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We are in a study on Sunday nights of 1 John, so you can open your Bible to 1 John, right at the back of the New Testament, 1 John, 2 John and 3 John, epistles written by John and right before the book of Jude and Revelation. Now I don't want to go back over old ground, it's easy to do that in 1 John because it cycles back around through the same truths again and again. But we don't want to do it any more than we need to. Suffice it to say that John is the apostle of certainty. He is the black and white apostle, he's the apostle of absolutes. He's the dogmatist. And as a writer he writes very, very matter of factly about issues with no caveats and no exceptions, he lays down the divine truth.
And John presents for us in this epistle tests by which someone may know whether they're in the Kingdom of God, tests by which you can measure someone's claim to be a Christian, tests by which you can determine whether, in fact, you are on your way to heaven or not. These tests literally repeat themselves all through this epistle. And we've already gone through the first four verses and John introduces us to what is essentially a doctrinal test. Nobody can call themselves a Christian, nobody can hope to have eternal life and enter into heaven unless they have a proper understanding of Jesus Christ. And that's how John opens his epistle, talking about the \word of life, the living Word, the Lord Jesus who was manifested and John saw Him and bore witness and proclaimed to him that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. That is the first and great truth that John lays down and that is the truth of the incarnation, that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, as he also wrote in the first chapter of his gospel.
For someone to claim to be a Christian, they have to pass that doctrinal test and affirm the incarnation of the God/Man who became for us the life of God manifest, came into the world to die for sinners and to rise again. It is with Him and with the Father through Him that we enjoy fellowship.
Now the second test by which a man or woman can measure their true spiritual condition is the sin test. There is the Christ test and then there is the sin test. And that becomes the theme of verse 5 down through the first half of verse 1 of chapter 2. Let me read it again to you, starting in verse 5, "This is the message we have heard from Him and announced to you that God is light and in Him there's no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not sin."
Here then is the important recognition of the reality of sin. Now we're getting right down to the nub of things, aren't we, in the society in which we live. And that's why John's message is so important for us. We live in a society that, number one, doesn't want to recognize Christ, doesn't want to recognize the incarnation, doesn't want to recognize God in human flesh, the eternal life manifest in the world, doesn't want to recognize that Jesus alone is Savior and that the Word of God is the record that tells us that He will come, the Old Testament; the gospels, that He has come; the epistles, why He has come; the book of Revelation, why He will come again. The world does not want to recognize the singularity of Jesus Christ as the only Savior. Secondly, the world does not want to recognize it is guilty before God for violation of His Law, that is men are sinners. Our society would rather define terms on a psychological level, we would rather talk about people psychological deficiencies, lack of self-esteem, etc., etc. People are victims of certain relationships, certain forms of abuse, certain forms of deprivation, certain forms of second-class citizenship. They have been disenfranchised and that's why they behave the way they do. Anything but a biblical diagnosis of sin.
But here then is another test of someone who is a true believer. They not only have the right view of Christ, but they have the right view of sin. And not so much sin categorically as sin personally...personally. The first man, Adam, was caught in the original dilemma. Adam and his wife flatly disobeyed God, they sinned, they broke the Law of God. They immediately had a choice, confess or cover.
Well you know the story. They covered, they actually covered themselves with some fig leaves that they put together to cover their nakedness which had become for them a point of shame. And then in an effort to further cover, they hid themselves from God. This is ever and always the tendency of sinful man. When becoming aware of his wretchedness, of his sin, when beginning to feel the pangs of guilt and shame, the immediate effort is to cover, to deny, to explain away, to blame anything but confessing.
And so you have typically with human beings covering of sin. Proverbs 28:13 says, "He that covers his sins shall not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy." As long as you will not acknowledge your sin, as long as you would redefine your behavior psychologically or socially, you will not prosper, that is to say you will not prosper, as it were, before God. But when you confess and forsake your sin, then God grants mercy. That's why we say that prior to salvation comes confession and repentance. But the practice of concealing is a very refined art form among unbelievers. The practice of concealing sin, of covering sin, of redefining sin is characteristic of people who don't know God, who-- to borrow the language of John--are not in the fellowship. They do not fully acknowledge their sin. Oh they might admit they make a mistake here and there, they might admit they could have made a better choice. We hear that so often today. People are victimized by bad choices. That's not really true, better way to say it is people make bad choices because they're basically bad and bad trees don't bring forth good fruit. Bad choices are the function of bad people.
But people want to blame somehow the cultural influences on their choices, or the parental influences on their choices, or the psychological influences on their choices, or whatever it is. As long as people will not confess in the full range of a appropriate confession of their own culpability and sin, they'll never prosper spiritually. But that's what they do, they cover and they conceal. Christians, on the other hand, are people who confess. That doesn't mean that they unpack everything that's wrong in their life and spread it around among people in conversations. It is rather that they are open and honest before God about their iniquities. God has built into mankind a device called conscience. And according to Romans chapter 2 and verse 14, conscience has a very important function. What conscience does is make you feel bad about your sin. That's a very benevolent gift from God, by the way, because it slows down your self-destruction. It slows down your iniquity pace. It slows down the rapid increasing speed of your wretchedness. To be constantly shouted at by your wounded conscience is a help in retarding the speed with which you plunge into eternal destruction. When a person tries to conceal sin, the conscience, an alarm system, goes off.
David said, "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long." Here was David unwilling to confess his sin to God, unwilling to be honest and open to God about his sin, and it was literally tearing him up physically."N"Night and day," he says, "Your hand was heavy upon me." How did it manifest itself? "My vitality, my life juices drained away as with the fever-heat of summer." As you were out in the middle of the desert in 120 degrees as it can occur in the land of Israel, and baking and being dehydrated and literally running out of life fluids. That's how David felt because of the weight of his unconfessed sin and the burden of his guilt. "I acknowledge, on the other hand," he says, "my sin to You, my iniquity I didn't hide." Finally he acquiesced to the screaming conscience, to the pain of his own body, the agony of his battle with God and he says, "I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and You did forgive the guilt of my sin." When he did that, the burden was lifted.
The man who covers his sin in this life heaps upon himself a severe and painful burden and he will not prosper under it. The man who covers his sin in this life also will have it uncovered in the next life. There will be a day for all who cover their sin, Jesus Himself spoke of it in Luke 12, He said this, "Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed. Nothing is hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light. What you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops," end quote. What an amazing statement. Jesus said, "You've never said anything anywhere, you've never done anything anywhere, trying to cover it that won't be uncovered. In fact, there is a full record of your sinful life written down by God in what the book of Revelation calls "Books," which keep an accurate record, an infallible record, an unrelenting record and a record in which there is not a single omission of sin. And on the basis of that record comes down a just and righteous sentence from God at the Great White Throne Judgment that catapults the sinner into eternal hell. There will be no secrets. There are no secrets. What you cover now is only for now a secret, and some day it will be fully disclosed. God will in the end judge all sin because all sin is committed against Him.
David is a good illustration of that. You remember that David was out on his rooftop and he was the king so he had the highest roof, palace. And he was looking down on other roofs. He saw Bathsheba and he was pleased with what he saw. He was attracted to her. He lusted for her, as you know. He took her for himself. He had a child by her. He arranged the death of her husband. He literally broke four of the last five commands...four of them. He broke the command not to covet. He broke the command not to steal. He broke the command not to commit adultery. And he broke the command not to kill. In one relationship he broke four of those last five of the Ten Commandments. And even though he had sinned against her, and sinned against her husband, and sinned against the nation, and sinned against his own family, when it came around to his repentance he says this, Psalm 51:4, looking to God he says,"A"Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight." He recognized that ultimately all sin is against God who alone is absolutely holy and who is always offended by every sin.
Now that is not denying that he had sinned against himself, that he sinned against Bathsheba, that he sinned against Uriah, her husband, that he sinned against the whole nation, that he sinned against his own family, but he recognized that in the end the ultimate heinousness of sin is that it is against God. So that true confession, and we're getting to important thoughts here, true confession is not just admitting I sinned against somebody, it's admitting that all sin is primarily against God. And it is when you uncover sin to that degree, when you uncover it to the degree that you acknowledged that, "I have sinned against You, God,' it is that kind of uncovering that causes soul prosperity, that brings a person to true repentance and then through faith to full forgiveness and blessing.
So you have a choice. All sinners have a choice. You can cover up or you can confess. And here John shows us that people who belong to God confess. People who don't, cover up. In our passage then, confession of sin becomes a test of salvation. And as I have been saying to you, there are a number of tests in this epistle. There is the test of doctrine, right doctrine about Christ which we mentioned was in the first four verses and will appear again. There is the test of obedience, which we'll come to very soon. There is the test of love, which we'll also address. And then there is this test of a proper view of sin. John says you can always tell a Christian by their view of Christ, their view of sin, their view of obedience, and their view of love. And if they do not have what the Bible says is a sanctified attitude toward those things, then they're not Christians no matter what they claim.
So here we are then in this portion of Scripture in which the test of a true view of sin is laid forth. Now I don't want to go into a lot of the background because we've covered it already, but John was writing against the backdrop of some false teachers. And these false teachers had denied the true doctrine of Christ. They had also denied in one way or another, or in several ways, their sin. They neither confessed Christ in the true way, nor did they confess sin. The word confess is a good word, it'shomologeo, logeo is to say...to say; homo is the same, something that's homogeneous is something that's the same, something that's heterogeneous is something different.Homologeo is to say the same thing, to confess means to say the same thing that God is saying. If you confess Christ, you're saying the same thing about Christ that God says about Christ. If you confess sin, you're saying the same thing about sin that God says about sin. But influencing the churches in Asia Minor where John was ministering were false teachers who came in and were saying different things about Christ. They were false teachers presenting another Christ. And they also were engaged in the denial of the true biblical doctrine of sin.
Now John wants to protect the church. Remember we've been seeing this? John wants to protect the church and he wants to protect it from destructive error. And the first place you have to start to protect the church is to make sure everybody knows who's a Christian because the first way you can identify a false teacher is if you know how to identify a Christian. It's the most important safeguard. Since false teachers and deceivers and antichrists are not true believers, you need to have some criteria in which to evaluate them. John wants to make very clear then who's a Christian. And here is that test that deals with the issue of sin.
Let's go back to verse 5 and just a brief reminder. John starts here, "This is the message we have heard from Him and announced to you." Didn't get this from mankind, this came from divine revelation, this gospel message. And here is its foundation, "That God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all." And I went to some detail last time and I hope you were able to appreciate what I was conveying to you last time, to show you that light is synonymous with life. God is eternal life. As we saw last time, everything is based upon who has eternal life. It all starts with God who grants eternal life. "And in Him is no death," that's what darkness refers to. That eternal life is holy, that eternal life is true, so you're going to see manifest holiness and manifest truthfulness. But the light aspect of God is simply a way to express His life.
So we're talking then about who has God's life. Who has eternal life. That's the point. Since God is light, or life, and dispenses that life to those who believe, we can then know who believes genuinely by the manifestation of the essence of that life, that eternal life which is both holy and truthful. That is it is committed to sound doctrine and godly living. That's the basic truth of the passage. We're talking about who is in the light, who has divine life.
