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- Published in Communities in Action
Top 6 most Influential, Powerful and Inspiring Women in Paris.
The world is celebrating the International Women's Day on March 8th and in Paris, we're throwing a huge party to honor women all over the world and in particular, the Parisian women. You should check the event out and register. Also, don't hesitate to share it with friends. Before this March 8th, we also thought about honoring ladies who are inspiring, paving the way and giving hope to many of Paris-based expatriates. We rounded up powerful profiles of the female community influencers and heroines who are helping women and men persevere and prosper in Paris. Whether their words and daily occupations inspire us or make us laugh, these women have got a profound impact, not only on expat lives, but also on the French people's lives. Who are they?


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Well, let's turn to the wonderful little epistle of Jude and tonight our movement through this letter takes us to verse 14, 15 and 16, just three verses to talk about a lot to say. Jude verses 14 through 16 and let me just read these three verses and I'll set them in your mind. Verse 14 begins, "And about these," that is the false teachers, the apostate false teachers, "about these also Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied saying, 'Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts. They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.'"
Here is a statement about judgment, about the Lord coming, coming to execute judgment, to convict and to punish sinners. This, of course, is a theme throughout the teaching of the New Testament. It is a very important part of the teaching of Jesus who had more to say about hell than any other person in Scripture. Our society has become well insulated from the reality of hell. In fact, preachers don't preach about it, writers don't write about it, evangelists don't even necessarily warn about it. The culture thinks everyone is basically good and life after death is either happy and full of pleasure or it doesn't exist. Hell is neither politically correct, socially acceptable, or even evangelical these days. We have become so comfortable with the absence of hell from our evangelism that our superficial gospel has no threats, no warnings about eternal torment and eternal suffering.
But on the other hand, the Bible is very clear on the reality of hell, very clear on the reality of eternal punishment, very clear on the reality of eternal darkness. Scripture tells us that human history ends with God's judgment on all the ungodly, and that's what the text that I just read says.
Now let me just give you some sort of broad sweeping oversight into this concept of final judgment just to help you pin it down as to some particulars. Number one, when we talk about the Lord coming in judgment, we're talking about a special event at a specific time. We're not just talking about life going on and on and on interminably and somehow God interjecting a certain level of judgment from time to time. We're talking about a special event at a specific time when the Lord comes to end human history and bring about final judgment. And to show you that, I want you to turn to Acts chapter 17...Acts chapter 17, we're going to move through this just to give you the big picture, if we can, for a moment.
In Acts 17 and verse 31, it says this, "God...borrowed from verse 30...God who is now declaring all men everywhere should repent, God has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a man whom He has appointed." What man? Clearly the rest of the verse tells you. "Having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." And, of course, the One God raised from the dead is Jesus Christ, He then is the man by whom God will judge the world. And He has fixed a day in which He will do that. Human history does not just continue along an inexorable line. It doesn't go on forever. It is really very brief and it comes to an end with a specific event or series of events at a specific time inaugurated by a specific person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Turn to Romans chapter 2 for a moment and just verse 5 is a good starting point, Romans chapter 2 verse 5. It talks about sinners who store up wrath. In other words, they accumulate guilt. They accumulate judgment by sin. All their sin accumulates or stores up wrath. It says, "Storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath." Again, a specific event at a specific time and "That day of wrath brings about the revelation of the righteous judgment of God who on that day will render to every man according to his deeds." In the sixteenth verse of Romans 2 it says, "On that day, that day of wrath, that day of judgment, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus." Again it is clear to us there is a day of judgment coming.
Notice 2 Peter 2:9 to add the words of Peter in a chapter that is really a sort of a fraternal twin to Jude. In 2 Peter 2:9 it says, "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment...the day of judgment."
In the book of Revelation, one more text outside the epistle of Jude, not that there aren't many more. At the end of the sixth chapter of Revelation we read about God splitting the sky and the stars falling and people saying to the mountains and the rocks, Revelation 6:16, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of their wrath has come and who is able to stand?" Now you can go back to Jude and look for a moment at the sixth verse.
"Even angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of that great day." It is not a 24-hour day, it is an epic, it is an era, but it is nonetheless a fixed time. And of that day and that hour no man knows but we must understand that when the Bible talks about the judgment of God on sin, it is talking ultimately about an event, a special event at a very precise time when the Lord Himself will come as judge.
The second thing to understand about this judgment is that it will be general and public. It will be general and public. We're not talking about living your life and just dying and going to hell and no one knows. You can't get away with that. The final judgment will be general and it will be public. Each one of us will certainly give an account of himself to God, says Romans 14:12, everyone will. But it's not going to be something hidden and something very private. In fact, in Matthew chapter 25 as Jesus talks about His own coming, He says, "When the Son of Man comes," verse 31, "and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne and all the nations will be gathered before Him and He will separate them from one another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." This is very general and very public. It involves all the world of sinners in a final tribunal before the throne of God, the day of judgment of all the ungodly.
A more vivid and specific picture is given in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. Revelation chapter 20 and verse 11. "And I saw a Great White Throne," this is the throne of judgment, "and Him who sat upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away and no place was found for them and I saw the dead, the great and the small standing before the throne, all of them, and the books were opened and another book was opened which is the Book of Life and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds and the sea gave up the dead which were in it and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them and they were judged, everyone one of them, according to their deeds and death and Hades were thrown into the Lake of Fire, this is the second death, the Lake of Fire, and if anyone's name was not found written in the Book of Life he was thrown into the Lake of Fire." There will be a day of judgment, the specific event at a specific time, and it will be general and public.
Thirdly, God is the judge...God is the judge. Hebrews 12:23 identifies God as the judge of all. He is the judge. He possesses the perfect criteria to be the judge because He is perfectly holy, perfectly righteous. And all violations of God's Law are violations of His person. In Romans 2:2 it says, "We know that the judgment of God rightly falls...the judgment of God rightly falls." "Do you suppose, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself that you will escape the judgment of God?" No one escapes the judgment of God, it rightly falls, that is to say He judges justly and righteously.
However, though God is the judge, God has delegated that judgment to Christ who is God, the second member of the Trinity, but God has determined to delegate His role and authority as judge to His Son. Look at John chapter 5, stay with me on these verses because we're building such an important foundation. John 5 verse 22, "For not even the Father judges anyone but He has give all judgment to the Son." The Father has determined to commit all judgment to the Son so that the very one who has been despised and rejected becomes the judge. The very one who offers Himself as the Savior and Redeemer becomes the judge and executioner. Down in verse 27 it says, "The Father gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man." Because He has been identified with humanity and the incarnation, because He was in all points tempted like as we are, He is a judge who is suited to this responsibility. Jesus alone will render judgment as God grants Him that privilege.
The end of chapter 16 of Matthew says, "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will then recompense every man according to His deeds." Now the picture starts to come together. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself with delegated authority from God who is the judge comes at a moment in time to bring about the final devastating judgment on all the ungodly, none other than the Son of Man who is fitted and suited to make that judgment and who Himself once offered as Savior is now appointed as judge.
Listen to Acts 10:42. In this from Peter it says, "And He ordered us to preach the gospel and solemnly to testify that this is the one that is the one God rose from the dead, this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead." It is Jesus alone. And we saw that already in Acts 17:31, He has appointed a day in which you will judge the world by that man whom He has appointed, that one whom He raised from the dead. This is where world history is going, folks. It is headed toward the judgment of God rendered by Christ at His return.
There is a fifth element in this judgment to understand it and it is this, the promise of judgment is intended as a warning. The promise of judgment is intended as a warning. The promise of judgment is designed by God to produce fear of divine wrath which is critical. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 10:28, "Do not fear those who kill the body but aren't able to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Fearing terrorists is one thing, fearing cancer is one thing, fearing heart disease is one thing, fearing a criminal invasion is one thing, fearing war is one thing, fearing eternal damnation is a far-more important fear.
And so the Bible tells us clearly that judgment is a specific event that will occur at a specific time. The judgment will be general and public, that God is the judge who has delegated His judgment to Christ. And the warnings which are all through Scripture are designed by God to produce a fear of this judgment, a fear that leads to repentance and faith.
Now just a couple more things to think about when you think about judgment, and they're very basic. Number six, the standard for judgment is the Law...the standard for judgment is the Law. The holy Law of God about which we spoke this morning, that is the standard for judgment. And all people are held accountable for obedience to that Law. Even though man is deceitful and desperately wicked at heart, even though he cannot keep the Law, he is still held accountable for it because he is willfully disobedient and seeks not the forgiveness and grace of God which is available to him. All people, Romans 1 says, are without excuse because they have willfully sinned against God, they have willfully become unrighteous, they have willfully ignored reason which takes them back to God, and in Romans 2, conscience which takes them back to God's moral Law. Second Thessalonians says, "Judgment will fall on all those who obey not the gospel." They don't obey the Law and they don't obey the gospel. They don't obey the Law which they cannot keep and they don't obey the gospel which could deliver them from the consequences of the Law. So the standard for judgment is the Law. That's why there are books, as we read in Revelation 20, and on those books are written the records of every one's sins. And you know what? We all have that record but the final judgment is made not on the basis of the record of our sins, but on whether or not our names were written in the Book of Life. The names of those in the Book of Life are not those who never violated the Law, but those who accepted the provision for sin in Christ and through faith in God and came penitently to seek forgiveness.
