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I found myself in the public library today, which is a rare occasion. I was scanning the fantasy/sci fi/horror section, surprised at how much stuff they had, and wondering why on earth I spend what I do in bookstores. I checked a few back covers for a precis that sounded interesting. While doing that I came round to thinking about how my reading tends to be mosty gaming related, and that includes the novels I pick up. It struck me then that I'd been slowly coming to a decision over recent months and it goes a little something like this.
I've got loads of RPGs, about 5 or 6 times as many as you can see in the banner for this site. The vast majority of them have a setting as part of the game. Consequently, I've internalised an awful lot of imaginary worlds. Add to that the weird predilection I have for trying to see everything in the real world as potential gaming fodder and you might begin to see how full my head is. Novels and comics are an obvious source of gaming maaterial, but as time has gone on I've realised I'm never ever going to sit down and write a setting bible based on a novel, I'm just not. It's way to much work and frankly, if my players aren't as invested in the setting as I am then it's never going to see time at the table. Let's not even think about publishing it, not going to happen. Last time I tried to do this was with the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton, my favourite author. It's absolutley ripe for gaming and I sincerely hope someone will do it one day. But it's more than 3000 pages long and the cast of characters, locations, kit etc is absolutley enormous. Even the really hard core wiki builders struggle with that challenge.
So I don't do it. I don't even really build my own settings out of whole cloth, nor do I really pay a huge amount of attention to game worlds so much any more. The reason being, there's just too much stuff, often of little relevance and too little of it ever reaches the ears of my players. Where's the utility in a 300+ page book where 297 pages are just dry historical detail?
Let me give you an example. I recently bought Eclipse Phase after reading some reports and reviews online. It's fans are vocal and passionate to say the least. Just browse RPGnet, you'll see what I mean. When a poster said I could do Night's Dawn with it I was totally sold. However, after an hour reading it from the first page I started to flick, never a good sign. ten minutes after that, I'd shelved it. The reason was I felt I would be better off reading a novel as I'd get the same giant infodump but in a more entertaining medium. Believe me when I say this isn't a dig at the game, I'm sure it's as brilliant and innovative as people say, but it's not for me with the way I want to approach gaming these days. The short fiction at the start seemed like something from Shadowrun circa 1994, while the rest of the book was a patchwork of the authors favourite transhumanist scifi of recent years. again, it's a perfeectly valid approach to a game book, but actually I found myself wishing I'd read the source material instead.
So I noticed a section of books by Charles Stross in the library, and his works are mentioned in Eclipse Phase. My interest piqued, I checked out the splash page. turns out the one I'd picked up is his first published work called The Atrocity Archives and I don't think it's one of the transhuman books. Here's the back page for you:
Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. None of them receive any thanks for the jobs they do, but at least a techie doesn't risk getting shot or eaten in the line of duty. Bob's world is dull but safe, and that's the way it should have stayed; but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob Howard is up to his neck in spycraft, alternative universes, dimension-hopping nazis, Middle Eastern terrorists, damsels in distress, ancient Lovecraftian horror and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than control-alt-delete to sort this mess out…
There's enough there for a whole campaign no? And the preface makes it even more succint. In it Ken MacLeod points out:
Think, for a moment, what the following phrase would call to mind if you'd never heard it before: 'Secret intelligence'
And there's about 20 of the games on my shelf summed up. Except those books then give me another 13 chapters of explanation and detail which is mostly unnecessary and has the effect of dulling and diluting the original concept. Bringing it back to RPGs proper, the worst offender for me was The Iron Kingdoms, a superb setting from Privateer Press originally for d20 gaming. It started with a trilogy of adventures which gave the DM just enough to go on, and crucially it all came out at the table as the party progressed. Three modules later and everyone knew as much as everyone else at the table without having to study for hours and without losing any immersion either. I think it was better than most settings just because of that 'reveal during play' approach. Obviously the fans wanted more and the publishers got to work. The first book was Lock and Load, really just a conversion supplement for standard D&D. It came with maps and geography and history, all in 64 pages. Brilliant. And then a long, long wait while the big hardback sourcebooks were produced, weighing in at 600 pages over 2 hardbacks, all as dry as dust. They'd utterly explained away all the magic. A crushing disappointment, especially when you consider their minis game in the same world, Warmachine, had exactly the same job to do, yet managed it in colour with barely a third of the page count.
Now, this post haas gotten way too long and is in some danger of becoming a rant. So part 2 tomorrow…


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Scouting OHIO
UMHoops got its hands on a torrent of the MAC championship game and chopped it into scouting reports on a majority of OHIO's players. Read it. The following post consists of assorted things I'll be looking to as keys to not blowing it.
Chuck, And Ye Shall Receive (Sometimes)
The lion's share of Ohio usage goes to diminutive, ball-domineering DJ Cooper. UMHoops compares him to Tim Frazier, and that's about right. You could also call him MAC Iverson if you want:
read the rest of this post. it is excellent.
That, my friends, is a chucker. I knew it in my bones the moment I looked at the Kenpom profile but there it is in the flesh. Fadeaway threes? Check. Shots from a distance freshman Stu Douglass thinks is outlandish? Check. Wild drives into tons of traffic with resulting chaotic results? Check. Way too many of those shots going down? Check.
Opposing a chucker is equal parts smug haterdom and fist-shaking frustration. If Cooper goes NBA Jam on us there's not much anyone can do. If he hews to his season percentages or is off, Michigan feels comfortable unless there's an equal and opposite force preventing it.
Given the chuckerdom and OHIO's generally poor three-point shooting, there is an obvious way to defend them. I'll let two more MAC Q&A answering expert-type guys execute the reveal:
Fitzwater: Teams that play a lot of zone have given Ohio problems. Teams with strong, tall forwards can also force a lot of fouls and dominate the paint. But nobody blew OU out this season; they were in a position to win every game and were up two possessions late at Louisville. The Bobcats thrive against teams that don't take care of the ball, don't deal well with high ball screens, give up offensive rebounds, or depend on the three.
Hmmm. Michigan takes care of the ball, does well against high ball screens only when Morgan is in the game, has had problems with rebounding, and takes a lot of threes. But they also can play zone.
Arkley: Typically teams that slow it down (lower possessions) give Ohio more trouble. Slower paced teams that play a lot of zone even more so. The Bobcats have been inconsistent at best from three and can have problems generating points if not getting any full-court opportunities
Ohio has played well against teams that don't have good inside-out balance offensively. The Bobcats have been good enough defensively this season to take away opponents top option or two on the offensive end. Ohio wants to run as well, so they haven't had many problems with high-pace teams.
Also zone. Zone zone zone. Michigan's gone away from the 1-3-1 and has mostly used the 2-3 this year; it will be an option if Michigan can't contain Cooper early.
Despite the above I assume man to man is going to be plan A. Once you go to a zone it gets harder to deal with specific three-point threats like Nick Kellogg, who's hitting 42%. Also, OHIO's four is a smooth-shooting 6'8" guy with range to exploit the gaps in a 2-3 around the free throw line. If Michigan can hedge and recover on the lighting quick Cooper they'll stick with man to man. Morgan's very good at that… when he's not picking up silly fouls on the perimeter. Smotrycz is crap at hedging and a zone will be preferable when he's in the game.
The other thing the Cooper tape shows is that he doesn't need a ball screen to get penetration. Most of Ohio's sets above are 1-4s where Cooper's isoed at the top on a single defender. He gets penetration and either shoots or finds an open guy. Stu Douglass is going to have his hands full.
Rebounding: Can We Do It?
Yeah, even against a MAC team. Michigan is tiny* and the combination of Cooper and a couple of 6'8" bigs with OREB rates over 12% could lead to issues. Cooper poses a couple problems: 1) as mentioned above, late or poor hedges are likely to lead to perimeter fouls and a lack of Morgan, and 2) since it's impossible to stay in front of him one on one he forces bigs over to help. Even if the resulting shot is wild, now you've got an uncovered big on the weakside. I'm watching Louisville-Davidson as I write this and Peyton Siva missed shots are all but assists as he pulls Wildcat defenders to him and leaves his center wide open.
The good news is that it doesn't look like anyone on the roster other than the center is much of a threat. Even if Ivo Baltic is a lot bigger than Zack Novak he's a stretch four whose bread and butter is pick and pop stuff or long twos off kickouts—he has the offensive game of an unathletic NBA power forward. Think late-stage Antonio McDyess. This means he's not often around the bucket to snatch up loose balls. His OREB rate is only incrementally better than Zack Novak. The difference doesn't seem likely to manifest.
On the other end, OHIO is a relatively poor defensive rebounding team (245th, about 70 spots below average but not awful). Michigan all but abandons offensive rebounding save for its center; it does seem like Morgan will be able to do some work.
This looks like a push. If it's not it's probably because Morgan's in foul trouble and Michigan is struggling to cope.
*[For the last time. Michigan loses a 6'2" guy and a 6'4" guy after this year and adds Mitch McGary, Jon Horford, Max Bielfeldt, Glenn Robinson III, and Nick Stauskas to the roster. All five of those guys are 6'5" or bigger. Prepare for vertigo when Michigan takes the court next year a huge, athletic outfit.
I wonder if this will alter Michigan's approach to offensive rebounds. Sending Novak to or Douglass to the glass is obviously less of a good idea than sending Smotrycz—soon to be liberated to the four again—and GRIII.]
Three Point Defense: A Real Thing?