There are a lot of people who claim to be in the light. There are people in verse 6 who say they have fellowship with Him. That's the same as being in the light. It's the same thing, possessing life, sharing life with God. But they walk in darkness. There are people in verse 7 who actually walk in the light. And that's the distinction. It's not the ones who claim, it's the ones who walk who are the true believers. People in the fellowship have the life of God. They walk in the light of that life and not in the darkness. And anybody who walks in the darkness demonstrates that they're not possessors of the life of God because in Him there is no darkness at all. And we're going to see this kind of unfold.
So another contrast you could say, we're talking about the "if we sayers," and the "if we doers." And as James says, "Be not hearers only but doers, don't even be just hearers and sayers, be doers." It's not enough to claim you're in the fellowship, you have to prove it.
Let's look then, first of all, and we'll only have two points in this text and I don't know that I'll be able to get through them tonight, but the first point, we're going to look at those who claim to be in the fellowship. We'll look at people that John was addressing who claimed to be possessors of eternal life. They claim to belong to God. They claim to possess salvation, be in the Kingdom. Literally to have fellowship with God is to share common life. Fellowship is the word koinonia, the noun formkoinonos means partner. They claim to be partners with God. And he uses, you notice, we...we in verse 6, we in verse 7, we in verse 8, we in verse 9, we in verse 10. And he uses this first-person plural only because he is staying general principles, it's not because John identifies with each, he's rather speaking in sort of a generic way for everybody who will be exposed to this truth. We-meaning anybody, all people, anybody who says this...if we...meaning anybody who says it...if we do...meaning anybody who does it. So this is general principle. Even though he's addressing against...churches against the backdrop of a perhaps unique false system, this is general truth for everybody to come to grips with.
Now as we start into this, we're going to split it up differently than we might normally. We're going to skip around. We're going to look at verse 6, 8 and 10, and then come back and look at the verse 7 and 9 in between because it breaks down that verse 6, 8 and 10 describe those who claim to be in the fellowship, verse 7 and 9 describe those who are in the fellowship. And again this certainly goes along with what we're learning on Sunday mornings as we see Jesus addressing the issue of who is a true disciple. Very similar emphasis made here as it is made throughout Scripture.
Ow here are the claims of false Christians. Verse 6, "They say they have fellowship with Him, but they walk in darkness, therefore they are liars who don't practice the truth." In verse 8, "They actually claim to have no sin and they therefore are self-deceived and the truth is not in them." And then in verse 10, "They claim never to have sinned and such a claim is so contrary to what God says that they make God into a liar and obviously His Word is not in such people."
Notice that in all three cases it is the absence of the truth that is the issue. End of verse 6, they don't practice the truth. End of verse 8, the truth is not in us. End of verse 10, His Word is not in us." This is speaking of gospel truth, saving truth. Nobody is saved, nobody is regenerated, nobody participates in salvation apart from the truth. I was writing the commentary yesterday for...to be published later this summer...on 2...on 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and I was writing a chapter from chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians and verse 13 and it struck me in such a, I suppose, a fresh way how important the truth is in salvation because 2 Thessalonians 2:13 says, "We should always give thanks to God for you," and this is a whole litany of the elements of salvation, "We give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth." The whole plan of God starts with divine love set upon us before the world began, which leads to election, which leads to sanctification, being set apart from sin which is the result of belief in the truth. That's always the issue. Romans 6, Paul says, "You...you are different because you have come to understand that form of doctrine by which you were delivered from your past."
So you have people here who are void of truth, doctrinal truth. And I simply emphasize again for you, nobody is going to be in heaven apart from belief in the truth. That's why we have to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. That goes on all the time. I'm reading a book this dealing actually, personally, with the author of the book and saying, I called him and I said,"D"Do you know that your book says that non-Christians without belief in the gospel are going to be in heaven? Are you sure you want to say that?" Because there is no salvation apart from belief in the truth, and it's pointed out at the end of these verses that if you don't know the truth and if you don't live in response to the truth, it doesn't matter what you claim. It isn't a matter of what you claim.
Now let's look at these things kind of individually, as we look at verse 6 to verse 8 again. Verse 6, this person says we're in the fellowship. We're just in the fellowship. There's nothing here about sin. He doesn't bring sin up because it's not even...it's not even a reality. There's no discussion of sin in verse 6. He is...he says he has fellowship with God, while he walks in the darkness. He's just a flat liar, John says. He doesn't confess because what's to confess? He thinks the darkness is light. How deceived is he? Now the man in verse 8, the "if we sayer" there, he's not confessing because he thinks he's reached a state where he has no sin. If we say we have no sin, he recognizes that sin exists, he just doesn't have any.
So there's really no sin for him to be concerned about. If he did have any sin, it was in the past. He's reached an elevated position of enlightenment which is what the Gnostics came to be known as, those who had ascended to the higher knowledge and this group of people John is dealing with here were pre-Gnostic in their thinking.
And you come down to verse 10, and it goes a step further. The first man said...sin? What's that? Second man said...sin? Oh, I don't do that anymore. Third man said...yes there's sin, I've never sinned. He claims he's never sinned. If we say we have not sinned, never...we have a problem here.
It's evident that you don't know the truth. You don't know the truth about the gospel and you don't know the truth about sin. And they go together. None of these claimers are in the fellowship. None of these claimers are in the light. None of them are saved, they failed the test of a right understanding of their own sinful condition. The first guy thinks that his sin is actually righteousness. The second person thinks he's reached a state where he doesn't sin. And the third one has never sinned.
Now to go back through again just to continue to enrich you and follow John's sort of cyclical pattern, let's go back to verse 6 and let's just pick a word that we can use to define each verse. The first word is "darkness....darkness." "If we say we have fellowship with Him," a lot of people say that. "Yes, we have fellowship." What does that phrase "fellowship with Him" mean? They share common life. That's what fellowship means to us in a mundane sense. If I say I have fellowship with certain people, you know that we share life, we share common aspects of life. This is a person who says, "I share life with God." It's another way of saying, "I've received the light of God's life. I have possessed...I have been made a possessor of eternal life. I have the common eternal life with God. I am a partner, akoinonos with God."
If they say that, and many do...many, many say that. I'm a partner with God. I hate to bring it up but certainly the whole Catholic priesthood says that. They're the vicars of Christ under the great Pope who is the supreme, infallible representative of Jesus Christ in the earth, according to Catholic theology. They are not only the possessors of God's life, they are the purveyors of God's life. They can give it to you through the sacraments. We know God, they say. We walk in the light. In the truth of the matter, we're all starting to find out, they walk in the darkness. Don't they? Serious darkness.
In order to deal with the claim, we have to examine the life. So if we say we have fellowship with Him, it doesn't mean anything if we walk in the darkness. Walk is an expression that refers to the manner of life, how you live your life. It's not the claim that matters, it's the conduct. To say you have the life of God and you possess His eternal life, you are therefore in the light of His life, you're a partner with God, you fellowship in the same common life with God and then walk in death and unholiness and untruth, you're a liar. Plain and simple, you're a liar. That's what he says. We lie if we do that. We lie. You can't claim to be in the light while you're walking in darkness, and it's just an amazing thing how many religious leaders, how many people within the framework, the broad framework of Christianity claim to be the instruments of God, who know God, who talk that God talk and many people in their congregations, massive millions of people all over the face of the earth in Catholicism and all kinds of other forms of quote/unquote Christianity who claim to know God and obviously when you look at their walk, how they live their daily life, it's a walk of death, of sin and untruth.
Matthew 6:22 describes this condition. Jesus gives a very vivid little illustration. "The lamp of the body is the eye, if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body is full of light." That's a wonderful analogy. If you close your eyes, it's dark. You open your eyes, the light floods through your eyes, goes into your brain and your brain perceives everything. Then he says this, "But if your eyes' bad, your whole body's full of darkness." That's right. If you're blind, it's darkness. And then he adds this, "If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?" And He moves from the argument of the lesser to the greater. If it's bad to be physically blind, and to be in the dark, how much worse is it to be dark in your soul? Jesus came, John wrote, you remember, in his gospel, He was the light and the light was shining in the darkness. He was the true light. But as we learn later in the gospel of John, men loved...what?...darkness rather than light. Somebody saying they're in the light and walking in the darkness is just telling lies. Somebody saying they have fellowship with God while you look at their life and you see darkness, that is they do not know the truth, they do not live virtuous and holy lives, whatever they claim is a lie.
This was the...one of the early claims of pre-Gnostic heresy. They were living in this kind of blatant sinfulness, blatant sinfulness...claiming that this was only their physical body, this was only the physical part of them. And so it was...it didn't matter. It had no implications, it had no influence, it had no effect on their pure, enlightened spirit. And John takes them right down to earth and says, "If you claim to have a pure, divinely, enlightened spirit but your life is dirty, you're lying...you're lying." There's no such thing as some mystical intimacy with God. There's no such thing as some spiritual bridge that takes your soul into the holy place while your body is sinning. That was...that was the lie that was prevailing. And there are a lot of people who live that lie today, as we've been learning. Parading around as if they are holy men, who walk in the darkness and not the light. They do not the truth, that's present tense at the end of verse 6, they continually and habitually function apart from divine truth. They don't understand it, they can't comprehend it. The natural man understandeth not the things of God, divine truth is incomprehensible to them, they may have Bibles, they may have theology books, they may have gone to seminary, etc., etc., they do not understand the truth. More importantly, they do not do it...they do not do it.
Over in chapter 3 verse 4, "Everyone who practices sin, practices lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He appeared in order to take away sins and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins. And no one who sins has seen Him or known Him, or knows Him," either one. So here's John, black and white. Down in verse 9 he says, "No one who is born of God practices sin because His seed abides in him, he can't sin, he's born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who doesn't practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who doesn't love his brother." And he will repeat that same thought again. It's not what you claim, it's how you walk.
Truth is not just a creed. It is a kind of life. It's back again to James 1:22, being doers of the Word. And John really addresses this in his third epistle, verse 11, "Beloved, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. The one who does good is of God. The one who does evil has not seen God." I mean, how obvious is it? If your life is characterized by walking in evil, you don't know God. You don't have fellowship with God. You're not in the light. Jesus said in John 8:12, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life." If you say that you have fellowship with Him, but you walk in the darkness, it's a lie.
I love what it says in Colossians 1 that the Lord has delivered us..first of all, qualified us, verse 12, to share in the inheritance of the saints in light because He's delivered us from the domain of darkness. We have the life of God which manifests itself in a knowledge of an obedience to the truth as well as love. Not a matter of what you claim, it's a matter of how you walk. A Christian can never walk in darkness. We're in God, we possess His life. We're in Christ. We're in the Holy Spirit. And God is light and in Him is no darkness.
You say, "Wait a minute...wait a minute. Are you saying we never sin?" No, I'm not saying that. Go down to chapter 2 verse 1, the middle of the verse, "If anyone sins, we have an advocate." That is the only...the only exception in this whole epistle. And John has to say that. He's not saying we never sin,. He is saying that's not the pattern of our lives. We have a new pattern of life. And we walk in obedience and love in the truth. We may occasionally do the deeds of darkness, but we don't walk in the darkness. We walk in the light and the character of our lives is a manifestation of God's life and holiness and truth.