And then a seventh thing to think about when you think about final judgment is the place of judgment, first on earth and then before the heavenly throne of God. I don't want to take the time to go through all of this but the first judgment takes place when Christ returns. The judgment of the sheep and goats, I mentioned to you from Matthew chapter 25, is the judgment of the nations that takes place on earth when Christ comes to earth to set up His Kingdom. That is the earthly judgment. It starts with all the horrible devastating deadly judgments of the time called the Tribulation, seven-year period of time after the Rapture of the church when all hell breaks loose in this world as God unleashes His wrath through demons running amuck through the removal of the restraint of the Holy Spirit. And it culminates in those sealed judgments, trumpet judgments, bold judgments and then Christ coming out of heaven on a white horse with a sword in his mouth to slaughter all that remains of His enemies all over the world. And then they're all brought before His judgment. This is, in a sense, a judgment that takes place in some measure on earth. And then the final judgment at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom, a thousand years later, takes place before the throne of God when all the dead, already dead, all the ungodly dead of all the ages are brought back from their place, their place of torment to the throne of God, at that point given bodies suited for an even more horrible torment, and that is the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20. So there is an element of judgment that occurs on earth and culminates at the end of the time called the millennial kingdom. At that point, the whole of the universe disintegrates and a new heaven and a new earth are created and those ungodly are cast out of it forever into the Lake of Fire and those who belong to God dwell forever in the bliss and joy and holiness of the eternal state.
One final thought, the sentence of this judgment is eternal hell. It is the judgment of damnation. And that is very clear in the language of our Lord Himself. When He was given judgment, John 5 and verse 29, it says, "Those who did righteous things will have a resurrection of life, that righteous behavior manifesting their changed nature. Those who committed evil will have a resurrection of judgment or damnation. And He describes that place as weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, torment, the worm never dies, blackness of darkness, and so forth.
So, whenever you read about judgment in the Bible, you're not talking about something that just kind of happens now and then, sort of consequential, sort of the law of sowing and reaping. There is that kind of judgment. But the judgment that we're looking at, back to Jude now, and the judgment that is featured in this epistle and throughout the New Testament is that particular judgment that occurs at a special time, that judgment which is general and public, that judgment in which God the judge delegates His judgment to Christ, that judgment which is designed to produce in us now enough fear to drive us to repentance and faith, that judgment which will be a judgment based upon our violation of the Law of God and whether or not we put our trust in Christ so that those sins could be taken away from us, that judgment which begins on earth and ends before His throne in heaven and that judgment which ends in eternal damnation. This is the final judgment. How close is it? Closer than ever...closer than ever.
Now it is this final judgment that Jude has in mind. Go back to the text here. He says at the end of verse 14, "Behold the Lord came with many thousand of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all." This is that final judgment. All impenitent God-rejecting sinners are headed for this final judgment and eternal torment in hell. Even those who have died and those who have died in centuries past, those who will die before this happens will upon their death be judged and sent out of the presence of God forever. They will in the future be resurrected and given a body suited for the eternal Lake of Fire and they will be brought to that final tribunal. So in that sense, judgment occurs whenever the sinner dies. Do you remember the words of Hebrews 9? "It is appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment." In that sense judgment is personal and private. But the final judgment is general and public. All impenitent Christ-rejecting sinners are headed for this final tribunal called the Great White Throne and headed for the Lake of Fire and eternal torment both of soul and some kind of body suited for hell.
Now, the question often comes up, "Does everybody experience the same hell? Does everybody experience the same torment?" The answer to that is no. Just as there are degrees of service in heaven based upon faithfulness here, there are going to be some degrees of suffering. And I can show you that from some simple passages. Matthew chapter 11 is a good one because it sort of jumps up and surprises you a little bit. Matthew chapter 11, Jesus is addressing some towns around Galilee where He had ministered and He said in verse 21, "Woe to you Chorazin, woe to you Bethsaida.." And then He comes down to verse 22 and He says, "I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you." What an interesting statement. It will be worse in hell for the occupants of Chorazin and Bethsaida. It will be worse for the occupants of Capernaum in hell than it is for the inhabitants of that horrific sinful cities of Tyre and Sidon...pagan to the core. It will be worse. Why? Because they were exposed to Christ. They were exposed to the Son of God. Verse 24 says, "It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you, Capernaum." How amazing. Sodom, that homosexual city where they wanted to rape angels. It will be worse for Capernaum, that little town in Galilee where Jesus ministered. It's back to that principle, "To whom much is given...what?...much is required."
Turn to Luke chapter 12 for a moment because this also fits. Luke chapter 12 and verse 47...verse 47, "That slave who knew his master's will and didn't get ready or act in accord with his will shall receive many lashes and that slave who did not know it and committed deeds worthy of a flogging will receive but few." And then comes that principle about to whom much is given, much is required and it's in the context of judgment. If you knew God's will and you didn't act according to it, you get many lashes. If you didn't know it, you get fewer lashes. The more you know about the gospel, the hotter hell will be. The less you know, the more tolerable it will be.
People ask the question, "What about the people who never heard the gospel? Will they be in hell?" Yes, but whatever level of relative tolerance there can be there, their experience will be less than the experience of those who knew the truth and rejected it.
One other passage, Hebrews chapter 10 and this ges us to where we need to be, back to this epistle. Hebrews chapter 10. "Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy," verse 28. "Anybody who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses." People who disobey the law of Moses are going to be punished. They're going to be punished mercilessly. But verse 29 says, "How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and insulted the Spirit of grace?" Verse 31, "It's a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God," particularly if you've trampled the gospel, particularly if having known the truth you abandoned the truth. The hottest hell, the severest torment is for those who knowing the truth rejected the truth and that is what we call apostasy, to know the truth, and reject the truth. Hell is horrible no matter who is there, but James warns us, "Stop being so many teachers," James 3:1, "for theirs is a greater condemnation."
So follow the thought. If you know nothing about the gospel, if you know very little about the Law of God, you still die and go to hell and in judgment you suffer. But if you knew the Law of God and rejected it, your suffering is greater. If you knew the gospel of Christ and rejected it, it's greater and I will add if you knew the gospel of Jesus Christ and rejected it and you have become a teacher of perversion and damnable error, your judgment is greater yet.
Now if the judgment texts of Scripture are designed to warn people, false teachers ought to be terrified. They ought to be absolutely petrified of what awaits them.
Those apostate false teachers who stay within the framework of Christianity and pretend to represent God and even Christ and pervert the truth to the destruction of souls, theirs is the severest judgment of all...of all. And, you know, there are many in that category, not the least of which were the Pharisees who said they represented God, who said they taught the truth of God, they were the people of God, they were the conscience, they knew the Law of God, they were God's representatives in the world. And Jesus said to them, "You make people more sons of hell than ever with your teaching. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees," Jesus says to them, "you white-washed tombs, on the outside appearing beautiful, inside full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. You outwardly appear righteous to men, inwardly are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." And He says in verse 33, "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?" The severest diatribes given in the New Testament are against false teachers, those who lead people astray in the name of God, in the name of Christ. Nothing is going to compare with the suffering of the spiritual phonies, the spiritual fakers, the false prophets, the false teachers, the Christian con-men, the liberals, the spiritual fakes in priestly garb, the gospel-denying theologians, theirs is the worst hell of all.
Now Jude, our Lord's half-brother and full brother of James, was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write this letter and to write it about the issue of apostasy. And it primarily deals with the judgment of apostates. While it characterizes them, for sure, it does so always with reference to judgment. He deals with their presence, verse 4, "Certain persons have crept in unnoticed, ungodly persons who turned the grace of God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." He talks about their presence in the church, verse 12, they are hidden reefs in your love feasts. They feast with you without fear. They're embedded in Christianity. He talks about their character. They are licentious. They are grossly immoral. They are defiled. They are beasts, like wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars, they are like fruitless trees, doubly dead, uprooted. He talks about their influence. They have been very influential. They have managed to lead many, many astray. He talks about their doctrine, denying lordship, being libertines, antinomians, justifying their evil. But always he talks about their judgment.
Go back to verse 3. "I'm writing you about this, you have to contend for the faith." Then verse 4, "Certain persons have crept in unnoticed...immediately...who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation." He talks about the illustration of angels in verse 6, apostate angels, always in reference to judgment. He's kept them in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of that great day." He talks about Sodom and Gomorrah, perverted twisted Sodom and Gomorrah who are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. He talks about these false teachers who revile things, in verse 10, they don't understand, things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals. And he says immediately, by these things they're destroyed. And he says in verse 11, they're like those who followed Cain and those who followed Balaam and those who perished in the rebellion of Korah. He says about them in verse 13 that black darkness has been reserved for them forever. And here he specifically says in verses 14 and 15, the Lord is coming to execute judgment on everyone and particularly on them.
