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Let's take our Bibles together and look at the sixteenth chapter of Matthew ... Matthew chapter 16. And this has to be one of my very favorite texts in all of the Word of God, and I have waited for months and years to get to this point. Sometimes wondering if it would ever happen, but here we are with great, great joy and anticipation. And I want us, for this morning, to consider the truths that are in verses 13 to 17. I'm going to read this text so that you'll have it in your heart and then we'll discuss it in detail.
Matthew 16, beginning at verse 13:
"When Jesus came into the borders of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Who do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that Thou art John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But who say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father who is in heaven."
Now, in this passage of holy Scripture we come to the climax,the apex, the high point of Jesus' endeavor to teach the disciples. It is final examination moment. And the final examination the Lord gives them really only has one question, and you either pass or fail. When Jesus said to them in verse 15, "Who say ye that I am?" He really asks the ultimate question, a question that every human being on the face of the earth must face - Who is Jesus Christ? And on the answer to that question hinges eternal destiny.
Now, because of the monumental importance of the question and the monumental importance of the answer we say, then, that this is the apex of the gospel, this is the apex of Matthew's effort, this is the apex or the thesis of the New Testament, it is the thesis even of the Old Testament, - Who is Jesus Christ? He is the Christ, the Son of the living God. That great supreme confession is the basic reality of Christianity. For two years plus our Lord has been moving to this moment, teaching, reteaching, affirming, reaffirming, establishing, reestablishing, building and rebuilding their confidence, their commitment until ultimately Peter, on behalf of all of them, can say "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." It is a monumental moment ... in the ministry of our Lord and the life of His disciples.
And I pray that this moment somehow can seize our hearts as it must have seized the hearts of those who were on that dusty road between the villages surrounding Caesarea Philippi the day Jesus asked the question. You'll remember that for some weeks and even months, Jesus has sought seclusion, away from the misguided multitudes who wanted to make Him a political ruler, away from the hatred and animosity, the jealous ambition of Herod who wanted to do away withHim, away from the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes who saw Him as a threat to their religious security, He has sought to be away from that. But not only because of the negative pressure, also because of the positive need to teach and to instruct and build up His disciples for that which was to come in a matter of a few months ... the cross and all the surrounding events.
And so, as we see Him here He is moving into a ministry of devoted time given to the twelve. He has for some months primarily spent His time in the Gentile areas, surrounding the northern and eastern part of the Sea of Galilee and F-els had much fruit there and some time to be with them. And as we approach this text we find Him withdrawing even further away to a more obscure place in order that He might focus in a greater way on their needs and the lessons for them.
And so, let's look first of all at the setting in which this examination period takes place. Verse 13 says - "Jesus came to the region, or the area, the borders, it's called, of Caesarea Philippi." Now, when you hear the word Caesarea you can just simply note that it means of Caesar. It is a town named for Caesar. There is a Caesarea down on the coast at this particular time in history, it is down almost directly west of the city of Jerusalem, this is another Caesarea, also named for Caesar ... and called Caesarea Philippi to distinguish it from the Caesarea down in the southern and western part of the land of Palestine. A little background will help you to understand the setting.
The northernmost point in the land of Palestine, historically, wasidentified by the term Dan. The southernmost point was identified by the term Beersheba. And so, when wanting to encompass the whole land we say the land extended from Dan to Beersheba, you've heard that. The very northeastern corner was Dan. Two and a half miles west of Dan was a town known as Panias. Now, Panias was named for Pan. Pan was a Greek god, supposedly born in a eave in that area. That also was the area where the headwaters of the Jordan started. But to give you a little geography, if you were at the north end of the Sea of Galilee and you proceeded 25 miles north and east, you would go up above sea level about 1700 feet to a plateau. And that plateau stretches out along the foot of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon ascends into the sky about nine thousand two-hundred and thirty-two feet, it's snow covered most all of the year and is in full view of the villages of the northern part of Galilee including Cana, Nazareth and the others.
But, up on that plateau was a town of Panias named for the Greek god Pan, who believed ... who was believed to be born in one of the caves or grottos in the area. And, of course, it had become a center for this cult, it was one of the more modern of the cults in that area at that time, and had some great growth. Now the town of Panias was occupied predominantly by Gentiles, rather than Jews. Because it was on the very frontier of heathendom, and the very last outpost of Judaism, it tended to be dominated by the Greek influences. Today that part of the world would be in the southwestern corner of what we know as Syria, but I think at this juncture in history is under the control of Israel.
Now, it was to that place that Jesus retreated. It would be a welcome retreat from the heat of the Galilean low-lands, it would be a welcome retreat from the pressure of the very Jewish society there with all of the things that were going on. It would also be a retreat from the influence of Herod who was after Jesus Christ without doubt, into the territory controlled by Philip the Tetrarch. Now, Philip the Tetrarch was a more just man, a more kind man, a more patient man imposing no threat to Christ and His disciples. He was, however, committed to Caesar as indicated by the fact that he himself changed the name of Panias to Caesarea. He enlarged it. He sort of rebuilt much of it and he turned it into a very nice place, named it after the Caesar it was designated Caesarea Philippi because he was the one who enlarged it and to distinguish it from the other one.
And so, the Lord went there with His disciples. Now this particular incident is recorded in Matthew, in Mark and in Luke because of its utter importance. And Mark and Luke fill in some interesting details. Mark tells us that this particular conversation here, this examination time, came as Jesus was walking along the road between some of the suburban villages of Caesarea Philippi. It also tells us that the Lord had also come out of a prayer meeting. The other gospels indicate that Jesus had been with the Father, and that coming with presence with the Father He entered upon a walk with the disciples and in the midst of, the walk He confronted them with this question. So, there they were, as it were, at the very crossroads of Judaism and heathendom, and He asked them the all encompassing question that every religion in the world must answer - Who do you say I am? Who do you say I am?
Now, later on in Matthew there is a secondary question asked by Pilate that should come as a corollary to that first question Pilate said - What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ? The first question is Who is Jesus Christ? The second question in Matthew 27:22, is What am I going to do with Him? For us, for now, the first question. Let's look at the examination ... verse 13.
"He asked His disciples, saying, Who do men say that I the Son of man am?" He uses the term Son of man to refer to Himself...it by the way is used 80 plus times in the New Testament and so it is the Lord's most common designation of Himself and although it is definitely a prophetic title of Messiah taken from Daniel 7:13 and 14, He uses it more as a sign of His humiliation, as a sign of His identification with humanity. And so, He calls Himself by the name that He commonly called Himself, Son of man, and He says - Who do men say that I am? Now, I've been around for two plus years, and I've been preaching and teaching and healing and doing signs and wonders and mighty deeds, and what is the result of all of this? Who do people say I am? What a crucial question. Jesus came into the world to reveal Himself and now it's time to find out what they were reading, in terms of that revelation. Who is this? Was His effort being rewarded? Could they carry on the Kingdom? Do they really know who He is? Nothing is as important for Him and the extension of His Kingdom as that question, frankly, nothing is as important for the people as that question either.
Now in this light I don't...I want you to know that I don't think Jesus is really looking for an answer, I think this is a leadingquestion. This is a set-up question. I don't think He's asking for information. He knew basically what they thought about Him but He wanted out of the disciples' mouth a clear statement of the wrong answer and then He wanted to hit for the right answer and therefore make it stand out by contrast. He wants the general opinions of men as they fall short of reality as a backdrop for the truth which the disciples will give. And what He's really seeking is the confession that they ought to make with their lips from their heart after nearly two and a half years of being with Him. He's after a verdict. He's after a confidence statement, a supreme confession of who He is. It's time for that now, the lessons are over, the course has reached its climax, now is the test.
And they respond, verse 14: "Some say, they said, that You're John the Baptist." Now, we'll stop there for a minute. It's interesting to me what they didn't say. They didn't say - Some say You're Beezlebub, the prince of demons, they had said that back in 10:25, but they knew the Lord wasn't looking for what His enemy said, they were...they knew He was looking for what..what is the positive response to Me. He knew what His enemies thought, but what do the rest of the people, what is the general opinion about Me? What is the consensus of the populace? And some of them said, - "Well, He's John the Baptist," and the disciples reported this to Him here. This was indicated to us in the fourteenth chapter, you remember verses 1 and 2? At that time, it says: "Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus," of course, he had beheaded John. "And he said to his servants, this is John the Baptist, he's risen from the dead and therefore mighty works to show forth themselves in him."
Herod said - It's John the Baptist back from the dead. Now why did he say that? Well, because John the Baptist was a prophet, John the Baptist was declaring the coming of Messiah, and John the Baptist ... or rather, Jesus, at this point, did works that were inexplicable if try ... if defined humanly. So, what he is saying, really, by saying this is John the Baptist back from the dead, he is saying this is the one who's announcing the coming of the Messiah, the one who does these mighty deeds must be one whose come back from heaven. He saw the parallel in the ministries and then he equated the fact that this must be John risen from the dead.
