of base runners was the single greatest determinant of pitcher performance," Okrent said. "It turned out it did correlate."
Six of the 10 leaders in career WHIP are in the Hall of Fame, including Joss and Walsh. Among the other four are Rivera and Pedro Martinez, who are shoo-ins for the Hall, and Trevor Hoffman, who might make it, too. The closest active pitcher is the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw (28th, at 1.117).
"It's essentially the pitcher's equivalent of on-base percentage," said Michael Fishman, the Yankees' director of quantitative analysis, likening WHIP to O.B.P., a staple stat to measure batters.
Fishman added that WHIP offered a good "snapshot" of a pitcher, which must then be further developed by statistics not indicated by WHIP, among them the number of home runs and strikeouts a pitcher yields and records.
By just about every metric, simple or complex, Rivera is the greatest relief pitcher ever. His 634 career saves and 2.20 career E.R.A. are tops among relievers. His adjusted E.R.A.+ — a new statistic that accounts for pitchers' abilities across different ballparks and epochs — is far and away the best in history.
And his postseason numbers are even better. In 141 postseason innings, Rivera has a laughably low 0.70 E.R.A., a WHIP of 0.76 and 42 saves.
Okrent and Fishman said that Rivera's game nonetheless defies objective analysis.
Fishman noted that the batting average of balls hit into play against Rivera was particularly low, which normally indicated luck. But with Rivera, he said, it indicated instead that batters did not hit his pitches solidly.
"A lot of balls are easy to field," he said. "Just watching, you see how poor the quality of contact is."
Okrent, meantime, marveled at Rivera's seeming one-dimensionality.
"To me, the miracle of Mariano is that he only throws one pitch," he said of Rivera's cut fastball. "It just doesn't make any sense."
As batters who have faced Rivera will say, they do not hit Rivera hard for the same reason he has dominated them with but one pitch: that pitch is uniquely good, with late movement that has broken an enormous number of their bats.
If others attribute Rivera's success to his cutter, Rivera attributes his cutter to Christ. Stitched into his glove is "Phil. 4:13," the verse in the biblical book of Philippians that reads, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
Asked at his locker about the Bible, Rivera said that of all its characters, King David "is the person I can relate to."
"He was a king," Rivera said. "But he knew what his source was: the Lord. And he was a humble man."
That the young David saved a people with his arm, hurling a stone, Rivera did not mention. As a boy he also threw stones, winging them on the Panamanian shore where his father fished for sardines and shrimp. Asked of David's slingshot, Rivera insisted with a smile that it was entirely beside the point.
Rivera is kinglike. He has reigned for 19 years, and his teammates hold him in commensurate awe. Outfielder Vernon Wells can still describe in detail the Rivera pitch he hit for a home run to end a game while with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2006.
Catcher Chris Stewart still has the ball he asked Rivera to autograph for him in 2007, when he was a Texas Ranger. And even pitcher Andy Pettitte, a winner of 250 big-league games (71 saved by Rivera), marvels at his teammate.
"His mechanics are perfect," Pettitte said. "And he only throws one pitch."
Unlike Rivera, Pettitte said he was mindful of WHIP. (His career WHIP is 1.35.) He said that Rivera's WHIP was so low because of his unequaled ability "to command the zone." By this he means that Rivera can always throw a pitch where and how he wants.
For this reason, Rivera is as easy to catch as he is hard to hit.
"You know where it's coming," said Jose Molina, a veteran catcher who caught Rivera over three seasons, from 2007-9. "He's going to hit his spot."
That spot, Stewart added, is "usually in to the lefties, away from the righties."
Everybody knows this — Rivera, the catcher, the umpire, the batter, the fielders, too. And so, when Rivera takes the mound, there is an inevitability about what will happen that is largely absent in sports.
"Most lefties are going to end up getting around," Wells said. "Most righties, you can play them true" — that is, straightaway. "His cutter is going away from them."
Second baseman Robinson Cano added: "You don't have to worry that anyone is going to hit a bullet. He breaks more bats than any other pitcher." And so, Cano said, it is as easy to field behind Rivera as it is to catch him.
Because Rivera retires nearly every batter he faces, he can pitch over and again. This is the greatest benefit of his low WHIP.
"It's quick innings," Larry Rothschild, the Yankees' pitching coach, said.
Reliever Dave Robertson, who often pitches just before Rivera, added, "It means he's available tomorrow."
Rivera has few tomorrows left on the field. But on the last day of spring in his last season, he seemed only happy, singing a Spanish song as he sat at his locker in his uniform, preparing to do what he has done better than any other pitcher for 100 years: prevent batters from advancing the 90 feet from home plate to first base.
Rivera may not pay such relative minutiae any mind, may not know that he has allowed a combined four more walks and hits than the number of innings he has pitched.
But he knows well that he has played for one team at one position throwing above all one pitch for one inning at a time. And were Rivera at the end of his career to average no more than one batter to reach base each of those innings — were he to finish with a WHIP of 1.00 — it would be the perfect encapsulation of a career that can best be defined by that same number.
"That's me," Rivera said with a smile. "I like to simplify stuff."