As I said, this should be absolutely terrifying to anyone contemplating being a false teacher. In fact, this epistle is so frightening that we have to be thankful verses 1 and 2 were here because we might think ourselves to be swept away had Jude not said, "Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, to them mercy, peace and love be multiplied." This epistle is so terrifying, it is so frightening, it is so fraught with warning that a Christian reading this might be scared to death that somehow these false teachers would influence him to his eternal damnation. And so Jude begins with an important statement about the security of true Christians. We are the called. We are the loved and we are the kept. We are protected from the influence of false teachers and protected from the judgment that falls on them.
So, with nothing to fear by engaging them, verse 3 says, "We have to earnestly contend for the faith." We have to get into battle with the false teachers. We can do that with some temerity and some fear, lest our own garments be singed, as Jude says later in the letter. But we engage ourselves in the battle for the faith, earnestly contending for this faith against the false teachers and know that they will have no influence on us because we are the called, that's an effectual call to eternal salvation, we are the loved, that's a eternal undying love, and we are the kept, and that's the perseverance of the saints. And so we are called to engage ourselves in a battle for the truth. We called the series, "The War for the Truth," the truth war. The truth is at stake. The letter is a call to arms to protect the truth from those who pervert it for personal gain to the damnation of souls. False teachers are destructive. They cannot destroy us but they are destructive and we have to fight the battle to protect the truth, fearing nothing from them and knowing they will in the end be judged.
Look at the end of verse 4, "They are marked out for condemnation." Literally it says, "Were longed beforehand marked out for condemnation." Marked out doesn't mean an X was put on their head. It means they were written about. Their destruction was written about long ago. And we went through that, we covered those Old Testament passages that talk about that. There's plenty of writing about the destruction of false teachers and those who violate the truth of God. Their doom has been predicted and the judgment, as I noted, is woven through this entire text. This whole letter is like a curse on apostates, a curse on false teachers. And there will be judgments on them in this world. I think right now the Catholic Church is feeling a long overdue judgment because of the horrific perverted apostate nature of that system. That's nothing, you know, losing billions of dollars and having to close 65 parishes in Boston doesn't compare with the judgment of God that will fall on those who falsely represent Christ. Blasphemers who teach their blasphemous doctrines will suffer the greatest in the future.
And so, Jude warns false teachers and calls us to arms to battle for the truth. And by the way, as I said a little earlier, 2 Peter 2 parallels Jude. It's a fraternal twin, if not an identical twin. And you can read through 2 Peter chapter 2 and see so many parallels. The difference is Peter said it was coming, Jude writing later says it's here...it's here.
Now that brings us down to verse 14, just a little introduction, 45 minutes worth. But I had to get you back. Finally Jude comes to the culmination and he says in verse 14, we've already covered verse 14 so you can get the tape if you're curious about that whole Enoch prophecy, but he writes, "Behold the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones," and he introduces the coming of the Lord in final judgment....final judgment.
Now in these statements regarding final judgment in verses 14, 15, and 16, I want you to see five certainties, okay? Five certainties, and I'm telling you, I could expand this forever and ever and ever but I will do the best not to do that. I think it's clear enough to us because we know the Word of God fairly well to just touch these five certainties about divine judgment.
First, we are told the Lord will come. That's the first certainty. The Lord will come. How are we told that? Because the writer puts the prophecy in the past tense, "Behold the Lord came," in this prophetic word which was obviously recorded in a non-canonical, non-biblical prophecy of the name of Enoch, the truth was reiterated and the truth can be found in a number of sources outside the Bible. From time to time, I often say, like the clock that doesn't run, it's still right twice a day and the book of Enoch was a popular book at the time, we know historically and the people had read it and were familiar with it and in that book was an accurate statement. And the assurance and the certainty of the coming of the Lord is indicated because it's as if this person who is writing called Enoch is having a vision and he sees the Lord came, stated with the shock of one who saw it happen. Enoch's prophecy was spoken as if the judgment was being seen, so certain was it.
Not everybody thinks this. Look at 2 Peter chapter 3...2 Peter chapter 3, verse 3, "Knowing this first of all," writes Peter, who has just written, as I said in chapter 2, a parallel of Jude, "Knowing this first of all that in the last days," that's the last days since the coming of Messiah and we're still in the same last days, "in all these last days since Messiah has come and since He has promised judgment, mockers will come with their mocking following after their own lusts, they live for lust just as Jude as described, and they say, 'Where is the promise of His coming.'" This is mockery, this is saying, "He's not going to come." "Forever since the fathers fell asleep all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation." This is the stupidity of their idea. "He's not going to come because He never has. He never will because He never has." That's what the pre-flood people said, "What are you talking about? It's not going to rain, it never has." But it did. It's like saying, "I'm not going to die, I never have."
This is the uniformity theory of evolution. Everything continues the same, have you forgotten the Flood that destroyed the whole human race? Have you forgotten catastrophe after catastrophe? All things don't continue as they are from the beginning of creation. And he goes on to talk about that. It escapes their notice that by the Word of God the heavens existed long ago. The earth was formed out of water and by water. And he's talking about creation because creation was not a result of uniformity. It wasn't evolutionary uniformity, it was catastrophe. It was upheaval beyond description for God to create the entire universe and all the life we know on this earth in a six-day period. Catastrophic changes. There's no uniformity, creation shows that.
And then in verse 6 he says, "The world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water." There's no uniformity after creation either. You have catastrophe at creation and you have catastrophe at the Flood. And then verse 7 says, "The present heaven and earth by His Word are being reserved for fire." Another catastrophe is coming, this time not water but fire. And it's kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. And you think it's been a long time? You need to remember something. Don't let this one fact escape your notice. Verse 8, "Beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as...what?...as one day." And it's been certainly no more than ten thousand years since creation, maybe closer to six thousand years since creation. And it's just six days in God's mind and the end could come very soon...very soon.
It will come. Why? Verse 9, "The Lord is not slow about His promise." The reason He hasn't come yet is because He's patient. "Not willing that any should perish, but for all to come to repentance." But when it comes, the day of the Lord will come like a thief, unexpected, in which the heavens will melt away with a roar, the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, the earth and its works will be burned up. Since you know that, what kind of people should you be? The Lord will come. He will come. And He will come to judge the ungodly. And it will start in a period of time called the Tribulation with upheaval on the earth and in the sky that gets worse and worse through the seals and the trumpets and the bowls, culminating in the return of Jesus Christ, the establishment of His Kingdom at the end of which is the destruction of the whole heavens and earth as we know them and the casting of all from the Great White Throne into eternal hell. It will come.
So we are told the Lord will come. Secondly, we are told He will not come alone...He will not come alone. "Behold the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones." He alone is judge but He will be accompanied with thousands of His holy ones. Some have thought that this could be us, saints. And we are saints, we are called saints, 1 Corinthians 1:2, 1 Thessalonians 3:13, believers are saints, we are set apart and we do return with Christ. We are pictured in Revelation 19:14 returning with Christ at His coming. He comes riding out of heaven in that magnificent imagery and with Him come the armies which are in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean. It seems best to see that as believers, having been gathered with Him for our marriage supper and our time of rewards during the time of Tribulation, we then come at the end back to this earth. We return with Christ in holy array in that glorious return in judgment. Zechariah 14:5 says, "The Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with Him." And it could be that he refers to saints.
But I think it's better though we are coming with Him that this, because it's a judgment scene, be understood as referring to angels because angels appear in other judgment environments. If you read Matthew chapter 13, we won't take the time, and you see how God's going to send His reapers in the day of judgment, right?, to separate the wheat from the tares. And who are the reapers? The angels. And then the sermon on the Second Coming, the Olivet Discourse, Jesus talks about how the angels are going to gather His people from the four corners of the earth and He's going to come with holy angels out of heaven as well in judgment. The angels seem to be in view here, and in particular 2 Thessalonians 1:7, "When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction." There it says specifically He comes with His holy angels. And the holy angels are associated with judgment. So He will come and He will not come alone but the angels seen often in judgment action, even slaying people in the Old Testament, will come with Him. And Matthew 24 and Matthew 25 depict Christ returning with the angels.
There's a third thing we are told here about this final judgment. We are told He will come, He will not come alone and we are told the purpose of His coming, "To execute judgment upon all," verse 15, "to execute judgment upon all." All means all, everybody who has violated God's Law. In fact, the all are further defined, verse 15, "To convict all the ungodly...all the ungodly."