And undoubtedly this was more popular than just with Herod. There were a lot of people who thought Jesus was John come back from the dead. Now mark this in your mind, two things stick out about that. One, that he was the forerunner of the Messiah and not the Messiah. And two, that he was risen from the dead. They picked John the Baptist for their opinion because he was a forerunner to the Messiah and because having been risen from the dead it explained how He could do the supernatural things He did, at least to them.
There's another opinion, look at verse 14, "Some said You're Elijah." Elijah, of course, was the summit of the prophetic office. And the Old Testament in Malachi's prophecy, chapter 4 verse 5, said. "Behold, I send you Elijah before that great and terrible day of the Lord comes." In other words, the Jews believed then that Elijah would come back from heaven, that Elijah would be resurrected, if we can use that term related to him. He would come back from heaven prior to the coming of Messiah. And so some said this is Elijah. And again, please note, they say this based on the same thinking. One, he is a forerunner of the Messiah. Two, he is come back from the dead, or come back from heaven.
By the way, if you were to go to a Jewish Passover today in 1982, you would see at the Jewish Passover table, an empty chair, and if you were to ask the host why there is an empty chair during the Passover in which no one sits, he would tell you it is the chair for Elijah, and they are waiting for Elijah to show up because when he takes his seat the Messiah is not far behind. And that's based on Malachi 4.
Now you'll notice again in verse 14 that others said He is Jeremiah. Now where did this come from? Well, if you have ever had occasion to read what's known as the Apocrypha, you know that's the non-biblical writings that sometimes appear between the Old and the New Testament in a Roman Catholic Bible. That Apocrypha has a series of books in it called the Maccabees, I Maccabees, II Maccabees, III Maccabees, basically named for Judas Maccabeus who was a great leader during that period of time after the end of the Old Testament before the start of the New. And in there there are many interesting stories and legends and so forth. One of them is fascinating. It is that Jeremiah, prior to the Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C., took the are of the covenant and took the altar of incense out of the temple in order that the Gentiles wouldn't take it and desecrate it, and he hid it in Mount Nebo. And the legend and superstition says, and the Jews held onto this, that before the Messiah comes back to establish His Kingdom Jeremiah will return and Jeremiah will go get the are ofthe covenant and he will go get the altar of incense and restore them to their place and then the Messiah will come. In fact, during the Maccabean period you can read in II Maccabees a supposed account of where Jeremiah did appear. It pictures him as a man with a great white beard, gray hair, glorious appearance, and he comes down and he takes a golden sword and he gives it to Judas Maccabeus and Judas Maccabeus uses that sword to lead the Maccabean revolution and overthrow the Greeks. And so Jeremiah had become a hero to them. It's interesting, isn't it? Because when he was a prophet they threw him in a pit to get rid of him but all of a sudden he's a hero. And so many of the Jews were looking for Jeremiah to come back so that he could restore the arc and the altar to its rightful place. And again, you have the same two factors. One is that they were looking for one who was a forerunner of the Messiah. Two, that he would be one who came back from the grave, or back from heaven, back from life with God, which was the only way they could explain his ability to do miraculous works.
So, some said He's John the Baptist. Some said He's Elijah. Some said He's Jeremiah. Now how come they had those variations? I don't know. Maybe some saw in Him the character and the quality of John the Baptist. Maybe some saw in Him the fire and the intensity and the fervency of an Elijah. Maybe some saw in Him the lamenting grieving broken-heartedness of Jeremiah. But they had these varying opinions, all having in common the same two factors: a forerunner of the Messiah, and one come back from the dead.
Lastly, there was a more general opinion among some that He was one of the prophets. In Luke's parallel account he adds these very importantwords: "Risen again." So, there were others who thought He was another one of the ... of the prophets risen again. You see, the resurrection sort of has to be in there or they can't explain the supernatural character. They never deny Jesus' miracles. They never deny that they had to come supernaturally. And so, perhaps, there were some who thought it was Zephaniah. Zephaniah, that gentle, warm spirit of love, they may have seen that in Jesus and thought it was perhaps Zephaniah.
So, all of these opinions about Jesus are floating around. But they all have this remarkable thing in common, they knew He had to be from out of this world and they believed He was the forerunner of the Messiah. They did not believe He was the Messiah. They couldn't deny that He was a prophet and they couldn't deny that He had marvelous supernatural power, but they would not accept that He was the Messiah, they got as close as they could without getting to the truth. And as somebody well said - Close only counts in horseshoes ... not in theology-
They are very much like our modern world that wants to go so far with Jesus and never any farther. Do you notice that? Napoleon said "I know men and Jesus Christ is no mere man." Close .... Pilate said "He's a man without fault." That's close. Diderot said: "He's the unsurpassed." Straus said: "He's the highest model of religion." John Stuart Mill, the philosopher, said: "He's the guide of humanity." Lecky said: "He's the highest pattern of virtue." Piceaunt said: "He's the holy one before God." Martineau said: "He's the divine flower of humanity." Renan, the French atheist said: "He's the greatest among the sons of men." Theodore Parker called Him: "A youth with God in His heart." Francis Cobb said: "He's a regenerator of humanity." RobertOwens said: "He's the irreproachable one." And they tell us today that He's a "Superstar." Close...but close isn't good enough. Nice sentiments, but not sufficient to identify Jesus properly.
You see, there are no human categories. They're aren't any ... no human categories into which Jesus properly fits. And so He asks them the second question, verse 15, look at it.
"He saith unto them, But who say," and here's the emphatic use of the pronoun, "Who say ye that I am?" Now I want to hear from you. Who do you say? And here is the question of all questions. You will answer that question, my friend, you are answering that question right this very moment and your eternal destiny depends upon the answer you give. You can't avoid the question. You are pinned against the wall of eternity and you will be forced to answer that question.
What was their answer? One question final examination ... Who do you say that I am? And that's every persons final examination. "And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Simon Peter, the spokesman, wasn't he?
Chrysostom, the saint of old, called Him: "The director of the apostolic choir." He was always up front. He was the mouthpiece. Whenever there was some speaking to be done, He did it.
In chapter 15: "Then answered Peter and said to Him, Explain to us this parable." Peter said: "To whom shall we go? Thou and Thou alone hast the words of eternal life." In chapter 19, verse 27, Petersaid: "Behold, we have forsaken all and followed Thee, what shall we have therefore?" Peter was the spokesman. You see it in chapter 26. You see it in many places. It was just his role to speak and he articulated the consensus of the group. This isn't just Peter, this is Peter gathering up the concensus of the ... of the disciples ... speaking in their behalf. I like the fact that...that it calls him Simon Peter, it gives a very official character to the confession. This is a very official formal confession. Simon Peter ... his full name ... says: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." It's a formal confession and it demands a formal designation, not an offhanded one. This is the concensus.
Now, let's look at the confession. We've seen the setting and the examination. Look at the confession as such, verse 16, it is decisive, it is emphatic, it is brief, it is unqualified. "Thou art the Christ." Tremendous statement. You're the Messiah! That's what it means. Christ being the Greek equivalent of Messiah .... You're the anointed one of God ... You're the promised Messiah ... You're the one we 've been looking for...the anointed one ... the prophet that should come...the eternal King ... the eternal Savior...the eternal high priest...You are the one who is all the embodiment of all of our hopes and all of our dreams and all of our desires and all of the promises .... You're it! You're the one You say You are. You're the one God said You'd be.
Now you say - What's so important about this? Didn't they always believe that? Yes and no ... yes and no. You see, they came in and out, didn't they? You can go all the way back to John 1 when they first met Jesus, first day. Andrew runs to get Peter, he says - Peter, we havefound the Messiah. Now that sounds pretty affirming, doesn't it?
We have found the Messiah. You say - If they knew that in the beginning why did He spend two and a half years trying to convince them? Because, from the time they made that initial assent they begin to fall. You know why? Because they were believing at that point, the testimony of John the Baptist who said, "Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." The testimony of John the Baptist who said: "I saw and bore witness that this is the Son of God," John 1:34. They were believing the testimony of John the Baptist and they were also believing what they saw when Jesus, for example, saw Nathaniel with His mind when He couldn't see him with His eye, knew everything about him before He ever met him. So, there were a few little things that made them believe. And then if Jesus had all of a sudden just knocked off the Romans and taken over and set up the Kingdom, they would have just gone right up from there. But then, all of a sudden started the humility and the rejection and the hatred and the bitterness and they begin to wonder whether what they thought at the beginning was in fact true at all. Why, John the Baptist who said - "I bear witness this is the Son of God." John the Baptist who said: "Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." When he was a prisoner and he wasn't seeing Jesus do what he thought He would do, in Matthew chapter 11, sent a messenger to say to Jesus - "Are You the Messiah? Or are we looking for somebody else?" So, while there was an initial assent, that was ... that was muffled in their minds, that was confused because it didn't seem to be working the way they thought it should. Periodically, you know, they really said - Oh, You must be. I think of John 6:69 where ... where Peter says We believe and we know that You're the holy one of God. There were those moments of great faith. And then there were those moments whenJesus said to them - Oh, ye of little ... what? ... little faith. And that does have something to say, doesn't it, for the blessing of the ... of the continuing work of the Holy Spirit? It's wonderful to have the Holy Spirit in us who keeps on telling us that we belong to God, Romans 8, and keeps on crying from within us - Abba Father. Well, they were sort of in and out on that one. They were strong in faith at one time and weak at another time.