So the first word describing the claimers we'll use for verse 6 is the word "darkness." The second word for verse 8 is the word"deceit...deceit." Verse 8, "If we say we have no sins, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us." This is really worse in some ways than the first claim. The first people sort of redefined life without sin. And that was just sort of a generic kind of philosophical thing. There just was no sin. So that at least for them they had reached some...some philosophical point where they had been convinced that for people with enlightened spirits, sin doesn't really exist in terms of touching that inner man. Well this is in some ways worse. This is someone who says,"W"Well, it does exist, but it doesn't touch me." This is a step up from the level of pride of the people in verse 6. This is the person who says I don't have any sin, it's not a part of my life. The first category of people may have felt that sin was there, but only in the physical, this person says I don't have any sin...no sin. Sin is in the singular, referring to the actual principle of sin, a denial that it's there. Maybe believing...and we can't fill in all the blanks...that they had ascended to this place in their Gnosticism which means, from the Greek word "to know," that elevated knowledge. Well anybody who thinks that, he says, that we are deceiving ourselves. This is a serious case of self-deception. If you're interpreting what's wrong in your life psychologically, socially, if you're trying to define what's wrong in your life as the absence of self-esteem, which is popular in our world today, you have a serious problem. You are self-deceived. You don't know how wretched and wicked and vile you are. And that's clear evidence that the truth isn't in you, you don't know the truth.
And the first...you know, I would say this, the first truth that anybody needs to know is the truth about sin before they know the truth about salvation, wouldn't you agree? To claim that you're sinless is to be hopeless...hopeless. Because Scripture is so clear we're sinners. And I'm not going to rehearse all of the portions of Scripture that define the depravity of man, I mean, there are plenty. But if you need to go somewhere, read Romans chapter 3 verse 10 through verse 23, and you're going to find there that nobody escapes, nobody. Or if you like the Old Testament, you can read 2 Chronicles 6:36 which says there's no man that doesn't sin, no one, perfectionists included. Nobody can deny sin and claim fellowship with God. You can't say, "I'm in the fellowship, I know God, I walk with God, because I don't have any sin." Boy, are you deceived. If on the other hand, if you're really walking in the light, you're going to be overwhelmed with the sin that is there, even though that's not the normal pattern of your life, when it is there you're going to see it for what it is because the light shines on it. I've often said through the years, we do not walk in darkness, if we do the deeds of darkness, we do them in the blazing light of the life of God and they are revealed.
But a person who denies sin, first of all, lives in the darkness. And secondly, is self-deceived. That's compounding the sinner's problem. It's one thing to be in the darkness. It's something else to be deceived about that condition. And finally, there's a third word here that we can use for verse 10, let's use the word "defamation," since we're using "D" words...darkness, deceit and defamation. Anybody who denies their sin, anybody who will not admit their sin engages in defamation. Of whom? Verse 10,"If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us."
Again it's apparent we don't know the truth because if you knew the truth you wouldn't deny your sin. That's clear in all three verses. But in this one we've reached sort of the high point. Here is the person who says not only do I not sin, I've never sinned...never. It's not that I've just reached some point of enlightenment, I've never sinned. In a sense, it's hard to distinguish these three from each other, they overlap so much. But...and maybe I'm forcing the issue just a little bit but it seems to me that John has a reason to repeat these things. There are some people who just redefine sin and say it's the light, when it's the darkness. There are some people who think they have reached the point of enlightenment where they don't sin and then there are some people who think they've never sinned. And if you say you've never sinned, you just made God a liar. Why? Because God says all have...what?...sinned. And God, according to Titus 1:2, cannot lie. First John 5:10, "The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself, the one who doesn't believe, God has made him a liar."
There are two ways you can make God a liar...two ways you can blaspheme God that John points out. Number one, deny that you're a sinner and you just made God a liar because God said you are a sinner. Number two, deny that Jesus Christ is the Savior and you've just blasphemed God who said He is the Savior. And John points those out. One in chapter 1, and the verse I read in 1 John 5:10. And there is no greater form of blaspheme than to deny that you're a sinner and that Jesus is the Savior, to put it simply. If you say you haven't sinned, you just made God a liar.
Well you say, "What does God say about my sin?" Well, listen to Romans 3, this is what God says and Paul writes what is essentially a section with verses borrowed from the Old Testament. "There is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become useless. There is none who does good. There's not even one. Their throat is an open grave, with their tongues they keep deceiving, the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. The path of peace have they not known. There's no fear of God before their eyes." Verse 23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." And that's just a summation. And if you say you haven't sinned, you just made God a liar. And if you say Jesus isn't the Savior, you have made God a liar because God has said His Son is the Savior and Redeemer.
So, go ahead and deny sin. And what are you left with? Darkness, deceit and defamation. And therein is the profound essence of human depravity. Man is a sinner and he covers his sin, plunging himself into darkness, self-deception and blasphemy against God. Those kind of people may say they have fellowship with God, but they don't. They don't. They may say we have fellowship but they lie, the truth is not in them. They failed the test of the doctrine of sin and it is because they don't know the truth. The truth isn't in them. The truth isn't in them. And the third time he uses the Word...the Word of God isn't in them.
Now this reminds us at the end of...this is where we're going to stop tonight...but it reminds us at the end that if we're going to bring somebody to a true understanding of their sin, we have to take them to the true revelation of sin and that's the Word of God, right? So when you're witnessing to somebody and you want them to understand their true condition before God, you open the Bible and you show them what God says about their sin and then you remind them that if they feel prone to cover and hide and deny that, that's evidence of how dark the darkness is, how deep the deception is, and how severe the defamation of God is. And you need to remind people that if you point to the Bible and God says this about them, and they deny that that is true, they need to be reminded that they are guilty of calling God a liar.
You can say that in a gracious way. But no matter how you say it, it's not a gracious reality. To say to somebody, "I hate to tell you this, but you just called God a liar, and for you to have the brashness and the boldness and the pride to call God a liar is unimaginable, who do you think you are?" That ought to stimulate something in their thinking. So John says, "Look, there's a test here to determine a true Christian and it's about sin. Anybody who comes along and claims to have the fellowship but there's a life pattern of darkness, and they might even parade as if they are holy, and sinless and maybe ever sinned, that's positive evidence that they are in the darkness, in a serious state of self-deception and engaging in blasphemous defamation of God." True believers when they do the deeds of darkness, even as they walk in the light, don't deny them. Before God there's an openness and an honesty and a confession. There's a willingness not to cover, but to confess. We're going to see how that works next time. Let's pray.
Well, Lord, You know that sometimes we planned to cover a certain amount of material and just don't have the time to do that. And we just have to trust You with what You've given us tonight. It's so important, so important to remember what David said that when he confessed his sin he was liberated, he was freed from the debilitation of a frantic, abused conscience and his soul was put to peace and rest. You know, as believers we have a choice, bring our sins before You and confess or cover. But, You know, Lord, those of us who have already been to the cross, we already understand that we are sinners, we've made that known to you when we embraced the only sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ. We are self-confessed wretches, we are self-confessed reprobates, we are self-confessed iniquitous, worthless, sinful men and women who had not within us any capacity to alter that condition and so came by the prompting and convicting work of the Holy Spirit to cast ourselves upon Your mercy provided for us in Christ. And plead that You would forgive us and change us and some day change us totally and completely so that we could ultimately and finally and forever be holy. Those of us who came to the cross and prayed that prayer, even those who were baptized tonight, we have already acknowledged our sin. We don't stand with those who say we have fellowship but walk in an unbroken pattern of darkness. We don't stand with those who say we have no sin, or we have never sinned. We say we are sinners, we have sinned, we do sin but we have confessed and we have received Your forgiveness and we now walk in the light of eternal life granted to us by Your great grace through the resurrection of Christ who is our life. I just pray, Lord, that all who are here are in the light, possessors of the light, who are not covering their sin but uncovering and confessing it for where there is that confession...as we'll see next time...there is that full cleansing. And give us discernment to protect the church from those who say they're in the light but walk in darkness, self-deception and defamation of Your glorious and holy Word. We thank You for this wonderful day that we've shared together, for all the truth that has been brought to bear upon our hearts for which we are now responsible. Give us opportunity to live it, to proclaim it. We pray in Your Son's name. Amen.
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5 Folsom's Pond Road, Wayland
Home size: 3,355 square feet
Lot size: 1.52 acres
Rooms: 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths
Year built: 1982
Annual taxes: $17,217 (2013)
Asking price: $1,250,000
This well-maintained center entrance Colonial in North Wayland has 10 spacious rooms and a perfect flow for entertaining as well as cozy family time. Located on a quiet cul-de-sac on a 1.5-acre lot, the four-bedroom home has a chef's kitchen, solarium overlooking a landscaped backyard with a pool and tree house, front-to-back living and family rooms with fireplaces and a finished basement.
Sometimes you can feel the love in a home as soon as you walk through the door.
The center-entrance Colonial at 5 Folsom's Pond Road in North Wayland, set atop a large sloping lawn on a quiet cul-de-sac, is just such a house.
Step through the double front door and the house seems to embrace its visitors, drawing them to its spacious rooms filled with natural light.
The floor plan is perfect for entertaining – the current owners have had parties for 150 guests – with a formal living room, cozy family room, study, gourmet kitchen and a sunroom with floor-to-ceiling windows that opens to two decks. There is also a beautifully landscaped yard with a heated in-ground pool. Those same features, plus a finished basement, give the house plenty of room for a family to spread out or come together both inside and poolside.
Meaghan Winokur and Carmel McDermott of Coldwell Banker, Wayland, have listed the house at $1,250,000.
The 3,355-square-foot, 10-room house is set on a 1.52-acre lot.
"When you walk into this house, it's just serene. You get that good feeling that it's a family home, and so well cared for," said Winokur. "It's so beautiful and tranquil, especially when all the bushes, trees and flowers are in bloom, and you can enjoy sitting by the pool. Yet it's convenient to everything."
The home, with only two owners since it was built in 1982, is move-in ready.
The property is nicely landscaped, and a stone wall near the front of the house is an attractive focal point.
A wide columned portico frames the double front door.
The front door opens to a wide tile-floor foyer, which has two closets.
There are hardwood floors throughout the first floor as well as oversize windows, which fill the house with natural light.
A front-to-back living room is to the right of the foyer. A wood-burning fireplace, crown molding, recessed lighting and French doors to a deck and backyard are nice features of the 13-by-27 room.
Tucked off the living room, a 14-by-17 study is another front-to-back room with a fireplace, recessed lighting and built-in bookshelves.
The dining room, to the left of the foyer and with a swing door to the kitchen, is 13 by 13 and has wainscoting and crown molding.
The owner, a Cordon Bleu-trained cook, made sure the 2006 kitchen renovation is truly a chef's kitchen – a chef who likes to entertain and be part of the action at the same time. Centrally located, the kitchen opens to the family room and a solarium. A folding window opens over the sink and allows views of the sunny solarium and beautifully landscaped yard where birds flit between feeders. Pretty pendant lights with Murano glass shades, granite countertops, custom cabinets with plenty of storage and a center island with a Wolf gas cooktop are nice features of the 13-by-22 eat-in kitchen. High-end appliances are by Sub-Zero, Thermador and Bosch. Two pantries add even more storage to this well-thought-out kitchen.
A half bath is off the kitchen.
The 17-by-25 family room is another front-to-back room with a more rustic feel with beamed ceiling, custom built-ins, a fireplace and two window seats. There is also a wet bar.
The solarium is a tranquil, light-filled room and is heated and air-conditioned. The 15-by-22 room has a cathedral ceiling, floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides as well as four skylights and doors to two decks. The room has lovely views of the backyard and pool, which is lushly landscaped with rhododendrons, azaleas and perennials.
A wide staircase leads from the foyer to the second floor with four carpeted bedrooms and two full baths. Three of the bedrooms have walk-in closets, and two bedrooms are connected by a pocket door.
The master bedroom is a spacious 13 by 18 and includes a marble bathroom with a large window overlooking the private backyard, Jacuzzi soaking tub, shower and a double vanity.
The finished lower level adds a lot of bonus space to the house. The lower level was recently carpeted and includes a family room and a large room with a wall of built-in cabinets, a laundry room with a built-in folding area, walk-in cedar closet, storage closets and access to the two-car attached garage.
The house has four-zone oil heat and air conditioning and a fenced backyard. Conservation areas with walking trails are nearby.
For more information on 5 Folsom's Pond Road, Wayland, contact Meaghan Winokur at 508-922-0414 or Carmel McDermott at 508-935-9565, listing agents with Coldwell Banker, Wayland. This house is shown by appointment.

