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Now in our study we are looking at the subject of revelation. Not the book of Revelation but the subject of Christianity as a revealed religion. I feel that it is very important for us to establish the credibility and the believability of the Bible. Since we believe and acknowledge that it is the source of all knowledge about God, since we study it so in detail and adhere to its principles, we need to be sure that what it says is true. Sooner or later Satan is going to bring into our lives doubts that are going to make us suspect whether or not the things that we have set our life on are really valid. And the more evidence we have, the better off we're going to be in times like that. There is no knowledge of God from reason alone. Paul says that the mind of the natural man cannot comprehend God. There is no knowledge of God from experience. There is no knowledge of God from the world systems of religion. There is no knowledge of God from philosophy. Every once in a while, it is true that those various things like reason and experience and religion and philosophy will intersect with truth.
So I've said that's like that clock that doesn't run. It happens to be right twice a day. So there will be an intersection with truth from time to time, but true knowledge of God comes only from the revelation of God. God must disclose Himself to man. We believe that the Bible is that disclosure. That this book in its entirety, 66 total books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New and that's easy to remember because three times nine is 27. That's how I remember it. A little Sunday School thing I learned. That'll help you.
But that in its entirety it is the revelation of God. Now today the Bible is being denied blatantly and out rightly as the revelatory word of God. It is also being denied in a more subtle way, neo-orthodox says it contains the word of God and so as you read it, certain parts that speak to you may or may not be the word of God to somebody else, but they become the word of God to you. That is it is subjective and whatever happens to you then gives its revelatory content.
Others are flatly denying it saying it is simply book of morals and ethics, etc. I heard a man on the radio today who was saying that Jesus was a wonderful teacher, the greatest teacher who taught many wonderful things that certainly gave us the philosophy of life for every happy man.
And so there are all kinds of views of the Bible. We believe that its in its entirety, it is revelatory, it is the disclosure of God, it is the revelation of knowledge that is otherwise unknowable. It cannot be attained to by any human source. Now, when we hold such a view of the Bible and the fact that it is not only the only revelation of God and the authoritative one, but that it is in its original autographs or copies inerrant, that is without mistake, in the very words and letters.
Since we believe such a very narrow view, why is that we can stand against all of the philosophers and intellectuals of our world that hold of this view? Now last time we said is it because we're more intelligent? No, because we're not. Is it because we have some secret information that they don't have? No, they can read the same Bible we read. They can make the same examinations that we make. They can look up the same archeological facts, the same prophetic truths, the same miraculous evidence. It's available to everybody. We don't have any special scoop on the unbeliever.
Some people think as we said last time that if an unbeliever only knew about archeology, if he only knew about miracles, if he only knew all the facts of the resurrection, if he only knew everything there was to know about fulfilled prophecy, both historically and in the end times, he would have to believe. But it doesn't work that way, because you see his mind is darkened. His reason is crippled. He is blind in his understanding to God's truth.
And all of the proofs that we'll be getting into of the Bible are not really proofs at all. They do not make the Bible true, the Bible is true. And they are not nearly so important to the unbeliever as they are to the Christian. We already believe this Bible. This is endeavoring to help us to have a firmer footing for our faith. There's a basic fallacy as we pointed out last time in thinking that the Bible can be proven to be true. Just as there's a basic fallacy in trying to prove that God exists. That's something that's apprehended by faith. When you give to the unregenerate man the right to judge whether the Bible is true or not, you give him a right that the Bible doesn't even give him. He doesn't have the right to judge whether it's true or not. It is true. No matter what he says and he is never to sit in judgment on God and he is never to sit in judgment on the word of God. And so the reason we believe is not because we're smarter and it's not because we've seen all the truth and our logical processes have led us to believe. The reason we believe folks is because the Holy Spirit did a divine miracle in our hearts and gave to us the knowledge of the word of God. He made us new creations. He opened our minds. The darkness flew away and we were able to see the word of God.
We cannot expect that to happen to the non-Christians, so let's not call these proofs. Let's call them products. We are not going to say that because of these facts, because of archeological, historical, prophetic, and miraculous truth, the Bible is therefore true. We are going to say the Bible is true, therefore these things are products of its truth.
And this then is to substantiate our faith. So our study is really for Christians. It's for believers or maybe it's for those just escaping from unbelief whose eyes are beginning to be open by the Holy Spirit and God will use this. Then again, we wouldn't rule out the fact that maybe some darkened unbeliever will hear these facts and at some time the Holy Spirit will bring these facts back to his consciousness, do a work of grace in his heart and it'll all come together and lead him to salvation.
But the purpose of the study is not to intellectually convince people who don't believe the Bible and it is not to give them a pile of information by which they can judge whether the Bible is true. It is to strengthen believers primarily. We begin then with the doctrine of revelation. And the doctrine of revelation is simply a theological title for the fact that God reveals Himself. Now, as we said, man lives in a world where he cannot know what is outside his world. The only way we can know God is when God condescends to reveal Himself to us. And so we believe that Christianity is that revelation of God. God has given to us a revelation from Himself. Revelation then is the act of God by which He has made known what was otherwise unknowable. There is no way to know what the Bible says unless God discloses it.
Now, as we look at our subject we're going to take five aspects. The revealer, the revelation, the reason, the result, and our response. Now first of all, just a quick review, the revealer. And by looking at Hebrews 1:1-2 just as a quick review, we'll see this in its perspective. The revealer, who is the Bible revealing? Who is this God whose up there disclosing Himself?
Hebrews 1, "God who at sundry times," different times, "and in different manners spoke and time passed unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." Now God has revealed Himself in many ways at many times. In fact, the Bible bridges a period of at least 1,500 years. And during that period of time in which God was revealing Himself, He was doing it in many different ways to many different individuals.
But always disclosing Himself. It is characteristic of God to speak. That's part of His nature. Now people ask why does God create? Why did God create men if He knew they'd all go awry? Why does God create? That's a simple question. He creates because it's His nature to create and that's what He does. Why does an artist paint? Why does a singer sing? It's because that's what's in them to do.
And so it's in God by virtue of His nature to create and so He creates. And it's also in God's nature by virtue of who He is to speak so He speaks. God cannot remain undisclosed. It is His nature to communicate. We found that in the Old Testament as we studied it, God said, "I am not like the dumb idols. I will speak." And you know, there are times when God doesn't speak. And we said the times that He doesn't speak are for the most part what? Judgmental.
When God is silent that's judgment. And a good passage to support that concept is Proverbs Chapter 1, verse 23 to 28. When God doesn't talk it's because men have refused to listen for so long that His silence is judgmental. Now as we look at the Bible, we get an introduction to this revealer, and we're not going to look all the way through because that's the whole Bible.
The whole Bible is a disclosure of God. But let me just give you four facts about the revealer. Who is He? First of all, we saw the last time that He is personal, right? Whoever this revealer is, He is personal. Secondly, He is moral. He has personality and He has righteous standards. Thirdly, He is the beginning and the end of everything. He is the source and the stay and the end of all creation, the Alpha and Omega.
And fourthly, He is available. Isn't that nice to know? Personal, moral, the beginning and the end of everything, and He's available. And so we met the revealer. Now that revealer has given us in this book the revelation, but not just in this book. Because outside this book there is another revelation and we'll talk about that in a moment and I want you to hang on, don't lose me at this point.
Let's go to point two, the revelation. The revealer has revealed His revelation. By revelation we simply mean the content of His communication. He spoke and what did He say? Well, let's find out. You know, it's important for us to know what God's revelation is because there's an awful lot of revelation being claimed today, did you know that?
There are all kinds of people writing books supposedly coming from God. I spoke at seminar last Saturday. No...well, I guess it was last Saturday, a week ago Saturday, some time. And a person came to me afterwards and said "you don't believe that there's any more revelation being given today." And I said, "no, I believe the revelation of God has been given. I believe it's finished." Well, this girl said, "well, I happen to go to a church where we have an apostle." I said, "who, Peter, James, John, or Paul?" "No, it's not any of those. He's...he's an apostle." And I said, "how do you know he's an apostle?" "Because he speaks direct revelation from God." I said, "you mean when he gets up and talks it isn't like a sermon it's like God is speaking through him." "That's right," she says, "he gives direct revelation every Sunday."
Now how are you going to evaluate that? And some of you may go to the bookstore and you're going to pick up a little book that says David Wilkerson's Vision. And you're going to read David Wilkerson's Vision. What's most interesting about it, Dr. Rod Mocker was telling me last week that another fellow at the very same charismatic conference in the same city at the very same week had a vision himself. That he also has published his vision and it contradicts with Wilkerson's vision. How interesting. That two people got two visions from the same God the same week and both of them contradicted each other.
It seems to me that God has never contradicted Himself once in the entire Bible. What is He doing contradicting Himself now? "I am the Lord," He said, "I," what, "change not." Now if two people are having two different visions from the same God either those people are not having two different visions or God has abdicated the throne and somebody else is running the place.