And so the Lord has brought them through two and a half years, and I think when they come to this point, there is a confident affirming that they really do now believe this is the Messiah .... the Son of the living God. They have just seen a display of miracles. They have just heard profound teaching. They're convinced of this. Even though as He goes to the cross particularly, they begin to little .... to shake a little, you know. And I think about the John 14 passage where the Lord is telling them about He's going to die and He's going to leave them and He's going to go away and they're getting very nervous and they say - We don't know where You're going. And then Philip says - And we're not too sure who You are. And He says - "Have I been so long with you and you don't know who I am?"
But, I think at this point this is an affirmation of a supreme confession that they believe He's the Messiah. And they hung on to that. And the Spirit of God imbedded it in their hearts when He came and madethem the men that changed the world. This is their confession. It took all of this time to get them to this place, through all of the struggles and hatred of the Pharisees, the rejection of the people and the confusion of their Messianic expectations and God's plan being different than the plan they thought, and yet they arrive at that point. You're the Messiah ... You're the fulfiller of our hopes ... You're the source of our salvation ... You're the heaven-sent, long-awaited King... You're the desire of the nations ... the one of whom the prophets spoke... the one to whom the sacrifice is pointed...the one the Psalms sang about ... the one pictures and symbols and types all prefigured ... You're the one!
By the way, they got the question right. He was the one. And then as if it wasn't enough to say - You're the Messiah ... Peter added, "The Son of the living God." Not only Son of man, but Son of God. Not only God, but the living God, as opposed to the dead idols ... Pan ... and all the rest of the dead idols. You are the Son, the Son not only of man but the Son of God, the Son not only of God but the Son of the living God ... the God the one who is living. Our God is a living God. He is opposite all the other dead gods. And when Jesus is called the Son of God, it is saying that He is one in essence with Clod.
Now, they said that and I believe they believed that He was God. I have no question they believed that. And people say - Well, why then did Philip say - Show us the Father? Because I don't think he understood the full implications of what it was that Jesus was God. T don't think he understood the trinity fully, and I don't think I do either. So, I'm somewhat understanding of him. But they believed that this was theMessiah, this was one with God. Son means equal with God. It's the Son of essence, not the son of servitude.
You remember the Jews took up stones to stone Him because He said - God was His Father - making Himself equal with God, John 5:17 and 18? And so they are saying - You are equal with God. You are the Messiah...the Savior.
Now, that's not extravagant language, folks, and it's not flowery speech, but it's right on target.
Now, look at the source, verse 17. The setting, the examination, the confession, the source ... I love this..."Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou Simon Barjona, " son of John, son of Jonas, son of Jonah ... bar means son of. "For flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee but My Father who is in heaven."
He says - Here's the source...you didn't get that information about who I am from your humanness, flesh and blood being a metonym for humanness. It's referring to his humanness. It wasn't your reason, it wasn't your superior intellect, it isn't your merit, your calculation, your analysis, your intuition, it isn't your religious tradition that showed you this, there's nothing in the human realm that could reveal this. No man calls Jesus Lord, said Paul, but by the Spirit of God revealing Him. It is God who discloses His Son to the human understanding. For we are just another group of blind people as we saw last week.
And by the way, I think it's wonderful that He calls him in this verse, Simon son of Jonah. He doesn't use the term Peter. He's calling him by his old human name, his name before his conversion so that he'll emphasize the inadequacy, the ineptitude and the blindness of his humanness. You, just Simon son of John, could never have understood who I am on your own.
In Matthew's marvelous insight into this in chapter 11, verse 27, he records the words of our Lord, "All things are delivered unto Me by My Father and no man knows the Son but the Father, neither knows any man the Father except the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." The Father reveals the Son, the Son reveals the Father, only by divine revelation can we know Christ.
Now, carefully watch. The question is - If..if you know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, because the Father has revealed it, how has the Father revealed it? How? What did the Father use? What technique? How did He do it? Did He just put it in Peter's head, just inject it with some kind of a supernatural hypodermic? How did he get the information?
I believe the Father revealed Jesus Christ to be the Messiah through Christ Himself. I believe it was those years of following Jesus and listening to Jesus through the valleys and through the roads and across the mountains and on the water and between the villages and in the cities and at the table. And as the light began to dawn and the Spirit of God open their heart, the revelation came through the presence of Christ Himself until their consciousness was wide open to the factthat this was the Messiah, the Son of the living God. And I think that's the way it is today. I think you will discover who Jesus Christ is only, not in a vacuum, when you look at Jesus Christ. When you listen to Jesus Christ. When you follow the path that He walked and you hear the words that He taught and you see the things that He did and the dawning of your consciousness comes when the Holy Spirit takes those realities and makes them live in your dead soul.
You see, Romans 10:17 says, "Saving faith," and I think that's what it's talking about there, "comes by hearing a word about Jesus Christ." And so as you gaze on His glory you are transformed into His image. I think God used Christ to reveal Himself. And we find the same as we look at Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God applies the truth to our hard and dark hearts.
Now, I want to show you another point. We looked at the setting, the examination, the confession, the source, now I want you to look at the evidence. In the life of Christ there was some monumental evidence. Now listen very carefully to what I'm going to say. When Jesus was revealing Himself there were basically two categories in which He revealed Himself, to Peter and to everybody else. To you and me for that matter. One, His words. Right? He made astounding claims. He said in Matthew 7, "Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord." Can you imagine Him saying that He is the Lord of the judgment? That's quite a claim.
He said, "I am come to fulfill the law," Matthew 5:17. People marvelled at Him because He spoke as one having authority. He taughtdivine truth, Matthew 5, Matthew 6, Matthew 10, Matthew 13...profound truth. His words were a dynamic revelation of who He was.
Secondly, His works ... His works. And I just run them by your thinking. His power over disease. His power over nature. His power over demons. His power over sins. His power over death.
But, listen now. The people had gone that far and they could have said - Well yes, we can explain His words, we can explain His words He's a prophet of God. He's a prophet of God. And we can explain His works, He's risen from the dead. He's risen from the dead, He's come back from God, He has divine power. But that still brings us up short of His Messiahship. Wasn't there something that pushed them over to the full understanding of His Messiahship?
Let me offer a thought. Look back at chapter 12 verse 8, and T think T missed this when I was going through ... that chapter. And T think I've seen it in a new light. Verse 8, "For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day." Now just hang in there, folks, and T want to open up something for you. I don't think I really ever understood the utter devastation of that statement. I think this put Jesus out of the possibility of the category of Jeremiah, Elijah, John the Baptist or one of the prophets. When He said - I am the Lord of the Sabbath - what was He saying? What an utterly earth-shaking devastating statement that is. Let me tell you why. The Sabbath was the center of all life in Israel. I mean, everything revolved around the Sabbath. Everything in their calendar was in cycles of seventh, and the Sabbath was the center of everything...all their days of worship ... all their greatfeasts and festivals and all of the celebrations were tied around the Sabbath concept. Sabbath, by the way, means rest or cessation. And the Sabbath was a day of rest or a time of rest with two things in mind, one - cessation from work ... two, holy convocation. In other words, there was worship and there was rest. You stop your work and you worship God. And there were all kinds of Sabbaths.
In fact, God gave them a catalogue of Sabbaths. Now T want you to take your Bible and go to Leviticus 23 and very briefly I want to point these to you. Leviticus 23 ... and here you have the catalogue of Sabbaths and if you're going to understand what it means when He said He was Lord of the Sabbath you've got to understand this ... all right? The Lord speaks in chapter 23 verse 1 and He begins to list the Sabbaths. And in chapter 23 there are seven Sabbaths ... seven different ones. The first one is in the first three verses, and it's the one you know the best.
Verse 3: "Six days you work, the seventh day is a sabbath." It's a rest and a holy convocation. One, you rest from your work ... two, you worship God. It's a holy coming together. Now that was the one that was every week .... every week on Saturday, the seventh day they rested from their work and they had a holy worship of God, every week... every week...every week ... every week.
And then comes the next sabbath, in verses 4 to 8, this is the Passover. "The fourteenth day of the first month is the Passover." And it encompasses the feast of unleaven bread. It is a holy convocation, verse 7, and you do no work in it. It is a sabbath as well. So thatyou have the first sabbath being the weekly sabbath, the next sabbath the Passover.
Beginning in verse 9 you have the third sabbath which is the feast of firstfruits. This also is a sabbath. It is a rest. It is a cessation of work. It is a coming before the Lord.