So the purpose of His coming is to execute judgment upon all. Who are the all? All the ungodly. The verb elenchomans to convict in the sense "find guilty." Like we say, the jury convicted him. It means to expose them as culpable, as guilty. There's no hope to escape this. You have no defense, no advocate, no lawyer. All crimes against God will be kept to the account of every sinner, there is no advocate, there is no appeal, there is no escape. All of the asebeia, the ungodly, the irreverent will be convicted of crimes against God for which the penalty is eternal hell. And they will be judged out of the record of their sins in the books and sent to hell because, although all of us have a record of sins, their names are not written in the Book of Life. And so we are told He will come. He will not come alone. And we are told He will come to execute judgment.
One final thing to think about. We are told the reason for that judgment and the reason for that judgment is because of...look at verse 15, all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him. There it is. This is the reason, because God is righteous and He's going to end sin, He's going to bring an end to sin. And He's going to bring an end to sinners. And He's going to bring in a Kingdom of righteousness and ultimately eternal righteousness. How many times can you say ungodly in one verse? You get the point. Anti-God, irreverent, blasphemous, they're all going to be punished for all their ungodly deeds and all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against the Lord Himself. And we have, of course, covered all of that, at least that that relates to the false teachers, the apostates in the earlier parts of this passage. All sinners are treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and they're going to pay in that day.
And then in verse 16, almost like a review, and we'll close with this, maybe pick up a few of these thoughts when we start next time. But in verse 16 he says, "These," and pulling out of the all the ungodly, and pulling out of this destruction of all sinners, He goes back to this group of apostate false teachers. "These are grumblers finding fault, following after their own lusts, they speak arrogantly flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage." And he goes back to the apostates described in the passage before verse 14. And he particularly looks at the sins of their mouths, grumblers, fault-finders, speaking arrogantly, flattering people. These heretics are described as grumblers, gongustes, it's used to describe in the Septuagint the murmurings of the Israelites, they gripe against God, they murmur against the true and living God. Jews were guilty of this. John 6:41 says, "The Jews murmured at Jesus because He said I am the bread that came down from heaven." Grumblers over the truth, complainers against God's holy law, holy Word. They attacked the Lord by attacking His truth. And we saw that in verse 4, saw it in verse 8, we saw it in verse 11. In fact, the illustration of the kinds of things that they say against God is staggering. They rush into blasphemy. They run head long into rebellion against the true God.
And he says that they find fault. This is a funny Greek word, a rather long one, it means to blame. It's used...it's a word used by Greeks to describe a kind of person who is perpetually discontent and unsatisfied. They never submit to God's will. They murmur about it. They complain about it. They gripe about it. They resist it. They hate it. They rebel against it. This is always, folks, characteristic of false teachers, they won't accept the truth. They never submit to God's will and to God's will. Second Peter 2 makes much of this very same thing. The way of truth is maligned by them and they speak harsh words against God and against Christ and against the truth. And they follow after their own lust, that's the comment on their behavior. We saw that back in verse 8 in more detail. They're dominated by self. They speak arrogantly, huyperonkos, they speak, how can I say it, they speak swollen speech about themselves, they puff themselves up. Another clearly dealt with characteristic of false teachers earlier in Jude as well as 2 Peter chapter 2. They flatter people. Why do they flatter people? Because that's how they get money and power. That's how they get you to send them your money when they're on TV, take your money away and they're false churches and institutions, always for profit.
Well we kind of hurried through the last but I think we've covered so much of that in the past we don't need to beg the issue. The only thing to ask is if we've looked at the "if" and said yes He will come and the "who" He won't come alone, and the "why" because of our ungodliness. The only question really remaining is the "when" and the answer to that question remains with the Lord, we don't know when. We believe it will be triggered with the Rapture of the church which is a secret event with no warning. The Lord's going to snatch the church away and then the judgment will begin. And the hottest hell remains for the apostate false teachers.
Now, some of you may be sitting on the fence a little bit. Maybe you don't know if you're a Christian or not. Maybe you're worried about false teaching and how much you're being exposed to. So in our next study of Jude, we're going to talk about how to avoid being stained and tainted by false teachers. Okay? That's Jude's theme from verse 17 to the end of the chapter.
Lord, it's been a wonderful day and a great evening and we've covered a lot of ground and not particularly the pleasant teaching, but the necessary. You have given us all these warnings because You care, because You're gracious, because You're loving. You've given us warnings that it might instill in us terror and fear. For those of us who have already been saved, we like Paul knowing the terror of the Lord persuade men. For those who have no embraced the Savior, may they be so terrified as to rush to be forgiven for sin, put their trust in Christ who alone can deliver them from judgment. We would even be so bold as to pray that You would give truth to triumph over false teaching, that You would silence the apostates, that You would unmask them, help us as the fighters of the truth, as the spiritual army to earnestly contend for the once-for-all delivered to the saints faith to be warriors for Your truth, to protect people from error, to expose the false teachers and the apostates. Give us boldness and courage and impact for Your glorious truth. We pray in Your Son's name. Amen.
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This sermon series includes the following messages:
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subset: commoncrawl


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Overlord is a groundbreaking, completely original action adventure, set in a seriously warped fantasy world. Controlling a mysterious figure that has inherited the legacy of the evil, long-dead Overlord, the player emerges, near death, from the ruins of the old Overlord's Dark Tower. Only the player's actions will determine if they will rise to become the new all-powerful Overlord; it's all down to how much of a bad ass they want to be in order to succeed...evil or really evil! Played out with plenty of black humor and dark irony, the game will immerse players in twisted parodies of classic fantasy scenarios and characters.
Overlord is rated out of 5 by 23.


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Start to feel like yourself again.
This free, interactive online program has helped thousands of people like you to feel more optimistic and at peace.
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It can be broken.
To truly love is to understand this.
To be in love is to respect this.
Happy Birthday My Love!
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
Wishing you a wonderfully sunny birthday
Thinking of you with love on your birthday and wishing you everything that brings you happiness today and always.
To the world, you may be one person. But to me, you are the world.
It's as easy to stay in love with you as it was to fall in love.
Happy Birthday my love!
My love for you, shall never pause,
Strong and determined with all our flaws.
It endures and doesn't judge,
Never holds a lasting grudge.
Generous, loyal, always kind,
To your outer layer blind.
Surely, opposite of rude,
My beating heart I must include.
On your birthday, my love for you,
From the clouds, a perfect view.
Moments, memories, a year gone by,
I'm here for you, don't you cry.
My love for you, lives by the truth,
Always keeps me, in my youth.
When it sees, our trust and hope,
It climbs and conquers any slope.


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2. -- The economic calendar in the U.S. Tuesday includes housing starts and building permits for February at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
3. -- U.S. stocks on Monday fell as investors considered that the harsh bailout plan announced for Cyprus could be enacted in other eurozone countries to recapitalize distressed banks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 62.05 points, or 0.43%, to 14,452.06 after ending its longest winning streak on Friday in nearly 17 years. The Nasdaq lost 0.35% to close at 3,237.59. The S&P 500 slipped 0.55% to 1,551.10.
4. -- Electronic Arts ( ERTS) CEO John Riccitiello is resigning from the games software maker as it struggles to reverse declining sales. EA, the maker of games such as the Madden franchise, Tiger Woods, and others, also announced that its revenue and earnings per share outlook for the current quarter will be lower than initially estimated.
5. -- Lululemon Athletica ( LULU - Get Report) said Monday it was pulling shipments of certain yoga pants from its stores because they were too sheer. Lululemon said the mistake by a supplier would reduce its expected first-quarter sales to $333 million to $343 million, down from previous expectations of $350 million to $355 million.
6. -- NPS Pharmaceuticals ( NPSP) has reacquired worldwide marketing rights to two approved drugs, most notably its short bowel syndrome therapy Revestive, from Takeda.
7. -- Boeing ( BA - Get Report) received a $15.6 billion order for 175 passenger jets from Irish airline Ryanair.
8. -- Adobe Systems ( ADBE), the graphic-design software maker, is expected by analysts on Tuesday to post fiscal first-quarter earnings of 31 cents a share on revenue of $986 million.
9. -- Money manager BlackRock ( BLK - Get Report) plans to lay off nearly 300 employees, or about 3% of its work force, Reuters reported, citing an internal memo it obtained.
10. -- Skullcandy ( SKUL), the maker of headphones, named Hoby Darling, an executive from Nike, as its president and CEO.
-- Written by Joseph Woelfel >To contact the writer of this article, click here: Joseph Woelfel >To submit a news tip, send an email to: firstname.lastname@example.com.


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A NEW DRUG TARGET IN ATHEROSCLEROSIS: THE ANAPHYLATOXIN C5a
For decades, doctors have looked at fitness levels, weight, and overall health risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Now, they may soon add a new risk factor to the list: activation of the complement system. The complement system is usually implicated in immune responses, but now there's a role for it in cardiovascular disease. In a new research report appearing in the January 2011 print issue of the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), scientists from Europe and the United States show that anaphylatoxin C5a, a protein released when complement is activated, contributes to atherosclerotic disease. C5a causes plaques to break free from where they would be anchored to ultimately cause blockages elsewhere in the body. This new discovery not only shows that C5a is a new marker for identifying risk for heart attack and stroke, but it also establishes C5a as a new therapeutic target for preventing these problems.