What is revelation and how much of the Bible or all of the Bible is revelation? Or is there more than this? We'll get into all of that. Let's begin at the beginning. Revelation is God's free voluntary act of love in disclosing Himself to men. It is God's communication. And there's no other way than the way God did it. Now, how do you suspect that Moses is going to sit down and write the creation of the world? He's going to sit down and He's going to say to himself, now let me see. I wonder how this whole thing came to be? All of his human reason could never begin to come up with Genesis 1 and 2. So you know what happened? God simply told him what happened. And Moses sat down and wrote "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and void. Darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God moved upon the waters, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.," all the way down to the first day, second day, third day, seventh God rested. Second Chapter He created man and so forth and He wrote that all down because God told him that. That's revelation.
There's no way Moses could know that. And so this is revelation. This is God's disclosure of Himself that reveals information which is otherwise unknowable. Now the next study we get into after revelation will be inspiration and inspiration is the method by which God transmitted the revelation. It's as if God took the package of revelation and stuck it on a vehicle and hauled it down to man. The package is revelation, the vehicle is inspiration, and we'll talk about how inspiration functions.
Can you imagine Isaiah sitting down to write and he writes, "A virgin shall conceive and bear a son." Now, I didn't come up with that myself. That's revelation. Can you imagine David sitting down and penning Psalm 22 and giving an absolute perfect description of crucifixion even to the statement, "My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me." And doing it hundreds of years before Jesus was ever born and not having had it revealed to him by God.
Can you imagine Ezekiel sitting down to write about the valley of dry bones and gathering all of the people of Israel together and putting them in the land again. Something you and I take for granted, but he was hundreds and hundreds of years before the time, if he didn't get it from God? That's revelation. That's what this book is.
These guys didn't sit down and write their thoughts. They wrote God's thoughts. Now let's back up a minute. In the concept of revelation, God has revealed himself in two broad categories. Now I want you to get these. First of all, He has revealed Himself through natural revelation, through natural revelation. And what do we mean by this? Well, we mean apart from the Bible. We can just put this aside for a minute.
God has revealed Himself through natural revelation. What do you mean by that John? Well, two ways, turn for just a brief moment to Romans 1 and I'll show you what I mean. Do you remember this verse? "The heavens declare the glory of God and," what, "the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night reveals knowledge." In other words, you can't look at the day time and you can't look a the night time and see the stars and all that God has made and the sun and all of its glory and not conclude that there's somebody who made that. Not and keep your mental sanity in balance.
So the firmament shows God's handiwork. Now that's what Paul says in Romans 1. Watch as we begin in verse 18. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Now you say well, why would God do that? I mean, why does He hold everybody responsible? Why would He fire out wrath on all ungodliness? Because men hold, what, the truth. You say well, where do men have the truth? (Tape messes up at 17:08) Now the next verse 19, "Because that which maybe known of God is manifest in them." This is conscience. God speaks to a man's conscience about His own existence.
And the second part of this natural revelation is not only in man, but it says in the next phrase, God has shown it to them and then the next verse, it's revealed in creation. So man has inside information about God and an outside. It is not only the created world that speaks of a creator, but it is man's inner conscience that tells him somebody made him.
I've never met a ten year old atheist. It takes a long time for a guy to get to the place where he's got enough intellectual pride to try to reason away the fact that there is a God. Now you say, well, what does natural revelation bring to bear on a heart of a man? As he looks around and he sees creation around him, verse 20, "the invisible things of God, from the creation of the world are clearly seen." What is? "Being understood by the things that are made, even has eternal power and God had so that they are without excuse." Now here he says that at least three things in that one verse, verse 20 are revealed by natural revelation and creation. What's the first one? His eternal power. The second one, His God head. And really we could add to that, His wrath. And if we throw Psalm 19 into here, we can add "the firmament shows His handiwork, the heavens declare the glory of God." So in natural revelation through creation man can see the glory of God, the power of God, the God head, and he can see God's wrath.
You say how in the world can he see God's wrath? Because he can see the curse on the earth. He can see that somewhere along the line this world is under a moral sentence. I think that's becoming more and more obvious. This is a great day for us to take the approach of saying look at the earth if you don't think there's such a thing as a morale standard, look at the violation of the earth that's going on today and its destroying itself.
It's under a curse. But just from the natural revelation, first of all man can see the glory of God. Now what is the glory of God? It's the composite of all of His what? Of His attributes. You look in this world, and you can begin to see what God must be like. You can look out there and you could be...you could be Joe Aborigine from the middle of nowhere. And you could walk out on your little lump outside your little mud hut and you could look up and say whoever's up there is very wise.
Look what he did. Whoever's up there is a very gracious God because look at the beauty of the world. Look at the color of the world. Look at the happiness and the joy and there are things that are happy and joyful. I mean, God could have made brown sky and brown grass and brown flowers and brown eyes and nobody with blue and all that, but God has added color to the world. God has done things to just brighten up life and so we can say God must be a caring God. He must be a gracious God. He must be a God of beauty.
And we could say He must be a just God, because there's just something about the world that makes right kind of prevail. And there's a knowledge that it does. And so we could talk about the attributes of God. Secondly, he says in this verse 20, that the man should know His eternal power.
Now one thing that you surely can see if you look at the created world is whoever this God, He's tremendously powerful, tremendously. When I was reading about the sun and how many millions of miles some of those gashious arms shoot off the sun, it was staggering to imagine the power generated to shoot those things into space.
And yet to think that that's one little tiny infinite tessimal sun in a universe of billions upon billions of sun with energy and power we couldn't conceive of and God is greater than all of those staggers your mind. And so we see that from our world alone, we know whoever He is, He's not only revealed His attributes, but He's especially revealing His power. He must be tremendously powerful. Then it says we should see His God Head. What does that mean? Well, the Greek is theotes, and what it has reference to is it has reference to His divine character. The fact that He is God, whoever He is let's face it, He's in charge. So we ought to see His attributes. We ought to see specifically His tremendous power. We ought to get the idea that He's running the show. Anybody that could do that is in charge, folks. Anybody that could make this universe is in control. He is sovereign deity. He is supreme. He is absolute. He is infinite.
And then you ought to be able to also, as I mentioned, to see His wrath, because you can see that the earth is obviously under a curse. So watch without saying one word, without speaking a word, God has revealed His attributes, His power, His absolute supremacy and His moral character. And it's all visible to man.
No man can believe there is no God unless that man has accumulated sin and by his super ego, his conscience has become seared and he has sinned the way his very reason. There must be a first cause. I can't understand how anybody could say nobody times nothing equals everything. That doesn't make sense. Psalm 100, which you've recited a lot when you were a little child and maybe never thought of the verse says this in verse 3, "It is He that hath made us and not we ourselves."
We did not spontaneously generate. "It is He that hath made us." Not us making ourselves. That's a pretty important verse. To imagine that creation is not the act of a revealing God is to say that a painting was done without a brush. Better yet without an artist or without a canvas or paint. Or without a concept of art. Paul was simply answering the information of natural revelation when he said to the Athenians. In Acts 17:24, he said, "God made the world and all things in it." I mean, that's something anybody ought to know. That's as obvious as anything.
Now that is the content of natural revelation. That is the content of natural revelation. Let me give you secondly the clarity of it. You say well, maybe its foggy, fuzzy, hard to tell. Watch verse 20, "For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are fuzzy." Is that what is says? Foggy. What does it say. "Clearly seen." Natural revelation is clear. God would be wasting His time to put a fuzzy revelation out. If God's going to do it's going to be clear. In fact, it is so clear that the last two words of verse 20 are what? "Without excuse." Nobody can beg off on the count of ignorance. No excuse for atheism. There's no excuse for agnosticism. You say well, John if it's so plain, why don't men see it? Educated and bright, intelligent people claim to see no evidence of God in creation.
I'll never forget reading what I read. I read an article in a science thing and the guy said I'm an evolutionist. And the reason I am is because I reject the idea of a transcendent God so what other options do I have? Now if that isn't the most subjective conclusion you ever heard. He just decided there wasn't a God, therefore he had to be an evolutionist.
That's just an idea of what men have done. How, if this is so unmistakable, have men missed it? Listen friends, God says the difficulty isn't with my revelation. The difficulty is with man. Catch it in verse 21. "Because when they knew God the knowledge is available. They glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, became vain in their imaginations, their foolish heart was darkened and they thought they were smart. But they were fools. So they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, birds, four footed beasts and creeping things."
God says the difficulty is with man. He held the truth. Verse 18, "He held the truth in unrighteousness." And so he can't know anymore. In fact, it says in verse 24, "Once he went this way God gave him up." What a fearful statement. "God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts." Lust means bestial and purity. "To dishonor their bodies between themselves, they exchange the truth of God for the lie," the lie, "and worshipped and served the creature more than the creator."
They loved themselves, so God gave them up, verse 24. Verse 26, "God gave them up." Verse 28, "God gave them over. God let man go in his own way and reject clear revelation." So you know what man's problem is? Here is unregenerate man, stands in the midst of a world where God's content is revealed, His attributes, His power, His wrath, all of these features we've talked about. They are disclosed to man the fact that God is sovereign and man can't see it. Man rejects it.