subset: commoncrawl


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3 bedroom end of terrace house for sale Doncaster Road, Conisbrough, Doncaster
Key Features
3 Bedrooms
1 Bathrooms
1 Reception Rooms
Property Details
Local Schools | Shops & Amenities | 2 Miles To A1 | Beautifully Presented Throughout | Set Over 3 Floors | Stunning Family Bathroom | Attic Bedroom with Characture | Spacious Kitchen with Breakfast Island | Quaint Back Yard
Local Schools | Shops & Amenities | 2 Miles To A1 | Beautifully Presented Throughout | Set Over 3 Floors | Stunning Family Bathroom | Attic Bedroom with Character | Spacious Kitchen with Breakfast Island | Quaint Back Yard
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BETHLEHEM, Pa. – UMBC sophomore Redatu Semeon (Waldorf, Md./Thomas Stone) ran a career-best 8k time of 25:02 to lead the UMBC men's cross country team to a 13th-place finish in the Gold Division at the Paul Short Run, Saturday morning at Lehigh University's Goodman Course.
For the women, senior Cody Mezebish (Westminster, Md./South Carroll) led UMBC to a fifth-place finish in the Brown Division.
Indiana won the overall team competition in the men's Gold Division led by JR Ricker's tenth-place finish while James Leakos from Harvard took top individual honors with a time of 23:13.
With his 66th-place finish, Semeon led the Retrievers across the line for the first time in his career, while his time ties him with teammate Eric Schuler (Columbia, Md./Reservoir) for the tenth-fastest 8k time in school history.
Sophomore Hassan Omar (Frederick, Md./Thomas Johnson) was the second Retriever across the line, placing 78th with a time of 25:09, while senior Jake Albino (Hampton, N.Y./Minisink Valley) scored for the third time this season, finishing in 25:22 in 95th place. Schuler, meanwhile, also scored for the third time in three meets, completing the 8k course in 25:27 for 106th place. Sophomore Austin Hayslett (Mt. Airy, Md./Urbana) rounded out the UMBC scoring team by placing 131st with a time of 25:39.
In the women's race, Mezebish paced the Retrievers for the first time this season by finishing 19th with a 6k time of 22:21. Sophomore Nicole Dawson (Jessup, Md./Hammond), who led the Black and Gold in each of the first two meets, completed the course less than 20 seconds (22:39) after Mezebish.
Junior Julie Gessler (Ellicott City, Md./Institute of Notre Dame) and sophomore Angel Bucci (Upper Darby, Pa./Upper Darby) finished the course only one second apart (23:17; 23:18) to finish in 67th and 68th, respectively. Senior Kirsten McGovern (Sykesville, Md./Century) completed the scoring squad by finishing in 121st with a time of 23:55.
The Retrievers return to competition in two weeks when they travel to New Jersey for the Princeton Invitation on Oct. 19.


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In this tutorial you will learn how to draw an awesome dragon of doom. My first tutorial. The End.
DragoArt members upload artwork and drawing tutorials! They are also allowed to leave comments on tutorials, profiles, etc. Many more features, as well; it's way better than just being a boring guest! Register Now!