Johann Wojta, Ph.D.
Photo: meduniwien.ac
"Given the huge impact of cardiovascular disease in general, and atherosclerosis in particular, on public health, we feel that unraveling mechanisms involved in the development and progression of the disease are of utmost importance," said Johann Wojta, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the University of Vienna in Austria. "Our findings have identified a particular component possibly involved in the development of atherosclerosis as a target for future therapies."
To make this discovery, Wojta and colleagues treated white blood cells with the C5a. In turn, these cells responded with the production of specific enzymes capable of dissolving the inner wall of atherosclerotic plaques in coronary or brain vessels. This causes the plaques to rupture, break free from where they are anchored, and ultimately create a blockage of the vessels, leading to the development of more serious problems such as heart attacks or strokes. The researchers also showed that C5a was present in blood vessels of patients with myocardial infarction, but not in cardiac patients without infarct. This suggests that inhibiting C5a might provide a therapeutic tool in the prevention or treatment of atherosclerosis, as well as other diseases with immune system participation such as arthritis.
"Up to now, anaphylatoxin C5a has been mainly implicated in immunologic diseases such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis or lupus," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor in Chief of the FASEB Journal. "But now, this study shows that C5a, a product of an activated complement system may be responsible for the devastating effects of atherosclerosis."
>>>>>Read all the latest in our HeartVigor.com News Page.
Tags: C5a, cardiovascular disease, FASEB Journal, heart attacks, Johann Wojta Ph.D., strokes


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Asian stocks tumble as Ukraine tensions intensify
BEIJING (AP) — Asian stocks tumbled Monday as tensions over Russia's military advance into Ukraine and the impact of possible sanctions by Western governments intensified.
Oil surged to near $104 per barrel on concern Russian supplies might be disrupted.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index dived 1.7 percent to 14,585.13 and Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.6 percent to 22,691.54. Taipei, Seoul, Sydney and Singapore also fell.
On Wall Street, futures for the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 indexes were off by an unusually large 0.7 percent and 0.9 percent respectively.
Traders were jittery over warnings by Washington and other governments that Moscow, an oil exporter, might face sanctions after it seized control of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
"Economic war with Russia, if this escalates, would take a toll on the global economy," said Carl B. Weinberg of High Frequency Economics in a report.
China's Shanghai Composite Index bucked the trend, adding 0.8 percent to 2,071.62 despite a survey showing manufacturing weakened in February and employers cut jobs.
Taiwan's Taiex lost 0.9 percent to 8,563.26 and Seoul's Kospi shed 0.9 percent to 1,962.03. Sydney's S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.4 percent to 5,380.3. Manila and Jakarta also fell.
Most Asian economies depend on imported oil and gas, making them sensitive to any turmoil that might disrupt supplies.
Monday's losses were a reverse from last week's gains in many global markets.
In Europe, Germany's DAX gained 1.1 percent on Friday and France's CAC 40 rose 0.3 percent. The S&P added 0.3 percent for a record high. The Dow Jones average added 0.3 percent.
Benchmark U.S. crude for April delivery was up $1.21 to $103.80 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract added 19 cents in the previous session to close at $102.59.
In currency markets, the euro rose to $1.3777 from $1.3767 late Tuesday. The dollar rose to 101.41 yen from 101.40 yen.


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Make America Great Again
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The problem with conservativism in 2013.
The key problem that I believe conservativism has to face in 2013 and the near future is that it doesn't have an answer to what has become the most critical problem for the 21st century economy: inequality.
There has been a historical tendency over the past 15 years and three Presidents to concentrate more and more wealth with the wealthy, and less and less wealth with everybody else. Inequality is at all time highs on that front, and it gives the middle and lower classes less spending money, slogs down the economy, and ultimately splits the economic pie even greater into the hands of the few.
Liberalism has a whole host of solutions, bordering from the more free market tendencies of the Democratic Party and the mainstream liberal movement, to the more socialist suggestions frequently made by the party's left wing. Some of them can be argued as legitimately good ideas (raising the minimum wage, capping the multi-billion dollar tax breaks for huge corporations, any number of investments in college education), some of them are obviously more on the fringe.
Conservativism's answer seems to be singular and ineffective: get "government out of the way," undo the massive structure of government regulation, and the economy will grow. And like a rising tide that lifts all boats (think "trickle down" economics), as the economy grows, so too will the fortunes of the lower and middle classes. Honestly, if conservativism has more of a message than this right now with regards to inequality, I've missed it.
The problem with this message, and conservativism in general right now, is that it seems outdated for 2013. As the economy has grown at times throughout the past fifteen years, the middle class and working poor have seen less and a less of a return on that progress, and the upper class has soared. In other words, the absolute core conservative response to the biggest issue affecting working Americans in 2013 is no longer applicable. It had some bearing, perhaps, in previous decades, but we now reside in an era where this dynamic no longer holds water.
Economists are reportedly attempting to figure out why that is the case. A decrease in education quality seems, to me, to be the most convincing cause, although obviously this is something that deserves a holistic analysis.
But either way, I don't really see convincing analysis that growth is enough anymore. It seems that a reduction in inequality seems now to be just as important.
Growth isn't enough to help the middle class
By Jim Tankersley
Published: February 13
Two kinds of middle-class Americans are struggling today — people who can't find any work or enough work, and full-timers who can't seem to get ahead.
Democrats and Republicans prescribe economic growth to help both groups. There was a time that would have been enough. But not today.
In the past three recoveries from recession, U.S. growth has not produced anywhere close to the job and income gains that previous generations of workers enjoyed. The wealthy have continued to do well. But a percentage point of increased growth today simply delivers fewer jobs across the economy and less money in the pockets of middle-class families than an identical point of growth produced in the 40 years after World War II.
That has been painfully apparent in the current recovery. Even as the Obama administration touts the return of economic growth, millions of Americans are not seeing an accompanying revival of better, higher-paying jobs.
The consequences of this breakdown are only now dawning on many economists and have not gained widespread attention among policymakers in Washington. Many lawmakers have yet to even acknowledge the problem. But repairing this link is arguably the most critical policy challenge for anyone who wants to lift the middle class.
Economists are not clear how the economy got to the point where growth drives far less job creation and broadly shared prosperity than it used to. Some theorize that a major factor was globalization, which enabled companies to lay off highly paid workers in the United States during recessions and replace them with lower-paid ones overseas during recoveries.
There is even less agreement on policy prescriptions. Some liberal economists argue that the government should take more-aggressive steps to redistribute wealth. Many economists believe more education will improve the skills of American workers, helping them obtain higher-paying jobs. And still others say the government should seek to reduce the cost of businesses to create new jobs.
The problem is relatively new. From 1948 through 1982, recessions and recoveries followed a tight pattern. Growth plunged in the downturn, then spiked quickly, often thanks to aggressive interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. When growth returned, so did job creation, and workers generally shared in the spoils of new economic output.
You can see those patterns in comparisons of job creation and growth rates across post-World War II recoveries. Starting in 1949 and continuing for more than 30 years, once the economy started to grow after a recession, major job creation usually followed within about a year.
At the height of those recoveries, every percentage point of economic growth typically spurred about six-tenths of a percentage point of job growth, when compared with the start of the recovery. You could call that number the "job intensity" of growth.
The pattern began to break down in the 1992 recovery, which began under President George H.W. Bush. It took about three years — instead of one — for job creation to ramp up, even when the economy was growing. Even then, the "job intensity" of that recovery barely topped 0.4 percent, or about two-thirds the normal rate.
The next two recoveries were even worse. Three and a half years into the recovery that began in 2001 under President George W. Bush, job intensity was stuck at less than 0.2 percent. The recovery under President Obama is now up to an intensity of 0.3 percent, or about half the historical average.
Middle-class income growth looks even worse for those recoveries. From 1992 to 1994, and again from 2002 to 2004, real median household incomes fell — even though the economy grew more than 6 percent, after adjustments for inflation, in both cases. From 2009 to 2011 the economy grew more than 4 percent, but real median incomes grew by 0.5 percent.
In contrast, from 1982 to 1984, the economy grew by nearly 11 percent and real median incomes grew by 5 percent.
Today, nearly four years after the Great Recession, 12 million Americans are actively looking for work but can't find a job; 11 million others are stuck working part time when they would like to be full time, or they would like to work but are too discouraged to job-hunt. Meanwhile, workers' median wages were lower at the end of 2012, after adjustments for inflation, than they were at the end of 2003. Real household income was lower in 2011 than it was in 1989.
Obama alluded to the breakdown between growth and middle-class wages and jobs in his State of the Union address. "Every day," he said, "we should ask ourselves three questions as a nation: How do we attract more jobs to our shores? How do we equip our people with the skills needed to do those jobs? And how do we make sure that hard work leads to a decent living?"