The state of unregenerate man is really sad. The reason he rejects is number one, Ephesians 2:1 says, "He's dead." Dead men don't respond. Not only is he dead, but Ephesians 4:18 says, "He's blind." Not only is he blind, but Ephesians 4:18 says, "He's ignorant." So unregenerate man is dead, blind, and ignorant. You say, how did he get in that mess? Because he turned his back on the truth. Because he willfully rejects the truth. He throws it aside, turns to himself, worships himself, chucks God, and God says if that's the way you want to go, I'll just let you go. And God gave him up. A Dr. Thomas whose book I was reading this week made this statement. He says, "Man has poked his own spiritual eyes out." God made Himself clear. God made himself visible in the natural world. The fault is not God's, it is the self-imposed choice of blindness through sin that man puts on himself that suppresses truth. So a natural revelation comes in creation.
Secondly, natural revelation comes in man. Look at verse 19 again. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them." It is in them. Now there's just something in a man that speaks of the fact that there's a creator that should be obeyed and glorified. It's amazing as I said that you don't find any ten year old atheists. You know, kids are so open to believing in God, because it's just a natural thing.
I remember when I was preaching one time in Mississippi and had a...I had a school assembly jammed with elementary kids. Boy that is really tough. I'm not good at speaking to elementary kids. Everything from first grade to sixth grade and I just gave them the gospel. And it was just jammed with kids, wall to wall bodies in this auditorium. And I got all done and I said now how many of you would like to give your heart to Jesus Christ. I want you come forward. Every kid. Every single kid in the building came up there. And I was standing there going I think I did something wrong. They don't have any intellectual problems. They're not fighting an atheistic philosophy. That is the most natural thing to tell a child that God made the world and that God cares about you, etc., etc.
It's not until man grows up and gets educated and sophisticated that he decides he's going to be his own god. And the Bible says that "they become vain," verse 21, "in their imaginations." You know what that translates out to in 20th century English? They have futile thinking patterns, futile thinking patterns. Their foolish hearts are darkened. Here He is surrounded by a revelation outside revelation, inside everywhere He sees the evidence of God, every bird, every rock, every tree, every flower, every star, everything that he sees, reveals God's glory, God's deity, God's sovereignty, God's power, God's holiness, and he concludes that God doesn't exist. And if He does it's because he has rejected the knowledge of God and he's worshiping himself.
And the supreme egotist is the atheist. Next to him is the agnostic. If a man does accept natural revelation, is he saved? Is he saved if he just accepts natural revelation like the guy who says well, I worship God at the beach. Yeah, well, I know there are times when I'd like to do that. Is that enough? Or like the natives somewhere who just sees God in everything and it's rather undefined. Is that enough? Is natural revelation enough to save? John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Then what did He say? "No man comes unto the Father, but by me." It's got to be more than natural revelation. Acts 4:12, Peter looked at the Sanhedrin and said, "Neither is there salvation in any other. There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." In John Chapter 3, Jesus said, "You are condemned because you don't believe in me." There's got to be more than just natural revelation.
I mean, let's face it folks. If all the people need to have is natural revelation to get saved, we might as well just keep the missionaries home, right? Because most natives don't have a problem. But if we introduce the gospel to them, then they've got to make a choice at that point. And if they make the wrong choice they're damned. But if you leave them alone and let hem hang in there on natural revelation, they'll be all right.
Well, how do you square that with the command of Jesus to go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature? If He said to tell every creature, then I'm going to take the assumption that every creature is going to need to know that revelation. You say what about the guy who's over in the middle of nowhere and no missionary ever gets to him? Well, I just believe that the Bible is clear that if he lives up to the life he has, God will come with more light and enough light for him to know the truth to save.
Now maybe he won't know Christ's name and maybe he won't know all the features, but I think God will deal with him as he lives up to the life that he has. And I think this is what Paul is saying in Acts 17. Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary so that's why God didn't stop with natural revelation. Watch this, He gave also special revelation, special revelation. Now this is very interesting subject. Man is the center, he's spiritually dead, he's willfully blind, he can't understand, he rejects natural revelation and then maybe all of a sudden in his life, he begins to kind of see that maybe there is a God. Maybe this natural revelation is revelatory. Maybe there is somebody up there.
But it doesn't do him any good to just grope around like that, because he can come up with anything. So God says in addition to the natural revelation, let me give you the special revelation that will tell you all you need to know about this God. And this is never before understood information.
God had some specifics to say, special revelation says those things. It tells about mercy. It tells about grace. Tells about forgiveness for sinners. It tells about the sacrifice of Christ. It tells about salvation. It tells about the church, the second coming, everything from Genesis to Revelation is God's special revelation.
It wasn't enough to have that broad natural revelation God wanted specifics. God had something to say, and God doesn't mumble. And God doesn't speak in broad generalities. God said very specific things. In fact, you know, as we shall see in our study the very tense of the verb, the difference between plurals and singulars, the very simplest choice of words, the choice of the proper case of a word, indicates the exactness with which God speaks.
Now how did God reveal Himself in special revelation? Well, there are many ways. First of all, let me just give you a list of these. How did God reveal Himself in special revelation, not just the broad category of His deity being visible by the world, but how did He get special?
Number one is...and these aren't in any order, but the first one is theophany. Have you ever heard of a theophany? Well that means a visible appearance of God in some form. God at times began to appear to people in form. You say you're kidding? No, in what form? Well, you remember Abraham? Had some visitors one day in Genesis 18? You know who it was? God and two angels. And he ran and he said you guest come to my house and he said Sarah get in that kitchen and whip up something you know.
And didn't have any Hamburger Helper in those days, so, you know, you had to start from scratch and go kill whatever you're going to eat, you know. And they entertained God and two angels. God was peering in a theophany. That means an appearance of God in a form. Now God is invisible and so God assumed so kind of form. You have another occasion of it in Exodus Chapter 3. God appeared in the form of a burning bush didn't He? That's a theophany. So God said some specific things to Moses. God said some very specific things to Abraham in a theophany. And do you remember Jacob in Genesis 31 was wrestling with angel and it really was God wasn't it? It may be called a crystophania, pre-incarn an appearance of Christ. And then, of course, God's greatest theophany, His appearance in the form of man in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
So God did reveal Himself before Christ came in a visible way. On several occasions, He actually became visible in different forms. That's theophany and God said specific things. But every time God wanted to communicate specifics, He didn't have to appear He could speak too and He had some vehicles through whom He spoke. Do you remember who they were? Prophets. When God wanted to say something He would speak through the mouth of a prophet. And the prophet would open his mouth and say "thus saith the Lord," and God would take control of his mind and his mouth and he would speak for God. In fact, sometimes as you study the prophets you can't tell whether it's God talking or the prophet and that's the idea.
God used men supernaturally and spiritually controlled to communicate. Now you know it was amazing how God got His message across even in addition to the prophets. Sometimes God got His message across by casting lots. You remember that? Remember Jonah Chapter 1? God wanted a certain thing to happen. God wanted Jonah to take a short ride on a long fish and God wanted to be sure that it happened that way. So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. God just made sure he got the short stick.
And God got a specific thing accomplished. In Leviticus Chapter 16, God even gave instruction about casting lots. In Numbers Chapter 26, verses 55 and 56, again you have the indication that God got His will across through casting lots. So God specifically gave His will in a theophany, through prophecy, through casting of lots. Another one, He communicated His will through dreams didn't He?
For example, you have in the book of Genesis in Chapter 28, Chapter 37, Chapter 40, and Chapter 41 the significance of dreams repeated. Who probably was really used of God more than anyone else in the area of dreams? Joseph. Joseph, God communicated His will through dreams. I'll tell you that's a very common way. Another very common way for God to communicate His will was through visions. Can you think of two Old Testament prophets who had visions?
One was Ezekiel. Have you ever read Ezekiel 1, boy that's a vision like no vision. Don't try to figure that out. That's like trying to unscrew the unscruitables. It's just there and you just say praise the Lord, halleluiah, go to Chapter 2. It's been used by many people in modern times to be a so-called description of UFOs. That's one theory you can immediately reject.
Another prophet who had some...who dealt in visions was Daniel. And Daniel dealt as a secondary figure in visions because the visions often came to somebody else and he would interpret the vision. So God communicated through dreams and visions. There were other times when God communicated by speaking. The Bible says and God said. Did you know that God came to Abraham and said "Abraham get out of Ur of the Chaldeans and go to a land that I want to send you to." And He just talked to him and He talked to him and He talked to him and quoted through Chapter 15 He talked to him again on into 17, 18. God talked and said.
How many times have you heard the prophets make the statement, "Thus saith the Lord." Sometimes God just flat out spoke. Why you can think of the apostle Paul on his way to Damascus and all of a sudden the Lord talks to him right out of heaven. What a fantastic concept. And imagine what kind of a loud speaker system they had up there. But God could send His voice across the sky from wherever heaven is and communicate verbally and He did it.
There's another interesting thing that in the Old Testament it says that sometimes God communicated face to face. Now you say, well God doesn't have face. No, so we know it doesn't mean literal face to literal face. But it means that God actually came down somewhere and just stood nose to nose with a prophet and they just talked. And they were just all edicts coming out of the sky, you know, and God thundered. I don't see Him. Boom, you know, like Mount Sinai. Moses was up there going like this and God was booming and everybody at the bottom was hearing the noise.