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Antiretroviral Treatment Helps Reduce TB in HIV Patients in South Africa: Study
This article was reported by SABC (Johannesburg).
An article in SABC said a University of Cape Town (UCT) study conducted on adults enrolled in a public sector treatment program in the Free State, South Africa, found that antiretroviral (ARV) treatments assisted in reducing incidents of TB in HIV-positive individuals as well as the mortality of those infected with both diseases. According to UCT Researcher Vanessa Timmerman, "ARV is so highly effective in reducing the incidence of TB in these patients and also reducing mortality in this group of patients." However, approximately 13 million HIV-positive Africans do not have access to the required medications. Earlier this month, the World AIDS Campaign told an African AIDS conference that individuals in West and Central Africa are the worst affected by HIV/AIDS, but only a third have access to treatment.
This information was reprinted from kff.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives, and sign up for email delivery. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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I am preparing a lecture on the US elections that I will be giving the week after next at the Center for US Research Center at Tsinghua. One of the points I wanted to make is that US-China relations are a relatively minor theme in this year's elections, and that, compared with the Cold War era, foreign policy in general plays less of a role in US politics these days. I had vaguely remembered that the opening statements in the very first televised presidential debate, the first Richard Nixon-John Kennedy debate in 1960, discussed foreign policy, in a way opening debate statements seldom would these days. So I accessed both Kennedy's and Nixon's opening statements in the first debate on Youtube.
(You can watch Kennedy's here and Nixon's here.) The contrast was far more dramatic than I had expected.The moderator, Howard K. Smith of ABC News, specifically announced at the beginning that the agreed-upon topic of the first debate was "restricted to internal or domestic American matters." Yet Kennedy's first lines in the very first televised presidential debate ever –- lines that are remembered today -- referenced Abraham Lincoln's statement before the Civil War about America not being able to survive half-slave and half-free, and stated that "in the election of 1960, and with the world around us, the question is whether the world can exist half slave and half free, whether it will move in the direction of freedom or in the direction of slavery."
Nixon, similarly, began his statement in this domestic policy debate by saying, "There is no question that we cannot discuss our domestic affairs in the United States without recognizing that they have a tremendous on our international position." Both of them argued that the reason we needed to be concerned with making progress domestically was so that we would survive the international challenges we faced.
Wait, it gets more bizarre. Both these opening statements specifically mentioned the US competition not just with the Soviet Union, but also with China! Nixon said that "we are not only in a deadly competition with the men in the Kremlin but with the men in Peking." Kennedy stated that China had always been important because of its big population, but that now as well they were "mounting a major offensive" for influence in the world.
So in 1960, at a time China was a desperately poor country in the throes of a major famine caused by disastrous government policies, both presidential candidates in their opening statements in a debate on domestic policy mentioned China. Today, with China a rising superpower, the candidates don't bring it up.
We are, not incorrectly, told that we are in an era of unprecedented globalization. Author Thomas Friedman told us a decade ago that the world was flat. Yet our presidential politics seem to be more inwardly focused than 50 years ago!
What is wrong with this picture?
Posted on Feb 24, 2012 at 7:27 PM
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China is a threat economical and militarily only if we let them. If we allow people who have everything, to keep getting more at the expense of the nation's progress, we will find them a threat, one of our own making. We should pay attn to their global presence but if we are doing what we should be doing then they shouldn't be a problem any more than any other nation today but, if we keep allowing ourselves to devolve every country will become a threat and we will cede our position in the world and it will be our own fault. We have made bad national policy on domestic and global economics, on foreign involvement, and energy and we have done this for decades. Every time we get someone who gets it, we let the numb nuts convince us to vote them out of office. Then we regress and standstill for another 10 yrs. It's almost seems planned. Like there's some internal force working to keep us from realizing and acting on what's in our own best interest. No nation can continue to do what we are doing and stay number one in the world. The world will eventually catch up and pass us by. We seem to think if we don't invest in public education, fix our infrastructure, fund our regulatory agencies so they can keep up with advances in the industries they are suppose to regulate, that somehow by virtue of our just being American we will stay on top of the world. It's amazing. We allowed China into markets to decimate our domestic industry without any parameters to protect our home based businesses. No other nation did that. Then we enact tax policies to encourage major companies in those industries to move and hire offshore putting us into an unhealthy situation were every growth industry gets peeled off like an onion and shipped overseas as fast as we create them. The future growth industries never get off the ground while we reel from the onslaught the rest of the world is making great strides in developing those markets. We let politicians convince us that we can have a country of 300 million plus people with the taxes of nation the size of Monaco. That we should starve the gov't to make it smaller without making it more efficient. We should focus on what separates us and not what brings us together. Things have to change. We have to pay closer attention to the bills and laws being passed and stalled by our political system and we to ask ourselves when we look at a proposed bill, law or potential official is this bill, law or person good for the nation not just an individual or a segment of the population but will it/she/he do what's in the nation's best interest first? If you can't answer that question then you need to look deeper and maybe elsewhere.
"What's wrong with this picture?" The question is based on false premises: (1) "Today, with China a rising superpower, the candidates don't bring it up." and (2) "[O]ur presidential politics seem to be more inwardly focused than 50 years ago!"
What nonsense. I don't know where Prof. Kelman has been these past few months, maybe hiking the Great Wall, but there has been no shortage of political commentary about China in the Republican debates, as a Google search will show. The professor should put down his The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the poetry of Li Bai, The Journey to the West, and The Thousand Character Essay and read the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. As for our presidential politics being more inwardly focused than 50 years ago, the professor should check history and stop making overly broad generalizations. The theme of the Kennedy-Nixon debates was the threat of global communism and the "Cold War," which "threat" loomed large in everyone's minds in the 1960s. China then was under the control of Mao. The country was undergoing great economic expansion and was relatively prosperous, and no one was arguing about unemployment, contraception, immigration, abortion, and gay rights.
"What's wrong with this picture?" The same thing that has always been wrong. For more insight into political themes, read Mencken, Notes on Democracy (1926), especially chapter 4, Politics Under A Democracy.
I don't disagree that relations with China are and will be important, but the United States has been exaggerating that importance for more than a century--at least since Adm. Dewey tried to open up Chinese ports for trade at the turn of the 20th century. For many years we have looked urgently to China as a huge market or a huge menace--and now it's both. U.S. politicians often exaggerate China's importance for their own political ends. Yes, let's pay attention, but let's keep things in perspective. History (and China) move at their own pace.
What is wrong with this picture is the loss of American identity. Kennedy and Nixon lived in a time when most American's believed that "we" were "better" than "them". We had to compete with China and Russia to ensure our prosperity, so that our system beat theirs. Collectively as a nation, we only care about Hellywood star, the next American idol, our favorite sports team, and the price of gasoline. We care about what's best for us, not what's best for America. Also, corporate America is doing the same thing...but since a corporation can cross international borders, they do not behave like citizens of any one country. They are elevated almost to a separate nation status...they don't want to be too much of an "American" company when there is so much money to be made around the world.
Great question Steve! Just one observation about our collective consciousness - it seems that in many things the people of the US are turned more inward - there's an increased sentiment of selfishness that often ignores the wider perspectiv...e of acting on behalf of the wider community both domestically and abroad. There are of course so many who dedicate their lives to helping others at home and in many foriegn lands. And when disasters strikes around the world Americans are quite generous and compassionate. However, on a day to day basis we seem so preoccupied with the sense of "falling behind" rather than noticing or appreciating how far ahead we really are - that we should be giving more not less - that we should be striving to lead the world to a more sustainable place - not arguing about whether global warming is even happening. And of course - just as when Kennedy spoke in 1960 - we still don't pay our teachers enough!!!
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MEXICO CITY (AP) — An official count shows at least 26,121 people were reported missing during the term of President Felipe Calderon, who launched the country's offensive against drug cartels, Mexico's new administration said Tuesday.
Lia Limon, the Interior Department's subsecretary for human rights, said the list used data from local prosecutors across Mexico, and includes people reported missing for any reason during the previous administration. It doesn't include information collected after November 2012.
The list has been a subject of controversy in Mexico for weeks. After Limon said last week that some 27,000 were missing, a member of Calderon's administration disputed the figure, saying the only registry on disappeared people contains 5,319 names. Limon said the government would work to compare the official list with others assembled by government agencies and rights groups.
The government will also work to clarify who on the list may have been a victim of crime, and who may have gone missing for reasons like migration to the United States, a family dispute or a natural disaster.
"We have to be clear that this database doesn't prejudge the reasons that people can't be found, because many of the people on it could be missing for a variety of reasons that don't have to do with criminal acts," Limon said.
She said some sort of investigation had been opened in 20,915 of the cases, but she offered no details.
The Interior Department has granted some public access to the list, but those seeking information must enter a person's name in order to obtain any data.
The civil society group Propuesta Civica recently published a database it said was created by the federal attorney-general's office that contained 20,582. Days earlier, The Washington Post published a story that said it had been given a copy of the database that contained more than 25,000 names.
The organization Human Rights Watch said last week that it had documented 249 cases of disappearances since December 2006, 149 of which showed evidence of having taken place at the hands of security forces.
Searches of some of the names in the rights group's report showed that they did not appear in the new government database.
Follow Eduardo Castillo on Twitter at — http://twitter.com/EECastilloAP
Online: www.secretariadoejecutivosnsp.gob.mx/es/SecretariadoEjecutivo/Sistema_RNPED