I remember talking about this a long time ago with Big Ten Wonk when he was just some guy in his basement littering the internet with bolded, exclamation-point-laden sentences. At the time Michigan was enduring a rain of threes from opponents that seemed incredible. I took the position this was luck; Mr. Gasaway said the percentages were unsustainable but evidence of a real skill, or lack thereof, possessed by Michigan.
Gasaway moved on to ESPN, where the power of the WWL has made him not only wrong about all current things ("Michigan's 1-3-1 is difficult to prepare for!" —Digger Phelps literally every time he is asked to say anything about Michigan) but also all things he has said in the past. Kenpom has set out to make this true. You've probably seen this graph before:
That's how well your three point defense in the first half of your conference season correlates with three point D in the second half. The answer is "not well." The R-squared is zero. The graph is the classic blob you'd get if you compared two totally unrelated variables like the number of letters in someone's first name and his height.
I've been reading too much Phil Birnbaum to take the above absence of evidence as evidence of absence, but it is suggestive that the graph for attempts allowed is well correlated. Statheads correct me if I'm wrong, but those are the same data sizes and for one to correlate pretty well suggests that it's not a sample size issue when the other doesn't.
If it's just dumb luck that OHIO is a really good three point defense, Michigan will play its game and get its requisite number of open looks and either hit some or miss some. If they really do stick to shooters hard, Michigan has options with backdoor plays and screen and rolls. You'll be able to tell this is happening when Burke or Hardaway or someone gets the ball to the post on a pick and roll. Is it an uncontested thunder dunk? They're sticking to shooters.
That's probably not the case. Akron hit 9 of 12 threes in the MAC championship game, and they were often like this:
A nap and a double feature of Ishtar and Dances With Wolves later, that guy knocked it down. Michigan will get their looks.
Key Thing
Open court turnovers. Burke's coming off a terrible performance in which he got Craft'd. Ohio forces a lot of turnovers and tries to transition that into offense so they don't have to stand around waiting for Cooper to do something. Limiting Michigan's turnovers not only helps the offense but the defense, then, and it's much worse to get your pocket picked than to chuck a ball into the stands. Michigan's fantastic at the latter but only pretty good at the former.
They'll get a test in that department tomorrow. If we're sitting around muttering on Saturday the reason will probably be double-digit transition points.

subset: commoncrawl


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Friday, July 27, 2007
Rest Peacefully Boy
Rogue Valley Runners lost one of its family members last week. Raleigh was our two-year-old Pixie-Bob that had been with us since, well the White River 50 in 2005. We knew right away he was going to be good luck seeing a he crewed with Carly for my 50-mile championship that day. He was also a constant fixture at Montrail's headquarters in Seattle with Carly all-the-while alluding their top designers as to how to fit a pancake polydactyl (that's a cat with snow shoe like feet.) I'm sure he picked up more shoe knowledge there than most of us will ever know. We knew he wasn't doing well as we left for Western States but he was able to hang tuff for a couple more weeks proving his indomitable spirit and fight. He will be missed.
Posted by Rogue Valley Runners at 10:02 AM
2 comments:
- chris said...
RIP little fella. He was a cool cat with many toes.
- Friday, July 27, 2007 5:37:00 PM
- Darcy said...
Carly and Hal,
So sorry for your loss. Raleigh was one cool dude. He will be missed.
- Saturday, July 28, 2007 6:20:00 PM
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Cristina Fernandez, Argentina's President, Forced To Take Month Off After Head Injury
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Doctors ordered a month's rest for Argentina's president on Saturday after they found blood on her brain due to a head injury.
President Cristina Fernandez's spokesman said she had suffered a previously undisclosed "skull trauma" on Aug. 12.
Spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro read a statement signed by the president's doctors saying they did a CAT scan of her brain after the August head injury and found nothing wrong, and that afterward she suffered no symptoms.
But he said problems surfaced Saturday after Fernandez, 60, went to a hospital for checks on an irregular heartbeat. Because she was suffering headaches, they looked at her skull again, too, and found a subdural hematoma. That means bleeding between the brain and the skull. The statement defined it as "chronic" and not "acute," which suggests that it has been slowly building.
"The president had a cardiovascular study done in the Fundacion Favaloro and given that she had head pain, they did neurological studies, diagnosing a 'chronic subdural collection' (bleeding on the brain), and they ordered her to rest for a month," said the statement, which was signed by the president's doctors. The statement added that her doctors will keep close watch on how the bleeding evolves using imaging technology.
Her spokesman did not address during his televised announcement whether Fernandez will try to keep managing the country herself from the presidential residence, or formally take medical leave and hand the government over to Vice President Amado Boudou, who was flying back to Argentina from Brazil Saturday night.
It's a hard time for Fernandez, a tireless campaigner, to disappear from Argentina's political scene. Aug. 12 was one day after primary elections in which her opponents made significant gains. With the latest doctors' orders, she won't be able to campaign for her allies ahead of key congressional midterm elections on Oct. 27 that will determine whether the ruling Front for Victory party holds onto enough seats to enable her to continue ruling with virtually unchecked power.
In January of 2012, Fernandez had her thyroid glands removed fearing that they were cancerous, but tests later showed no presence of cancerous cells. She also suffers from chronic hypertension, and has periodically had to take several days rest.


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PawPaw wrote:After several readings of the road rules for cyclists, I understand the only compulsory hand signal is for a right hand turn.
Left hand turns don't require signaling, nor stopping.
Have I got it right?
That's my understanding. Hence the standard of having the rear brake on the left.


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Islamic State group kills Syria tribesmen
BEIRUT (AP) — The extremist Islamic State group shot and beheaded hundreds of tribesmen from eastern Syria over the past two weeks after crushing an uprising they led against the jihadi fighters, activists said Monday.
The killing of members of the Shueitat tribe come as Islamic State group fighters close in on the last government-held army base in the region. Syrian warplanes bombed the extremists' positions Monday in an attempt to halt their advance.
A Turkey-based activist who is originally from Deir el-Zour and is in contact with people in the province told The Associated Press that the Islamic State killed as many as 200 members of the Shueitat tribe. On Saturday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll among the tribesmen at 700.
The activist spoke on condition of anonymity for fear that family members in Syria might be harmed.
Journalists do not have access to the far reaches of eastern Syria under Islamic State control, and it was not immediately possible to verify the death toll. But differences in casualty figures are common in the chaos of Syria's civil war.
Last week, Islamic State fighters crushed the Shueitat tribal uprising against their rule in eastern Syria after three days of clashes near the border with Iraq. Tribesmen expelled the jihadi fighters from the villages of Kishkiyeh, Abu Hamam and Granij earlier this month before the Islamic State launched a counteroffensive that killed dozens, activists said.
"They considered all members of the Shueitat tribe apostates because they rose against them," the activist said. "Some men were taken out in the fields and beheaded them while others were shot in the head."
The Islamic State group has declared a self-styled caliphate in territory it controls straddling the Iraq-Syria border, imposing a harsh interpretation of Islamic law. They have killed hundreds of people in both countries over the past two months, including some who were beheaded and their heads were later displayed in a public square in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.
Last month, the jihadis overran the sprawling Division 17 military base in Raqqa province, killing at least 85 soldiers. Two weeks later, Islamic State fighters seized the nearby Brigade 93 base after days of heavy fighting.
They now are closing in on the Tabqa air base, the last position held by Syrian government troops in Raqqa province.
The Observatory reported intense clashes Monday between troops and Islamic State fighters on the edge of the villages of Ajil and Khazna near the Tabqa air base. It said there were casualties on both sides.
The Raqqa Media Center, an activist collective, said Islamic State group fighters captured four villages near the air base, including Ajil.
The Observatory and RMC also reported intense air raids for the second day on Raqqa's provincial capital.
In Damascus, a truce between the government and rebels took effect in the Qadam neighborhood on the capital's southwestern edge, the SANA state news agency reported.
Efforts were underway to help people return and restore government services, the head of the central committee for popular reconciliation, Jaber Issa, told SANA.
The government has struck several similar cease-fires with rebel-held neighborhoods and suburbs of Damascus, usually after besieging them for months and pounding them into submission, activists say.
Syrian authorities tout the truces as part of its program of "national reconciliation" to end Syria's conflict, which has killed more than 170,000 people since March 2011.
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text: If a hard drive has some bad sectors will writing zeros to the drive ever fix these sectors? Will any software program ever fix hard drives with any amount of bad sectors? Or when they even get 4 KB of bad sectors they will always have these bad sectors no matter what you do? Or do these programs just hide these sectors so they can't be used?


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Solidarity has been used as a powerful word among Occupiers across the world over the past few monthes. Today, there is one group though that has put the idea of solidarity to use in a unbelievable way. The police. Several police forces, including the NYPD, have been coordinating their actions with the advice of federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and FBI according to an anonymous federal source.
Some of the federal consulting involved media tactics, ways to effectively attack protestors, and how to intimidate any enemies of the police state. These tactics, though propagandized as monstrous when used by foreign regimes like Libya, Syria, and Pakistan, used by our own police forces demonstrate the full reality of life in the US in the post-9/11 security culture crafted under the Bush administration, and maintained under Obama. I voted for Obama, and generally vote Democrat, and am incredibly disapointed in the actions of those I voted for to protect the civil liberties of my fellow citizens. It's a common sentiment, but I now, more than ever, believe that if corporations are people, then tents are protected speech.