But outside of some targeted help for manufacturing jobs and some new investments in skills training, the proposals Obama offered focused comparatively little on repairing the relationship between growth and jobs, or growth and income. Obama's boldest plans included increasing the minimum wage and guaranteeing every child a preschool education. Both aim largely at boosting poorer Americans and helping their children gain a better shot at landing the higher-paying jobs.
The Republican response to Obama's speech did not appear to nod to the new reality at all. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said that "economic growth is the best way to help the middle class" and offered few job-creation proposals that appeared materially different from what Republican politicians have pushed since the 1980s.
Economists are still trying to sort out what broke the historical links between growth and jobs/incomes.
Economists are still trying to sort out what broke the historical links between growth and jobs/incomes.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists Erica Groshen and Simon Potter concluded in a 2003 paper that the recoveries from the 1990 and 2001 recessions were largely "jobless" because employers had fundamentally changed how they responded to recessions. In the past, firms laid off workers during downturns but called them back when the economy picked up again. Now, they are using recessions as a trigger to lay off less-productive workers, never to hire them back.
Economists at the liberal Economic Policy Institute trace the problem to a series of policy choices that, they say, have eroded workers' ability to secure rising incomes. Those choices include industry deregulation and the opening of global markets on unfavorable terms for U.S. workers.
In the latest edition of their book "The State of Working America," EPI economists argue that an "increasingly well-paid financial sector and policies regarding executive compensation fueled wage growth at the top and the rise of the top 1 percent's incomes" at the expense of average workers.
Robert Shapiro, an economist who advised Bill Clinton on the campaign trail and in the White House, traces the change to increased global competition.
"It makes it hard for firms to pass along their cost increases — for health care, energy and so on — in higher prices," he said. "So instead they cut other costs, starting with jobs and wages."
Shapiro said the best way to restart job creation is to help businesses cut the costs of hiring, including by reducing the employer side of the payroll tax and pushing more aggressive efforts to hold down health-care cost increases.
Obama seems to have embraced an approach pushed by Harvard University economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz: helping more Americans graduate from college and go on to high-skilled, higher-paying jobs. It's a longer-term bet. But as senior administration officials like to say, the problem didn't start overnight, and it's not likely to be solved overnight, either.
Last edited by Direckshun; 02-18-2013 at 06:09 PM..
Posts: 54,399
Make America Great Again
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Here's another piece on this trend from an avowed Reaganite:
Reaganism After Reagan
By RAMESH PONNURU
Published: February 17, 2013
TODAYS Republicans are very good at tending the fire of Ronald Reagans memory but not nearly as good at learning from his successes. They slavishly adhere to the economic program that Reagan developed to meet the challenges of the late 1970s and early 1980s, ignoring the fact that he largely overcame those challenges, and now we have new ones. Its because Republicans have not moved on from that time that Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, in their responses to the State of the Union address last week, offered so few new ideas.
When Reagan cut rates for everyone, the top tax rate was 70 percent and the income tax was the biggest tax most people paid. Now neither of those things is true: For most of the last decade the top rate has been 35 percent, and the payroll tax is larger than the income tax for most people. Yet Republicans have treated the income tax as the same impediment to economic growth and middle-class millstone that it was in Reagans day. House Republicans have repeatedly voted to bring the top rate down still further, to 25 percent.
A Republican Party attentive to todays problems rather than yesterdays would work to lighten the burden of the payroll tax, not just the income tax. An expanded child tax credit that offset the burden of both taxes would be the kind of broad-based middle-class tax relief that Reagan delivered. Republicans should make room for this idea in their budgets, even if it means giving up on the idea of a 25 percent top tax rate.
When Reagan took office, he could have confidence in John F. Kennedys conviction that a rising tide would lift all boats. In more recent years, though, economic growth hasnt always raised wages for most people. The rising cost of health insurance has eaten up raises. Controlling the cost of health care has to be a bigger part of the Republican agenda now that its a bigger portion of the economy. An important first step would be to change the existing tax break for health insurance so that people would be able to pocket the savings if they chose cheaper plans.
Conservative views of monetary policy are also stuck in the late 1970s. From 1979 to 1981, inflation hit double digits three years in a row. Tighter money was the answer. To judge from the rhetoric of most Republican politicians, you would think we were again suffering from galloping inflation. The average annual inflation rate over the last five years has been just 2 percent. You would have to go back a long time to find the last period of similarly low inflation. Today nominal spending the total amount of dollars circulating in the economy both for consumption and investment has fallen well below its path before the financial crisis and the recession. Thats the reverse of the pattern of the late 1970s.
Trying to boost economic growth through looser money is usually a mistake, as Reaganites rightly argued. They were right, too, to think that the Federal Reserve should make its actions predictable by adhering to a rule rather than improvising depending on its assessment of current conditions. The best way to put those impulses into practice is to require the Fed to stabilize the growth of nominal spending. That rule would allow looser money only when nominal spending is depressed. Keeping nominal spending on track is more or less what the Fed did from 1984 through 2007, a period that Republicans sometimes call the Reagan boom (since they see Bill Clinton as having largely kept his policies) and that economists generally call the Great Moderation. Relatively stable nominal spending growth promoted relatively stable economic growth, and it can again.
The Republican economic program of the 1980s also fought against government-imposed restrictions on economic activity: decontrolling energy prices, for example. Today we should target different restrictions. Software patents have become a source of unproductive litigation that entrenches large tech companies and inhibits creativity. Republicans shouldnt support those patents. Economic growth has to trump corporate executives campaign donations.
Conservatives should retain their skepticism about government intervention, the preference for letting markets direct economic resources and the zeal for ending government-created barriers to economic growth that they inherited from Reagan. In his first Inaugural Address, Reagan famously said that government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. The less famous yet crucial beginning of that sentence was in our present crisis. The question is whether conservatism revives by attending to todays conditions, or becomes something withered and dead.
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A major cause for the income inequality is the monetary policy of the federal reserve.
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The narrative I hear from the left is that the reason for income disparity is that the rich take advantage of 'the poor' and that evil free-market capitalism is to blame.
I agree. The rich in this country do take advantage of the poor, but it's with the help of Washington. Who passes laws that give the 1% these kind of advantages? How do life-long senators earning less than $200K a year end up being worth $100 million?
The solution, from a conservative perspective, is to cut these crony ties between business and government. Set a tax rate and don't waiver from it or provide any loopholes that give favors or manipulate the market to someone's advantage.
The minimum wage? All that does is set the bar higher for young people and others looking to get their foot in the door and change their lives.
Cut the cord. Washington's purpose should be solely to investigate and prosecute instances of fraud and other criminal activity. Having more regulations and oversight only provides more opportunities for extortion and hurts middle class businesses because they don't have the means to comply that big businesses do.
The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants
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It's funny when people who have Netflix, iphones, $125 a month cable bills and eat out for half their meals are sold that they're a "struggling" middle class.
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A lot of talk in this thread, but no real defense of conservativism's solution to worsening inequality.
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The obvious answer is to keep taxing the highest earners. And when they can't be taxed more we'll re-evaluate what "wealthy" means, and include more wealthy Americans to tax. Until one day we live in a paradise where no man suffers without premium cable while another affords a Lexus.
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Think payday loans. That's a practice of directly taking advantage of the poor. Government limits the interest allowed on those loans (which is still morbidly terrible). Without government, they could be even more predatory.
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Helmeted Honeyeater
The Helmeted Honeyeater, Lichenostomus melanops cassidix, is Critically Endangered. There are currently three small semi-wild populations established in remnant streamside swamp forest to the east of Melbourne.
Zoos Victoria has been involved in the captive breeding of Helmeted Honeyeaters since the Recovery Program began in 1989. This commitment continues today.
The Helmeted Honeyeater Recovery Program focuses on increasing the number of Helmeted Honeyeaters in the wild and reducing potential threats, with the aim of establishing a stable wild population with at least ten distinct but inter-connected colonies.
Zoos Victoria's key roles in the recovery of the Helmeted Honeyeater are to:
- Supplement wild populations through captive breeding for reintroduction
- Maintain an insurance population in captivity
Zoos Victoria staff are also involved in the translocation and reintroduction of captive-bred birds to the wild and monitoring their survival after release.
Distribution Map
This is an indicative distribution map of the present distribution of the species based on best available knowledge. This map may not be accurate to the latest information.
Plans and publications
- Download a comprehensive overview of what Zoos Victoria is doing to save the Helmeted Honeyeater (561 KB)
- Menkhorst (2008) National Recovery Plan for the Helmeted Honeyeater (Lichenostomus melanops cassidix). Department of Sustainability and Environment
- DSEWPC (2010). Lichenostomus melanops cassidix in Species Profile and Threats Database, Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Canberra
- Helmeted Honeyeaters can be identified by their distinctive yellow tufts on either side of their heads.