But sometimes God came down in a face to face communication. So you see, God wanted to disclose Himself. All of these are simply media by which God communicates. Another thing God used, I think this is most significant, another thing God used to communicate was miracles. You say what did miracles do? They just communicated that God was involved. That God was present. That God was active. And watch, God used miracles to attest to the preaching.
Old Elijah would come around and he'd start announcing what God said and everybody would say oh how do we know you're true, and then he'd raise somebody from the dead. They'd say maybe the guy's right. Pretty classy signs. You come to Peter and Peter stands up and preaches the gospel then he heals everybody that's sick, and he's going to make some people wake up and say this guy may really be from God. You see God in the New Testament particularly, as well as in the Old Testament era, at least in two different periods of the Old Testament, God literally accompanied His word with signs in order that men might know that it was His word.
Because Paul would preach and Peter would preach or whoever it was, even Jesus, and God attested to Jesus' truthfulness by signs and wonders, didn't He? In 2 Corinthians 12:12, it even talks about the signs and wonders and mighty deeds of the apostles to confirm the word.
So miracles were to prove God was speaking. I think it's interesting, just look for a minute at Mark Chapter 2 and an illustration of how God reveals Himself through miracles. "Jesus came to Capernaum after some days and He was in the house there and straight way many were gathered together," Mark 2:2, "insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no not so much as about the door and He preached the word unto them. They come unto Him bringing one sick of the palsy born by four when they could not come near unto Him for the crowd. They uncovered the roof where He was and when they had broken it up they let down the bed in which the sick of the palsy lay. They took the roof off and dropped him the middle. "When Jesus saw their faith He said unto the sick of the palsy, Son thy sins are forgiven thee." Now watch, "But there were certain of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts why doth this man speak blasphemy? Who can forgive sin but God? And immediately when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they had so reasoned within themselves, He said unto them why reason ye these things in your hearts?" Can you imagine the shock? He read their minds.
"Which is easier to say to the sick of the palsy? Thy sins are forgiven thee or to say arise take up thy bed and walk?" The man was sick because of violation of God's laws. His sickness was chastisement. So the consequence of forgiveness was freedom from the burden and the punishment. Verse 10, "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins, He saith to the sick of the palsy. I say unto thee arise, take up thy bed, go thy way in thine house. Immediately he arose and took up his bed and went forth before them all insomuch they were all amazed and glorified God saying we never saw it on this fashion."
Now here God uses a miracle to attest to the truthfulness of the word of Jesus Christ. There was a healing, that's a mighty work. They were amazed. That's a wonder. It was a sign that the Son of man had authority. Those are three terms, signs and wonders and mighty works. The mighty work created the wonder that was the sign. So God acts and so God speaks.
Now the result of all of God's acting and all of God's speaking was His revelation. You say well, John, how come we have this Bible? What is this? This is the recording of all of those acts and speakings of God. You say well are every...is everything that God ever said, that God ever did here? No, some of His revelation didn't get into the written revelation.
Did you know that John, the apostle, said in Chapter...at the end of his book, he said, Chapter 21, "That I suppose that all the books of the world could not contain," right, "the things concerning Christ." So God did many things that aren't here. But God wanted of all of His revelation to capture the main part of it and put it in writing.
And that's the Bible. Now God wanted to preserve His revelation so He had it written down. Now friends, writing down the revelation is important. Do you know why? Passing on oral communication gets really sloppy. God new that oral communication is very risky. And God wanted a written truth. And God had it written down and Jesus said this, Matthew 5:18, "Verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in now wise pass away from this law." He said God wrote it this way, it'll never be changed. God wrote it down this way. The original word then that we have here is the record of God's revelation.
In fact, you know what God said to Moses in Exodus 17:14? God says, "Moses write this for a memorial in a book." God wanted His revelation written down. You say, why did He want it written down? Well, because first of all, a book groups all the messages together. I mean, wouldn't it be horrible if you had to trail around to find people who had bits and pieces of the oral communication?
If the only authority we had was if somebody told somebody and this is what I got from them and I guess this is how it is. Whoa. Help. A book gathers all the message together. 1 Corinthians 10:11, "These things happen to Israel by way of example." Listen, "They were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages are come." The things that happened in Old Testament time to Israel were written down for us today.
It groups them all together for our admonition. God wanted us to have them all. These things are by way of example. Another reason that God wrote it down is not only because the written word preserves the original and the written word gathers it all together, but the written message is independent of the orator and the writer. And that's good. People come to me and they say well the other night in such and such a devotion, I had an ecstatic experience and God spoke revelatory words to me and revealed great truth to me.
No, God doesn't do that. God isn't in the business of giving private revelation. God has gathered it all together and God wants it independent of the orator and the writer and that's the beautiful part. Let me illustrate that to you. Jeremiah 36, and Jeremiah is a good illustration of a revelatory tool, because God continually spoke to him and he continually said, "the Lord said." But a most interesting portion in 36:2, now listen to what the Lord says to him. This is really good. The Lord said, "Take a scroll of a book and write in it all the words that I have spoken unto thee against Israel, against Judah, against all the nations from the day that I spoke unto thee from the days of Josiah even to this day."
He's says Jeremiah write everything down. Write it all down. Verse 4, "Then Jeremiah called Baruch, the son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the Lord." Now my friend there you have one of the greatest pictures of what inspiration is that you'll ever find in the Bible. Do you even know what that verse says? It says Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah the words of the Lord. "God literally spoke through the mouth of Jeremiah. And he wrote which he had spoken unto him upon the scroll of a book." He wrote it down. Now you know what was beautiful about it? You say why did God want it written down? Because, look at this, verse 5, "And Jeremiah commanded Baruch saying I am restrained I cannot go to the house of the Lord." You know why? He was a prisoner. Now if the prophet's in jail, the prophet's not going to be any good for the people, right? So God says write it down. Why? So that the word would be independent of the writer and independent of the speaker. So that if the speaker's in jail the words still goes on.
So he says in 5, "write it all down because I'm restrained, therefore go and read in the scroll that which thou hast written from my mouth the words of the Lord and the hearing of the people and the Lord's house upon the fast day and thou shalt also read them in the hearing of all Judah who come out of their cities." He says, I'm a prisoner, you take God's word and take it all over the place and read it to everybody.
"It may be that they will present their supplication before the Lord return everyone from his evil way, for great is the anger and fury of the Lord has pronounced against His people. A Baruch, the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the words of the Lord in the Lord's house. It came to pass in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah in the ninth month they proclaimed a fast before the Lord to all the people in Jerusalem, to all the people who came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem. The read Baruch in the book the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord and the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe and the higher court at the entrance of the new gate of the Lord's house and the hearing of all the people." And so it goes.
And you know what happened as a result of reading it? Some wonderful things happened. From verse 14 to 21, they got so excited about it they wanted to make sure the king heard it. And the word of God was heard by the people. Verse 28 says, "Then take thee another scroll and write in it all the former words that were in the first scroll, which Jehoiakim, the king of Judah hath burned." King wasn't too happy about it.
Verse 32, "Then took Jeremiah another scroll and gave it to Baruch the scribe the son of Neriah who wrote it from the mouth of Jeremiah. All the words of the book which Jehoiakim, king of Judah, had burned in the fire. And they were added besides unto them many like words." Here was God giving His revelation to His prophet and God repeated it when it was burned.
Now you see God wants it written because it becomes independent of the one who happens to be in prison and can't get around. Simple point. Another thing that that point brings up is that God wants His revelation written because that way it is mobile, it is enduring, and it is far reaching. Do you realize the prophets are gone now? But do you know something? Though the prophets are gone here I am in America, clear halfway around the world from the land of Israel where those truths were dictated and I've got it in my hand write here. I don't need the prophet. This book is mobile. It transcends His life time. It is enduring.
You know how they had a revival in Nehemiah's time? You say the got a prophet. No, they didn't get a prophet. In Nehemiah Chapter 8, verse 1, we have a fantastic thing that happened. Nehemiah 8:1, "All the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate and they spoke unto Ezra, the scribe, to bring the book of the law of Moses." Do you know what they did? They got out Moses' writings. Now they were in bad shape at this point and they're going to have a revival here. Going to be something exciting, spiritual revival and so they got the book of Moses. Isn't it wonderful that they could have it? Moses is long gone, that's why God wanted His revelation written down.
"And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation of men and women, all who could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month and he read from it facing the street that was before the water gate, from the morning till midday. Before the men and the women and those who could understand the ears of all the people who were attentive." Boy I'm telling you could stand there from dawn till midday attentive to the word of God, the Lord's doing something.
"And Ezra, the scribe, stood upon pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose and some folks stood beside him," and I'm not going to attempt to tell you who they were. "And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people where he was above the people and when he opened it the people stood up. And Ezra blessed the Lord the great God and all the people answered Amen, Amen. Lifting up their hands and the bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground." Boy they heard the word and they got right with God right on the spot.
Verse 8, "So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly." All right, watch this, "And gave the sense and caused them to understand the reading." There's the greatest Old Testament verse on expository preaching right there. You read it, you give the sense of it, then you help the people to understand it.