Today, there have been police raids across the country, here in New York, Charlotte, Columbus, Germany, and the Seattle PD are attacking protesters there with pepper spray as I write this. Today, the NYPD took the advice of the Department of Homeland Security and enforced a decision Mayor Bloomberg made under the stress of the power corporation using fear-mongering and doublespeak . Over 200 people were arrested this morning as riot police, in a show of state terror descended on Zuccotti in the hundreds and brutalized protesters as they deliberately kept away media "for their own safety." They destroyed the amazing piece of collaborative work that had become known as the People's Library., which, on a personal note, truly saddens me.
The NYCLU, in defense of Occupy Wall Street, assisted in filing an injunction against the police to allow the protestors back into the park with their gear, but the injunction was downgraded to just allow sleeping in the park with sleeping bags but no tents. As this is being written, over 1500 have assembled in Zuccotti for the first General Assembly to occur since this morning's raid.
It's ironic that this raid comes up on the two month birthday of the Wall Street Occupation, but it's significant for another reason. Including today's arrests, there have been over 4000 arrests, the number arrested in Iran after their last election. These arrests were crucial in the ignition of the Arab Spring. Let's home the same is true for the American Autumn. From what I understand, the park will be reoccupied tonight, but I worry that there will be more arrests. We'll see tomorrow.


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A TENTATIVE timeline for release of 2010-11 adequate yearly progress, or AYP, determinations has been set. Please review the dates and notify critical staff.
Changes to bus driver training on horizon
The requirements for bus driver training will be changing effective July 1, 2011. Get up to speed on whats different.
Nominate Driver of the Year, recognize long-time drivers
The South Dakota School Transportation Association is seeking nominations for Bus Driver of the Year, and will recognize drivers with 25 years of service.
Interested in a capstone for your students?
The Capstone Experience is one of the menu options for South Dakotas new high school graduation requirements. Weigh in on potential training dates.
Supplemental Educational Services: Comment on waiver applications
The state Department of Education is pursuing two waivers from the U.S. Department of Education related to Title I, Part A, Supplemental Educational Services. Comments are welcome.
Long-term sub report due May 15
State law requires the Department of Education to collect long-term substitute data from all accredited schools annually. The deadline to complete your districts 2010-11 Long Term Substitute submission is May 15, 2011.


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Well, tonight we have the wonderful privilege of beginning a new book study. One that I have wanted for a long time to study and had my appetite recently wetted when I was talking to someone else who had the same desire and so we come tonight to the book of Zechariah. Take your Bible and turn to Zechariah. Happiness is sitting next to somebody who knows where Zechariah is. We hope you'll be able to find it alright. This is a great book. And I've not done much study in the Old Testament on Sunday morning and Sunday night, because I have a desire, personal desire, to finish the whole New Testament. But I wanted to take a little break from that and get into the Old Testament at this particular point because I feel this has such tremendous impact as a prophetic book and there is so much that is here. We need to understand. There's a great message from the Lord here. And even though this is a book written many centuries ago, maybe even as many as six centuries before Christ. As old as it, it is still written by an unchanging God.
And its word is as good as if it were penned this morning. And so it's a tremendous book. It is really incredible from many angles and I'm going to give you just a little bit of an overview before we look at the opening verses. Many people feel that it is the most difficult book in the Old Testament to interpret. And that maybe true and therein lies something of its challenge and I'd like to get all the hard stuff out of the way so that when I get old in the ministry I can just play golf and do the easy books, you know. So I'm wailing away on the hard ones right now while I'm young and aggressive and all that. And this is a hard book and so we approach it with a sense of prayerfulness and a sense of humility knowing that many who have gone before us have found it to be very difficult.
But primarily the thing that just really knocked me over as I was reading through it and through it again and again in the last month or so is the fact that it is a book about Christ, and that was really exciting to me. It is a primarily a book about Jesus Christ. In fact, on almost every page Jesus Christ appears in this book. And that really contemporizes it for me. He is the main character throughout. Now let me show you what I mean by that as we begin. Just a couple of highlights. Look at Chapter 1, verse 9. And here you have Zechariah talking to a particular personality. "And then I said oh my Lord what are these? And the angel who talked with me said unto me I'll show thee what these are."
Now here he is having a conversation with an angel. Look at verse 14. "So the angel that talked with me said unto me," now here's the same angel again and he's called the angel that talked with me. Verse 19, "And I said unto the angel who talked with me," Chapter 2, verse 3, "And behold the angel who talked with me went forth." Chapter 4, verse 1, "And the angel who talked with me came again." Verse 5, "Then the angel who talked with me answered and said unto me." Chapter 5, verse 5, "Then the angel who talked with me went forth." Verse 10, "Then I said to the angel who talked with me." Chapter 6, verse 4, "Then I answered and said unto the angel who talked with me, what are these my Lord."
Now, it is somewhat clear here that there is an angel who is talking to Zechariah. The question is who is the angel? And the answer is he is really a mouthpiece for God, Himself, and another very special angel. Let's look at Scriptures and see this other special angel. Go back to Chapter 1, verse 11. And 1:11 says "And they answered the angel of the Lord." Now look at 1:12, "Then the angel of the Lord answered and said," Chapter 3, verse 1. "And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord." Verse 6, "And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua." Then who in fact is the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament? Jesus Christ.
In a sense then, along with God and through the angel that talked with him, Zechariah was having a conversation with none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when I say that Christ is the main character of the book, that becomes very evident. It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when you get into the last section of the book, you find again that Christ is everywhere. Look at, for example, Chapter 9, we'll skip a few chapters in there, but look at Chapter 9, verse 9. And now you're getting from Chapter 9-14 into the dominantly prophetic part of the book.
"Rejoice greatly oh daughter of Zion, shalt oh daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding on an ass on the colt the foal of an ass." Now who is that? That's Christ and that's Christ at what point in His life? Entering into the city of Jerusalem on what we commonly know as Palm Sunday, when He came in on the colt, the foal of an ass. There you have Him, the king, who is Christ. And in 9:9 the king arrives, Christ arrives.
Look at Chapter 11, verse 12. "And I said unto them if you think good, give me my price. And if not forbear so they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver." What do you have there? A prophesy of the betrayal by Judas. So here the king arrives in 9:9 and the king is rejected in 11:12. Then in Chapter 12, verse 10 we see him again. "And I will pour upon the house of David and on the inhabitance of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication. And they shall look on me whom they have pierced." And who is that? That's the king crucified. So you have the king arriving, rejected and crucified, and also received and they mourned for Him as one mourns for his only son. In other words, there is this predicted revival, the salvation that comes to Israel.
Chapter 13, verse 8-9, you have Christ in judgment. "And it shall come to pass that in all the land says the Lord two parts shall be cut off and die. The third shall be left. I will bring the third part through the fire and refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They shall call on my name. I will hear them. I will say it is my people and they shall say the Lord is my God." And here you have the salvation of Israel at the time of the tribulation. So the king is judging and his judging or refining brings out a people tested and proven.
In Chapter 14, verse 9 you have the king reigning in His kingdom. "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day there shall be one Lord and His name one." Only one religion existing in the whole world in the kingdom, the worship of the true Christ. And that worship is expressed in Chapter 14, verse 16 where it says from year to year through the kingdom, they go up to worship the king, the Lord of hosts. So you can see that from the beginning of the book where there is a historical dialogue with the angel of the Lord to the latter part of the book where there is prophetic information about the coming of Christ, Jesus Christ is the key to the book of Zechariah. Scofield has an interesting note that I think we ought to just remind ourselves of. He says this, "No Old Testament prophet has more prophesy concerning Christ, Israel, and the nations in so short a book. Zechariah predicts," and here it is, "the second coming, the reign of Christ, His priesthood, His kingship, His humanity, His deity, His building of the temple of the Lord, His coming in lowliness, His bringing of permanent peace, His rejection and betrayal, His return to Israel as the crucified one, and His being smitten by the sword of the Lord."
All of that is the book of Zechariah. In fact, the whole significance of the life of Christ and His reign in the future is here. So we say the book is mostly messianic dealing with Christ. Christ is seen in the book by many titles. He is called Jehovah's servant. He is called the branch. He is called the man. He is called the king, the priest, the true shepherd, and so forth. Now the book was written to be a comfort to Israel to let them know God was on their side. And they were to be blessed by God. It is a comforting book. In fact, the very name Zechariah means God remembers.
And God is remembering His people in this book. God is comforting His people. God is on their side. And of course, Jesus is the great comforter. We forget that. We think that the Holy Spirit is the comforter, but may I remind you that in John Chapter 14, verse 16 Jesus said, "When I go away I will send you another comforter." Which means He, Himself, was also the comforter. And so Christ here is the comforter of His people. It is a book of comfort through Christ. And if appears in the Old Testament as the angel of the Lord, He is comforting His people. If He appears in the future as the coming king, He comes to comfort His people.
In Chapter 1, verse 13, notice it, "And the Lord answered," and here's the key to the book really. "And the Lord answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comforting words. This is a book about comfort. Chapters 1, verse 17 at the end says "the Lord shall yet comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem." So it is a book about comfort, present comfort for Israel and the need in which the book was written. Future comfort for them in the time the Messiah comes.