Then in verse 15 you have the fourth which is the feast of Pentecost. It also talks about sabbath. "For unto the next day after, verse 16 says, the seventh sabbath shall you number 50 days and offer a new meal offering to the Lord." And again, it's all calculated by other sabbaths and it is itself a sabbath. And it is a time for cessation of work and a time for worship.
In verse 23 you have the fifth sabbath, the feast of trumpets. It is a sabbath, it occurs in the sabbath month, the seventh month, and you do no work and you bring an offering before the Lord again, a holy convocation.
In verse 26 you have the sixth sabbath which is the day of atonement ... Yom Kippur. The tenth day of the seventh month, a day of atonement is a holy convocation and again a time of rest. It is also a sabbath.
Then in verse 33 you come to the seventh, the feast of tabernacles which also is a sabbath occurring in the seventh month, a time of rest and holy convocation.
The Bible says meat offering.
Now, notice this, people, so all through the Jewish year every week was sabbath, every week was sabbath and then periodically you had these six other major sabbath events so that life for them was sabbath - sabbath ... time of rest from the work, time of worship of God.
Now, you come to chapter 25 ... chapter 25, and two more sabbaths are given here. The first is the seven-year sabbath so that they would work for six years and then in the seventh year, verse 1 ... verse 2 says rather, you keep a sabbath and you only sow your field and prune your vineyard and gather your fruit for six years, the seventh year is a sabbath rest unto the Lord. That was a whole year to concentrate on worship ... a whole year to slow down the activity of work and to have a holy convocation.
Then beginning in verse 8 you have the ninth sabbath listed in these two chapters. And here it is the jubilee. You have seven years and then a sabbath is the seventh year, and then you have seven times seven, or after the forty-ninth year comes the fiftieth year which is a sabbath. And during that fiftieth year you have the epitome, you have the ultimate of the cycling of the sabbaths. So that in the fiftieth year in the ultimate sabbath on a sabbath day on the sabbath on the day of atonement in the sabbath of jubilee a great trumpet blast comes forth and sabbath reaches its ultimate climax, and I'll show you how. Verse 9, "The trumpet of the jubilee sounds the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of atonement, you make the trumpet sound throughout all the land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all the inhabitants." Everybody that's in a servileposition, everybody that's a slave, everybody that's a servant is set free immediately. Tt is a jubilee, you return every man his possessions, give him back his land. Some people had to pawn their land because they couldn't support themselves and so they pawned their land, it's given back to them. And those who were indentured servants, who sold themselves so to make a living were free and they were liberated and every man went back to his family. And this was the glorious rest, the jubilee. It is holy and it goes on to describe it.
Verse 13: "You shall return to every man his possession," and so forth. Now just imagine that you're in Israel. And for years somebody else has had the land that your family has owned, that your father possessed, you've had to pawn it to survive. Even you've sold yourself as an indentured servant into slavery and all of a sudden you come to that time when that trumpet's going to blast and you're going to be liberated from your slavery and you're going to be given back your land with all of its crops and all of its potential.
Listen, you can believe the servants and the workers and the slaves and the captives and the poor were the first ones up, can't you? With their hand to their ear waiting to hear that trumpet blow. And on that day of atonement, on that sabbath day in the sabbath jubilee that trumpet would be blown and everything would happen in that moment, all the people would be turned loose, the captives would be liberated, there would be liberty, there would be freedom for all. There would be restoration.
Now all of that concept of sabbath, now listen, is a symbol...fromthe weekly sabbath to the jubilee and everything in between, it is a symbol, it is a picture, it is a type, it is not a reality. It is only a picture of a reality. And the reality is that someday there's coming a true rest for the people of God. Right? Someday there's coming a real holiness. Someday there's coming a genuine holy convocation. Someday there will be a true liberating of the land and a true liberating of the captives and a true setting free of the slaves. And every time a Jew celebrated the sabbath and everytime he celebrated a feast, and everytime he celebrated the sabbath year and everytime he celebrated a jubilee he would be reminded that someday there would be a real rest, someday there would be a real cessation of work because all those times in between he was working, working. And he was even carrying out a system of sacrifice that involved external ceremony and effort.
And I think that through that whole thing God was symbolizing. Now listen, nobody ever argues that the sacrifices of the Old Testament were symbols of the coming of Christ who was the ultimate Lamb, right? All of the sacrifices of the Old Testament simply pictured Christ. Now listen carefully. The whole sabbath system is identical to that. The whole sabbath system had no purpose except to point to the one who would bring true holiness and rest.
Now, with that in your mind, turn to Luke 4. Jesus is in Nazareth, verse 16: "And He came to Nazareth when He had been brought up ... where He had been brought up: and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the sabbath day and stood up to read. And there was delivered to Him a book of the prophet Isaiah and when He had opened the book He found the place where it was written, The Spirit of theLord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Ale to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised and to preach the jubilee year of the Lord.'? You see the point? Jesus says then - This day, verse 21, is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears. I am the jubilee, I am the sabbath rest. I am the source of true holiness. And listen to me carefully, people. That is exactly why He violated their sabbath ordinances. If He wanted to take a trip on the sabbath Fe took a trip. And if He wanted to pluck corn on the sabbath He plucked corn. And if He wanted to peel the corn and eat it on the sabbath He did it on the sabbath. And if He wanted to heal on the sabbath He healed on the sabbath. Because He was no longer interested in the shadows. You understand that? Because the reality was there. And I believe, and I don't think I've ever seen it as clearly as I see it now, that the thing that was maybe so devastatingly convincing about Jesus was this Lordship over the whole sabbatical system which ruled and governed their lives. And that is why the New Testament repeats every one of the Ten Commandments except - Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy - it doesn't repeat that one.
Why? You don't need the picture if the reality is present. Right? As someone said, "Some people seem more content with a picture than they do with a reality.
Listen to what else He said. He reached out 14-is arms one day in Matthew 11:28 and He said, "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you...what? ... rest." Rest. In that synagogue in Nazareth He said - "I am the fulfillment of all of that to which Isaiah referred, I am the one who will set the captives free. I am the one who proclaims the real spiritual jubilee." And Jesus Himself went to the cross, died on the sixth day, was in the grave on the seventh day and burst ... He was resting too ... and He ended that sabbath, He finished His work on the cross, on the sixth day He said - It is finished .... rested on the sabbath and He began on the new dawning of the first day, that new covenant, that new era and we do not hold on to the sabbath picture any more. So don't think that you've got to be careful cause you can't walk too far on Sunday. God help us if we think that. Or you can't let your children play in the backyard. That isn't the point.
In Colossians 2, Paul comes to this very conclusion. "Let no man," verse 16, "therefore judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or of the new moon or of sabbaths." Don't let anybody judge you on that. Why? These are a shadow of things to come but the reality is Christ. Isn't that great? That's why it says in Hebrews 4, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." And he says, "Enter into that rest." It is the rest of salvation.
Listen, since I embraced Jesus Christ who is the sabbath, who is the jubilee, who is the fulfillment of all the pictures - I have a holiness within me that is valid every day. I have a holy convocation going on with God every conscious moment of my life. And I have a rest. I don't need one day a week to rest spiritually, that external imagery only portrayed a spiritual reality. I rest in God. Don't you?
And listen to me. That's why I think Paul uses the term redemptionso much, there's a Jewish element there. Because God has set us free in Christ. He's given us the jubilee liberation. You break the sabbath, listen, you violate the sabbath not when you work on Sunday ... not when you have activity on Sunday. No, no, no. You violate the sabbath and violate the sabbath rest when you refuse Jesus Christ and you continue on in your own self-righteous works. Then you are not ceasing from your works and you are not entering into holy rest. That is the violation of the true sabbath.
Well, let's go back to Matthew, and I'm going to close right now. The result - what happens when you answer the question right? What happens when you know that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God? Look at verse 17, here's the result. "And Jesus answered and said unto him ... what? ... Blessed art thou ... blessed art thou, Simon."
What does it mean to be blessed? Listen, to have Jesus pronounce a blessing on you ... check this one ... Ephesians 1, "And you are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." That's what it means to be blessed. All of the divine supernatural resources that God can pour out on the children of His love and the brothers of Jesus Christ are yours. And so our dear Lord acknowledges the supreme confession of the disciples. He stamps it with approval. And He promises to bless them. And that's the promise that He makes to you as well. That if you confess Jesus as the Savior, the Son of the living God, and you embrace Him as your own, that you shall enter into holy rest forever and ever and you shall cease from your own self-righteous works and you shall be blessed. Let's pray.
Father, what a great privilege to be at rest, to know our hearts are in peace with Thee, to know we are in a holy convocation with the living God who dwells within us so that that convocation occurs all the time. We don't go to a temple to meet You, You're here. We are Your temple. This is Your sabbath, for You are the sabbath and You live in us. 0 God, may no one leave this place who has not entered into rest.
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This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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Some may think that today's world of embedded music, video, and Flash animations would be a great enhancement to the Internet experience for the blind because they provide audio feedback. But the truth is just the opposite: visually impaired Internet users have found themselves frustrated with embedded multimedia conflicting with screen readers and self-reading browsers. This is only exacerbated by the fact that most multimedia plugins are not very accessible (if at all), and so blind users cannot navigate to their controls to stop or skip over various elements. That is why IBM has developed a tool that will allow visually impaired users to interact with multimedia on the web.