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US stocks edge higher; Protective Life soars
NEW YORK >> Stocks rose modestly Wednesday, erasing an early decline, as investors waited to hear from the European Central Bank on Thursday.
Insurer Protective Life soared on news that it was being acquired by a Japanese company.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 15.19 points, or 0.1 percent, to 16,737.53. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 3.64, or 0.2 percent, to 1,927.88 and the Nasdaq composite rose 17.56 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,251.64.
The S&P 500 closed at another record high, while the Dow closed less than 10 points from its previous high. Both indexes closed at record highs on Monday.
The Nasdaq got a boost from Apple, its biggest component, which gained $7.28, or 1.1 percent, to $644.82. Apple's seven-for-one stock split will happen after the close of business Friday. At the current price, Apple's new shares would be worth $92.12 after the split takes effect on Monday.
Once again trading was quiet, with roughly 2.8 billion shares changing hands on the New York Stock Exchange, compared with the recent average of 3.3 billion shares. Volume has been under 3 billion shares every day this week.
This week's main events come Thursday and Friday.
Policymakers from Europe's central bank will meet Thursday to decide whether or not to lower the eurozone's key interest rate to below zero in an effort to further stimulate Europe's economy.
The unusual move would mean banks would have to pay to park money with the European Central Bank. The goal is to push banks to lend the money to companies and individual borrowers.
While the eurozone pulled out of an 18-month recession last year, growth remains sluggish and inflation is low. Eurozone inflation was 0.7 percent in May, well below ECB's target of 2 percent.
"Europe is barely growing, inflation is low, and it cries out for more stimulus," said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Investments. "The question is: Will the ECB do enough to satisfy investors?"
Speculation over the ECB's interest rate decision has sent foreign buyers into the U.S. bond market in recent weeks. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was little changed at 2.60 percent. It went as low as 2.44 percent last week, the lowest level in almost a year.
Investors also waiting for the monthly jobs report from the U.S. Labor Department, out Friday.
Economists believe U.S. employers added 220,000 jobs in May and the unemployment rate remained steady at 6.3 percent.
Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that U.S. businesses slowed their hiring last month, adding just 179,000 workers to their payrolls. It was the weakest hiring in four months and well below what economists had expected.
"Just when investors were getting comfortable with the positive data trend, the U.S. economy hands them a monkey wrench," said Doug Cote, chief market strategist for Voya Investment Management, in a note to investors.
In company news:
• Protective Life jumped $10.64, or 18 percent, to $69.36 after Japanese insurance company Dai-ichi Life said it would buy the company for $70 a share, or $5.7 billion.
• First Solar rose $2.46 or 4 percent, to $65.39 after the company announced it was buying German electric power operator Skytron Energy for an undisclosed amount.


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โปรโมชั่น สูตรบาคาร่า
personalEYES Health Carnival
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Welcome to your complete guide to The Hills and The Hawkesbury. In one place, you can now find accommodation and conference venues, the most comprehensive restaurant and café guide for the region, community links and local information, events and maps to get you around.


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These Square Silver Alphabet Beads come 135 alpha beads to a bag, and are 6mm in size with a 4mm hole. This package will make 15 "What Would Jesus Do? (W.W.J.D.?) bracelets . Included in the bracelet kits are black rope, 75 letter beads, and 60 round black beads.
We also carry a complete line of Beads, Birdhouse Kits, Christmas Crafts, Craft Supplies, Kids Crafts, Misc Crafts, Wood Craft Kits, and much more.


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BlueGus needed a new button or icon design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 30 designs submitted by 12 freelance designers.
Mac and iPhone Software
I need a set of weather icons for a desktop Mac app. The icons will be displayed in the menubar, so must be optimized for a small size.
I will be layering the icons to make the final image. For example a Sun image layered with a small amount of clouds would be "Party Cloudy."
I will also be layering the icons over various backgrounds, so they need to look good on all backgrounds.
Though I'm thinking of something a fairly realistic style, I'm not set on that, so the style is up to the designer. The size should be 30 pixels wide by 20 pixels tall.
Icons I need:
Background: day
Background: night
Background: dusk
Background: overcast
Small amount of clouds (to make partly cloudy)
Larger amount of clouds (to make mostly cloudy)
A lot of clouds (for cloudy or overcast)
Keep in mind that the weather icons will be layered on the four backgrounds. So the size of the weather icons is likely (but not required) to be smaller than 30 x 20 so they don't look cramped.
If possible, I'd like the deliverables to be in layered PSD or AI format.