Now in addition to this, the comfort comes in this book through some very deep mysteries and that's why it's a hard book. There are some very strange symbols in this book. For example, Chapter 1, verse 8, you have the first of a bunch of mysteries, deeply mysterious elements. "I saw by night," and this will be our study next time Lord willing, "I saw by night and behold a man riding a red horse and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom and behind him there were red horses, sorrel, and white. And I said, oh my Lord, what are these?" That's a tough question. And then you go to verse 18. "I lifted up my eyes and I saw behold four horns and I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these." You go to Chapter 2, verse 1, "I lifted up mine eyes again and looked and a man with a measuring line in his hand and I said where are you going? And he said unto me to measure Jerusalem to see what is the breadth of it and the length. And behold the angel who talked with me went forth and another angel went out to meet him."
Now that's something that's difficult to understand initially. Chapter 4, "The angel who talked with me came again, waked me as a man is wakened out of sleep and said to me what seest thou? And I said I looked and behold a lamp stand of gold and a bowl on the top of it and seven lamps on it and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are on top of it and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on the left side of it." And those will be on the quiz. "And so I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me and said what are these my Lord." Difficult mysteries.
Chapter 5, verse 1, "I turned and lifted mine eyes and behold a flying scroll. And he said to me what do you see? And I said I see a flying scroll. It's length is twenty cubits, it's breadth is ten cubits and he said this is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth." You can go right on down in the chapter. It just goes on and on like this with very difficult things. Verse 5, you've got another one. He says, "What do you see? And he says there's an ephah going forth." And he goes on to discuss a talent of lead and a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah and on and on it goes. Now those are mysteries. Chapter 6 there's some chariots there. And so the way that Israel is comforted is by what this angel tells them and the angel is Christ, but the angel speaks to them in mysteries.
And we'll see the meaning of those as we go. There are some fantastic things in this book also relative to the restoration of Israel. If you're having any doubts about whether God is still working with the nation Israel, this book ought to settle those. In Chapter 8, verse 8, for example, "I will bring them and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and they shall be my people and I will be their God in truth and righteousness." In other words, there is coming a restoration for Israel. Chapter 10, verse 9, "I will sow them among the peoples and they shall remember in far countries and they shall live with their children and turn again and I will bring them again out of the land of Egypt, gather them out of a Assyria, bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon and place shall not be found for them."
There's coming a day when scattered Israel will be brought back and overcrowd their country. There are fantastic prophecies about the birth of children in the millennium. There are prophecies about the evangelism in the millennium. There is a complete description of the anti-Christ. There is a second-coming judgment passage. There is a description of the battle of Armageddon. There is a description of the judgment of the nations, the martyrdom of the believers in the great tribulation, the salvation of Israel and the ultimate salvation of the nations. All of those things in this little book.
Tremendous book full of visions and prophecies and signs and celestial visitors and the voice of God and it traces redemptive history right on out to its climax. But you know, it's also a very practical book. It talks about repentance. It talks about God's divine care for the believer. It talks about salvation. It even talks about practical Christian living if you can imagine. Some very practical things. So I just tell y'all that to wet your appetite. There's a lot in this thing. This isn't some dreary ancient thing. This is hot stuff. And you know, as I thought about why does this book flourish with so many fantastic things?
Well, do you know what is so very interesting about it is that prophecy as such, the prophetic ministry of the Old Testament prophets is about to end when Zechariah writes. It's about to end. And Israel is going to know prophetic silence for 400 years. Silence which will be broken by a man named John the Baptist. But for 400 years there will be prophetic silence. No prophets, and it appears that as the prophetic period closes it pleased God to just have a mighty outburst of prophecy to indicate that prophecy was not dying a slow death. It wasn't stopping just because it ran out of gas. It was going out in a blaze of glory.
As strong as when it was born. Now that gives us an overall view of the book. Now I want to give you a view of the historical setting of the book. What's going on? Who's Zechariah? Where did he live? Why did he live? And what was happening in Israel? Now here we go. Are you ready? Keep alert now, get your brain in gear. We're going to just go flying by some history real quick. Don't try to write down everything. When we come to the book of Zechariah we encounter the people of Israel at a critical moment in their history. Eighteen years have passed since Cyrus the Great had conquered the Babylonian Empire.
Do you remember Daniel said there would be four great world empires? Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. Babylon has come and gone. Nebuchadnezzar is gone. The Medo-Persian Empire rules, Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire. Now this was a great day for Israel. Israel had been taken into Babylonian captivity. The Babylonians when they conquered the world conquered Israel and hauled them off to captivity didn't they, in 586 B.C. But when Cyrus the Great came along and conquered the Babylonian Empire it was a dawn of a new day, because now there was a new empire, the Medo-Persians and they had on their hands all these Jewish captives. They had been there 70 years when Cyrus made a decree and Cyrus decreed they could all go back to their land. Now the whole record of the history behind Zechariah is recorded in the book of Ezra. So if you want to read about it, read the book of Ezra.
We won't take time to jump back and forth or we'll be here forever. And so Cyrus rose to power and in 538 B.C. he made an edict. Granting the Jews the right to return to their land. In common parlance, that would be known as the repatriation of Israel. Going back. So after 70 years of being out of their land, 70 years of captivity, 70 years of punishment for national sins and you remember Jeremiah, the prophet had told them it was going to come.
At last they are granted a royal permission to return and rebuild Judah and Jerusalem. It's recorded in Ezra Chapter 1, verses 1-4. Well, you know what happens in 70 years? People get their roots down even in a foreign land. And many of the Jews were pretty well settled. They'd gotten involved in enterprises. They'd married and so forth. And so when the decree, would you believe only a small remnant went back to Israel? Just a small remnant and they returned under a leader by the name of Zerubbabel. So off they go. A small remnant. They were an enthusiastic remnant, believe me. When they got back, according to the 3rdChapter of Ezra, when they got back to Israel when they came back from the Babylonian captivity, in seven months they had rebuilt the sacred altar and they were again performing the sacrifices prescribed in the Old Testament. They were back with their worship commanded by God. Forty-three thousand of them returned. That's all, but they were enthusiastic and in seven months that had reinstituted the sacrificial system.
And not long after the beginning of the second year in seven months the altar, by the beginning of the second year they had actually begun to rebuild the temple itself, which became known as Zerubbabel's temple. The foundations were laid, the base of the wall was laid. And then you know what happened? Bad things. The Samaritans came down and tried to stop them. Remember that? And the Samaritans hassled them about building the temple. So you know what happened? They stopped. So they just had the foundation and just up a little ways. It took Nehemiah later to come to get the rest of the thing going and build the walls around the city.
They were discouraged and the work stopped. But you know the ruler who had caused the stoppage, the Samaritan ruler was assassinated. And when he was assassinated you would have thought they would have taken advantage of the opportunity, but they didn't. And so it was still just left the way it was. But God wanted that temple built. God wanted that worship reinstituted so he brought along a man, a prophet. And the man's name was Haggai. He was a prophet at the same time as Zechariah. And his ministry was to exhort the people to build that temple. And he only gave four messages that are recorded in his little small book, the book of Haggai. Right in front of the book Zechariah. Four short messages challenging them to build that temple. And you know what those four messages did? This is great. You know what they did? They brought a revival in Israel. They literally brought a revival and things started cracking again.
And in the midst of the revival God raised up another prophet, Zechariah. Zechariah came two months after Haggai. We know that because if you compare Zechariah 1:1 with Haggai 1:1, it's very clear. "In the sixth month," Haggai 1:1, "in the eight month," Zechariah 1:1. Two months apart came these two prophets. You say well, what was the difference? Well Haggai got them started and Zechariah kept them going. And he gave a lot more than four short messages. He kept it up for a long time. And his message to the people of Israel was keep doing it, God hasn't forgotten you. I know it's tough and the opposition is tough and you're trying to rebuild your country, but keep going. Let God be your comfort. Let God be your comfort. Let God be your comfort. Chapter 9 he turns a corner and says and the future is fantastic if you obey God in the present.
So he comforts them in the process. He wants to bring the revival to a full complete end. Now that's the message of the book. It is God comforting His people through the prophet in a time of hardship while they were rebuilding their country and their temple and all through the book Zechariah keeps saying God wants to bless you. God wants to bless you. You're going to receive this and you're going to receive that and oh God's going to comfort you and in the future you're going to have this and you're going to have this and you're going to have this and all of these marvelous blessings are promised them.
But there's a great big giant pre-requisite for any of it and that's the first six verses. And if you don't get those, none of the blessings will belong to you. And so we have called it, the message, pre-requisite to spiritual blessing. Zechariah just kept going along and saying boy now that you're building the temple oh let me encourage you to keep on being obedient. To keep on serving the Lord, to keep on doing what is right. God has so much for you. God has so many fantastic blessings, but there is one gigantic condition. And that condition is the essence of the first six verses.
Let's look at them. There is one key thing here. Verse 3, "Therefore say unto thus saith the Lord of hosts, turn unto me says the Lord of hosts and I will turn unto you says the Lord of hosts." Now what you have there is the key to the whole book and it is the concept of repentance. Verse 4, "Don't be like your fathers. Turn from your evil ways and from your evildoings." In other words, the place of blessing is always the same. It is when a person turns away from sin. That's the message of the first six verses. Repent and turn away from sin and stand in the place of blessing.
Why does this book begin with that? It begins with that because Zechariah wants to eliminate any false security on the part of ungodly people that God is going to give all these blessings and all these blessings and all these blessings and it's just going to be totally indiscriminate. You can just stand there and get it all. And just so nobody gets smug and secure, he says but there is a pre-requisite to all of it and any of it and that is turning away from sin. God does not bless regardless of people's spiritual condition.