The tool, which will be usable in Internet Explorer and Firefox, will give users access to the traditional control buttons via predefined keyboard hotkeys or shortcuts, instead of forcing them to roam around the contents of the page in hopes of finding the controls. Users will also be able to access the volume controls that come with many embedded video and audio files, as well as control video and audio replay speeds. It will also allow screen readers to synchronize with the audio from an embedded source and make use of the multimedia's metadata, which will allow the two to interact to benefit the user on a much more cohesive level than before.
"The new multimedia browsing accessibility tool will enable persons with visual impairments the opportunity to access dynamic multimedia web content, quickly and easily," IBM Human Ability and Accessibility Center director Frances West said in a statement. It can come as a huge surprise that multimedia content on the web has been so inaccessible for so long to many of us who have not had to deal with the frustrations of being visually impaired. Only recently with the release of Flash 8 did Macromedia/Adobe make it easy for Flash developers to make their animations and movies more accessible to those with disabilities, although there have still been problems with videos and audio—such as those from YouTube and MySpace—automatically starting and overlapping other audio assistance being provided on a web page. When I used to develop web sites for clients more regularly, it was not terribly uncommon to encounter requests for extremely Flash-heavy pages with auto-playing content, only to be disappointed when told that such elements may conflict with screen readers. They often decided in favor of the auto-playing Flash.
IBM plans to make the software open source in order to "accelerate the enhancement and adoption of the tool to make multimedia contents accessible for visually impaired." The company plans to show the tool during the 2007 Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference next week in Los Angeles.

subset: commoncrawl


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Kilim Earrings
6'5" x 5'1"
PLEASE CONTACT US Sizes are approximate. Photographs are not necessarily exact for color.
New rugs are of the highest quality in their category and are handpicked overseas by the Bashir family.
Earrings were considered as indispensable as a wedding present in ancient Anatolia (pressent day Turkey). According to legend, it is said that a girl using this motif is trying to inform her family that she wants to get married.
"Kilim" is a Turkish word used when referring to carpets that have been interwoven by hand using wool pile. As a result, Kilims appear less fluffy than hand-knotted carpets. Some experts claim that these types of carpets were originally made by southern Tunisians and that the craft has since spread to nomads located in Turkey, Irak, Iran, Pakistan, China, India or Morocco. Other experts believe that their birthplace is in the Near East and South-Eastern coast of Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Bessarabia). Their major factories are found to be in Anatolia, Persia and Caucasia. Historical research reveals that Kilims have traditionally occupied different functions in time.
In certain cultures, they were given as a dowry gift to future brides and held the same important standing as household linen. In other contexts, they served as a bedding area for camels. Nowadays, we can find Kilims on a homes hard wood floor or even hanging on the walls of homes as pieces of art. Kilim carpets are fragile because their structure, as their weaving techniques, is very simple: horizontal thread weaves alternatively go above and under the vertical thread chains. After every new pick, the thread weave sequence is reversed. Since the thread weave is paused at every color change, one can spot little gaps between the colours. This is a common characteristic of Kilim carpets.
Sources and inspiration: Bérinstain, Valérie, et al. L'art du tapis dans le monde (The art of carpets in the world). Paris: Mengès, 1996. Print.; Jerrehian Jr., Aram K.A. Oriental Rug Primer. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1980. Print.; Herbert, Janice Summers. Oriental Rugs, New York: Macmillan, 1982. Print.; Hackmack, Adolf. Chinese Carpets and Rugs, Rutland and Tokyo: Tuttle, 1980. Print. ; De Moubray, Amicia, and David Black. Carpets for the home, London: Laurence King Publishing, 1999. Print.; Jacobsen, Charles. Oriental Rugs A Complete Guide, Rutland and Tokyo: Tuttle, 1962. Print.; Bashir, S. (n.d.). Personal interview.; Web site sources and dates of consultation vary (to be confirmed). Without prejudice to official usage.


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I'm a part time landscape photographer from and living in county Clare. I grew up on a farm near Corofin village and am currently living nearby. At an early age I developed a passion for photography and for the beauty of nature and the Irish countryside. I travel a lot throughout Ireland photographing and researching the history of Ireland's countless beautiful ruined churches, castles and monuments. I also spend a lot of time hill walking and taking landscape photos. My favourite place in Ireland is the Macgillycuddy Reeks mountain range in county Kerry. With their rugged beauty, splendid views and peacefulness I can often empathize with Norman Maclean's great line from A River Runs Through It "When I am alone in the half light of the canyon all existence seems to fade to a being with my soul, and memories and the sounds of the Big Black Foot River" In my work I endeavour to portray the Irish landscape and its national treasures in all their beauty and magnificence. I thank you sincerely for visiting my website and hope you enjoy looking at my photos.
I shoot with a Cannon EOS 400D camera and a number of lenses
Photos can be purchased as cards, matted prints, laminated prints, mounted prints, canvas prints, framed prints, calenders, mousepads, mugs, posters and more
My Camera Equipment
Canon E0S 400D
Canon Ixus 970
IS Lenses Sigma 70-300mm
Sigma 10-20mm Canon 18-55mm
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Is Your Community Financially Savvy?
Financial Beginnings licenses its full suite of programming. We offer curricula for elementary school, middle school, and high school students, as well as adults, first-in-family college students, Spanish speakers, and more. Licensing agreements are customized to meet the needs of your organization and the groups you serve.
Licensing partners range from national financial services companies to community banks and credit unions. Licensing partners can choose from an established program or build one by selecting a range of options. Financial Beginnings will also work with your team to develop new curricula and accompanying materials as requested.
Generally, licensing packages include:
- All participant handouts
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Optional add-ons include an online reporting system and online program management system.
Pricing is determined by geographic reach, size of audience served, level of customization, and degree of exclusivity desired.
Financial Beginnings has trained thousands of volunteers to teach financial education to over 150,000 individuals and in partnership with over 500 schools and community-based organizations. We have intimate knowledge of the financial education industry regionally and nationally, and are here to help you craft a package to suit your needs and budget.


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Gummy Bear Implants
Dear OncoLink "Ask The Experts,"
Please explain the differences in scars and results if one chooses mastectomy with immediate implants or has tissue expanders with permanent implants placed 4-6 months later. I do not hear favorable comments about saline implants. Can I get silicone? Does HUP offer clinical trials for "gummy bear" implants?
Don LaRossa, MD, Professor of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, responds:
I don't think there would be a difference in scars or results. These factors are more related to the way each individual heals than the timing and method of the implants.
Silicone implants are still available to breast cancer reconstruction patients as an alternative to saline. Women have found that saline implants are associated with more ripples, have a more liquid feel, and do not look as natural as the silicone.
We have access to the "gummy bear" implants (also known as The Cohesive Gel Implant) at Penn. They only come in a tear-drop shape at this time, which is not something that all surgeons like to use. To receive one, the patient would have to enter the research protocol, as with any patient getting a gel implant. They are currently in use in Europe and Brazil.
The "gummy bear" implants have the same advantages of silicone implants, while eliminating the two biggest risks: rupture and silicone leakage. They are made of a semi-solid gel, also called high strength gel. The silicone gel is solid, so if the shell is penetrated, there is no leakage. They are the consistency of a gummy bear, hence the name. Doctors have said they also have a more natural feel than the saline counterparts. These implants are also less likely to have rippling.


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"ObamaNation" was apoplectic over ABC News' decision to question Barack Obama over his associations with a Louis Farrakhan-sympathetic preacher and a college professor up from the Weather Underground. But the Illinois senator's answers on questions that dealt with policy were even more illuminating. A segment on the economy included this exchange:
CHARLES GIBSON: All right. You have, however, said you would favor an increase in the capital gains tax. As a matter of fact, you said on CNBC, and I quote, "I certainly would not go above what existed under Bill Clinton," which was 28 percent. It's now 15 percent. That's almost a doubling, if you went to 28 percent. … And in each instance, when the rate dropped, revenues from the tax increased; the government took in more money. And in the 1980s, when the tax was increased to 28 percent, the revenues went down. So why raise it at all, especially given the fact that 100 million people in this country own stock and would be affected?
OBAMA: Well, Charlie, what I've said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness …
GIBSON: But history shows that when you drop the capital gains tax, the revenues go up.
OBAMA: Well, that might happen, or it might not. It depends on what's happening on Wall Street and how business is going. I think the biggest problem that we've got on Wall Street right now is the fact that we got have a housing crisis that this president has not been attentive to and that it took John McCain three tries before he got it right.
Heritage Foundation budget and tax expert Brian Riedl comments:
This was the most astonishing statement of the debate. It's one thing to advocate large tax increases in order to fund priority spending. Yet after tacitly acknowledging that capital gains tax hikes would likely reduce tax revenues, Sen. Obama was not deterred. He would nearly double these tax rates for the stated purpose of reducing the income of investors — even if it harms the economy and fails to produce a dollar of new tax revenues.