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Mrs. Foley's baby boy did it.
As pretty much everyone knows by now, Mick Foley has been selected for the WWE Hall of Fame in the 2013 class this year in New York.
Before a cynic snarks that this is not like a Baseball Hall of Fame election (or non-election, actually, this year)…yes, I know Vince McMahon essentially chooses who's going in himself, so it's as pre-determined as match results on his TV, house shows, and PPV. Some would actually argue more long-term thought went into this "finish" than than a few TV and PPV finishes and storyline directions we've seen.
Mick Foley has been one of us for so damned long that it would be criminal to be happy for this selection. Yes, I mean one of us. Foley started out, as many of the best do…as a mark like us.
As I said some years ago in this column, if there has ever been a wrestler of our generation that embodied the spirit of so many of us who turned on the TV set and saw the spectacle in front of us, someone who went to Madison Square Garden or a Philadelphia Civic Center or a junior high school gym in rural America and began to dream…that person is Mick Foley.
I got to meet Mick back in his Cactus Jack days in 1990 at a fan luncheon organized by TWA promoter Joel Goodhart. As happened with a lot of Goodhart's luncheons, we met the human being Mick Foley not the character Cactus Jack. We met a man with a college degree…and we saw the kinds of things that the rest of the country saw years later on WWE/F TV, with the footage of Foley as a kid who cut wrestling promos and jumped off of a roof into mattresses. We met the Mick Foley who was a mark for the business just like us.
That afternoon at the old Philadelphia's Original Sports Bar, we heard how Mick had just become engaged to his now-wife Colette, and said to the crowd "I never thought I'd have to give up one of the best lines in wrestling -'I'd rather hurt a man than make love to a woman'" then gave Colette a look that would have melted an iceberg. Rumors are that global warming started that day.
I also remember the classic 1990-1991 series of matches that Mick had with Eddie Gilbert; first in the late Dennis Coraluzzo's NWA-New Jersey, then in Goodhart's Tri-State Wrestling Alliance.
For those of you who never heard of the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance, it was an adult alternative for fans in the Northeast to the WWF back in the worst of its Titan 'Toon Adventures era. This series established the tradition of hardcore wrestling in Philadelphia, including Foley and Gilbert's legendary best of three falls match at Philadelphia's Convention Hall. It concluded with one of the most memorable matches in Philadelphia wrestling history on a night at the Philadelphia Civic Center in August 1991, when fans got to watch a best of three falls/triple-header of matches: a Falls Count Anywhere match for the first fall, a stretcher match for the second fall, during which Gilbert breaks a bottle over Cactus's head; concluding with a bloody steel cage match for the final fall.
This match, even with a promotion that never got TV, was probably the most-seen independent match in history (at least of that time), with originals and bootlegs of the tape traveling all over the world. It's probably out there somewhere on You Tube.
I got to see Mick in ECW through the years, and got to really watch him in his element; as well as his classic "anti-hardcore" storyline, which told some truths to the hardcore fans of ECW that they probably would have tolerated from no one else. His books told a lot about his thinking in doing this storyline. If you haven't gotten his books by now, do it.
Like most fans who knew of him previously, I cringed when he went to the WWF figuring that Vince McMahon would ruin him. But the Mankind gimmick wasn't what we feared. Mankind was a "character", but one that allowed Mick Foley to heal up physically and to take advantage of his ability to create yet another successful personna; one of a psychotic who lived in the basement, ripped his hair out of his head and played around in boiler rooms.
Mankind's character softened somewhat, and as time went on, we got to see the "Three Faces of Foley", with aspects of his past making the screens for the mainstream. Fans got to see proof that Mick started out as one of us, in the afore-mentioned hilarious real life home movies of his days in his Dude Love personna as a kid, cutting promos and jumping off of the roof of his house into pillows. Dude Love was around for awhile, then Cactus Jack even came back in a few matches with and against Terry Funk.
Then there was the night of the 1998 King of the Ring, and the legendary Hell in the Cell Match with Mick Foley and the Undertaker. I sat that night with friends and watched the match, figuring on seeing something special. But I had no idea what I was about to see.
As Mick Foley was at the edge on the top of that cage, I thought "No…Dear God, not even HE'S going to try that…". But as we all know, he did. Off of the top of the cage and through the announcers table… Then Foley came back to the match…If that wasn't bad enough, he then went THROUGH the cage, driving a tooth into his nose. If that still wasn't enough, he decided to take bumps into thumb tacks.
I remember writing in this column that, while the Hell in the Cell match was something never to be forgotten, I hoped I'd never see anything like that again. I still cringe when I see the spot replayed.
As a result of that kind of dedication, the rest of the WWE fanbase has come to treat Mick Foley as one of their own.
How much this is so was shown on the night when Tony Schiavone made comments about Mick Foley on the WCW Monday Nitro the night that aired live when the Monday Night RAW with Mick Foley's first title "win" (heavily promoted online from the actual taping date to the air date) aired.
Schiavone made the sarcastic comment about Foley "…he'll really put some asses in seats". This remark drove thousands of viewers who weren't aware of the title switch to RAW almost immediately, and started a firestorm of angry phone calls, e-mail and fan sentiment in arenas toward Schiavone and WCW. Foley has reported that Schiavone was ordered to do that spoiler by Eric Bischoff, and genuinely felt bad that Foley might have been hurt
While people will differ on their favorite memories of Mick, I have to say that the most memorable for me was watching him trying his best to turn the crowd against him. Maybe it was because I was quite a bit more knowledgeable about the inner workings of the business by then or maybe it was because it was just interesting to watch, but when he ripped off his shirt and had one on underneath with a huge picture of Eric Bischoff on it, I was in amazement. The crowd was booing like crazy and I was laughing. It was during this time that I learned a whole lot more about psychology as it related to wrestling.
I was at the arena for his final match, and after reading his book, I was glad to see how emotional his send off made him. No matter what Mick did we all still loved and respected him and I am glad that came across to him. So many others would have kept that moment with them for a day or so then moved on. The humanity in Mick could be his greatest asset.
I'm far from the only one on this website who feels that way. Let's go back in the digital wayback machine and read this piece from PWBTS founder and former owner Fritz Capp, in his February 28, 2000 "Straight Shooting" column:
"I first saw Cactus down in WCW. A brutal wrestler to be sure but for some reason I always liked Cactus Jack. There was something about him that made me like him even when he was beating the hell out of one of the good guys. Maybe it was the way he portrayed himself. Maybe it was just the fact that he could kick some opponent butt…but one thing is for sure and that is he was different than the rest of them. Sure there were the Ric Flairs and the Vaders but Cactus stood out from the rest.
The Cactus Clothesline was one of the most devastating moves I had ever seen. That is not to take away from his elbow drop off the apron. It's funny, when I think back to Cactus's old days in WCW, it makes me remember what it was like to be a non-knowing wrestling fan. Sure I knew the stuff was "fixed" but that didn't matter. I didn't look at matches in terms of work rate, all I knew was what I liked. Yeah, I was a huge mark and I loved it. (Still am if you wanna know the truth)
I hated it when Cactus lost to Sullivan in that "loser leaves" match because I didn't think I'd ever get to see him wrestle again. Many times before the advent of the Internet it could be years since you saw a wrestler again. I remember that I used to wonder what happened to "Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Terry Gordy.
That was before I even knew that Japan was a hotbed for wrestling.
My fears were unwarranted though as Cactus went to the one place where I could see him almost every week…or at least almost every three weeks and that was ECW at the famed Bingo Hall. When I saw Cactus there I knew he had found a home. The style fit him perfectly. ECW was where I thought Cactus would call home for the rest of his wrestling days.
I got to meet him when ECW was running shows out of Damien Kane's Bodyslam Arena in Reading PA. I was in early as usual for that time in my life and he had just brought in his t-shirts to set up on the table. Now to me there are wrestlers and then there are "WRESTLERS". Mick was always in the latter classification to me. Larger than life by every definition of the words it took me a bit to go over and just say hi. Sure, I have no problem admitting I was a little star struck and in awe of the man I had seen take more punishment in one night than I had in my whole life…. and I grew up on the streets of Philadelphia. Anyway after I finally got up the nerve to bother him and talked with him for a while I went away and finally realized why I like Mick for all those years.
He is without a doubt one of the classiest and most humble people I had ever met. Now I know all of you are going, "Well how could you tell that by watching him on television?" Very easy….who else do you now that spent his career killing himself out of love for the business and his co-workers? Whenever you saw Cactus on television or in the ring you knew there was going to be a beating but you also knew that Cactus Jack was going to take the majority of it. That may have been another endearing quality of Mick's. I could somehow always tell that he was there because he loved the sport and was willing to do what it took to make his part of the show as good as it could be."
So for those who see the announcement (presumably made tonight on air at some point), enjoy it like I will. Now all Vince McMahon needs to do is get Terry Funk to do the intro (or at least appear somehow), and get one more Jim Ross reference to "Mrs. Foley's baby boy" in there somewhere, and you'll all have it tied up in a neat bow.
Until next time….
If you have comments or questions, or if you'd like to add the AS I SEE IT column to your website, I can be reached by e-mail at the address above.
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Friday, November 11, 2016
- This has probably been the most tiring and surprising US election in history. It's been a bitter and divisive campaign and one that has divided even Catholics. But the election is over and we have to move on. How does it affect us as Catholics?
Deacon Pedro sits with Fr. Thomas Rosica, CSB and with Sebastian Gomes to explore how the Church is called to respond to and move on after this election.
Learn More:
Confronting the troubles and anxieties of our age with the spirit and love of Jesus
Deacon-structing: The 'non-negotiables' (of Catholic voting)
America votes: How a deeper reflection on conscience was unexpectedly triggered in the Catholic mindset
Vatican Secretary of State congratulates Trump - Perspectives
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NEWPORT, R.I. - Junior forward Brianna Del Valle scored 12 of her team-high 14 points in the second half but it was not enough as the Salve Regina University women's basketball team (3-5) fell to visiting UMass Boston (8-2), 60-54, in non-league action at the Rodgers Recreation Center.
With the win UMass Boston matched the best 10-game start in program-history at 8-2 and need just two more wins, at Brandeis University (Jan 6) and Eastern Connecticut State University (January 11), to set the program-record for the best-ever start.
The game went scoreless for the first three minutes until Beacons sophomore forward Olivia Murphy (Canton, Mass.) connected on a layup at 16:34. All 28 first-half points for UMass Boston came from inside the paint. The Beacons were 0-for-7 from behind the arc in the first 20 minutes and misfired on all three free-throw attempts.
Seahawk freshman guard Kelsey Kennedy came off the bench and immediately made an impact with her 3-pointer at 13:39 to give her team an 8-6 lead.
Junior center Kirsten Morrison (North Reading, Mass.) did the same for UMass Boston and finished with 10 first-half points as the Beacons kept looking inside. Morrison also had four caroms off the offensive glass in the opening period.
Murphy's layup at 5:46 in the first gave UMass Boston its largest lead (22-12) before a 7-0 run for the Seahawks cut the deficit to three. Freshman Jillian Woodward scored on a layup with an assist from Brackett and senior Lisa Bucci both picked off passes before Bucci connected on her first 3-pointer of the game.
Brackett later followed with a basket on her only attempt of the game making the score, 22-19. Following a Katrina Edwards (Springfield, Mass.) layup at 2:36, Salve Regina struck with the long ball again with Cortney Rosenlund making it a two-point game, 24-22.
The Beacons had the last two baskets of the first half for a six-point lead (28-22) at intermission.
Lauren Perra (Taunton, Mass.) made the Beacons' first basket outside the paint, a 3-pointer at 18:34 in the second half. Del Valle followed with her layup and then Marissa Pendergast scored the next four points.
Meaghan Harden and Shelby Buck (Greenfield, Ohio) traded 3-point baskets on back-to-back possession leaving the score at 45-36 at 10:53 remaining. UMass Boston had one field goal the rest of the way (a Murphy layup at 2:44) as Harden's free throws at 1:43 made it a two-point game (54-52).
Murphy and Andrea Suffredini (Milford, Mass.) both blocked 3-point attempts from the Seahawks in the final two and a half minutes with Beacon teammates grabbing the defensive rebounds on both plays.
UMass Boston made six of nine free throws down the stretch while Salve Regina managed a Del Valle layup for the final margin. Morrison led all scorers with 18 points while Murphy finished with 14 points for the visitors. Harden joined Del Valle in double-figure scoring with 12 points while Pendergast added a dozen rebounds.
The Beacons continue their travels on Monday at Brandeis University.
Information in this release courtesy of Salve Regina Sports Information University Department.