- Werribee Open Range Zoo
- Healesville Sanctuary
- Melbourne Zoo


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This layout is for the newest Template Challenge on the blog today. I have used Katies My Wish Template at least once before and enjoyed playing with it so much . . . I am so glad to be able to use it again today with these photos of our little granddaughter having a tea party with her stuffed bear.
Journaling: your are such a good girl, amelia. you love to play with your toys and to play make-believe. This day you were having a tea party with your little kitten and you are wearing mary pauls old ballet recital dress . . . you love anything that belonged to your sweet big sister.
Baby Pink Patterns + Solids Papers Ali Edwards
Bead Scatterings No. 01 Katie Pertiet
Date Strips No. 03 Katie Pertiet
Labeled Journalers No. 02 Katie Pertiet
Messy Stitched Circles: White No. 01 Katie Pertiet
Mists Brushes No. 01 (new in the store) Katie Pertiet
My Wish Layered Template Katie Pertiet
Readymade Circles: Camper Studio DD
Simple Patterns 02 (new in the store) Cathy Zielske
Text Bytes: Shaped Text Templates No. 43 (butterfly) Pattie Knox
Typesets Memory No. 01 Brushes and Stamps Cathy Zielske


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Hi there, my friend Jen Agosta designed a fancy new site for us with a shopping cart and everything. There's still good info. on this site but you will find all this and more on the new one. I will not post here any more after today. See you at www.urbancheesecraft.com!
Thank you friends, Claudia
I have personally tested these brands of milk. They all make great cheese with our kits. If you'd like to find truly local sources of milk near you, check out this site.
THESE ARE FOUND IN PORTLAND, OR for sure and other places when noted:
Organic Valley– 1 gallon
Found in Fred Meyer's natural foods fridge. I believe their deal is that under this name, they get milk to you from farmers in your area. There's a Pacific Northwest co-op for example.
Sunshine Dairy– all sizes
Whole and Lowfat cow milk- found at Alberta Co-op, Bob's Red Mill, New Seasons. This dairy is right here in Portland, OR!
Naturally Preferred– 1 gallon
Organic brand by Kroger can be found in Fred Meyer's natural foods fridge and works well too. I can't find much info. on their site about milk sources though.
Alpenrose pasteurized gallons found at New Season's and many mainstream super markets works well and is a local dairy as well.
Lucerne pasteurized gallons found in Oregon and California stores everywhere works too.
Fresh and Easy store brand- 1 gallon
On a holiday break in San Diego, CA recently I successfully made mozzarella with this milk. These self-serve stores are in CA, NV, AZ so far.
Any of the better brands found at co-ops (Noris, Straus) are great too!
Summerhill quarts of Pasteurized Goat Milk are available in Portland, OR Trader Joes but I searched online and I saw lots of proof of other cities' Trader Joe's carrying it as well. Call the Summerhill's 1800 number to find a source near you.
If you can only find ultra pasteurized goat milk (like Meyenberg, most common) you can still make the acid-coagulated chevre recipes in our kits (or paneer and queso blanco for that matter). If you move on to make chevre with rennet or cultures you will need plain pasteurized milk like Summerhill mentioned above.
We are lucky to have an urban goat farm here in the heart of Portland, read about my visit here. I found the info. below on the real milk website.
Abita Springs Farm, Fresh daily, pure, whole goat's milk raw or pasteurized, fresh or frozen. Enjoy the benefits of good, quality milk from this high production herd of Alpine dairy goats. $5 per half-gallon in new recyclable plastic, or bring your own container. The girls are happy, healthy, free-range, urban goats. Well fed on natural pasture browse, dairy quality alfalfa and grass hay. Their grain is custom blended and they have free-choice access to sea kelp mineral supplement. Convenient to the greater Portland-Metro area, close to PDX airport (NE Cully and 60th). Visitors are always welcome to learn how to milk and enjoy the antics of the spring kids. Evening milking begins about 6pm, year round. Please, clothing and footwear should be appropriate for the barnyard. Contact: Ed and Nancy Arcement, (503) 287-7773.
Just outside of the city (20 minutes from my home) near Troutdale, OR you can get milk at Terra Farma from Mike and Linda. Just email or call them (503-849-8121) to set-up a date. They have a lovely little farm and are so generous about short tours- bring the kids! Here's a map.
If you must, you can use lactose-free milk or ultra-pasteurized milk with the Paneer and Queso Blanco Kit and Goat Cheese Kit recipes. The reason is that these recipes don't make cheese by enzyme coagulation (plain pasteurized milk gives us more to work with). These recipes produce cheese by acid-coagulation. If you move on to make these cheeses with rennet or cultures, ultra pasteurized milk will not work.


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Column: NFL, other leagues should dump pot testing
NEW YORK (AP) Jermaine Kearse smiled before the question was even finished.
Should the NFL – and all professional leagues, for that matter – stop testing players for marijuana?
"Awww, man, why do you have to put me on the spot like that?" the Seattle Seahawks receiver griped.
Persuaded this wasn't one of those gotcha moments during Super Bowl week, Kearse tepidly came up with a reply.
"Whatever is best for the players," he said.
The best thing for players in every league, be it the NFL, NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball, would be to remove pot from the list of banned substances. No one should ever have to endure what Seattle cornerback Brandon Browner is going through.
Instead of playing in the biggest game of his life, he's stuck at home, forced to watch the game on TV like most everyone else, because of a positive test for marijuana. Since he had also tested positive as a rookie back in 2005, not to mention some issues over whether he should have continued to be tested even when he wasn't employed by an NFL team, Browner is suspended indefinitely and could wind up missing a full season.
"If marijuana is legal in some states, I don't understand how an employer has the right to control what an employee does after working hours," said Peter Schaffer, Browner's agent. "It's just not right."
No, it's not.
The NFL Players Association needs to get crackin' on this issue right away, even as it tries to reach agreement with the league on a matter that has gotten far more attention: testing for human growth hormone, a performance enhancing drug that is difficult to detect.
As it stands now, pot is lumped with cocaine, meth, opiates and PCP as a banned "substance of abuse," even though there's no evidence to suggest that it's nearly as harmful as those more powerful drugs. In fact, proponents of legalizing marijuana will insist that it causes fewer problems than booze, and they make a pretty compelling case.
In the NFL, the first positive test for any of those drugs requires a player to enter the league's treatment program. Subsequent violations result in a fine and then a four-game suspension.
The NBA's policy on marijuana is similar: treatment after the first positive test, a $25,000 fine if it happens again, a five-game suspension for the third violation.
The NHL's policy is a bit murky, with league and union officials giving conflicting answers over possible penalties for marijuana use. Essentially, it seems, if a hockey player has "dangerously high levels" of pot in his system during testing – whatever that means – he is placed in the league's substance-abuse program.
The guidelines in baseball are the most convoluted of all, setting different standards for major and minor leaguers. For those on the 40-man roster, the use of marijuana, hashish and synthetic THC is not subject to a suspension, and there have been no announced penalties of any kind for pot use since the Joint Drug Agreement went into effect more than a decade ago. For those with minor-league contracts, a second positive test brings a 50-day suspension, a third violation results in a 100-game ban, and a fourth gets you kicked out of the game for good.
The issue of legalizing marijuana has come to the forefront since both Colorado and Washington took that very step, and the Super Bowl has become a convenient conduit for those on both sides of the issue since the AFC champion Denver Broncos and NFC champion Seahawks come from those states. Not far from MetLife Stadium, dueling billboards were put up by supporters and opponents of legalization.
Some have dubbed it "The Stoner Bowl," and even NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith has some fun with the issue.
"What kind of joint is this?" he joked at his state-of-the-players-union news conference.
But there are serious issues that need to be addressed, especially when it comes to studying the medicinal uses of marijuana. There are many who believe it can help players cope with pain in the short term and better deal with the long-range effects of their brutal game. To his credit, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league could consider marijuana as a possible treatment for concussions if there's science to back it up.
"These guys are hurting, they're in pain," Schaffer said. "They go through 60 or 70 train wrecks every Sunday."
While most players dodged marijuana questions during Super Bowl week – even the outspoken Richard Sherman – Schaffer has no doubt that a majority would be in favor of dumping pot from the testing program. In fact, he believes that might be a way to break the stalemate over HGH testing – the players could sign off on the league's proposed policy in exchange for removing marijuana as a banned substance.
Former NFL player Brendon Ayanbadejo – best known for his support of gay marriage – said he knew of teammates smoking marijuana right in the hotel before one of his Super Bowls.
Most telling, he sounded like it was no big deal.
"I would much rather have my teammates smoking weed," Ayanbadejo wrote on Twitter, "than popping highly addictive narcotics!"
Paul Newberry is a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963


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Views: 414
Hi all!
I am not bitter, though I only fully deconverted on the 1st of November last year.