That's how to preach. And they had a revival and the book was mobile and they didn't need the prophet and they didn't need Moses. Another thing I think that is important and the reason maybe that God wanted His message written down is because a written message makes everybody responsible. It does. It's written, everybody's responsible. Listen to the words of Jesus. Luke 16:29, listen, "They have Moses and the prophets," what, "let them hear them." Jesus says they're responsible.
You've got the book friends. You're responsible. You know that brings up a tremendous point. You know there are many homes in America that have Bibles. There are many people that have Bibles. You have the book, listen to it, hear it. And so there was no need for a big dramatic miracle. There's no need for this guy out here to be getting prophecies from God and uttering so-called visions and all of this kind of stuff.
Here it is friends, right here. God wrote it all down. It's all here. You say well, maybe God didn't put it all in there. Oh I think He did. I think at the end of book of Revelation He says if you add anything to it, it shall be added unto you the plagues that are written in it. And I get the impression that He doesn't want anything added to it. There's no miracle needed friends. You don't need some great divine miracle to tell whether I'm telling you the truth or not. You know how you know whether I'm telling you the truth? How do you know? Read the Bible, find out.
You could tell a false prophet the day that fast. All you've got to do is check him with the Scripture. It's all there. God's revelation. So the Bible is a culmination and a product of God's revelation. It's the embodiment of God's disclosure of Himself to us. That's the revelation.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the word, the revelation. Oh how exciting it is to hold in our hands this treasure of divine knowledge. What a blessed thing it is. Thank you God for giving it to us. For having placed in our hands the truth that we might know thee, that we might know ourselves and that we know...that we might know how to serve thee. Thank you Father for your revelation. Thank you for the truth revealed to us and we thank you in Christ's name. Amen.
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outnabike wrote:arkle wrote:outnabike wrote:I see a parking place for a couple of cars on the left.
He'd probably seen the bike behind him and decided not to risk turning straight into the space in case the cyclist came up the inside and hit the car, and he deliberately stayed out in the road to give the cyclist enough room to come up the inside. If I'd been driving the car I'd have done the same things. You can't safely turn directly across a cyclist's path even if you've indicated in good time.
Hi arkle, Fair comment but you just don't know what was in his head do you? The choice of that word "probably", says we don't know much about the drivers thought process.
I reckon there is to much credit being given to the motorist.
He saw the cyclist, he thought the cyclist may go around on the left, he was being courteous. All assumptions of good will.
But what did the cyclist see, a bloke who stopped in the middle of the road and seemed confused. There is not enough of putting ourselves into the position of the cyclist.
If you stand back and really just watch motorists in action you will see this sort of process all the time, and there can be no motorist in sight.
The space was big enough to drive into, but not big enough for two cars.
The predictable thing to do would be to indicate to park, decide not to nose in, then move beside the car in front to reverse park. Like in many situations doing omething unpredictable causes problems.
I probably should not have passed the car when I did, but felt it was that or falling over clip stack style.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Weekly Standard
It's a well-known fact that on most college campuses, supposedly havens of academic freedom, you really have to watch what you say.
The vast majority of America's universities, both public and private, have speech codes that regulate the utterances of their students, professors, and administrators. Some of those codes at private universities spring from the religious or ethical missions of the institution, and it's understandable that those campuses might want to forbid, say, swearing or pornography or insulting the institution's faith tradition. But most campuses are avowedly secular, and what the speech codes enforce is political correctness. That means curtailing expressions deemed "offensive" (a word that appears in many a speech code) to the easily aroused sensibilities of a range of fashionable victim groups, especially militant feminists, for whom, say, fraternity pledges carrying posters reading "WE LOVE YALE SLUTS" outside the Yale Women's Center constitutes "sexual harassment" (this actually happened in 2008). Some of the codes are laughably extreme. At California State University, Chico, for example, the definition of sexual harassment can include "reinforcement of sexist stereotypes through subtle, often unintentional means" and "continual use of generic masculine terms . . . to refer to people of both sexes."
In recent years, thanks to ridicule and lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the codes, the free-speech watchdog Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has tracked a slight but encouraging trend among colleges toward getting rid of them. That is, until this May 9, when the Obama administration's Justice and Education Departments jointly issued a directive that essentially makes speech codes mandatory on all college campuses that accept federal funding. That means all U.S. colleges and universities except for a tiny handful that eschew federal grant money and refuse to participate in the federal student-loan program.
The directive came in the form of a 31-page letter to the University of Montana from the Justice Department (DOJ) and the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which have authority to enforce antidiscrimination provisions in Title IV and Title IX of federal civil-rights and education laws. DOJ and OCR had conducted sexual-harassment investigations after two female students reported having been sexually assaulted by football players on the university's Missoula campus in 2011. During the course of the investigation nearly three dozen other complaints about sexual assaults and harassment surfaced, and the DOJ and the OCR took the position that the University of Montana's procedures for handling those complaints were inadequate.
The May 9 letter reflected the terms of a settlement with the two federal agencies to which the university had agreed. But the letter also declared that those settlement terms were to be "a blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country." And the core language of that "blueprint" consisted of a brand-new and sweepingly broad definition of sexual harassment as any "unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature," including "verbal . . . conduct of a sexual nature." The letter contained no thresholds, limits, or standards for construing what "unwelcome" might mean. "Unwelcome" to whom? The chair of the women's studies department? A charter member of the Society for Cutting Up Men? Does telling an off-color joke count if someone gets offended?
Furthermore, the DOJ/OCR letter makes it mandatory for the University of Montana—and by extension nearly all universities—to nip sexual harassment in the bud by conducting their own Title IX investigations of any dubious conduct they hear about "regardless of whether a student has complained, asked the university to take action, or identified the harassment as a form of discrimination." Miami Herald columnist Glenn Garvin joked that a professor could get into trouble for assigning the bawdier bits of Shakespeare.
The new DOJ/OCR definition of campus sexual harassment seems to fly in the face of previous court and administrative interpretations of both sex-discrimination law and the Constitution. Courts have traditionally regarded sexual harassment as grounds for finding an employer or educational institution in violation of prohibitions against sex discrimination, specifically forbidden by Title IX and a range of federal employment laws. But the courts have also interpreted sexual harassment fairly precisely: as either demanding a quid pro quo (sexual favors in return for a good grade) or maintaining a "hostile environment" (permitting sexual assaults, innuendos, or an otherwise sexually unpleasant atmosphere).
In a 1999 decision, Davis v. Monroe County Board of Education, the Supreme Court, following the lead of its earlier decisions on employment law, ruled that for a hostile environment to exist, the harassment of a student must be "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it can be said to deprive the victim of access to the educational opportunities or benefits provided by the school." The implication was that an occasional sexual taunt by a fellow student or a stray dirty joke told on campus wouldn't be enough to hold an institution liable for sex discrimination. In addition, the Supreme Court's requirement that the words or conduct in question be "objectively offensive" eliminated the possibility that an educational institution could be liable for sex discrimination on the basis of a student's feeling offended over a classmate's bringing a copy of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to campus.
Furthermore, the First Amendment's free-speech guarantees come into play once an educational institution stands in danger of being penalized for permitting expression that would be clearly permissible in a noncampus setting. Public colleges and universities, like other government entities, must afford full First Amendment protection to those on their grounds, and constitutional challenges to absurd speech codes at public universities have been extremely successful.
In 2008, for example, a federal appeals court struck down a sexual-harassment policy at the public Temple University in Philadelphia that banned "expressive, visual or physical conduct of a sexual or gender-motivated nature" after a former graduate student in history sued the university, alleging that the policy prevented him from expressing his views on women in the military in class. Private colleges enjoy no First Amendment protection per se and are free to adopt the speech codes of their choice, although some, such as Yale, have internal policies that at least in theory protect students' freedom of expression. Still, the Constitution forbids the government from mandating infringements of students' or professors' free-speech rights at both private and public institutions.
It was with the First Amendment in mind that in 2003 the George W. Bush-era OCR issued a "Dear Colleague" letter addressed to university presidents reminding them that "the statutes that [the OCR] enforces are intended to protect students from invidious discrimination, not to regulate the content of speech." The letter by then-OCR chief Gerald A. Reynolds reiterated the standards that the Supreme Court had set forth in the Davis ruling and added this clarification: "OCR's standards require that the conduct be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable person in the alleged victim's position, considering all the circumstances, including the alleged victim's age." Reynolds borrowed the "reasonable" language from a 1993 Supreme Court decision defining sexual harassment in a workplace context.
The DOJ/OCR letter seemed to have made mincemeat out of the educational harassment standards that had been carefully crafted by the Supreme Court and interpreted by the Bush administration. For one thing, the letter smashed together the tines of the two-pronged test that the Supreme Court had created in the Davis ruling: that the alleged victim must not only feel subjectively harmed or threatened but that the speech or conduct in question must also be objectively harmful under the "reasonable person" standard. Instead the letter said that "the United States considers a variety of factors, from both a subjective and objective perspective, to determine if a hostile environment has been created."
"The letter widens the universe of things to be considered," said FIRE's president, Greg Lukianoff, in a telephone interview. (Lukianoff is the author of a 2012 book, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.) "Now, there's a balancing test," Lukianoff said. "You're effectively getting rid of the 'objectively offensive' requirement that's supposed to be met separately from the requirement that a victim feels subjectively harmed."