If this tax hike caused capital gains revenues to fall, would Obama actually reduce priority spending to "pay for" this tax increase? How many federal programs would he sacrifice towards the goal of reducing investor incomes?
The Wall Street Journal adds:
But Mr. Obama has also said he's open to raising – indeed, nearly doubling to 28 percent – the current top capital gains tax rate of 15 percent, which would in fact be a tax hike on some 100 million Americans who own stock, including millions of people who fit Mr. Obama's definition of middle class.
This is instructive. The facts about capital gains rates and revenues are well known to our readers, but we'll repeat them as a public service to the Obama campaign. As the nearby chart shows, when the tax rate has risen over the past half century, capital gains realizations have fallen and along with them tax revenue. The most recent such episode was in the early 1990s, when Mr. Obama was old enough to be paying attention. That's one reason Jack Kennedy proposed cutting the capital gains rate. And it's one reason Bill Clinton went along with a rate cut to 20 percent from 28 percent in 1997.
Either the young Illinois Senator is ignorant of this revenue data, or he doesn't really care because he's a true income redistributionist who prefers high tax rates as a matter of ideological dogma regardless of the revenue consequences. Neither one is a recommendation for President.
Hillary Clinton was no better, promising to enact windfall profits on oil companies, just as Hugo Chavez recently did in Venezuela. The Tax Foundation comments:
Obama and Clinton endorsing a windfall profits tax on oil companies. If the oil companies are truly "gouging" as they also suggested, then that's illegal and the FTC should investigate. But that's been done. And even if the oil companies were artificially restricting supply (i.e. market manipulation), the end result would be in the same direction as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, which both Clinton and Obama support. The only difference is who receives the revenue — oil companies or government. The truckers that Clinton talks about should know that under a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, their prices would be even higher. That's their purpose — to discourage energy consumption through government-induced higher prices and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all to improve social welfare.


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NASA Successfully Launches Three Smartphone Satellites
WASHINGTON -- Three smartphones destined to become low-cost satellites rode to space Sunday aboard the maiden flight of Orbital Science Corp.'s Antares rocket from NASA's Wallops Island Flight Facility in Virginia.Read the complete news release on www.nasa.gov.
The project
PhoneSat is a nanosatellite, categorizing the mass as between one and ten kilograms. Additionally, PhoneSat is a 1U CubeSat, having a volume of around one liter. The PhoneSat Project strives to decrease the cost of satellites while not sacrificing performance. In an effort to achieve this goal, the project is based around Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) electronics to provide functionality for as many parts as possible while still creating a reliable satellite. Two copies of PhoneSat 1.0 are being launched mid April 2013 along with an early prototype of PhoneSat 2.0 referred to as PhoneSat 2.0.beta.
Amateur radio operators
PhoneSat satellites are emitting packets on the amateur radio spectrum to report different types of message. The details of these packets can be found on the packets page. If you are an amateur radio operator and you can receive these packets, you have the great opportunity to contribute to the project by submitting them. The dashboard page will give you all the information you need to track the satellites in real time.


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Hurricanes top Sharks in overtimeby Eric Gilmore
SAN JOSE -- The Carolina Hurricanes capped one of their most frustrating road trips with one of their most satisfying wins of the season.
The Hurricanes had lost the first four games on their longest road trip of the season, and with the score tied 2-2 and time winding down in overtime on Tuesday night, there was no guarantee they'd escape with more than one point. But defenseman Jay Harrison scored with 42 seconds left in OT, giving the Hurricanes a 3-2 victory against the San Jose Sharks -- and some much needed relief on the eve of the NHL's trade deadline.
"There's a lot of speculation in this room right now, a lot of guys' minds can be drifting at times," center Jordan Staal said. "It was nice, to be honest, just to get on the ice and play and not worry about that stuff and play a hard tough game and get rewarded for a big win. It was a good feeling."
Andrej Sekera blasted a shot from the point, and Elias Lindholm sent the puck to Harrison, who was wide-open just to the right of the crease. He beat backup goaltender Alex Stalock for his third goal of the season, ending Carolina's five-game losing streak.
"In the overtime we had some sustained pressure, we were moving the puck low to high, the D were involved," Harrison said. "If you watch the play again you'll see the D moving a lot up and down. That creates a little bit of havoc and causes the defense to have to turn. It was a real heads up play made by Lindholm to put it in the open space where I was and I had a pretty easy task of just banging it in."
Jiri Tlusty and Lindholm also scored for Carolina. Marty Havlat and Brent Burns scored for the Sharks.
Goaltender Anton Khudobin, who signed a two-year contract extension before the game, made 33 saves for Carolina.
Stalock stopped 32 of 35 shots for the Sharks (39-17-7), who are second in the Pacific Division, six points behind the Anaheim Ducks but nine in front of the third-place Los Angeles Kings.
"It's frustrating any time you lose a game, whether it's in overtime, regulation, whatever," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "I thought we played the game in two segments. The first half we were struggling to find our legs and execution. We were flat for whatever reason. We reacted slowly. In the second half we started to look the way we needed to look.
"We had our chances in overtime. I thought Al was fine. He made save after save in the first half of the game where it could have gotten away from us. They're a big team and it was a good test for him."
Carolina (27-26-9) beat San Jose for the sixth time in the past seven games and swept the two-game season series. The Hurricanes beat San Jose and Stalock 5-3 on Dec. 6 at PNC Arena. They are six points out of a playoff berth in the Eastern Conference.
"This is a huge win for us," coach Kirk Muller said. "We played some really good games and no points. The day before the trade deadline. As a hockey player, that goes through their minds, and for them to come out and focus like this and compete the way they did, that's a great feeling that the guys prepared themselves like that."
With the score tied 2-2 after two periods, San Jose turned up the heat on Khudobin in the third, outshooting Carolina 16-7, but he stopped every shot.
"We had a lot of pressure in their zone and a lot of chances but their goalie was right there," Sharks captain Joe Thornton said. "I thought we had a real good third period."
Burns made a mad dash toward the crease and tried to jam a shot past Khudobin with less than 12 minutes left to play in the third, but he sent it away. Minutes later, rookie Matt Nieto took a long pass along the boards from Raffi Torres and fired a laser from the slot. Nothing doing again. Logan Couture ripped a shot with less than four minutes left that Khudobin handled easily, and he made a brilliant save of Patrick Marleau's wicked shot from the slot two minutes later.
Khudobin signed his contract extension "right before the game," then went out and showed why he got the new deal.
"There were great feelings for me after since we got the win," Khudobin said. "Our defensemen were working hard all night. They were shooting a lot of pucks and they drove hard a lot. I just had to keep focusing and figure out what I can do. It's always great to get the 'W' on the road especially after losing four in a row. We didn't expect this to be an easy game."
The Hurricanes took their first lead on their trip at 12:07 of the first period when Tlusty took a long cross-ice pass from Alexander Semin just before reaching the blue line, knifed past defenseman Jason Demers and beat Stalock with backhander between the pads.
The lead lasted exactly 58 seconds. San Jose pulled even on Havlat's fifth goal of the season at 13:05. Tyler Kennedy launched a long shot that bounced off Khudobin to Havlat, who beat him from low in the circle.
Burns gave the Sharks a 2-1 lead with 28 seconds left in the period, scoring his first goal since Jan. 5 against the Chicago Blackhawks and ending a 19-game drought.
Burns' linemates James Sheppard and Torres each had a well-deserved assist on the goal. Sheppard won a battle for the puck behind the net and fed a pass in front to Torres. He controlled the puck, then dropped a pass to Burns, who blasted the puck from short range past defenseman Ron Hainsey and Khudobin for his 15th goal of the season.
For the second straight game, Burns opened on the third line instead of his regular spot on the top line with Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski. But by midway through the second period, he rejoined the No. 1 line, trading places with Nieto.
"He was in the right spot, shot the puck and he did some other nice things on the ice," McLellan said. "It was very encouraging. Now the monkey is off his back maybe he can get back to relaxing and just play the way he can."
Carolina tied the game 4:16 into the second period on Lindholm's fifth goal of the season. As Eric Staal controlled the puck behind San Jose's net, Lindholm snuck into the slot. Staal hit him with a pass, and Lindholm ripped a shot past Stalock.
Lindholm "is really coming on," Muller said. "We're using him in defensive roles, offensive roles. He's the type of guy we knew that we wanted when we drafted him. Big goal from him at the start here today. His game is just getting stronger and stronger."


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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – For the second straight year UMass Boston volleyball (24-15) has overcome challenge after challenge to once again hoist the maple and bronze as the Beacons hoisted the 2013 NCAA Division III New England Regional title following a 3-1 win over the host Ephs of Williams College Sunday afternoon at Chandler Gymnasium.