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Main Content
I thought Booty Bay was for lev 40+!
The casual RPG enthusiast will look at this creeper, chuckle, possibly buy it for their child, and move on. However, the avid J!NX gamer will inevitably flame this design with questions such as 'Wouldn't a baby be level 0?', or 'What is its class? Mage? Rogue?', or 'My baby's INT should be WAY higher!', or 'Does that high Charisma give my baby the ability to lead up to 15 henchmen?'. We expect this. And that, my fanatical friends, is why we love you.


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Along Vasagatan, the main street through the district, and parallel Engelbrektsgatan to the south, you'll come across solid, stately and rangy buildings that epitomize Gothenburg's nineteenth-century commercial wealth and civic pride. White-stuccoed or red-and-cream brick facades are decorated with elaborate ceramic tiles, intricate stone-and-brick animal carvings, shiny metal cupolas and classical windows. With the detail spread gracefully across these six-storey terraces, the overall effect is of restrained grandeur. Many of the houses also have Continental-style wrought-iron balconies; it's easy to imagine high-society gatherings spilling out into the night on warm summer evenings. In contrast, interspersed among all this nineteenth-century swagger are some perfect examples of early twentieth-century National Romantic architecture, with rough-hewn stone and Art Nouveau swirls in plaster and brickwork; look particularly at the low-numbered buildings along Engelbrektsgatan.
Röhsska Museum
The excellent Röhsska Museum is Sweden's main museum of design, fashion and applied arts and an aesthetic Aladdin's cave, with each floor concentrating on different areas of decorative and functional art, from early-dynasty Chinese ceramics to European arts and crafts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most arresting is the first floor, which is devoted to twentieth-century decor and features all manner of recognizable designs for domestic furniture and appliances from the 1910s to the twenty-first century – enough to send anyone over the age of 10 on a giddy nostalgia trip.
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Certificate Jobs in Limuru☆☛✅Certificate job vacancies in Limuru! ✓2978 Certificate jobs in Kenya added today! ✓Salary from 45000 ➨ Find jobs for Certificate holders in Limuru ➨ Apply for a new job today!
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This isn't going to be the start of a descent into a lot of baby chat, I promise. I am aware that a lot of you don't have children, or don't want them. Or have them and don't like them and don't want to hear about anyone else's. So I'm wary of mentioning mine.
Just like I'm not going to mention my cleaner ever again. I mentioned my cleaner last time and "Brian" left a comment saying "Why don't you get off your lazy arse and clean your own house like the rest of the real world." [No question mark.]
I'm lucky - I don't get much stuff like that. So at first I deleted the comment and my aim was to forget about it. But it bothered me.
My husband thinks I'm being silly.
"She's not your cleaner," he said, "she's my cleaner. When you had a job you had a cleaner. You haven't got a job anymore but I do. And professional, working people have cleaners - and X is mine. If you want to fire her and do it yourself, I'll pay you. But you'd be so shit at it I'd have to fire you for incompetence and re-hire X. And I don't have the energy for all that."
As die-hard fans of this blog know, my dad is a former Oxford History lecturer and the author of an academic text on Karl Marx (available for purchase here). So if anyone is going to be very bothered by the question of whether or not I am lazy for having a cleaner, it's me.
I rang Dad to ask what he thought about all this, but as it was 8.30am on Sunday morning, he was too busy working to talk. So I texted my sister, The Hamburgler, instead, because she knows all about this stuff, too.
Me: Would Karl Marx believe that my cleaner is oppressed?
The Hamburgler: He wouldn't believe it, he would know it. But he also 'knew' that chairs were 'really' the exploitation of man. Fucking idiot. It's a chair.
I don't know about you, but that made things no clearer for me. I would like to say something like "I'm not going to fire my cleaner, who has her own family to support, just so that people like "Brian" don't think I'm lazy. Because out of my cleaner and "Brian", guess whose good opinion I'd rather have?"
But that's just me being defensive. And I suspect that not wanting to starve their workers was the main self-defence cry of 19th Century mill-owners. "Put them out of work?" they'd cry. "But who, pray, would feed their children?"
I could fire my cleaner and do it all myself. Do I not because I am lazy? I don't think I'm lazy. But maybe I am. My cleaner is great and she would find other work. But I don't think that's the point. I think "Brian"'s point is that he thinks being a cleaner is demeaning. He thinks it's a shit job and that anyone who hires someone to do a shit job is a shitty person. But I don't think being a cleaner is a shit job.
Perhaps what "Brian" would like me to do is ring all X's clients and get her fired from everything, then she would see the light and go to university and become a lawyer. Or a buyer for Topshop, or some other suitable job for a young woman that isn't cleaning people's houses.
After a lot of thinking like this, I have come to the conclusion that, on balance, it's just best if I pretend my cleaner doesn't exist.
Anyway, I digress.
As I said, I won't go into the foul details, but I had cause the other day to be brought some "breastfeeing bread" by my friend Henry. It is supposed to... how to put this nicely... help things along. I don't think you need to know any more. Or is coyness extra revolting?
Anyway when he turned up with it I was slightly horrified, as it smells a lot like curry because of the fenugreek seeds in it: fenugreek being the active ingredient in aiding... supply. "Oh God," I thought, "curry bread? This is going to be horrid."
But it wasn't. It was fantastic. I mean really, like, "wow" delicious. It's like a very rich soda bread, only better. Superb with any kind of jam and, I suspect, really nice with baked beans. Definitely excellent with cream cheese and salmon, as I ate it just now.
Do not fear: if you don't happen to be breastfeeding, it won't make you spontaneously lactate. And if you find fennel seeds or fenugreek really disgusting leave them out. They are only essential to "nursing mothers" (vomit) but if you're not in that social category and don't like them, don't put them in.
[NB if you ARE breastfeeding and need a bit of help, this does actually work, despite sounding a lot like a load of old hippy cack.]
I must admit to you now that I haven't made this myself, yet. Henry assures me that it is easy and although he's no bullshitter, he is a chef - so his level of competence unevens the playing field a bit.
Anyway, here goes. This is copied word for word out of the first Leon cookbook - this is where my 100wpm touch-typing comes in handy - which is why there isn't any swearing in it.
Makes a 1kg loaf
soft butter
330g strong wholemeal spelt flour
170g strong white flour
5g fast-acting easy-blend dried yeast
2 tsp crushed sea salt
1 tsp aniseeds
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds - ground
4-g pumpkin seeds
40g sunflower seeds
2.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
300ml warm water
15g extra sunflower and pumpkin seeds for the top
40g pine nuts
Smear a 1 kg loaf tin with butter. Mix all the dry ingredients (except the pine nuts and seeds for the top) together in a bowl large enough to knead the dough in. Add the oil, then the water, stirring until the mixture sticks together. Knead in the bowl for just a few minutes until smooth. You can add a little flour if it is too sticky, but remember the maxim - wetter is better. It doesn't matter if a little sticks to your hands.
Shape, then put into the tin. Cut a pattern in deep gashes on the top and sprinkle the reserved seeds into the gashes; slighty push the pine nuts into the surface and sprinkle a little extra spelt flour (or bran if you have some to hand) all over.
Put the tin into a large plastic bag that can be tucked under the tin to leave the loaf enclosed with plenty of air. Leave until the dough has doubled in size. This will take about 2-2.5 hours in a warm kitchen.
Bake in a preheated oven at 230C for 20 mins then turn down to 200C for another 20 minutes.