Worse still, according to Eugene Volokh, a professor of First Amendment law at UCLA, the DOJ/OCR letter unmoored the legal concept of "sexual harassment" from the legal concept of a "hostile environment" with its objective and subjective components that the Supreme Court said were necessary to prove a sexual-harassment case in court. Now, effectively, said Volokh, it won't matter for federal enforcement purposes whether the offensive speech or conduct on a college campus ever gets to the point that it's "severe" or "pervasive" or "objectively offensive" by "reasonable person" standards. "The OCR says that sexual harassment need not be limited to creating a hostile environment," said Volokh in a phone interview. "It's saying that sexual harassment is any unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. And it's telling universities that you need to punish that conduct: We expect you to set up a speech code."
The penalty for a college that fails to follow OCR rules is severe: the loss of all federal educational funding. It is not surprising, then, that the University of Montana scrambled to comply with whatever the two federal agencies demanded as conditions of settlement, even though it remains unclear whether there was any foundation to the numerous complaints about sexual misconduct that allegedly occurred there. The May 9 letter mandated that the university take such measures as "separating the accused harasser and the complainant" and "taking disciplinary action against the harasser"—all on the basis of, say, a ribald speculation about the sex life of the gender-studies professor. When the OCR flexes its muscles in the sexual-harassment arena, academia capitulates. In April 2011 the OCR ordered all colleges to lower their standards of proof in campus disciplinary proceedings for determining whether sexual misconduct had occurred. Not a single college protested.
Right now, the OCR seems to be vaguely embarrassed about the negative publicity that greeted the May 9 letter (a May 16 op-ed by Lukianoff in the Wall Street Journal jeered at the letter's apparent constitutional deficiencies). On May 22 Education Department spokesman Jim Bradshaw issued a statement insisting that both the letter and the settlement agreement with the University of Montana were "entirely consistent with the First Amendment and did not create any new or broader definition of unlawful sexual harassment under Title IX or Title IV." He asserted that the OCR remained committed to the hostile-environment standard. But Bradshaw added, "At the same time, it is important that students are not discouraged from reporting harassment because they believe it is not significant enough to constitute a hostile environment."
In other words: Universities had better set up those speech codes. They'd better start disciplinary proceedings against that professor who assigned Tropic of Cancer in his American literature class and incurred the wrath of feminist grad students. An investigation of this sort might go nowhere, "but professors would start watching what they're saying in their classrooms," said UCLA's Volokh. "That's a classic 'chilling effect' on free speech. It's why I think this is a very dangerous situation."
View this article at The Weekly Standard.


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Ubisoft DRM Fiasco: Allows Any Website To Take Control Of Your Computer
from the punishing-your-paying-customers dept
So would it come as any surprise that it may now be facing a "rootkit moment" of its own?
As a whole bunch of folks have been submitting, some hackers have figured out that Ubisoft's Uplay DRM appears to install an unsecure browser plugin. The details came out over the weekend, first on a security mailing list, and were then followed up with some test exploit code posted to Hacker News.
Basically, it appears that Ubisoft's DRM is installing an accidental backdoor that makes it possible for any website to effectively take control over your computer. That's... uh... pretty bad.
From the details, the real problem sounds to be one of exceptionally poor coding, rather than maliciousness. Basically, they wanted to let you launch the game via a website, but failed to limit it to just the game -- meaning that a site can make use of the plugin to basically do a whole bunch of stuff on your computer (including things you don't want it to do). The browser plugin is easy to remove (and you should, um, immediately, if you've installed any Ubisoft games), so it's not quite as messy as Sony's rootkit, which was pretty deeply buried. But it's still really bad.
Yet another case of DRM really making life difficult for legitimate customers who paid money for your product. When will companies figure out that DRM does nothing to stop piracy, but makes life really difficult for the people who actually give you money?


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Editorial Mandate: What to Do When a Publisher Blacklists You
Hey you! Reader! Want to be a part of the GREATEST COMIC BOOK AND GEEK COMMUNITY on the web?! Well, they're not accepting new members, but we'll take anyone here, so why not sign up for a free acount? It's fast and it's easy, like your mom! Sign up today! Membership spots are limited!*
*Membership spots not really limited!
Hey you! Reader! Want to be a part of the GREATEST COMIC BOOK AND GEEK COMMUNITY on the web?! Well, they're not accepting new members, but we'll take anyone here, so why not sign up for a free acount? It's fast and it's easy, like your mom! Sign up today! Membership spots are limited!*
*Membership spots not really limited!
by LOLtron » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:07 pm
Editor in chief Christian Hoffer talks about DC's blacklisting of the Outhouse.
Well, C2E2 was pretty momentous, wasn't it? Charles Soule is writing Thunderbolts, there's some more Hellboy coming out and they announced the title of X-Men's 50th Anniversary Event. While I'd usually be happy to talk ad nauseum about all the fun stuff coming out of C2E2, the biggest story for the Outhouse wasn't what was announced at the panels, but rather who we talked to. Actually, it was more who we didn't talk to. See, the Outhouse was formally informed by DC Comics we've been blacklisted for posting satirical articles critical of their company, and that until we discontinue this criticism they would deny us access from any of their creators.
We first caught wind of the blacklist when a marketing representative from DC turned down a request from Eric Ratcliffe a couple of weeks ago to bring a creator onto his long running "Why I Love Comics" podcast. Unlike the dozens of interview denials DC had sent us in the past, their marketing rep wanted Eric to call him to explain exactly why the interview was denied. We never followed up and dismissed the unusual request as one of the many, many weird things coming out of DC over the last few months.
Fast forward to this weekend, when one of our staff writers was told to go through DC's marketing rep to talk to some of their creators. DC's marketing rep scheduled a meeting, brought our staffer into an office and then told him that our interview requests would be denied because he didn't appreciate the satirical articles criticizing DC's recent editorial decisions.
He also offered to rescind this ban if our staffer agreed that our site would stop publishing articles critical of DC, despite our staffer explaining that we make fun of every aspect of the industry and that our satire wasn't unique to DC. This message was repeated to a second staffer when she walked into the room after she jokingly asked "Uh oh, are we in trouble?" The look the marketing rep gave her made it clear that we were.
Now, I'm not going to pretend to be heartbroken by DC denying us interviews. They've been doing a fantastic job of that over the years. While we had some success with the Vertigo and Wildstorm imprints, DC Comics has consistently either not responded to interview requests or straight up denied them when we've gone through the proper channels over the last few years.
Even worse, DC has shut down interviews that we independently set up, with creators apologetically explaining that we couldn't run interviews because DC had given exclusives away to the likes of CBR. So, I'm content with not having access, because they never really gave it to us in the first place.
In fact, it was DC's constant pushing us aside that helped push the Outhouse to the snarky, satirical site you see today. After years of being denied interviews and review copies while constantly kissing ass, and posting the same bland press releases in the hopes of being seen as "good soldiers", we decided that we didn't want to play ball anymore and decided to be a voice for change instead. And I haven't regretted that decision one bit.
It's been almost a year since we first started the "News Initiative" that spawned all the snark and satire you see on the front page. While we've had a few industry people upset with us from time to time, most of the industry professionals we speak to range from ambivalent to pretty positive about the site's new direction. At the very least, most people seem to at least be appreciative that we're taking an honest, unfiltered fan approach towards covering the news. At least 'til yesterday.
When we started the new direction of the site a year ago, we did it knowing that we'd probably piss a few people off. We knew that some of our jokes would fall flat; we knew that we'd occasionally bark up the wrong tree, and we knew that some people just wouldn't get our humor. And while that's all happened, we've enjoyed record traffic, made some new friends and reenergized the writing staff's love of writing about comics.
Am I surprised that we pissed off DC to the point that they felt the need to lecture our staffers? Nope. Remember, this is a company who fired a creator, rehired her and then pretended like it never happened. This is a company who just ended a weekly column with CBR because the website had the gall to ask their editors a real journalistic type question instead of the fluff promotional crap they were promised. This is a company that's become synonymous with creator mistreatment and can't go a month without some creator being shuffled off a book prematurely. This is a company that's turned alienating female readers into an artform. And yes, the Outhouse has covered each and every single one of those stories with gusto.
Considering the company's recent PR stance has been "Kiss our ass or we'll quit and start our own feature on our blog," it doesn't really surprise me that they didn't want us to come within ten feet of their creators.
But, we're not going to discontinue our satirical criticism of DC in order to talk to creators for five minutes. We love talking to creators at cons, but losing the privilege of asking them a few fluff questions and posting their answers on the site isn't going to ruin us. And if DC doesn't want us to make fun of how dysfunctional they are, they should probably stop having weekly public meltdowns and start trying to publish better comics. It's their god given right to blacklist us for not kissing their ass, and it's our god given right to mock the hell of their continued incompetency and expecting us to keel over when they try to get grumpy at us.
The best part about it is, had we gotten those interviews, it probably would have been the most positive DC our site has seen in weeks. For all of the snark and bullshit we like to give, we've always believed in treating creators like people, because that's what they are, and our years of interacting with industry professionals have proven that. Instead, DC has created yet another sideshow distraction that makes them look like a band of idiots and I get to sleep tonight knowing that DC's given us a whole new bag of material with which to mock them.