With the victory the Beacons earned their third regional title in the last four seasons and successfully defending their 2012 crown, which they won in dramatic fashion over Bowdoin College.
The Beacons will now travel to Holland, Michigan where they will face Calvin College in the first round of the NCAA National Tournament. The match is scheduled for Thursday afternoon on the campus of Hope College at the DeVos Field House. An official start time will be announced Monday morning on NCAA.com.
Leading the Beacons to the regional championship was All-Tournament honoree Kirsten Morrison (North Reading, Mass.) and the tournament Most Outstanding Player Elizabeth Glavan (Edina, Minn.).
Morrison was dominant throughout Sunday's championship as she scored 10 kills for a .318 hitting percentage. Glavan was unstoppable in the back row totaling 27 of UMB's 80 digs. Perhaps the most clutch performance came from senior hitter Amber Clemons (Simi Valley, Calif.) who came off the bench to score a match-high 14 kills and finished with a match-high .667 hitting percentage. She was also solid defenisively as she came-up with one huge block assists while also tallying four digs.
At Left: Elizabeth Glavan (left) was named the NCAA Regional Championship Tournament Most Outstanding Player and Kirsten Morrison (right) was named to the All-Tournament team
Freshman Julia Murphy (Canton, Mass.) and senior Corrine Porter (Huntington Beach, Calif.) combined for 22 kills respectively, while Porter totaled 14 digs to once again produce strong double-double. Murphy posted four block assists and three digs in her first regional championship. Senior Megan Pollock (Wilton, Calif.) tallied 41 assists, and seven digs to anchor the Beacons offense to a .217 hitting percentage.
For the first time all-tournament the Beacons started off the match behind on the scoreboard as the Ephs earned a 25-19 win in the first game. UMB struggled in the opening frame as the nerves prevented them from finding any rhythm. In the second the Beacons rallied in a big way to take a 25-16 win behind a strong offensive performance as they hit .300 in the win.
After a 10-minute break, the two teams returned to the floor with the Beacons firing on all cylinders as they powered past the Ephs behind a match-high .378 hitting percentage. The final game was a back-and-forth battle in the early on-goings, but around the midway point of the game, the Beacons began to pull away. Williams tried to stay in the game but with an injury to their top hitter took the wind out of the Ephs sails. With the Beacons scoring point after point and with the championship within their reach, Williams made one last push, but it was too little too late as the Beacons rushed the court with their 25-16 victory.
For Williams Tori Jasuta recorded a team-high nine kills. Ryan Farley posted 29 assists and 12 digs. Mandy Schott led the defense with 13 digs, one solo block, and four block assists. Katherine Lane posted a match-high six block assists.
For ticket information about this year's national championship tournament go to http://athletics.hope.edu/information/NCAAVB13/VBMain13.


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On a blustery late-winter afternoon at Manassas, where a muscular statue of Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson marks the spot where the Confederate general earned his nickname, the Civil War lives, not separate from life in Virginia, but intricately entwined with it.
A father and son inspect cannons in formation for the first major battle in the war that determined what freedom would mean in America. A jogger passes by on her daily route through the suburban sprawl of Washington, D.C., oblivious.
On a glorious day when spring is promised in every new bud at Appomattox, the state's still-rural center exudes the calm of truce. Visitors must make a point of finding this place where the nation reunited after four horrific years of war. It isn't on the way to anywhere. But it provided a pathway to everything that America would become.
The battlefield beginning and the inglorious ending of the Civil War in Virginia, and everything in between, tell the story of the war as only one place can. More major battles of the Civil War were fought in Virginia than in any other state. The National Park Service lists 123 sites, the most significant of which are protected in six national parks. About 7% of all visitors take in a Civil War site, and $1 of every $7 in visitor spending is related to the Civil War, according to Virginia Tourism Corp. research.
"I've found that people of all different kinds of ethnicities here in Richmond say, 'OK. I read about this all the time. Why does this matter to me?'" said Edward Ayers, a prizewinning historian of the American South and president of the University of Richmond. "What people … need to understand is that events that changed world history happened right beneath our feet. And that if the Civil War had turned out differently, in a multitude of ways, all of world history would have been different. …
"It's hard not to be interested in the human drama of 4 million people becoming free, of 625,000 people dying, of a struggle across the entire continent.
"If you don't find that interesting, you're dead to human interest."
From Manassas to Appomattox, standing on the very ground where those combatants once stood gives answers to the war's big questions.
Would there be an easy victory, as both sides expected? No, was the deadly answer at Manassas in July 1861. Washingtonians came out from the city in buggies with picnic lunches to watch from nearby hilltops, expecting that the Confederate Army would crumble and that the war would be over with a single battle. Instead, they were horrified when the clash of 60,000 soldiers produced 4,700 casualties, including 900 deaths. The U.S. Army, with 28,000 troops, suffered nearly 3,000 casualties before retreating back to Washington on the same roads as the civilians.
Today, Manassas National Battlefield Park commemorates both the first and second battles of Manassas (also known as Bull Run). The second battle, which happened a year later, was even deadlier than the first — 3,300 killed — but by then, soldiers were seasoned and ready to fight again.
A one-mile walking tour covers the ground of the first battle, which centered on Henry Hill, site of the visitor center. Henry House, rebuilt in 1870, stands next to a monument erected in 1865 by Union soldiers to honor their fallen compatriots. The grave of Judith Carter Henry, who was mortally wounded inside her house, is in the yard.
Following the trail toward the Robinson House, where South Carolina troops entered the battle, I decided to cut across the field to Jackson's statue — not a good idea for many reasons, including hidden marshy ground that soaked my feet. At the statue, seasonal park ranger Maureen Santelli was talking to a group. "In case you're curious, [Jackson] didn't really look like that," she said. "He's not that muscular."
An 18-mile driving tour explores the second battle at landmarks such as the Stone House and Stone Bridge. The first stop, at the Brawner Farm, includes exhibits focusing on that battle. On a Saturday afternoon, it's a pleasant drive. On weekdays, traffic can back up for miles on U.S. 29, which narrows to two lanes as it bisects the park.
Would African Americans continue in slavery? No, came the answer at Ft. Monroe in Hampton at the mouth of the James River, where just a month after the war began, Union Gen. Benjamin Butler declared that escaped slaves who reached the fort were "contrabands of war" and, therefore, free. ( President Lincoln made his Emancipation Proclamation two years later.) The historic fort will close as a military base in September, and its future development will include interpretation of its history.
No, was the answer again at New Market Heights, one of the units of Richmond National Battlefield Park, where 14 black Union soldiers received Medals of Honor for bravery in battle. The fascination now comes from standing on the spot where it happened more than from what you can see.
For a real sense of black success in battle, go to the annual reenactment at Ft. Pocahontas in Charles City County a few miles to the east. On May 21 and 22, the battle will unfold again on the very ground where the original soldiers fought in 1864. I watched three years ago as Confederates called a truce and rode forward to give black soldiers behind the earthworks an opportunity to surrender. The U.S. Colored Troops declined and successfully defended their incomplete fortifications.
Would the young nation survive as a union? Yes, came the answer at Appomattox in April 1865, when Confederate soldiers marched to the courthouse to stack their arms and go home in defeat.
The restored village stands today much as it did then. The reconstructed courthouse contains the visitors center and museum. The parlor of the reconstructed McLean House, where Gens. Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant met to discuss surrender terms, is arranged as it's depicted in paintings of the famous meeting.
All of the furnishings are reproductions, because the original parlor furniture was removed, some by souvenir seekers. A few items have been returned, notably a cloth doll that was a "silent witness" to the surrender. The doll on the mantel is a reproduction; the original is in the museum.
Wilmer McLean is tied to the beginning of the war as well as its end. His home near Manassas was being used as a Confederate headquarters when it was damaged in a skirmish leading to that first big battle. As federal control in northern Virginia increased after the Battle of Second Manassas in 1862, he moved his family and his sugar speculation business to friendlier and safer territory in Appomattox in the state's interior, and the war eventually followed him there.
Pursuing these questions and others has taken me all over my native state, but I've found that Manassas, Appomattox and Richmond provide the most compact answers. A scenic side trip from any of the three is easy by following the state's well-marked and mapped Civil War Trails, http://www.civilwartrails.org.
Along the way, you'll find stories that are improbable, unbelievable if they weren't incontrovertibly true, and unforgettable.
At her home in Richmond, for instance, Elizabeth Munford heard the rumble of the very battle that killed her son, whose body was returned to her that night. Charles Ellis Munford's military frock coat, laid out in a cart as if his body had suddenly vaporized, is on display at the Virginia Historical Society's major new exhibition called "An American Turning Point."
This signature exhibition of the state's commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War will remain at the historical society until the end of the year, then travel to seven other museums around the state through 2015.
The Malvern Hill battlefield on which Munford died in 1862 is also among the units of Richmond National Battlefield Park, which has its headquarters on Church Hill at the site of the Confederate Chimborazo Hospital and its visitors center on the riverfront in a restored building of the Tredegar Iron Works, which manufactured cannons for the Confederacy.