I come from a long line of Huguenots, so I was raised to be an extremist. I also had the added bonus of having a biological mother whom is a psychopath, which has been confirmed by a mental health professional. So religion was a method of control and manipulation. As a teenager, I moved into pentecostalism, where my extremist mindset was much approved of. I married at 18, believing it was "god's will", and left the christian arsehole a year later. He was such a misogynist that I can thank him for turning me into a feminist!
However, it was not until last year, just after I turned 26 that I fully deconverted. I had more paganistic leanings at the time, but decided not to jump into anything and just spend some time in reflection. After much thought and consideration, it suddenly occured to me one day as I made a cup of tea that I was definitely an atheist, and rather comfortable being one. The world is simpler place in a more beautifully complex way for me now. Everything is fascinating. And I like being able to say, "shit happens sometimes and I don't know why". Atheism has brought me much inner peace.
I am connected to a large forum of ex-christians online, and I have noticed that the ones who are the most bitter are the ones who focus the most on what christianity robbed them of, instead of ficusing on their new-found life and freedom. It also seems to be the ones who buy into the Religious Trauma Syndrome who have the hardest time coping, interestingly enough. I don't deny that religion can be traumatising, but I do find the after-effects of buying into this special syndrome alarming. I am still researching into Dr. Marlene Winell, one of the leading crusaders for RTS. Unfortunately, so far I am only ending up with more questions and suspicions the further I dig.
Anyway, I'll wrap up there. Nice to eet you all :)
I'm a bit bitter that I wasted my university time on theology ... though without doing so I can't see a way that I would have got out of Christianity.
Yeah ... I harbour a certain amount of anger towards Christianity ... but the anger is not the reason I'm no longer a Christian, the anger is because I once was a Christian.
I'm not bitter. Sometimes, I wish the world were a little more even-handed, but I learned a lot during my time as a Christian. If I hadn't been involved in the church, I might never have learned how to distinguish between rational thought and control- or fear-based assertions. I never would have started studying the psychological and historical influences on religion. I looked at religion, at the time even, as a trial-and-error exercise. I'm better for having tried it. It didn't work for me, and I found that many in the church were more fond of ritual and zombie-like obedience than they were of the ethics they claimed to follow. Since those ethics were what attracted me in the first place, that was a huge red flag. If a god can't live up to the highest human standards, I concluded, such a god was either a fraud or the tool of a power-hungry priesthood. Perhaps both.
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This star rating is the opinion of the property owner only. A Self-Rated hotel has not been assessed by the AA or Visit Britain, whose official star ratings we use across LateRooms.com.
Jurys Inn Cork4 Self rated
Anderson's Quay, Cork, Ireland,
Price FromView Rooms
- Very Good
- 176 guest reviews
"We enjoyed our stay very much, unfortunately our room was facing the busy junction and was quite noisy in the early morning. I would ask for..."
"Very nice accommodation sadly not enough arming as had to drop family off in full rear car park and park across the river in a 24 hour publi..."
"Lack of safe parking was the only worry for me..."
"Very good value stay, clena and comfortable room, with good quality food in the bar area and at breakfact..."
"The hotel is smart looking with a nice reception area. Our spacious fourth floor room was excellent with all comforts, very clean and en-sui..."
About the hotel
Jurys Inn Cork is located on Anderson's Quay overlooking the River Lee. Jurys is a 5-minute walk from Kent Station and offers a bar, restaurant, and a 24-hour reception. Cork Airport is 10 minutes drive, Kent Train Station is 2km and Cork Bus Station is 1km distance from the hotel.
The rooms at Jurys Cork have bathrooms with baths, showers, and hairdryers. They also include TVs and tea/coffee making facilities. Free Wi-Fi available throughout the hotel. Private parking is possible nearby at additional cost.
The Innfusion Restaurant offers cooked and continental breakfasts and an evening dinner menu. The Inntro Bar serves light lunches and the Il Barista has a selection of fresh coffees and pastries.
Jurys Inn Cork is a 5-minute walk from the Merchants Shopping Centre. The English Market and the Shandon Steeple are both within a 10-minute walk from Jurys.
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We enjoyed our stay very much, unfortunately our room was facing the busy junction and was quite noisy in the early morning.
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Ascham School
Inspired by the moon cycle, I documented the time in my life which parallelled the calendar. Each of the days numbered in my work records part of my activities of that day. Represented here is the period January to February 2005, showing my highs and lows which corresponded to the cycle.


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It's obvious to most people that illiteracy and innumeracy are problems to be tackled at school, but it's not obvious that we are now living in a world where logical and algorithmic thinking are very, very important.
Recently, Eric Schmidt (one-time CEO of Google) criticized Britain for throwing away our great computing heritage:
Schmidt said the country that invented the computer was "throwing away your great computer heritage" by failing to teach programming in schools. "I was flabbergasted to learn that today computer science isn't even taught as standard in UK schools," he said. "Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it's made."We really do need to teach children logical thinking (since such logic underlies programming) and algorithmic thinking (the breaking down into a finite sequence of steps the solution to a problem). What we don't need is to teach a specific language. Any language will do.
Back in the 1980s Britain made great strides (and inspired a generation of programmers, of which I am one), with the BBC Computer Literacy Project project. This project wasn't about using Word or a web browser (the current focus of IT in schooling), but about how computers work, and how to make them do what you want. Making computers do what you want is fundamental and goes beyond just programming (for example, creating a Smart List of songs in iTunes requires the sort of boolean logic thinking that children could easily be taught).
Recently, there's a volunteer project called Raspberry Pi that has echoes of the BBC Micro project without any government backing. And schools could be teaching LOGO or Scratch or using Processing. And if the school can't afford even the cheapest computers, get kids programming on paper. That's how I started.
The current government is promoting an area in East London as East London Tech City: a hub for startups based around an area that has recently seen many small hitech firms choose to locate there. As part of the initiative the government has laid out plans to help start ups through changes in IP law and visas. One additional thing the government can do is ensure that there's a supply of 'algorithmate' people who can actually start and run these companies in years to come.
The petition itself is marred by a rather confused statement of its aims which seem to cover teaching children to code and doing something about the gender gap in IT. Nevertheless, I think it's important to sign it if you are British. We can't go on allowing our children to see themselves as users and not programmers.


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Here are a few pictures from the weekend - thanks to Matt for taking some of them!
Me with Sarge, who puts the whole thing together
Over the first A frame
(then there was a second one)
(then a tunnel)
(then there was a ball pit)
(then the tires)
Then to the weave poles, Riggs was trying to help me with the big ball. I brought along a ball for him, so that he wouldn't take a ball out of the ball pit and cause us to get a time fault.
(then over the little jumps and into the woods, run down the gravel path, cross the stream, get stuck in the prickers and get bloody, run up the hill, talk to the lady at the top of the hill, she tells you to go through the woods to the bike path and turn left. Get to the bike path, turn left, run for a really long time, don't see any police tape or flags, get really worried that you're lost, keep on running, try not to get run over by bikes, keep on running, try not to keel over dead. Don't trip on Riggs. Finally find guy in orange Iron Dog shirt)
Me: "HELLO! I found you!"
Guy: "You might be surprised, but we have a race going on today called the Iron Dog."
Me: "Yes, I know... I'm the first runner!" (I show him my number)
Guy points across the road from him "You should have come out of the woods from there"
Me: "uh... now what?" (really just wanting him to tell me where I need to run to because this is a race.)
Guy: "well, I don't know..."
and for the next 3-5 minutes (I'm positive it was at least three minutes) we talked about where I ran, where I should have ran, and the price of tea in China... but not about where I needed to go. So, finally, I found out where the path was where I needed to be and continued...
through the woods, down the hill, past the guy in the red shirt, up the hill to the clearing
To the Paintball
Two shots, one standing, one kneeling.
On to the carry...
You can carry your dog (I carried Riggs)
or a sack of potatoes
and finally, the crawl
all done!
Her dog pulled her back into the stream!
Happy 69th birthday to one of the runners! She also won her age group.
Matt and Earl had the overall fastest time of the day.
Riggs and I took second in our age category (by one minute, see note above... )
(Earl lost his dentures on the course)


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Michael Phelps won a leading three Golden Goggles awards, including Male Athlete of the Year, on Sunday night when USA Swimming honored the year's top American performers.
Phelps was nominated in three individual categories and for two relays in connection with his historic performance in March at the world championships in Melbourne, Australia. He won seven gold medals and broke four individual world records.
Phelps, from Rodgers Forge, beat out Ryan Lochte and backstroker Aaron Peirsol for Male Athlete of the Year. That trio also was nominated for Male Performance of the Year, which Phelps won for his world-record 200-meter butterfly race in Melbourne. He lowered his mark by 1.62 seconds, and finished in 1 minute, 52.09 seconds.
Katie Hoff, 18, who is from the same North Baltimore club that produced Phelps, was chosen Female Athlete of the Year, having won three golds at the world championships. She set her first individual world record in the 400 individual medley at Melbourne, beating the competition by 7.25 seconds.