Took Shore, the restaurant owner in New York who recently died a couple of days ago was on the new made the statement one time "I wouldn't be where I am in the nightclub business if it wasn't for the big man upstairs." But the blessing of God was never on his life, because he never stood in the place of blessing because he never turned from his evil ways. God only blesses where there is a turning from sin to obedience in Him. So the prophet as a message of comfort and a message of blessing both now and in the future, but it will only belong to those who meet the condition. Now repentance turning from sin is a constant cry of Old Testament prophets. I mean, it goes on and on through the Old Testament. Listen to some of it. In Isaiah 55:6-7, Isaiah says this, "Seek the Lord while He may be found. Call on Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let them return unto the Lord and He will have mercy on him and to our God for He will abundantly pardon." There is mercy and there is pardon for the one who turns to God away from sin.
In Jeremiah Chapter 3, verses 12 and 13, Jeremiah said, "Return thou backsliding Israel saith the Lord and I will not cause mine anger to fall on you for I am merciful. I will not keep my anger forever. Only acknowledge your iniquity and that you have transgressed against the Lord your God." Jeremiah said the same thing. There is blessing, but it is for the people who turn from sin. Ezekiel said the same thing. Another prophet in Chapter 18, verses 30-31. He said, "Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit." And I love this line because it's so potent. "Oh why will you die, oh house of Israel."
And Hosea, another prophet, "Oh Israel return unto the Lord your God for you've fallen by your iniquity." And Joel, "Turn you to me with all your heart and fasting and weeping and mourning and rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and repenteth Him of the evil." In Amos, another prophet, "Seek ye me and ye shall live. Seek the Lord and ye shall live." And Zephaniah, "Before the fierce anger of the Lord come on you, before the day of the Lord's anger come on you, seek you the Lord, ye meek of heart."
And on and on it goes. Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi said the same thing. "Return to me and I'll return to you," said Malachi in Chapter 3, verse 7. Four hundred years of silence followed Malachi and a new prophet comes by the name of John the Baptist and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is this. "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The message never changed. The place of blessing, the place of the kingdom, the place of mercy and grace was always the place of repentance, always.
Christ before He ascended into heaven, stood on that mountain and told the disciples what they were to preach. And you know what He said to them? "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem." Preach repentance He said. And the apostles went out and Peter in Acts Chapter 2 opens his mouth and says "Repent ye and be converted." In Acts 17:30 Paul says, "And God commands all men everywhere to," what, "repent." Now the message hasn't changed. God has a place of blessing. God is a place of comfort. God has a place of grace and mercy and hope and peace. But it's only for people who turn from sin, that's all. That's the point of it. The idea means 180 degrees from sin to God; always the place of blessing.
That's why Luke says that the angels of heaven rejoice over one sinner that does what? Repents. Now let's look at verse 1 and hear the message of repentance. "In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet saying." Now let's look at the verse for a minute. In the eighth month, the month of markusvan. In Hebrew calendar that is October, November time. The rainy season.
Haggai started two months earlier. So in that month in the second year of Darius, oh that is so interesting. You say it is? Oh it is. Let me show you why. The Persian emperor that had released the Jews was Cyrus. When Cyrus died he was succeeded by Cambyses and Cambyses is well known for having conquered Egypt, but Cambyses didn't have a child and he committed suicide. And when Cambyses committed suicide there was a vacancy and Darius was a powerful man and in that vacancy Darius drove to the top and became the ruler. He began to reign in 522 B.C. Which means if this is the second year of Darius, then it was written in 520 B.C. And Darius I just can't help but tell you, Darius here is the king under whom Zechariah writes. You see even though they were back repatriating their country they had no king and the king or the ruler of the whole world at that time was Darius, so he is really the king over Zechariah. Now the point that is so fascinating here is that Old Testament prophets very often date their prophecy by kings.
And frequently as you study the prophets you will notice this that they will say in the year of such and such a king, the word of the Lord came unto so and so. And that's how they date their prophecy and give us historical background. But in every case it is always a king of Israel or a king of Judah except for two times. And those two times are Haggai and Zechariah and both times they name a pagan Gentile king, because there is no king in Israel, because it is already the times of the Gentiles. Israel is already in Gentile hands and do you know when the times of the Gentiles ends?
It ends at the return of Jesus Christ. Since 586 B.C. Jerusalem has been under the hands and the power and the control of the Gentiles. And so when Zechariah goes to date his book, he has to date it according to the king. And since Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonian Israel had lost her dynasty and never got it again. And so we find that this is a man under Gentile domination writing his letter. Now notice it says, "came the word of the Lord and I would just remind you that this book is not some whimsical thoughts by this fellow Zechariah, but it is in fact the word of the Lord. The word of the Lord. Do you know that 3,808 times the Bible claims to be the word of the Lord? This is no different. This is God's word through the prophets mouth and the prophets pen.
Thus saith the Lord you'll find again and again and again and again through this book. Now the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet. Now the term the prophet, modifies Zechariah not Iddo. The word of the Lord came unto Zechariah the prophet. Now what was the prophet? The Hebrew word is navee. And it simply means a spokesman or a speaker. This is God's mouth. This is God's voice. This is God's speaker. And He is simply available to God to utter through His mouth the word that God wants.
His name is Zechariah. His father is Berechaih. His grandfather is Iddo. Now there's not really a lot of significance about those folks. Let me just give you a little thought about the names. Zechariah is a very common name. It's kind of like Bill or Mary or Sam or Joe or Bob or something like. There are 27 other people in the Bible named Zechariah. So if you're trying to figure out which one he is, you'll have to a little research. But there are 27 other Zechariahs. Very common name. It means God remembers. Now you'll notice the term Iddo. Iddo was a priest, not a prophet. The prophet there modifies Zechariah. We know he was a priest, because Ezra and Nehemiah both tell us that. So Zechariah came from a priestly background. His father is Berechiah. He is mentioned only here. He's not mentioned by Ezra, Nehemiah. Perhaps he died very young. And maybe Zechariah actually succeeded Iddo as priest because his father died soon.
Iddo could have been priest and actually Berechiah could have died during the lifetime of his father Iddo so that Zechariah followed his grandfather as priest. Now Zechariah is believed by Jewish tradition to be a very important man. Some have said that he was a member of the great synagogue and the great synagogue was a group of 120 members founded by Nehemiah. This is tradition, not Scripture, but they said this was the forerunner to the Sanhedrin and Zechariah was a member of it. And it is indicated also that this Zechariah was martyred. If you read Matthew, won't take the time right now, read Matthew 23:35 you will note there that it is said that Zechariah, the son of Berechiah was martyred.
So Zechariah was a prophet who gave up his life and martyrdom. Now let's having gotten all of that out of the way hit the message in verse 2. Zechariah means Jehovah remembers. Here's a little note for you. Berechiah means Jehovah blesses and Iddo means in his time. And the message of the book is Jehovah remembers and blesses in his time. And it's coming to those who repent. Now in the call to repentance we see four features and these are going to go flying by so hang on.
Number one, the problem of wrath in verse 2, and here the prophet sets up the reality of the need for repentance by discussing the wrath of God, verse 2. "The Lord had been sorely displeased with your fathers." Stop there. The literal word is this. This is the way the Hebrew reads. Angry was Jehovah at your fathers with great anger. He was angry, angry. The word means vehement displeasure. Almost to the extent of abhorrence or hatred or despising. That's how angry God was.
And you know something? Zechariah didn't need to give them a lot of illustrations. All they had to do was look around them and there were plenty of them. The rubble that once was their country was illustration enough of how angry God was. God was so angry with their fathers that He took them right out of the land. That thousands of them were slaughtered. They were dragged into captivity. Their land was just desolated. And when Zechariah says the Lord was really made with your fathers, yeah, we can see that. Confirmation was all over the place.
The holy places were defiled. The holy places were desecrated. The people were enslaved. The priesthood stopped functioning. And so I just point up what Zechariah's saying. Get it straight. God is a God of wrath. God is not a sort of a senile Santa Claus figure. God is not some kind of passive grandfather character who sits up there stroking His beard and just hoping everybody will be real nice, because He likes it if they are. God is angry about sin. Very angry, angry with a great anger. Whether God is dealing with Israel or God is dealing with society today or society in general, whether God is dealing with a believer in the church, whoever and whenever God deals with sin, He is angry.
Listen, you say but did you forget that 1 John 4:16 says "God is love?" No, I didn't forget that. Did you forget that Hebrews 12:29 says, "God is a consuming fire?" He's both. You need to study Scripture just very briefly and you will find out that God is a God of wrath. God is a God of anger. God's holy righteous character is indignant about sin. It offends God and brings about a holy reaction. If you were to read Ezra 8:22, you would find that God is angry with people who forsake Him. If you were to read Hebrews 10:26 and 27 you would read that God is angry with apostates.
If you read Deuteronomy 29, you would hear that God is angry with idolatry. If you read Psalm 89, you would see that God is angry with sinning saints. If you read 1 Thessalonians 2:16, you would hear that God is angry with false teachers. The anger of God can be seen in the drowning of the old world. It can be seen in the scattering of people at Babel. It can be seen in the drowning the Egyptian army, the chastening of the Israelites, the death of Nadab, of Korah, Dathan, and Abihu. The anger of God can be seen in the punishment of Saul and the punishment of David and the punishment of Solomon. The anger of God can be seen in the death of Ananias and Sapphira and the anger of God can be seen in the reality of hell.