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(2)For purposes of this subsection, the term "benefits" with respect to any individual means supplemental security income benefits under this subchapter, and any State supplementary payments undersection 1382e of this titleor undersection 212 of Public Law 93–66which the Commissioner of Social Security makes on behalf of a State (or political subdivision thereof), that the Commissioner of Social Security has determined to be due with respect to the individual at the time the Commissioner of Social Security makes the first payment of benefits with respect to the period described in clause (A) or (B) of paragraph (3). A cash advance made pursuant to subsection (a)(4)(A) shall not be considered as the first payment of benefits for purposes of the preceding sentence.
42 USC § 1383(g)(2)
Scoping language
None: Default is title Scope
Is this correct?


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Community Groups
Wisconsin Public Television has implemented a resource list of community groups to be notified about job openings at WPT. If you are a member of a community group that would like to receive notification of our job openings, please contact us. Write or e-mail Betsy Nelson, 821 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Student Jobs
Student jobs are often available at Wisconsin Public Television and Wisconsin Public Radio. "Student" is defined as an individual who is enrolled at any institution of higher education or high school.
Television positions
Television positions are often positions on the TV production crew. Productions may be in-studio or on location. Occasionally there are also research or production assistant positions available. All student positions are posted at the Student Job Center.
- Ethics for WPT Staff
- Ethics for WPT Editorial and Executive Staff
- FCC EEO Public File Report
- State of Wisconsin Affirmative Action
*Our partner organizations include Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), Broadcast and Media Innovations (BAMI), Educational Communications Board (ECB), and Instructional Communications Systems (ICS).