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It may surprise you to learn that back in July 2010, three months before the official pubic launch of the $1 billion photo-sharing app we're all come to know so well, the project then known simply as Codename uploaded it's first test photo photo—a happy-looking blonde dog and a *woman's right foot in Teva sandal.
That's right. No grapefruit mimosas. No crimini mushroom quiche. No muesli. No setting sun.
Just a dog and flip flop, setting the stage for what would quickly become the world's largest and most diverse catalog of breakfast foods and sherbet-coloured skies. [Instagram]
*This, to me, indisputably resembles a female foot. But if you really want to debate this small fact, so be it.


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Mission & Vision
The mission of the Office of Recruitment and Marketing is to develop, adopt, and implement recruitment and marketing events and programs that assist the missions of the University. These programs will complement and enhance the desired outcomes of recruitment, retention, graduation rate, image assessment, school relations, and other special programs and services.
The Office of Recruitment and Marketing embraces the challenge to assist the university in the growth of enrollment for both undergraduate and graduate students. With continuous improvement in our service we expect the university to exceed the previous year's student enrollment.
Relationship of the Unit's Mission to the University's Mission
The Office of Recruitment and Marketing has demonstrated its commitment to completing the mission of the University and the Division of Enrollment Management. The office will continue to recognize, attract, and enroll the desired quantity and quality of traditional and nontraditional students. Additionally, the office facilitates the transitional processes to enhance the retention rate.