Stay tuned to the Outhouse, my friends. Things are about to get interesting.
Written or Contributed by BlueStreak
by GLX » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:11 pm
by Keb » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:20 pmAnd we as readers and consumers have every right to boycott DC's product, which I will be doing as of now. I encourage others to do the same.
by GLX » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:22 pm
Fuck that! I say we cause chaos in public and scream "Outhouse!".
by Keb » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:29 pm
I imagine this is what Zechs does all the time but replace "Outhouse" with "Richards".
by GLX » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:30 pm
And by "chaos", you mean stumbling in the street naked?
by Grayson » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:43 pmOh well, I have been pretty critical of the direction that DC has been going since the relaunch and I wasn't getting many DC books anymore anyways...so I can easily take the number of DC books down to zero without a second thought.
by GiveWarAChance » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:45 pm
How do you boycott a company that you already aren't reading? I didn't know you read any DC comics.
by BlueStreak » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:47 pmFor the record, I will never discourage anyone from buying comics that are actually worth reading.
by xaraan » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:50 pmAs someone who used to work in a corporate environment, I have so say: Whichever exec made this decision should be canned. We don't lose anything really by this blacklist. We will keep covering DC news honestly, despite what they might want. The fact is, as crazy as it might sound to some people, they need us more than we need them because we get a pretty damn good bit of traffic and all those people are the ones DC is cutting off, not us. Our traffic will continue to grow, if some exec decided he doesn't want that traffic reading quality interviews with creators, then that genius needs to find a new line of work.
And really, what this tells everyone is that any site that you see DC working with, you know those sites aren't giving you honest commentary and reviews.
by xaraan » Sun Apr 28, 2013 10:54 pm
Exactly, this is what makes us different from DC's attitude. Batman is still one of my fav books and I'll keep reading it as long as Snyder makes it awesome. If DC did something great tomorrow, I'd say how cool it was. If they offered us an interview with someone, we'd do it. We aren't going to cover something good just so we get something in return, but we also aren't going to cover something bad just because they wanna dick around.
Most of all, we don't need to do anything because, chances are, the same genius that made this dumb call will keep screwing up other stuff until they get fired anyway.
by TheSecondLex » Sun Apr 28, 2013 11:03 pm
Word. Very word.
Meanwhile, I encourage the buying and enjoyment of awesome books like New Avengers, Daredevil End of Days, Daredevil (by none other than Mark Waid, (who has shown that he can do just fine and pretty well awesome without DC thankyewverymuch), Young Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers, and even god help me...All-New X-men.
Seriously. I haven't done monthly comics since 2006/the days of 'Civil War', which took all of my junior year at college. I lapsed into the GN/Collected edition phase for awhile, and now monthlies are calling my name, and it's just...it's just great.
Go buy Young Avengers. Nownownow.
by Juan Cena » Sun Apr 28, 2013 11:08 pmAnd boom goes the dynamite...
by Rockman » Sun Apr 28, 2013 11:11 pmI can't believe this is legit. What a mockery DC is.
by GiveWarAChance » Sun Apr 28, 2013 11:15 pmI'm still going to keep reading the three DC comics that are on my pull list. I have to throw my support behind the creators that I enjoy. It's not the creators fault that the company they work for is run by complete morons.
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Wintery Woodlands: Birch Stool, Barnwood Bench & Leaf Collection
If you're looking to outfit your cabin (you know, because everyone has one) this season, look no further than our Classifieds. You'll be roughing it in no time.
• Brooklyn, NY: Birch Tree Stool - $325
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Shoppers, check out the Classifieds for many more listings. Sellers, gather up your goods and list them in our Classifieds to turn them into a little extra spending cash.
Go To: Classifieds Main Page
Apartment Therapy is not the seller of these items. This is an edited selection of our favorite offerings from our Classifieds. For more information, see How it Works. Happy Scavenging!


text:
Ever since I bought our current fifth-wheel trailer, I have complained that it is too big. We'll see just how big it is when I try to back it in beneath the grove of big pine trees. Frankly, I am not looking forward to backing it into that spot, but if I can get it there, it will be a primo place to spend much of the summer.
Our first visiting group was from Gilbert, Ariz. They were a sort of shake-down group to see if we were ready for summer visitors. They came to me and said that the men's restroom had a smell of propane so powerful that it made the boys' eyes water. I went to check and had to agree that the smell was really bad. But, it wasn't propane.
It embarrasses me to admit that I recognized the smell. It was coming from an inadequately vented septic system. We propped open the door, opened the windows, turned on the exhaust fan and put out more deodorizing cakes, but nothing helped.
Later, I made a thorough inspection of the venting system. I found that the vent pipe exited the building high on the south wall. The obvious problem was that it exited and ended right between two exhaust vents, one to the men's side and one to the women's side, providing a direct passage for the foul gasses to enter the restrooms.
I reported the situation to the powers that be and suggested that an extension be added to the pipe to take it away from the exhaust vents and run high above the peak of the roof. I am 99.9 percent sure that such an extension will cure the problem. I told those in charge of such things that if the extension worked, as I believe it will, they should name those few feet of pipe and elbows, The Oliver Harris Memorial Septic Vent Extension. They seem to think me excessively light-minded.
As for the charge of being excessively light-minded, I am guilty. As we rushed around trying to deal with the ghastly smell in the boys restroom, it came to me that we should just light a great big match. This thought led me to think of my next email address, should I decide to change. It would be, "oh,lightamatch!" It would work on a couple of levels. First, "o" and "h" are my initials. Next, the inclusion of the comma and the exclamation point would make the email address an exclamatory sentence. And, it would be easy to remember, especially if I am granted The Oliver Harris Memorial Septic Vent Extension award.
The only thing that worries me about hosting at the guest ranch is if I can keep my impatience under control. We are in a perpetual drought and water is like gold. I cannot tolerate waste of any sort, especially of water. I figure that the first three minutes of a shower are for sanitation. The next three minutes are for relaxation. The next three minutes are for meditation. And from then on it is all about zombification.
The other thing that tries my patience is rudeness, which often comes in the form of dust, noise and speed from four-wheelers. I have a wrist rocket and marbles for ammo, but I'm afraid it would get me in trouble to ding a kid with a marble.
Still, we are looking forward to spending much of the summer in the quiet coolness of the aspens and pines.


text:
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory broke his campaign promise to North Carolina women on July 29, signing sweeping anti-women's health legislation that will deny women access to basic care. It's the same story we're seeing in Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio, and in Congress. Our opponents have proven time and again that they will stop at nothing to force their agenda on women nationwide.
But we aren't backing down, and we will not allow politicians to force their agenda on women — not in any state, no matter what. We will tell these lawmakers where we stand and make sure they get the message: the fight to defend women's health and rights isn't over, and we're in it for the long run.
In for the long run
Listen up, lawmakers: we're still here, we're still standing, and we're in it for the long run.You might not see us crowding your corridors and objecting from the balconies, but make no mistake, we are still here. We are in Texas, in North Carolina, in Ohio, and every place a small group of politicians tries to turn back the hands of time on women and rights. We're still here -- and we're not going anywhere. We're in it for the long run... and we are bigger and more determined every day.When you shut down health centers, when you trample women's basic rights, when you expose the plain contempt you feel for women who want nothing more than to make their own medical decisions -- we get stronger. When you twist the rules and abuse your power to force your ideology on women, we get louder. And when you stand between a woman and her doctor, you remind us of what we're fighting for. We are in it for the long run. No matter how long it takes, no matter how hard you push your ideology, no matter what -- millions of people like me will stand up, speak up, and stay there. For the long run. For as long as it takes.
Sincerely,[Your Name] [Your Address] [City, State ZIP]


text: > because parity has to be calculated and written to the disk. In fact this > performance penalty has lead to a campaign against RAID5: > > http://www.baarf.com/ bah. redundancy costs - your only choice is what kind of redundancy you want. raid5 has its issues, but really what's needed is redundancy managed by the filesystem. doing it block-level is what introduces the pain. >> 3) I'll leave the /boot partition on one of the 3 disks and it will NOT >> be included in the RAID array, is this ok? > > I think you'd be better off putting your system one one of your three disks, > and making a RAID1 for /home from the other two. This will give you a I disagree. for one, I strongly advice against partition-o-philia: the somewhat traditional practice of putting lots of separate partitions on a system. but for 3 disks, linux MD has a nice mode where each block is stored twice. so you get 2/3 space efficiency and potentially better performance. > It works, and you do get HA, but performance is not good. I'm now simplifying > and upgrading the systems by fitting a 3ware 8006-2 hardware RAID1 controller my experience with old 3ware boards was quite poor performance - much slower than MD. >= 95xx are respectable, though. > One thing you need to bear in mind in relation to HA is that software RAID > does not support hot-swap - That's why I chose the 3ware 8006-2, which is not > very expensive. It doesn't automatically detect new disks and rebuild the > RAID, but it does support hot-swap and has a web GUI: > > http://www.3ware.com/products/serial_ata8000.asp MD software raid certainly can support HS - it's mainly a feature of the controller. (this is not to say that most controllers do HS well.)