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Information for Parents
As parents, your support for your student's off-campus study program is very important. We welcome you to visit our website to learn more about the advising services and programs that Carleton offers as well as financial aid policies, health and safety, and tips on preparing for travel abroad.
In addition, we encourage you to check out the following outside resources, written specifically for parents of study abroad students.
A few resources on study abroad:
- Study Abroad, a Parent's Guide, by William Hoffa, NAFSA, 1998
- Learning Abroad Center, Resources for Parents
Please feel free to contact us by email (addresses on the Staff page) or by phone (507-222-4332) with concerns and questions not addressed on our website.


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OK, the picture is silly but the comment is real. I pulled this bunch off of the banks of the Paerdegat tonight, with all the ribbons one of the shorebirds that frequent our basin could all to easily have become entangled and starved to death if not spotted in time. Animals will also sometimes eat deflated balloons (sea turtles in particular are known to mistake them for jellyfish, their favorite thing to eat), which can also kill them. I'll frequently pick up a piece of two of trash when I'm out paddling but it's pretty random whether I'll paddle past a piece of trash or stop and pick it up. Nothing random about getting this trap off the shore though - no way was I going to leave it there.
Lovely paddle tonight. I think I launched around 7, it was a beautiful warm night and very quiet (especially in comparison to Tuesday's rollicking waves). I decided to mix it up a little bit tonight, last few paddles I've been heading for the inlet, tonight I hung a right and paddled to JFK airport and back. The light was gorgeous when I launched, had that "golden hour" thing going on; I actually didn't take my camera because it would've been one of those trips where I spent more time taking pictures than paddling and I still have more pictures from last weekend to go through before I make more.
No skimmers tonight but plenty of oystercatchers and an osprey, and I can't speak to the cotton question but the fish were definitely jumpin', it seemed like I startled a school every few minutes. I saw lots of little fires along the shore, I wasn't the only one enjoying the beautiful evening.
I decided to finish up with a loop up to the end of the Paerdegat and back, just to get in another mile - I don't usually do that but I was feeling energetic, and I'm glad I did because that's when I found the balloons.
Somewhere around 13 miles all in all, and then perfect timing with both bus connections (and the first bus driver was nice enough to let me on at a stoplight - that was outstanding, I don't think they have to do that, and at that hour of night it would've been a long wait until the next one.
Ahhh, summer!


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Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
These inquisitive and friendly birds are well known to most Australians because they are still sometimes sought out as pets and taught to 'talk'. Their white feathers, yellow crest, large black bill and stately walk make them instantly recognisable.
They are native to Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. They are classed as 'least concern' by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (on the IUCN 'red list').
Meeting the Sulphur-crested Cockatoos at Healesville Sanctuary is an important way to connect with the native birds of Australia, and to learn about the Sanctuary's conservation programs, especially those aimed at conserving threatened native species. The money you spend helps to support the Sanctuary's conservation programs and its care of native wildlife, as well as fight species extinction.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos live very long lives, which may exceed 60 years. They have a loud, raucous call – one of the most distinctive sounds of the Australian bush.
An adult is about 50cm long and weighs up to 950g.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos eat seeds, berries, fruits, nuts, roots and sometimes insects. When a flock is feeding on the ground, at least one remains in a tree and keeps watch for predators.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos are found in eastern Australia and the north of the Northern Territory. Their preferred habitat is dense forest but they are frequently seen near human habitats, including, alarmingly, the sides of highways. You can help to protect them by driving carefully and slowing down (if it is safe to do so) when you see a flock near the road. If you find an injured bird, contact the local wildlife care group and take care not to touch the bird without good reason – they bite hard.
Sulphur-crested Cockatoos nest in tree hollows. They typically lay two to three eggs; incubation is 25–27 days. The young are able to become independent of their parents within 9 weeks of hatching.
- Werribee Open Range Zoo
- Healesville Sanctuary
- Melbourne Zoo


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Serious: Poprah (Of I Want To Work For Diddy) Bully's & Goes In On Danger! "You Will Behave Yourself Or I Will Knock You The F*ck Out" + Danger Still Claiming Ray-J Is Bi!
Please click the "Report" button below if the video on this page is not working properly.
Comments will only be displayed by verified emails. No Spamming or Racism.


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The UK will bid for European Union cash to help victims of the winter floods, the Government has announced.
Communities Minister James Wharton said the UK has confirmed its intention to apply for aid from the EU solidarity fund in relation to Storm Desmond and Storm Eva.
Labour said the announcement is "extremely welcome".
Mr Wharton, replying to an urgent question from Labour in the Commons, said the application would be the UK's first since flooding in 2007.
The Conservative minister said: "I am today announcing that the UK Government will make an application to the European Union solidarity fund (EUSF).
"The EUSF was set up to respond to major natural disasters. The fund was created as a reaction to the severe floods in central Europe in the summer of 2002.
"Since then it has been used for 70 disasters covering a range of different catastrophic events, including floods, forest fires, earthquakes, storms and drought.
"The only time the UK has applied to the fund was following the flooding of 2007, which saw widespread and significant damage across large swathes of England."
MPs have previously heard the deadline for the UK to declare its intent to bid for funding was the end of February.
Mr Wharton said the EU aid is not designed to offer "rapid response" support and can take several months to complete.
He told MPs: "Member states have 12 weeks from the start of an incident to register their intent to claim.
"We have confirmed our intent. Once you have confirmed it, there is time to consider with the commission the element to assessment.
"Following this process the commission assesses the application and, if the application is accepted, proposes an amount of aid to the European Parliament.
"Once the appropriations become available in the EU budget, the commission adopts a decision awarding the aid to the affected state.
"It is then paid out in a single instalment. When aid is paid out, the affected state is responsible for the implementation - including the selection of operations and their audit and control."
Mr Wharton earlier said the UK Government has already provided more than £200 million to help those affected by the winter floods, including recovery and repair costs.
Replying for Labour, shadow environment minister Alex Cunningham told Speaker John Bercow: "I thank the minister and my fellow Stockton MP (Mr Wharton) for his response, which is extremely welcome today.
"And it has taken an urgent question to get the information from the Government - so I'm delighted you granted it, Mr Speaker."
Mr Cunningham criticised the amount of time it had taken the Government to announce the application.
He said the scale of the damage caused by the floods and the associated cost of recovery meant it was "imperative" for the Government to apply to "maximise" available resources.
"Members and their constituents have been left totally in the dark as it appeared the Government would fail to make an application for help from the EU solidarity fund, a fund established to respond to precisely such natural disasters as those experienced in Cumbria, Lancashire, North Yorkshire and Scotland," he said.
Mr Cunningham said countries across the EU had made applications in "similar circumstances".
"We on this side have been extremely anxious that this opportunity could in fact be lost," he said.
"To be clear, the first floods for which an application can be made in Cumbria were some 11 and a half weeks ago, yet it's taken the Government to within a single working day of the deadline to confirm an application is being made.
"We all know there are those who quite wrongly believe we get little from the EU.
"I am clear that the UK should be embracing the offer of additional support, particularly having paid £300 million into the fund since it was set up."
Mr Wharton said the Opposition benches failed to understand the purpose of the fund and how applications work.
He said: "There does seem to be a fundamental misunderstanding that you have.
"The department, the Government has been working on this application for some time.
"You have to draw together a range of information across Government departments, talking with local areas, assessing the cost and impact of events that have taken place.
"That is what we have been doing and that is what we will continue to do."
Mr Wharton repeatedly stressed that the fund is not for "rapid response".
"The European Union solidarity fund is not designed to be a rapid response to events of this kind," he said.
"It is a longer term fund to provide compensation to communities and even though an application is now being made it will take months for that money to be paid."
Ian Liddell-Grainger, Tory MP for Bridgwater and West Somerset, told the House that EU cash is not needed to "do what you have to do" to help people.
He said: "In 2011 we suffered disastrous floods in Somerset. We looked at this fund very closely indeed, the Prime Minister and my local area.
"We made the decision it was not going to be applied for at that time because it was too complicated, too difficult and the benefit to the communities wasn't going to be there.
"It doesn't matter - they can chunter as much as they want on the opposition benches - we have now made the area that was flooded in Somerset safe through UK funding.
"The proof of the pudding is this year we haven't even had to switch on the main pumps.
"It has worked. You don't need this funding to be able to do what you have to do to secure your communities."
The SNP's Calum Kerr (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) welcomed the announcement but also questioned the timing of the application as he asked Mr Wharton: "Where was the rapid decision-making process?"
"It was not a difficult question," he said.
"If you have an insurance policy, yes, of course you are going to cash it in, why would we not cash it in?"
But Mr Wharton hit back.
He said: "I can confirm that one of the factors that has delayed the process, which has made it more difficult to assess this very complicated application that underpins an application to the EU solidarity fund, has been the slowness of getting the information we needed out of the Scottish Government."
Nigel Evans, Tory MP for Ribble Valley, praised the Government for committing to making the application.
"Hallelujah," he said.
"Hallelujah. Three weeks ago I asked the Prime Minister why weren't we applying for these funds. I am delighted that we are now doing so."


