Keith's Journal

“All of history marches toward two moments. The first is the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. The price of sin had to be paid, so God sent his Son to be the final sacrificial Lamb to bear our punishment and to purchase our acceptance, our righteousness, and our deliverance. The second event is the final defeat of sin and the welcome of all who believe into their eternal home free of sin, sorrow, suffering, and death.”
— Paul David Tripp
Forever: Why You Can't Live Without It
(Grand Rapids, Mi.: Zondervan, 2011), 174-175

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. — Hebrews 13:8

Always the same! It is this which gives such value to the Gospels in which our Lord’s history is told. We are not reading there the life and sayings of one fickle and changeable like ourselves—but the life and sayings of a Redeemer who is now what He was then. We tell you confidently that all that love and gentleness and compassion and long-suffering and tenderheartedness which you may there see in your Lord and Savior’s character, are placed before you that you may understand the character of Him from whom alone we receive forgiveness and to whom alone your prayer must be made, and we say this because we know He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Always the same! It is this which makes the gospel so excellent and precious. We do not bid you depend on anything less than the tried corner-stone, the fountain whose water shall never fail—the city of refuge whose walls shall never be broken down—the sure Rock of Ages. Churches may decay and perish; riches may make themselves wings and fly away—but he who builds his happiness on Christ crucified and union with Him by faith, that man is standing on a foundation which shall never be moved, and will know something of true peace.”

— J. C. Ryle
"The Unchanging Christ"

Ray Ortlund writes:

“My passion isn’t to build up my church. My passion is for God’s Kingdom.”
Ever heard someone say that? I have. It sounds noble, but it’s unbiblical and wrong. It can even be destructive.
Suppose I said, “My passion isn’t to build up my marriage. My passion is for Marriage. I want the institution of Marriage to be revered again. I’ll work for that. I’ll pray for that. I’ll sacrifice for that. But don’t expect me to hunker down in the humble daily realities of building a great marriage with my wife Jani. I’m aiming at something grander.”
If I said that, would you think, “Wow, Ray is so committed”? Or would you wonder if I had lost my mind?
If you care about the Kingdom, good. Now be the kind of person who can be counted on in your own church. Join your church, pray for your church, tithe to your church, throw yourself into the life of your church with wholehearted passion.
We build great churches the same way we build great marriages — real commitment that makes a positive difference in practical ways. And thus we build the Kingdom.
My church or the Kingdom?

I think I'll try this one...

One of the minor scares in the Great Warming Alarm was that jellyfish were overtaking the oceans and soon they would kill off all other life forms by eating the plankton that directly or indirectly feed all animal life in the oceans. This of course was linked to climate change.

And like all the other scares, this one is now being shown to be false by real scientists who work on real world data and not just ocmputer models.

From the ABC:

 

Survey finds jellyfish takeover exaggerated

Friday, 3 February 2012
Genelle Weule
ABC

Jellyfish might be able to shut down a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but they are not taking over the world's oceans and turning them into slime, say scientists.

In the last decade, gelatinous blobs have reportedly clogged up water treatment and power plants, overrun fish farms, and hampered fishermen around the world. They even forced the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan out of the Port of Brisbane in 2006.

But claims they will dominate our oceans are not supported by data, says Winthrop Professor Carlos Duarte director of the Oceans Institute at the University of Western Australia.

"There's no support as yet to make any assertion that jellyfish are rising globally," says Duarte.

Duarte is one of the co-founders of a group of international scientists involved in a three-year research project, known as the Jellyfish Data Initiative (JEDI), to examine claims that jellyfish numbers around the world are increasing.

An overview of their project is published in the latest issue of BioScience.

The group have assembled more than 500,000 records of published and unpublished data, some of which goes back to the 1790s, to examine the long-term patterns of jellyfish blooms.

While analysis of the data continues, so far it suggests that jellyfish blooms rise and fall in 20-year boom and bust cycles, says Duarte.

"The past period of rise was in the mid-90s to about 2005, and that's when all the papers claiming there was a global rise came out," he says.

"So in fact there was a little bit of support for that because there was more a general rise than the previous decade, but this is not unprecedented."

"If we looked at these with a longer time perspective we see that similar events have happened in the past."

According to Durant, one of the reasons why these boom and bust cycles have gone unnoticed until recently is because of "too few people looking into the biology and ecology of these organisms."

He says of the 42 locations in the world for which they have long-term data, coastal Japan is the only place to experience an unprecedented rise in jellyfish numbers. In this case, the culprit is the giant Nomura jellyfish (Nemopilema nomurai).

"These things have the weight of a sumo wrestler, are very difficult to study and create a lot of problems by breaking the nets of fisherman in Japan. It really doesn't go unnoticed … [so] we have records of when this organism has bloomed in the past for the last 120 years."

 

 

Related articles, courtesy of Zemanta:

• Evidence for Jellyfish Invasion Is Lacking, Study Says
• Humans cause ocean-wrecking jellyfish plague! Or maybe not ...
• Jellyfish not taking over the world - yet
• The Jellyfish Invasion May Be On Hold