God is a God of wrath. The person who believes that sin goes unpunished is a fool. Every act of sin demands a holy reaction and God was very angry and God reacted in anger to that, but it was righteous anger. His holiness had been affronted. So you see Zechariah introduces the fact that even though this is God remembers and God blesses and God comforts, there's always a circle in which that happens outside of which is wrath. In Romans 1:18 it says "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness." All of it.
Secondly, after discussing the problem of wrath, Zechariah hastens to the presentation of grace. And I don't know about you, but I'm in a hurry to get there. In verse 3, beautiful. "Therefore say thou unto them, since God is a God of wrath, say to them, thus saith the Lord of armies," that's what that means. The Lord of armies. "Turn unto me saith the Lord of armies and I will turn unto you saith the Lord of armies." You say why does He call himself the Lord of armies three times in one verse? It's a little redundant. You know what that name means? The Lord of armies re-enforces His authority and His power. And God is saying turn to me and the implication is or my army will take care of you. So there is grace here, but there is grace offered. The other alternative is still wrath. Turn unto me. God had already taken the initiative, He always does.
God had already begun to turn to them. After all He'd raised up Cyrus and He called Cyrus "my servant," even though he was a pagan king and Cyrus sent the people back. And He raised up Haggai to start the revival. And He raised up Zechariah to preach and God's heart had already turned back to His people. The 70 years was over. They were back in their land. His discipline was over and He was saying, I've turned to you, will you turn to me.
It was time for a change. God had turned and begun already. In Haggai 1:13, Haggai says, "The Lord wants to tell you that He's with you again." Haggai 1:13. He's back. And now you're free to turn to Him. God loves us and His love for us is to insight our love for Him. You see John says we love Him because what? He first loved us. And God said discipline is over everybody. Here I am. I'm just telling you return to me because I've got all this comfort for you, got all this blessing.
You know, I think sometimes when I hear something like that, you say well what does that have to do with a Christian. I've already returned. Yeah, but you know I think there's a sense in which that applies to us. You know, we may have returned to the Lord, but I don't know that we're always as close as we ought to be do you? I think some of us drift away, don't you, as Christians. What did James say? Is it James 4:8? "Draw nigh unto Him and He'll," what, "draw nigh unto you." Is He talking to unbelievers? No. Talking to believers. And a lot of times in our lives, I don't know about you, but I know about me, just drifting don't you and you hear the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit say MacArthur. Oh yeah. See.
I just love the concept. Return to me and I'll return to you. Israel was back. Positionally back in the land, but they needed a deeper commitment, a personal return to God and His person and His character. And you may be positionally all right, I mean, you're in the land, you're saved and all of that, but we drift don't we? God's wrath is always averted by repentance and confession and coming back to Him. And believe me when you come back to Him, you can't drag your garbage in with Him. You've got to dump it before you go in, right?
That's repentance. That's confession. What a message. What a message. You see the problem of wrath is solved by the presentation of grace. Here God is a God of judgment and a God of wrath against sin, but He stands with love and He says return to me and I'm waiting for you. And you know that's the cry that's been going out to the world ever since this time. This is what Jesus said. This is what the apostles preached. This is what the prophets preached. This is what the early church fathers preached. This is what all the Christian preachers through the ages preached. It's what I'm preaching and everybody will keep preaching until someday heaven closes its doors and Jesus comes and it'll all be over with but for now and for this time, He says return to me. And to us who are Christians, He says when we drift, return to me.
Some of you never came in the first place. You've never come to Christ at all. You'll never know God's blessing. You'll never know one bit of it in terms of personal covenant blessing between Himself and yourself. So having stated the problem of wrath and the presentation of grace, He turns to the plea for repentance. And because of wrath and because of grace, He pleads for their repentance, verse 4. "Be not as your fathers." Have you ever noticed...have you ever noticed that evil is hereditary and I don't just mean in the nature of man, but I mean that people tend to pass on the same evil patterns to their children.
The conduct of fathers, fathers do you know this, is perpetuated in their children. It is. And so He says "don't be like your fathers unto whom the former prophets cried saying thus saith the Lord of hosts turn now from your evil ways and from your evildoings, but they did not hear nor hearken unto me saith the Lord." He says there were prophets then and they cried out, but they didn't listen and they didn't hear and they're gone now.
Yeah, and they can say yeah, look around the city they're gone. They knew the results of their fathers' sins. Nobody needed to tell them that. They knew what happened. They knew their fathers had been slaughtered by Nebuchadnezzar's hoards and the ones that didn't die were hauled off into the captivity. They knew that. It wasn't any long lecture needed. He says just remember your fathers and don't be like they were, be different. In Ezra 9:7, it says "since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day." The people in Ezra's time we've been sinning in the same pattern as our fathers until now they say.
So Zechariah says God's got 14 Chapters of blessing coming up. You're going to be in a place to receive them? Not if you don't act differently than your fathers did. And their fathers had acted evil. They had not repented. In 2 Chronicles Chapter 29, I'll just draw your attention to verse 3, 2 Chronicles 29:3. "He in the first year of his reign and the first month opened the doors of the house of the Lord." This is a revival under Hezekiah. "And repaired them he brought in priests and Levites and gathered them and he said here me ye Levites sanctify yourselves." Hezekiah's going to straighten that nation out back in their history. This is long before Zechariah. "Four our fathers have trespassed and done that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and have forsaken Him and turned their faces from the habitation of the Lord and turned their backs and shut up the doors of the porch and put out the lamps." They put the temple out of business. "And have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel, wherefore, the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem and our fathers have fallen by the sword."
Remember your fathers, he says, and what they did and how they paid. The graves of the world are filled with people who fall into the classification, who have walked out of the presence of God, who have not been willing to turn from their sin and have forfeited blessing for time and eternity. The grave danger is that these would do the same. The prophets cried and cried and cried. You want to know for the most part what happened? They didn't listen, because when Jesus came and preached the same message, they took Him and killed Him, didn't they?
And Jesus told a parable about a man who owned a vineyard and he said had workers in the vineyard and everybody he sent you killed. And finally he said, I'll send my son and you killed him too. And Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem and said "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto them. How oft I would have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her brude, but you would not. Oh Jerusalem." You see it never didn't change much and it hasn't changed much today. People still reject just like their fathers and their fathers before them.
Turn, He says. Shabuain the Hebrew. Turn it means repent. Turn around. Turn from your evil ways. What does that mean? That's the bent of your nature. Turn from your evil doings. That's the deeds that a bent nature does. But these people really for the most part didn't. They just perpetuated the same thing. This is God's message. Simple message. It's a message to you as it was to the people in Zechariah's time. I got a whole lot of blessing for you. Oh I just want to bless you. But you've got to be in the place of repentance. And even to the Christian, God is saying I've got a place of blessing. Remember Jude where he says, "keep yourselves in the love of God."
And what he means is remember how he said there is a little circle and in that the sunshine of God's love always shines and blessing just keeps coming, but Christians are prone to wander outside the circle, aren't they, and it gets very lonely out there and very cold, very dismal. And Jude is saying just run back in the circle where God's love just keeps reigning sunshine. Keep yourselves in the love of God. Keep yourselves in the place of blessing. Listen, unbelievers they'd never been there. Christians we've been there and sometimes we want to wander out into the darkness of the world don't we? So he says the problem of wrath can be solved by grace. And he makes a plea for repentance and then just to re-enforce that he closes with what I call the pattern of history.
Verses 5 and 6, this is powerful stuff. He says, look at the pattern of history. Somebody's going to say oh yes, come on that was then. That was long ago. That doesn't apply to me. I mean this is something way back in history. God wouldn't do that to me. God isn't like that. Well, you better check history because history will clarify that question. Look at verse 5. "Your fathers where are they? And the prophets? Did they live forever? But my words and my statutes which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? When I said it didn't it happen? And they returned and said as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath He dealt with us." He said He would do it and guess what? He did it.
Just take Jeremiah. Jeremiah kept saying you're going to be sorry, you're going to be sorry. There's a price to pay. They just rejected Him, but there was a day and they paid. Four issues fill out those thoughts. Notice the pattern of history. First of all is the problem of sin, the issue of sin in verse 4. People are characterized by evil ways and evildoings. That's where it all begins. Evil ways and evildoings lead to a second issue, rejection. The end of verse 4, "but they did not hear nor hearken unto me saith the Lord." So what do you have? Evil ways, sinful ways, and the result rejection. They refused to hear the prophets. The refused to hear Christ. They refused to hear the Scripture and that leads to the third issue.
The issue of sin leads to the issue of rejection leads to the issue of death. Verse 5, "Your fathers where are they?" What was the answer? They're dead. They're dead. They're dead. They died in judgment and even the ones who went into captivity died in an unclean land, in a pagan land. And the Bible says "The wages of sin is," what, "is death." And they died. Where are they? They're dead. And so the issue of sin lead to the issue of rejection lead to the issue of death and that lead to a fourth issue, the issue of opportunity.
"And the prophets? Did they live forever?" What are you saying, Zechariah? I'm saying this, prophets die too and when prophets die, you listen but there's nobody talking anymore. That's right. And they just were about to experience 400 years without a prophet to speak for God. Where are the prophets? No more opportunity. You see sin persisted and leads to rejection, persisted in leads to death, and that leads to the loss of all opportunity.
