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I have looked everywhere for the parts diagram for the Model 1300 Ontario Grain Drill from McConnell Manufacturing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Anne Cope
E-mail request
Contact McConnell Manufacturing Co. Inc., 1 McConnell Ave., Box 269, Prattsburg, NY 14873, 800/828-6660, www.mcconnellmarctractors.com.
I have been searching for Gator Saver Inc. Last known address is 19112 N. Pine Dr., Spring, TX. I need some parts and have been unable to contact them. They made tools for repairing aluminum irrigation pipe.
Dale E. Nielson
Chapman, NE
Contact Gator Pump Inc., Box 57-302, Corrigan, Brownwood, TX 76801, 800/735-9811, www.gatorpump.com.
A few years back I thought I saw an article for a soil sampler mounted on a four-wheeler. I would greatly appreciate any information about where I could purchase one or the name, address and phone number of someone you think may have information on them. Thanks.
Roger Wangler
West Branch, MI
Concord's 2001 auger soil sampler ran out after the February 1999 issue. Contact Concord Environmental Equipment, RR 1, Box 78, Hawley, MN 56549, 218/937-5100.
I am looking for the company that handles JetFlow augers.
Dave Ashmore
E-mail request
JetFlow is a division of Luffland Industries. Contact Luffland Industries, Box 228, Bates City, MO 64011, 816/625-4022, www.luffland.com/JetFlow.
I am looking for contact information for a Homestead Hoister Model 3, manufactured by Homestead Valve Manufacturing Company of Coraopolis, PA.
David Schaefer
Blue Earth, MN
Contact Homestead Valve Company, 160 Walnut St., Allentown, PA 18102, 215/770-1100.
I am looking for information on wheel bearings that you never need to pack.
Bill Dunbar
Haviland, KS
Oil-Rite carries constant level lubricators. Contact Oil-Rite Corp., 4325 Clipper Dr., Manitowoc, WI 54221, 920/682-6173, www.oilrite.com.
I am trying to locate information about the Longwood Furnace Corporation from Missouri that makes wood furnaces. I need an installation and operating manual for a dual fuel furnace. Can you help? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Claire Senft
Hillsboro, OH
According to the Bob Villa Web site message boards, Longwood Parts and Service in Chillicothe, MO, closed and the business inventory was auctioned off in February 2004. We are unable to locate any further information.


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Nation & World
U.S. use of extradition to nab Russian suspects draws Moscow's anger
A little known extradition case in Costa Rica is shedding light on Russia's practice of vigorously defending its citizens arrested overseas and threatened with extradition to the United States on organized crime charges.
The case involves Maxim Chukharev, a Russian arrested in May for money laundering through Liberty Reserve, a money exchange platform that U.S. prosecutors say was the "bank of choice for the criminal underworld" before it was seized.
Last week, after a Costa Rican court gave the go-ahead for Chukharev to be sent to the United States, two senior Russian diplomats gave a dressing down to Costa Rican Ambassador Mario Fernandez Silva in Moscow, warning him that Costa Rica should ignore the extradition request because the "extraterritorial application of America law" is a "vicious practice which should be stopped."
In a statement Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry reiterated a warning for Russian nationals not to travel to any country that has extradition treaties with the United States if they suspect they are wanted by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
"Experience shows that the trials of those who were basically abducted and taken to the U.S. are biased, based on shaky evidence and conspicuously accusatory. As a rule, they result in illegitimate verdicts with long prison terms," the statement said.
A spate of recent arrests of overseas Russians casts a light on what U.S. officials say is the significant role of Russia in transnational crime. But the issues involved generate starkly different opinions from those worried by global crime syndicates and others who voice unease over the long reach of U.S. justice.
U.S. organized crime experts say Russian criminals working overseas often have connections within the Russian government, and that the Russian government's defense of them is designed to keep those links from emerging in public light.
"Most of these guys operate with a significant amount of state protection. When they go down, the Russian state goes into full panic mode," said Douglas Farah, a national security consultant and co-author of a book on Viktor Bout, a Russian arms trafficker extradited from Thailand and convicted in a U.S. federal court in 2011. Bout, dubbed the "Merchant of Death" because he supplied weapons to a series of radical and outlaw groups, is now serving a 25-year prison term.
Russia is not the only nation concerned about the U.S. prosecutions, however. The long arm of the U.S. law in pursuing foreigners in third countries makes some legal experts in Europe and Latin America uncomfortable.
"It gives the impression that there might be a certain abuse of power from a powerful country," said Juan Carlos Esquivel, a Costa Rican lawyer who is president of the anti-money laundering committee of the Inter-American Bar Association. Esquivel noted that the use of digital currencies is not regulated in his country.
"If Costa Rica doesn't obey what the United States suggests, what happens? Tomorrow, the U.S. could come out with regulations prohibiting U.S. citizens from investing here," he said.
An expert on money laundering at the University of Hamburg, Ingo Fiedler, said he is uneasy over how U.S. laws seem to trump international regulations.
"The USA has the tendency to export their law to other countries by threatening the respective countries," Fiedler said. "Thus I can understand Russia's decision that they do not want a citizen committing a crime in Costa Rica to have a trial in the USA."
In the past six months, Russians have been a frequent target of arrest warrants executed at the request of U.S. prosecutors.
On Aug. 1, the Dominican Republic extradited 24-year-old Aleksandr Panin to stand trial in federal court in Atlanta on charges related to cyberscams using SpyEye malware, which enables the theft of online banking information. Panin is accused of stealing $5 million from U.S. banks.
In mid-August, Lithuania extradited an alleged arms dealer, Dmitry Ustinov, to stand trial in the United States for allegedly negotiating to sell restricted night-vision goggles. He faces a 20-year sentence.
Another Russian, Dmitry Belorossov, was arrested at the Barcelona airport Aug. 17 upon triggering an Interpol fraud alert. Belorossov's extradition to stand trial in the United States is pending.
When U.S. prosecutors seized Liberty Reserve in late May, they said the company had laundered "more than $6 billion in criminal proceeds." Liberty Reserve allowed clients anonymity and offered them a digital currency, known as an LR, to facilitate payments for criminal activity.
"It was set up specifically to be a thieves' market," said Jeffery Robinson, a financial crimes consultant and author based in New York City.
Among the seven people indicted when the U.S. government shut Liberty Reserve was Chukharev, who the indictment describes as one of two architects of the platform for the exchange of the digital currency.
Chukharev worked for Arthur Budovsky, a Ukrainian-born naturalized American who later gave up U.S. citizenship to adopt Costa Rican citizenship. Budovsky was arrested in Spain.
Russia has come to the defense of Chukharev but not Budovsky.
A Costa Rican Ministry of Foreign Relations spokesman, Miguel Diaz, said the country's ambassador in Moscow told Russian diplomats that his nation's executive branch had nothing to do with the judicial extradition process.
The envoy explained to them "how there is a division of power here, and that it is up to the courts to decide on the extradition request," Diaz said.