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Ultimate Gym and Fitness... Featuring 70 pieces of equipment such as free weights, strength machines and cardio equipment
There is an opportunity to undertake a work placement within this local gym, shadowing instructors and helping with the day to day running of the gym
To apply for this opportunity, please come and speak to the work placement team in room 103 or email firstname.lastname@example.com
Please note - Placements are open to all students at Vision West Nottinghamshire College, this may result into the placement being allocated; the work placement team will be able to let you know if this placement has been fully allocated.
Once your work placement has been confirmed, and start & end dates have been agreed with your employer. Please follow the steps below in order to process you work placement application.
Step 1 - Complete the work placement application form on the work placement connect app, or complete a self-placement form,
the form can be found here. This will advise the work placement team you have a confirmed work placement.
Step 2 - The work placement team will seek authorisation confirmation from your progress mentor, and then the health and safety documentation will be completed for you to start your placement.
Step 3 - The work placement team will then send you, your progress mentor and the employer an email to confirm your work placement is ' Ready to Go'. You MUST NOT START YOUR WORK PLACEMENT, until you have received the confirmation email.
A parental consent form must also be signed and passed to your progress mentor before you go on placement.
If you have questions or need any support with your work placement applications, please email firstname.lastname@example.com or call into Room 103 at Derby Road
or see your Employability and Work Placement Coordinator at Station Park, Engineering Innovation Centre or Create.
We encourage you to secure your work placement as soon as possible. The deadline to have a placement agreed is Friday 14th Dec 2018.
Good luck and remember to ask your employer on completing your placement if you can add them as a new reference on your CV!
100% A Level pass rate in 2018
Best A Level provider in Mansfield and Ashfield for student progress*
One of the top colleges in the UK for student satisfaction**
An extensive bus service across Mansfield and the surrounding area
£50m investment in our facilities since 2008


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Includes apps for iphone, and the droid!Free iPhone app Free Android App
Newnham Group Travel DiscountsNewnham Group Travel Discounts
Newnham, Group Travel Rates
If you are traveling to Newnham with a group and you are looking for discounted group hotel rates in Newnham, you are in the right place. Motel.com offers great hotel discounts for groups traveling to Newnham. We work with church groups, weddings, sports groups, leisure travel, skiing, golf outings, family reunions, business meetings, and many other types of group travel to Newnham, .
Newnham Group Travel Deals
We make it easy for you to make group hotel reservations in Newnham at great rates. If you are looking for an easy way to take advantage of group travel discounts, please select a hotel below to book your group hotel rooms at great group rates.
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Popular Landmarks & Attractions in Newnham


text: Leolah Brown—Bobby Brown's sister and Whitney Houston's former sister-in-law and assistant—went on Dr. Drew's HLN show last night talking all kinds of shit on Ray J and Pat Houston (who is married to Whitney's brother Gary), calling them a "runner boy" and "manipulator" respectively. Making wild accusations, Leolah said that upon first hearing of Whitney's death on the news her first thought was, "My God, somebody gave her a bad bag." That "somebody," she says, is Ray J. She claims that Ray J was not Whitney's boyfriend, but rather her "runner boy" would buy drugs for Whitney. She was also going off on Pat Houston, saying that she definitely knew that Whitney was using again, contrary to what she told Oprah. Later in the interview, two of Bobby Brown's nephews, who were present at the Beverly Hilton the night that Whitney died, and who took Bobbi Kristina to the hospital, accused Gary and Pat of manipulating Bobbi Kristina in order to get control of Whitney's fortune, despite reports that Whitney was broke at the time of her death.


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Can you consume only 5% of calories from sugar?
World Health Organization proposes cut in added sugars for health benefits.
Put down your soda. Skip sweetened breakfast cereal, and forget adding sugar to your coffee or tea.
Added sugar intake should be less than 10% of your total calories a day, and consuming less than 5% of total calories from added sugars provides additional health benefits, according to new draft guidelines from the World Health Organization.
Americans currently consume an average of 15% of their daily calories from added sugars — about 300 calories a day. That's based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
The WHO guidelines come on the heels of a recent study that showed consuming too much added sugar increases your risk of death from heart disease. Other research has tied a high intake of added sugars, especially sugar-sweetened beverages, to many poor health conditions, including obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
For years major health groups and leading consumer advocates in the U.S. have encouraged people to cut down on their intake of added sugar for their health's sake.
"The key point is that we are consuming way too much added sugars for good health," said Rachel Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association and a nutrition professor at the University of Vermont.
Added sugars include table sugar, brown sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, maple syrup, honey, molasses and other caloric sweeteners in prepared and processed foods and beverages. It does not include sugars that occur naturally in fruit, fruit juice and milk and dairy products.
STORY: WHO recommends 5% of calories should be from sugar
But can people really consume only 5% of total calories from added sugar? After all, added sugar is everywhere. One can of regular soda contains about 140 calories of added sugar, which would be about 7% of the daily calories of someone eating 2,000 calories a day.
People should aim for 5%, but 10% of calories from sugar may be more realistic, said Francesco Branca, WHO's director for nutrition. The group based its draft guidelines on a review of about 9,000 studies.
Consuming 5% of calories from added sugar is a "realistic" goal for Americans, but a challenging one given the amount of added sugar in prepared foods, said Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and one of the nation's top experts on beverage consumption. "Our research has shown that added sugar was in 75% of all consumer packaged foods and beverages," he said.
Popkin applauds the WHO's draft guidelines. "After two years of study they have found that even further declines to 5% would reduce the risk to our health," he said. "This is an important, even revolutionary, finding that is based on extensive study and review of the literature throughout the globe."
Johnson said the WHO proposed recommendations "align well" with the American Heart Association recommendations, which advise that women consume no more than 100 calories a day from added sugars, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar, and men consume no more than 150 calories a day, or about 9 teaspoons.
In a statement, the Grocery Manufacturers Association said: "The consumption of too many calories from any source combined with a lack of physical activity are the main risk factors for obesity. Consumers wishing to pursue a healthy lifestyle should consider following the federal government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which include eating a variety of foods as highlighted in the ChooseMyPlate.gov website and engaging in regular physical activity."
Major sources of added sugars in Americans' diets are sugar-sweetened beverages, desserts, some fruit drinks, dairy desserts (ice cream) and candy, government data show.
Much of the sugars consumed today are "hidden" in processed foods that are not usually seen as sweets, the WHO says. For example, 1 one tablespoon of ketchup contains around 1 teaspoon of sugar.
So why is added sugar intake linked to so many health issues?
Excessive intake of added sugar appears to negatively affect health in several ways, said Frank Hu, a professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. It has been linked to the development of high blood pressure, increased triglycerides (blood fats), low HDL (good) cholesterol and fatty liver problems, and makes insulin less effective in lowering blood sugar.
When WHO revised its sugar guidelines in 2002, it recommended added sugar be less than 10% of daily calories. WHO's new draft guidelines have been published online and the agency invites the public to comment via its website until the end of March.
In a statement, the Sugar Association, a trade group, said it looks "forward to providing science-based comments during this consultation period" but is "concerned that the draft guidelines' suggested limits — which would lump together sugar (sucrose) and other caloric sweeteners — rely heavily on insufficient scientific evidence."
Contributing: Associated Press


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About ICBA
The Independent Community Bankers of America®, the nation's voice for more than 6,000 community banks of all sizes and charter types, is dedicated exclusively to representing the interests of the community banking industry and its membership through effective advocacy, best-in-class education and high-quality products and services.
With 51,000 locations nationwide, community banks employ 700,000 Americans, hold $3.9 trillion in assets, $3.1 trillion in deposits and $2.6 trillion in loans to consumers, small businesses and the agricultural community.
Whether located in small towns, suburbia or big-city neighborhoods, community banks improve our towns and cities by funding small businesses and using local dollars to help families purchase homes, finance college and build financial security.
ICBA supports fair competition for financial institutions, maintaining the separation of banking and commerce, and a balanced financial system to prevent the concentration of economic and financial-services resources. ICBA member community banks create symbiotic relationships with the communities they serve, favor local decision-making, while adhering to the highest business practices and ethical standards, and support a democratically governed association where each member bank has a voice and a vote.
ICBA is committed to upholding the highest professional standards in community banking and providing programs tailored specifically for community bankers. Through ICBA educational courses, certification options and continuing education programs, community bankers are better able to serve their customers and stay profitable.
Mission - Create and promote an environment where community banks flourish.
Visit ICBA for more information.


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Keep your cargo secure with a cable lock from Tow Ready. Constructed of 5/16" aircraft-quality cable, each cable lock is designed to secure cargo and other valuables of all shapes and sizes. Each cable features a built-in lock and comes in a 10' length to allow use with multiple applications.
Make sure your valuable stay in place with a cable lock from Tow Ready. With a variety of uses, the cable lock is a great addition to any vehicle or garage.