It's gone, no more prophets, nobody to preach, no message to hear. There's a pattern. It's very clear and it's just the same today. You say, oh, that isn't going to happen to me. Oh yeah. Just like them, verse 6, the issue of inevitability. "But my words and my statutes which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers." You judge. Did that happen what I said would happen? Did it happen? Oh it did happen. The exile was proof positive that it happened. "The death of the nation stands as evidence that it happened and even your fathers returned and said as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us according to our ways and according to doings so that He dealt with us." It's obvious to anybody who was left alive that God did exactly what He said He was going to do.
And I would just tell you beloved God will do what He says He will do. If He says in grace, I will bless. In wrath, I will condemn, He will do it. And I would close with verse 3. Listen, and this is the call of the God to your heart tonight. "Turn unto me and I will turn unto you." Oh that's beautiful. Now listen to this. He doesn't say turn to my law. It's a good law. That isn't what He says. He doesn't say return to my way of life. Return to my principles. Return to my religious system. He says return to what? To me, don't you like that? Turn to me. Hey this is something personal isn't it? This isn't something institutional. Christians are a bunch of people who carry out a certain prescription. Christians are people who are connected to God.
Return to me. Oh there's something personal there. There's something very intimate there. And you know, there's only one way to return to Him. Only one way, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the light. No man comes to the Father," what, "but by me." That's the only way. To return to Him. Are you like the prodigal son who returned to his father and his father slew the fatted calf and made him a feast and put a ring on his finger and robe and said rejoice my son has returned. God has so many things that He wants to give. Maybe you've never even come to Christ. And so God is saying turn to me from Your sin and I'll meet you there and we'll start a relationship forever and I'll pour out blessing. Maybe you're a Christian and He's saying could you get just a little closer. I've got some really great stuff that's real intimate and if you just get up a little closer I want to let you have this.
All the marvelous realities of Zechariah's prophecy and every other promise in the word of God can belong to the person who turns to God, away from sin. And that's the message that begins the book. Let's pray. With your eyes closed for a moment, your heads bowed and just a moment of silence between you and the Lord, the message tonight is obviously directed at us to really convict our hearts. It's not my message, it's the message of the Spirit of God through the prophet Zechariah unto whom the word of the Lord came. This isn't John MacArthur, this is God speaking through the voice of the prophet Zechariah. I'm just trying to tell you what Zechariah said from God. And what he said is "Oh God is a God of comfort. God is a God of blessing." If you're in the right place and the right place is the place of repentance. Look at your life. Are there evil ways and evildoings there? Be honest.
Some of you are saying yeah. I'm saying that. Yeah, there sure are. Well, if you've never come to Jesus Christ, why don't you just come right now in your heart and say God I want to come to You and I want to turn from sin and I want to come through Jesus Christ who is the only way to the Father. The one who died and rose for me. And if you'll quietly, silently pray that prayer you will have turned to God and He will have turned to you and embraced you.
And then for those of us who are Christians who kind of drifted away and the Lord's gently saying could you get a little closer, there's some sins in your life even though you're saved and even though you're back in the land, there's some things that aren't what they ought to be and maybe you could set them aside and draw nigh unto me and I'll draw nigh unto you. Some things we need to set aside in our life. If that's the case in your life, why don't you just confess that silently to the Lord. Wouldn't it be great if we all walked out tonight in the most intimate fellowship possible with God, the God of the universe?
God keeps His word, whether to judge as He says or to bless. The choice is yours. Father, I pray for all of us in our hearts as we search and look and examine. That we would be honest and open enough to really see what's there and if it's sin, to confess and repent and turn to You. We thank You so much that You have called unto us in grace, You've pled with us, You warned us that there's a place of blessing if we want it. And Jesus said, "Him that cometh to me, I will under no circumstances turn away."
And so Father for all of us who come, we know there will be opened arms to embrace us. Father, to the end that all of us might settle every issue with You, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
This article is also available and sold as a booklet.
This sermon series includes the following messages:
Please contact the publisher to obtain copies of this resource.Publisher Information


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Desarrollar software
Budget €250-750 EUR
I need a symfony 1.4 developer to improve a site code as well as to develop a brand new module.
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Cosmid Queenie Video
Cosmid : Most of our girls are not models, they are students, bankers, waitresses, assistants, real estate agents, bartenders, hostesses... and maybe the occasional part time actress or dancer. Most get topless, some get totally naked, and some never even take off their underwear, but they are all very sexy, sensual woman.
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Senior C# ASP.Net Developer - £45k - Hampshire
- Recruiter
- Progressive Recruitment
- Location
- Farnborough
- Salary
- £40000 - £45000 per annum + 23 days holiday, private medical, pension
- Posted
- 25 Feb 2013
- Closes
- 25 Mar 2013
- Ref
- Contact
- James Parr
- Sector
- Technology & New Media
- Function
- Contract Type
- Permanent
- Hours
- Full Time
Senior Web Developer - £40,000 - £45,000 - Farnborough
An experienced Web Developer with strong commercial experience with Microsoft web technologies interested in joining an established MS Partner and focuses on delivering complex intranet systems for a mix of public and private customers? Experience with Design Patterns, MVC, Web Services, Remoting, XML, IIS 7+, Microsoft C#, ASP.NET, JavaScript, HTML, .NET 3.5, AJAX and MS SQL Server?
As part of the company's on going investment into its market leading product, this role will face the exciting challenge of enhancing the company's core product by moving to Windows 2012 server, Windows 8, Android Tablet and Microsoft Surface. Additional future developments will include significant enhancements to the core product, together with additional new products within the suite.
Senior Web Developer - £40,000 - £45,000 - Farnborough
Purpose of Job:
To work with the CTO to define the architecture and design of software solutions ensuring they meet the defined requirements. To author specifications, implement designs and technically assist other members of the team. To liaise with customers on a technical basis in order resolve third line support issues.
To work with members of the project team to understand customers' business needs and assist with the production of specifications to meet those needs.
To participate and lead key stages of the application development life-cycle: design, coding, unit testing ensuring a high level of professionalism at all times.
To mentor and coach team members as appropriate.
To maintain a high level of technical expertise, through attendance of training courses and formal accreditation programmes leading to full Microsoft Certified Professional to support our Microsoft Partner status.
To produce estimates for tasks and work with the team to ensure that projects are implemented within agreed timescales and quality standards.
To work with the CTO to identify improvements to technical standards and procedures within the company.
To be an active member of the team working hard to maintain high service and quality levels to our customers at all times.
Person Profile:
Proven commercial development experience of building web based applications, with around 4 years knowledge of Design Patterns, MVC, Web Services, Remoting, XML, IIS 7+, Microsoft C#, ASP.NET, JavaScript, HTML, .NET 3.5, AJAXand MS SQL Server (T-SQL).
Experience of Installshield, Java, SSRS, LDAP, VB.NET are also highly desirable.
Good communication, analytical/problem solving skills, a team player as well as being enthusiastic and hardworking.
Demonstrate a successful track record of systems development together with skills in web application and database design.
Driving licence and own transport
The Benefits Package:
Package circa £40-45,000 per annum, 23 days annual leave and after 3 months service: Free life insurance, free Private Medical Insurance and Contributory Pension.
Apply today and I'll be in touch to discuss this Senior Web Developer role further.
Key Skills; Design Patterns, MVC, Web Services, Remoting, XML, IIS 7+, Microsoft C#, ASP.NET, JavaScript, HTML, .NET 3.5, AJAX and MS SQL Server
To find out more about Progressive Recruitment please visit http://uk.progressiverecruitment.com">www.progressiverecruitment.com


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CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – After closing out the fall season at their respective Atlantic Coast Championships, the MIT sailing teams saw some movement in their positions on the Sperry – Top Sider College Rankings. The coed squad climbed up three spots to No. 13 while the women's unit dropped back one slot to No. 9 in the final poll.
A member of the New England Intercollegiate Sailing Association, the coed team was one of eight squads from the league to earn a national ranking. Fellow conference foes include: Yale (No. 2), Dartmouth (No. 3), Boston College (No. 7), Roger Williams University (No. 9), Connecticut College (No. 14), Brown (No. 15), and Tufts University (No. 16). The Middle Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association was represented by eight squads, followed by two from both the South Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association and the Pacific Coast Collegiate Sailing Conference.


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A Belper-based firm joined giants of the care home industry after being nominated for a national award.
A Belper-based firm joined giants of the care home industry after being nominated for a national award.
Milford Care, based at Springwood Gardens, Belper, was shortlisted for the "Residential Care Provider of the Year Award" at the Health Investor Awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.
The firm, which owns five care homes, was nominated alongside national care groups such as HC One, Barchester Healthcare and Caring Homes.
And despite not scooping first prize, Milford Care director Pierre Falleth, said the firm had lots to be proud of.
"At Milford Care we are completely driven by our residents choices and the exceptional service we provide has been evidenced by the numerous awards and accolades we have won over the years including; 'Best Healthcare Development', 'Yours Regional Care Home of the Year', 'Healthcare Design Award' and 'Best Care Group in Central England." he said.
Established in 1985, Milford Care runs Spencer Grove Care Home and Lady Well Views Close Care Retirement Apartments in Belper as well as Milford House Care Home in Milford.
It also owns homes in Hucknall, Alfreton and Arnold in Nottingham.