Near Petersburg, where a 10-month siege gradually cut essential railroad supply lines to Richmond 25 miles to the north, brother fought brother during the breakthrough battle.
Immediately after Petersburg opened the way to Richmond, President Abraham Lincoln and his son Tad toured the ruins of the Confederate capital, which had been set ablaze by its own departing troops as they destroyed supplies. A statue of father and son at Tredegar commemorates their visit.
Lincoln walked from the riverfront to the undamaged Capitol (a creation of Thomas Jefferson, who wanted it to look like a Roman temple to symbolize the democratic ideals of ancient Rome). Then Lincoln continued to the home where Confederate President Jefferson Davis had endured family tragedies as well as wartime defeats.
"Thank God that I have lived to see this! It seems to me that I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years, and now the nightmare is gone. I want to see Richmond," Lincoln said.
Ten days later, he was assassinated.
Both the State Capitol building and the Museum of the Confederacy, which includes the Confederate White House, have special exhibits for the 150th anniversary, and visitors can trace Lincoln's path through the city.
Californians were not immune from the conflict. In 1863, a San Francisco militia leader recruited the California 100 to form a cavalry company within the 2nd Massachusetts. By war's end, they had been joined by nearly 400 other Californians. The unit was involved in the Confederates' final breakout attempt at dawn on April 9, 1865, the day Lee decided to surrender his remaining 30,000 troops to Grant at Appomattox.
Samuel Corbett wrote about it in the April 9 entry in his diary, now in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.
"[At] 9:30 a.m. Lee sent in a Flag of Truce. . . Grant came up and agreed to a[n] . . . armistis [sic]. . until 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. This place is called Appomattox Court House. We camp here tonight. Saw Grant, Sheridan, Mead and Lee and in fact all the big Generals at Head Quarters this afternoon."
Visitation has already increased at least 10% at Appomattox Court House, and its anniversary events are still four years away, said Ernie Price, chief interpreter.
"If you're looking for meaning," Price said, "that's more easily found here than at any other Civil War park.
"Every time I go to a Civil War site in the National Park Service, the big question is never answered. Two armies show up, a horrific thing happens, two armies leave. At Appomattox, two armies arrive, and only one leaves. A big, big question is answered.
"Something happens here that has reverberations up to this minute."


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No need to pine for Halley's comet when the Orionid Meteor Shower is on display. Every October, Earth travels through the stream of debris left by the comet on its journey around the Sun.
Backyard stargazers get a monthly guide to the northern hemisphere's skywatching events with "Tonight's Sky."
NASA and the Office of Public Outreach (STScI)
Publication: September 25, 2017


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Oracle recently provided access to many new MySQL 5.6 features through http://labs.mysql.com for the user community to test and comment on. One notable feature is the InnoDB Full-Text Search (FTS) engine. It lets users build
FULLTEXT indexes on InnoDB tables to represent text-based content and speed up searches for words and phrases. Combining full-text search with InnoDB tables opens up text capability to transactional applications, where the textual data is frequently inserted, updated, and deleted. Given the importance of this feature to the MySQL audience, this article explains the design of InnoDB FTS and provides recipes for its use, as well as a short list of the limitations of this release.
The Design of Full Text Search
Like most database-powered search features, InnoDB Full-Text Search is designed as an "inverted index," in which the incoming text strings are tokenized into individual words, and these words are stored in one or more auxiliary tables. For each word, a list of Document IDs and word position pairs is stored. We call such a Document ID/Position pair list an "ilist." Thus, in the index table, two important columns are
word and
ilist. InnoDB FTS supports Proximity Search, which has been lacking in the MyISAM FTS feature, by storing the position (as a byte offset) for each word.
InnoDB FTS represents each search index as six tables. The words are divided among these tables based on their first characters. Currently, the partition criteria are hard coded, targeted to the Latin character set.
The partitioned design helps to parallelize the operation. In the current release, InnoDB only parallelizes the
CREATE INDEX operation, but it can parallelize other operations such as query and full-text search later.
Let's move to an example to illustrate the auxiliary tables with an InnoDB FTS index.
Starting in MySQL 5.6, you can examine InnoDB metadata (the InnoDB system tables) through corresponding tables in the
INFORMATION_SCHEMA database. Let's see how these auxiliary tables are created alongside the FTS index. These tables are specific to InnoDB, so you will not find them in MySQL's metadata, and you cannot query them through normal SQL interfaces.
Here is the definition of the
quotes table used for our example:
create table quotes ( id int unsigned auto_increment primary key , author varchar(64) , quote varchar(400) , source varchar(64) ) engine=innodb; -- Create the fulltext index create fulltext index idx on quotes(quote); -- Now check tables in the InnoDB SYS_TABLES: mysql> SELECT table_id, name FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INNODB_SYS_TABLES;
This generates:
19 rows in set (0.01 sec)
This output shows that there are multiple auxiliary tables with names prefixed with
FTS_ and postfixed with
INDEX_*. They are all inverted index tables associated with table
test/quotes through its
table_id column. The table
test/quotes has a
table_id value of 547, whose hex representation is 0x223, and "223" is embedded in the names of all the auxiliary tables associated with the
quotes table. Another hex value in the auxiliary table's name is the
FULLTEXT index ID. For example, in the aforementioned example, for the table
test/FTS_0000000000000223_0000000000000257_INDEX_3, the hex value 0x223 (547) means it is an auxiliary index table for table
quotes, and its index ID is 0x257 (599):
The index information can be retrieved through
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INNODB_SYS_INDEXES, using
SELECT index_id, table_id, name FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.INNODB_SYS_INDEXES WHERE table_id=547;
3 rows in set (0.01 sec)
idx is the FTS index we just created. There is also one index
FTS_DOC_ID_INDEX on the table. This is the index on the
FTS_DOC_ID column (which we will discuss later), and it is created along with the
FULLTEXT index if it does not exist already.
Batching the Insert Value with the InnoDB FTS Index Cache
The InnoDB
FULLTEXT index is represented on disk as a set of auxiliary tables, each consisting of columns
word and
ilist. InnoDB has an additional in-memory structure, the FTS Index Cache, which batches the inserted values before they are synchronized to the auxiliary index tables on disk. It acts like the InnoDB change buffer to save I/O during intensive DML operations.
The FTS Index Cache represents the same
word values as the
FULLTEXT index, using a red-black tree data structure. By caching the words from the inserted documents, we can avoid reading from disk while doing the initial filtering phase of a search, then merge (via union) the in-memory word list with the document IDs and positional data from the FTS index tables when producing the result set.
The buffering by the FTS Index Cache avoids frequent updates to the underlying FTS index tables during busy inserts and updates; the
FULLTEXT index only needs to be synchronized when the index cache is full. The batching technique also minimizes the number of entries for each word in the
FULLTEXT index. Instead of flushing each word with a single
ilist entry (with a single Document ID), it combines results from many inserted documents, creating an
ilist with multiple Document ID/Position pairs, and storing this information to disk as a single entry. This technique reduces redundant data, making the
FULLTEXT index smaller.
The index cache size is configurable by the option
innodb_ft_cache_size, with a default value of 32 MB. This option will be discussed in greater detail with the specifics of DML operations later.
InnoDB FTS Document ID
Another important concept is Document ID management. As with most FTS engines, the mapping from word to record goes through a unique ID. In our case, it is represented by the
FTS_DOC_ID (uppercase required) column. If this column is not defined, InnoDB automatically adds it to the user table when creating the
FULLTEXT index. The column itself must be of
BIGINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL type, with a unique index named
FTS_DOC_ID_INDEX. When you define this column during table creation, it saves considerable time in creating the
FULLTEXT index after loading data, since InnoDB does not need to reorganize the table (as happens when a new column is added). In such a case, you must manage the Document ID column to avoid empty or duplicate values.
Using the InnoDB FTS
New features often involve new syntax or changes to the existing syntax. However, this InnoDB feature is compatible with the existing MySQL syntax for full-text search using MyISAM tables. If you are familiar with the existing MyISAM FTS feature, you can quickly start using the equivalent InnoDB full-text search. However, there are some recipes and tips. (After these, we discuss a few limitations of this release.)


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"AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL" � (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET)
"Take My Photo, Tyra!" (CONTENT RATING TBD)
CHINA CHOW APPEARS AS A GUEST JUDGE � The girls must work extra hard to stand out, literally, when Tyra wraps them up in vibrant fabrics and photographs them during this week's photo challenge. This week's guest judge is supermodel China Chow, a famous petite model (#1305).


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Pixel Dungeons is a super fun Co-op Dungeon Crawler RPG made by Yohan Games. Invite 2-4 of your friends and play multiplayer! You can find over 15 weapons and 10 monsters! (in the beta). This game will have weekly updates! This game is currently on: Beta 1.1: Linux Feature will be added as soon as possible!
Only registered members can share their thoughts. So come on! Join the community today (totally free - or sign in with your social account on the right) and join in the conversation.