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Throughout the month of October, we'll be giving readers gear for the Annual Meeting. Each day will be a different trivia question, so check back in daily for your chance to win. To answer the trivia question, you will need to leave your answer as a comment here on this blog. All the comments will be held for moderation until the end of the day. A commenter to answer the question correctly will be chosen at random to win an item of Annual Meeting gear. There will be one prize-winner each day. Once you win, you will be ineligible to win again during this blog series.
The AAA Style Guide is a reference tool that outlines style rules basic to AAA journal editing. What type of publication does this style guide not apply?
The AAA Annual Meeting will be held this year in San Francisco from November 14-18. If you have not done so already, be sure to register for the meeting and workshops, and book your hotel. You only have 6 days left to book your hotel at the discounted rate – don't delay, book today!


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|Authored By: Walnut Marketing Board
|Serve with a spinach and tomato salad and whole grain bread.
|Diet Type: Dairy Free
|Serves: 4
|Cooking Time: 30 minutes - one hour
|Heat walnuts in a dry skillet over medium-high heat 1-2 minutes until walnuts are slightly toasted. Set aside and reserve. Coat a 12-inch nonstick skillet with vegetable cooking spray and set over medium-high heat. Add onion and saute, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and add pumpkin, 2 tbs of the concentrate, 1 tbs of the Sage and 6 tbs of the walnuts; stir and heat through. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside; keep warm.
Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions; drain well. Cut each noddle into 3 equal-sized rectangles. Set aside; keep warm. To make the sauce, in a small saucepan over medium heat combine broth, chard and the remaining 2 tbs concentrate and 1 tbs Sage. Set aside; keep warm.
To assemble ravioli, for each serving place 3 noodle pieces on a dinner plate; top each with 2 1/2 tablespoons of the pumpkin mixture. Cover each with another noodle piece. Drizzle with sauce and sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons walnuts, dividing equally.
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I received a PM from a user called emalilly. http://www.cancerforums.net/members/120014-emalilly
The subject line was NATURAL HEALINGS, and the message was all about being permanently cured from colon cancer by following the advice of some doctor. I received this PM on July 1st, the same day that I had posted on the forum that my husband was being moved to Hospice House. He passed away the next day.


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Few things are worse than a "bad" knee. It affects almost everything you do – standing, walking and exercising. The more active you are, the more frustrating it is because you probably feel a jolt of pain or discomfort each time you move. And a painful or "frozen" shoulder is also upsetting, as is the tingling or numbness in your wrist or hand from carpal tunnel syndrome.
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Khloe Kardashian Rushes To NYC To Support Lamar Odom's Return To NBA
Khloe can't stand being away from Lamar and she tweeted an adorable picture of her dreaming about hubby — are you happy Khloe is being so supportive of Lamar during this hard time for him?
Khloe Kardashian is giving her marriage everything she's got! The E! reality star posted a picture on Twitter on May 4 for her more than six million fans with a sweet message.
"Cuddle with leopard until I get to NY and see my hubby," she tweeted. "#ShortNap."
We told you that Lamar has hired trainers so that he can focus on getting back onto an NBA team. Their show Khloe & Lamar has been put on hold but we hear these two are fighting over whether to continue on in the world of reality TV.
Lamar has been in NYC while the family has been filming season seven of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and his two kids spent last weekend with him at the swanky Gansevoort Meatpacking Hotel.
The couple have been doing their best to dispel reports that their marriage is on the rocks. Khloe says she will do anything to save her marriage and it definitely looks like she's doing everything she can.
Do you think Lamar is training full-time in NYC or will they head back to LA?
— Chloe Melas
More Kardashian News:


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