text:
Bennett students' nonviolence agenda seeks to repair image
Bennett High School was the target of much online vitriol after 10 of its students were arrested recently for allegedly assaulting and robbing an elderly man in Shoshone Park.
It didn't sit well with other students, who took disparaging Internet posts about their school personally, their principal said.
They did something about it on Friday, donating $200 they had raised themselves to the Sister Karen Klimczak Center for Nonviolence.
"We're showing people that not all students are like that," Chronicle McLain, 16, said of the students accused of the Shoshone Park assault. "We're not all deficient like that. We don't all make poor decisions."
McLain, who just finished his junior year at Bennett, helped organize the fundraiser with classmates Rachel Bish and Eric Thompson.
On June 7, they sold black ribbons to other students for $2. Anyone who bought a ribbon could wear jeans to school instead of the school's uniform. And on Monday, students remained silent in the hallways between classes as a way to show a commitment to nonviolence.
"This is a nonviolent school," said Principal Teena Jackson. "We don't support the actions that took place by some of our students. And by no means does it represent the student population here at Bennett High School."
The assault happened May 16, when city employee James LeGrand, 66, of the Mayor's Impact Team tried to break up a fight in Shoshone Park. He was assaulted and robbed, and the incident was captured on video.
Chronicle said most of the alleged attackers were his friends.
"Obviously, I was very angry with them at first," Chronicle said of his friends. "And it was kind of outrageous what they did ... We were extremely disappointed with them."
Wearing shirts that read, "Bennett students believe in peace," Chronicle and some of his classmates presented a $200 check to Vivian Waltz of the Klimczak center, which holds workshops in local schools on peaceful conflict resolution. Waltz said the money will go directly toward the organization's work in Buffalo Public Schools.
Waltz found it unfortunate that others have associated the actions of a few Bennett students with the entire school. But, she said, "It's work like these students are doing that helps to dispel those kinds of myths."
Leonard Katz, who graduated from Bennett in 1953, was at the school on Friday.
He has served as the president of the school's alumni association and helps students prepare for college. He said he is proud of the students' fundraiser and donation.
"I'm glad that the school and the students of the school responded to this awful event that took place and making clear that Bennett High School is not like that," Katz said. "And we come into the school all the time. It's as calm and peaceful as you could imagine. Students are polite."
Chronicle said he feels "100 percent safe" coming to Bennett every day. And LeGrand said in a statement that he will still attend track meets held at the school.
"I appreciate what they're doing, and I understand their feelings," LeGrand said of the students. "I'm sorry if this incident painted the school in a bad light. I know it's not that way."
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Earn Points just for signing up and more points every time you shop. It's simply rewarding.
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(based on 20 reviews)
Ratings Distribution
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of respondents would recommend this to a friend.
Most Liked Positive Review
Love these glasses
I have an expensive prescription pair of multi focus glasses, but I like these Foster Grants much better. I wear them all the time.I just wish they sold these with sunglass...Read complete review
I have an expensive prescription pair of multi focus glasses, but I like these Foster Grants much better. I wear them all the time.I just wish they sold these with sunglass tints, as I could also wear them when driving. If they had that option they would definitely be five stars!
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Poorly constructed for the price.
I have owned several pairs. The lenses are good although there is too much power on the upper portion, so I still have to look over the top rather than through the lens for...Read complete review
I have owned several pairs. The lenses are good although there is too much power on the upper portion, so I still have to look over the top rather than through the lens for distance views. They are good however for reading on computers. The frames are awful. They don't fit well and every pair I've had have fractured and then broke apart around the lens.
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I like this design but it breaks too easy
By MrSquinty
from San Francisco, CA
Comments about Foster Grant James:
First of all, I love these multi focus lenses, they are perfect for me. I own all the styles. I've gone through 2 pairs of the 'JAMES" because they break open and drop a lens. The plastic is too thin I guess.Disappointing, because I like the style of these the best, and they are the most comfortable.If you are an extremely gentle person they might be ok for you.
Bottom Line No, I would not recommend this to a friend
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I would not buy this nor refer to anyone.
By Silvr
from Nashville TN
There is no pros to these glasses. A total waste of money. The right side of glasses where springs are ... broke. I thought maybe there was just a defect in that pair but not the case. Both pair have been a total waste.
(0 of 1 customers found this review helpful)
Poorly constructed for the price
By dhall
from San Antonio, Tx
Love the lenses but the frames are poorly constructed. Have purchase several pair and they always break at the spring point on the frames.
(2 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
Have owned four pairs
By Linda, CPA
from Tampa, Florida
I usually keep a pair at work, one at home, and one pair in my purse. The top part of the lens is too strong from distance and I still have to take my glasses off or look over the frames when I am looking at something more than a couple feet a way. For reading and computer work, the multi levels work great. The quality of the glasses is not fantastic, the lenses seem to scratch easily. I have also had two pairs that the arm has snapped off.
Bottom Line Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
(3 of 3 customers found this review helpful)
The hinges break very easy.
By saejin
from California
Don,t expect these to last long if you work. The hinges break out of the plastic and there is no way to glue them back in.Also they are short and do not fit over the ear well, so they fall off. The plastic gets scratched from cleaning same as all plastic lenses.I bought them on sale. Full price is to much. There are better options from other manufacturers.
(6 of 7 customers found this review helpful)
By Lynn
from Kansas
Images shared by Lynn
Break around lens.
(4 of 4 customers found this review helpful)
By JB
from Lady Lake, FL
(2 of 3 customers found this review helpful)
I would never ever purchase these glasses again.
By Meka
from Durham, N.C.
These things are poorly constructed, never again.
Expensive, broke before the end of 2 months of use!
By Lynette Foxen
from Minneapolis, MN
I am new to wearing additional glasses on top of my contacts. It seems as if the need hit me all at once after turning 43. I purchased a cheap $6 pair of reading glasses because I was still pretty much in denial and couldn't picture myself at such a young age needing them "for real" even though my optometrist had brought it up the year before. This year, after he suggested a number in strength when I explained that my contacts were making it impossible to see anything remotely close to me, I buckled down and decided that if I was going to need to wear these age-telling things for the rest of my life, I was going to invest in good quality. Having already experienced the cheap version, I was impressed with the solid structure of the Foster Grant selections. I liked the spring construction at the temples, eliminating the pressure that mass produced glasses can give when buying off of the racks. My only complaint up to this point was that they would not stay on top of my head when I didn't need to use them, and I had seriously been considering the librarian route of adding a chain! BUT, before I could even get to that point the frame broke while gently cleaning them with the rag they provided. It just gave way right at the point where the thickness of the nose piece leads to the thinness of the under frame. There is no reasoning for this. I have been wearing glasses for 34 years and I know how to care for them. I most certainly would not have paid almost $40 if I had known that this was even a remote possibility. As a veteran waitress I have seen that reading glasses are the number one most common item left behind by customers. Investing in something that already has a high potential of being lost is already a risk in itself. What did I pay for here? A brand name? I thought I was purchasing quality. It appears I was sorely mistaken.
need different color choices :)
By Female looking for something with color
from Oshkosh, WI
Great for the price however would like other color choices. Black is pretty standard and would like to see some other choices.
Foster Grant's James is a sleek pair of black reading glasses that comes with a rectangular full frame and a Multi Focus lens. The top of the lens is half of the normal strength and is made for interacting with others without having to take your reading glasses off. The middle of the lens is a slightly less than normal strength that is made for short distances and working on your computer. Finally, the bottom of the lens provides the normal strength you need for reading. While the James may appear as just another pair of reading glasses, they are truly multifunctional with their Multi Focus lens.
View Our Video Here
To make it simple for you to choose the frames that best fit your face, we have included the measurements of every frame we currently have available. Frame measurements are determined by several widths, including lens width, bridge width, and temple width. To determine your perfect fit, you can simply use a ruler to measure the width of your face from temple to temple. This distance will be very similar to your frame fit and will help you pick the correct size.
As one of the first sunglass brands and now a fashion trendsetter in stylish readers, Foster Grant® is widely celebrated for offering great value on a wide selection of eyewear. These iconic readers deliver stylish solutions that are elegantly smart and always a step ahead.
500 George Washington Hwy. Smithfield, RI 02917 USA Call (800) 426-6396


text:
Gennady Golovkin won in seven rounds last night after Gabriel Rosado's trainer was forced to throw in the towel. Golovkin was reportedly sick heading into the fight, but it did not seem to stop him.
He cut Rosado in the corner of his left eye in the second round. He rocked him with a right hand in the third round. By the fourth round, Rosado's face was a bloody mess after also being cut over his left eye and bleeding from the nose.
Rosado's left eye was in very bad shape and the ringside doctor took a good look at it before both the sixth and seventh rounds as Rosado pleaded to be allowed to continue.
Both fighters were covered in Rosado's blood in the seventh round as Rosado continued to bleed badly until his trainer, Billy Briscoe, climbed the steps and threw in the towel.
The video shows Briscoe pleading with Rosado's father to let him stop the fight. Rosado can't see anything and is taking punch after punch. Finally, Briscoe just gets on the ring to get the referee's attention and stops the fight at the 2:46 mark of the seventh round.
h/t to Tom