The company has previously enjoyed success at the Great British Care Awards - with 11 national finalists in the last five years and won Best Caring Home in Central England 2009 from Yours Magazine.


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Penney's shares plunge after 4Q massive loss
NEW YORK (AP) — J.C. Penney was the biggest loser Thursday.
Shares of J.C. Penney Co. plunged nearly 17 percent on Thursday, the largest decline on the Standard & Poor's 500 index on the day. The drop came a day after the department-store chain reported its fourth consecutive larger-than-expected quarterly loss on another steep sales decline.
Penney shares, which are now trading at around $18, now have lost nearly 60 percent of their value since early February of last year after CEO Ron Johnson revealed his plan to ditch hundreds of sales in favor of everyday low prices. After Johnson announced his vision in late January 2012, investors drove Penney's shares up 24 percent to $43 in a vote of confidence.
The stock drop is the latest sign that Johnson's turnaround strategy is failing on Wall Street as much as on Main Street. The company's quarterly and full-year results, which it reported Wednesday after the markets closed, revealed that shoppers still aren't buying it. But the sell-off shows that investors, too, are concerned that the plan won't work.
"I fear it will be much worse as consumers continue to walk away from J.C. Penney and its financial health continues to deteriorate," said Walter Loeb, a New York based independent consultant.
Penney's spokeswoman Daphne Avila declined to comment on Thursday's stock movement. But Johnson on Wednesday acknowledged to investors that the 1,100-store chain had made some mistakes. He also told them that Penney would start offering sales in stores every week.
"Experience is making mistakes and learning from them," Johnson told investors on Wednesday. "I have learned a lot."
If J.C. Penney's results are any indication, Johnson is right. Penney reported on Wednesday after the markets closed that it widened its quarterly loss to $552 million, or $2.51 per share. Revenue fell 24.8 percent to $12.98 billion.
Revenue at stores opened a least a year dropped 31.7 percent. The measure is a key indicator of a retailer's health. Customer traffic dropped 17 percent in the quarter, worse than the 10 percent drop in the third quarter.
Results for the full year were even more staggering. For the fiscal year, Penney lost $985 million, or $4.49 per share, compared with a loss of $152 million, or 70 cents per share, in the year ended January 28, 2012. Revenue dropped 24.8 percent to $12.98 billion.
It's a disappointing turn of events for Johnson, the mastermind of Apple's successful retail stores who took the top job at Penney in November 2011. A couple of months later, on Feb. 1 of last year, Johnson got rid of the nearly 600 sales Penney offered each year and lowered prices in the store by 40 percent. He also got rid of the word "sales" from the company's marketing.
But customers weren't responding to the changes, and Johnson has tweaked his strategy a few times, including bringing back the word "sale" in its marketing last spring. The latest change came early February when Penney began adding back more sales events and putting price tags on half of its merchandise to show customers how much they're saving by shopping at Penney.
Penney said that it's seeing positive results from its makeover of some of its stores with sectioned-off shops that feature different brands. The company plans to have 700 of its 1,100 stores nationwide remodeled in the coming years, but critics question whether the company is running out of time — and money.
In November, Penney said that it would end the latest fiscal year with $1 billion in cash. But the company winded up ending the year with $930 million in cash, which was better than analysts had feared but below the company's target.
The company also told investors on Wednesday that it delayed $85 million in payments to its suppliers from the fourth quarter to the early part of the first quarter. That suggests they're running out of cash.
And two rating agencies — Standard & Poor's Ratings Services and Fitch Ratings — raised further concerns on Thursday about Penney's ability to meet its loan commitments. Both lowered their credit ratings on Penney, which were already in junk status, by one notch.
"Our analysis suggests (Penney) will deplete cash" in the third quarter, wrote Kimberly C. Greenberger, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in a report published Thursday.
Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at www.twitter.com/adinnocenzio


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Stalk Bamboo Bicycles: Organic. Locally Grown. Bikes.
- Location: online only
- Website: stalkbicycles.com
Store History
- Founded: 2009
- Founded by: Zack Jiang, Lars Jacobsen, Nick Chan
- Headquarters: Oakland, CA
It's one thing to buy a bike; it's another thing to buy a bike that's hand-crafted in Oakland, California from locally-grown bamboo. Stalk Bicycles is "a team of passionate dudes dedicated to the lifestyle of two-wheeled transportation." Their 4-6 lb bike frames are made of bamboo finished with a weather sealer to protect against moisture and UV damage, while the bike joints are made of natural hemp and carbon fibers embedded in a non-petroleum based resin.
More about Stalk Bicycles:
When you strip it all down, it's a bike. It's a frame with two wheels, a seat and handlebar. But god how we love how this thing can encapsulate what inspires us. We love how every bamboo bike we make is a rolling work of art, each as individual as the rider in the saddle. We love how our customers geek-out over the components that make their bikes unique. And we're inspired by the statement our bikes make when we roll around town. A stare of bug-eyed disbelief, tapping, poking and a slew of questions usually ensues. People just want to ride them.
Bikes are currently custom made with a lead time of 4-8 weeks, but standard-sized frames are coming in May 2011. Prices for a custom frame start at $800, but can be outfitted with any extras you want.
Have more questions? Check out their FAQ page and place your order here!
(Images: Stalk Bicycles)


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The Neverending Systemd Saga
May 19, 2014 9:30 AM PT
Here in the Linux blogosphere, controversies come and go like the wind, leaving a trail of broken chalk and empty whiskey bottles in their wake. Most pass quietly into the annals of time of their own accord, however, so when a luminary such as Eric Steven Raymond, or ESR, weighs in with an opinion, it's a safe bet there's something big going on.
That is what happened back in March on Slashdot on the topic of Systemd, and the conversation recently surfaced again.
"I find myself faced with a dilemma," wrote systemDead in an Ask Slashdot post entitled, "Practical Alternatives To Systemd?"
"Should I just let systemd take over my entire system," the blogger wrote, "or should I retreat to my old terminal-based computing in the hope that the horde of the systemDead don't take over the Linux kernel itself?"
'You Have to Accept It'
Many in the Slashdot crowd weren't shy about expressing their opinions.
"Whether you love, hate, or are ambivalent about systemd, I think you have to accept it at this point," wrote Slashdot blogger Bryan Ischo, for example.
"If there are things you don't like about it, trying to use an alternate init mechanism is only going to cause you personal grief that will likely only increase in severity over time as it gets harder and harder to retrofit software packages to use other init systems as systemd further embeds itself into the Linux software world," Ischo added.
On the other hand, "Wow.... someone asks what they can do about having a software package shoved down [their] throat and your response is just open wide and swallow?" countered armanox. "I thought this was supposed to be about freedom."
Few would deny the controversial nature of Systemd's history. Down at the Linux blogosphere's Broken Windows Lounge, patrons had plenty of their own thoughts to share.
'Not Ready for Prime Time'
"I agree with Eric Raymond," offered Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol, for example. "I think it's a technology that's still young and presents more problems at the moment than benefits.
"If it changes in the future, perhaps it will become a standard," Ebersol added. "Right now, it's not ready for prime time."
Similarly, "I'm not an expert, but I've read and heard that systemd has a lot of things 'included' -- or should we say, 'tied up' -- in it, creating dependencies that won't allow distros to have different options painlessly," Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C. told Linux Girl.
Another commonly held belief is that "it is more than just a technological issue but a political one, in the sense that one group -- led by Red Hat -- took the front position by having this init system chosen as default by other distros, such as Debian and family, eliminating the others eventually," Gonzalo Velasco C. added.
At issue is "not only the speed of system initialization -- claimed to be faster with systemd -- but also security and freedom of choice, he added.
'Strange Definition of Freedom'
Indeed, "my only question would be... what happened to the so-called 'freedom of choice?'" asked SoylentNews blogger hairyfeet. "It looks like, just like ALSA suddenly getting tossed for Pulse when it wasn't even alpha quality, the powers that be have decided you WILL take systemd, like it or not.
"Sure, you can jury-rig a replacement -- that won't be supported and which will automatically mean you won't be getting any help, as the users will blame THAT no matter what -- but how is this any different than jamming a third-party, unsupported program into Windows?
"Just like Pulse, the community will get systemd... like it or not," hairyfeet concluded. "Freedom to take what you are given -- strange definition of freedom."
'A Real Problem'
"I think there can be a real problem here, but I don't know if we have enough evidence yet," Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien told Linux Girl.
"The Unix philosophy has generally been to have small, targeted tools and string them together as needed," O'Brien explained. "But in Linux you arguably have forces pushing the other way, particularly with the monolithic kernel.
"My own bias is towards the small targeted tools, because if something goes wrong, it does not take down everything," he added. "But there may be reasons I am not aware of why systemd needs to do all of these things, even if I can't think of them."
'What Could Go Wrong?'
Blogger Robert Pogson was noncommittal as well.
"I don't know what to do about systemd," Pogson told Linux Girl. "I have it running on my system and I hardly notice anything different in how the system behaves besides a few lines in the syslog.
"I would prefer to keep things simple, but as long as the boys and girls at Debian sort the mess out for me, I guess I am going along for the ride," he added. "If anything really bad happens, I can always regress and use another distro or hack away at Debian to make it work for me."
Pogson thought SysVinit was "just fine," he said. "As long as systemd stays out of my way, I don't care much what it does. APT is working well, as are all my applications and my custom kernel. What could go wrong?"