subset: commoncrawl


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Howard Shore
September 10th, 2014
Howard Leslie Shore
Howard Shore
Years Active:
'60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, '10s
Howard Shore
Howard Shore has composed the scores for over 50 films, including The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, After Hours, Seven, and both the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. His collaborations with David Cronenberg have resulted in scores for the films The Brood, Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, Naked Lunch, M. Butterfly, and Crash, spanning a nearly 20-year period by the year 2001. Shore's formal education came at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. From 1969-1972 he recorded with the group Lighthouse. He was one of the original creators of Saturday Night Live and served as its musical director from 1975-1980. In 2000, Shore began work on one of the most expansive projects of his career when he signed on to produce scores for film adaptations of the Lord of the Rings series. He spent a year just working on the first film, using Tolkien's texts and drawing from eighth and ninth century music sources to try to evoke the books' magical worlds. Upon the completion of the Lords series in 2001, Shore created the scores for several Hollywood blockbusters including Panic Room (2002), The Aviator (2005), A History of Violence (2005), The Departed (2006), Doubt (2008), and Hugo (2011). In 2012 Shore, along with director Peter Jackson, returned to Middle Earth for the first of three Hobbit films.
Become a fan of the Top Songs 2014 on Facebook for exclusive offers, the inside scoop on latest and most exclusive music albums, singles and videos.


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Three inspiring theater productions bring families together for afternoons of magic and fun.
NEW BEDFORD — Colorful puppets, vibrant sets and beloved characters make lasting memories for children of all ages in the 2014 Just For Kids! Series at the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center, Downtown New Bedford. Three inspiring theater productions bring families together for afternoons of magic and fun — "Masked Marvels & Wondertales" on Feb. 22 at 11 a.m., Caldecott Honor books "Swimmy, Fredrick and Inch by Inch" on March 16 at 3 p.m., and the classic "Charlotte's Web" on June 1 at 3 p.m. Tickets are only $8 per show when purchased together as a set by Feb. 22. Tickets are available at www.zeiterion.org or 508-994-2900.
Masked Marvels & Wondertales
Saturday, Feb. 22, 11 a.m.
The other-worldly creations of artist Michael Cooper come to life in his amazing one-man-show anthology of original stories. Behind colorful, hand-crafted masks, charming characters gambol and delight as they turn everyday occurrences into fables of adventure and wonder. Vivid details and masterful storytelling make this a compelling performance for adults and children alike.
Swimmy, Fredrick and Inch by Inch
Sunday, March 16, 3 p.m.
The whimsical tales of acclaimed children's author Leo Lionni are enacted by artfully crafted puppets that maintain the distinctive style of their picture-book origins. The show features three of Lionni's best-loved stories, each awarded the Caldecott Honor for outstanding children's picture book. Swimmy is a resourceful little fish who learns to work with others to accomplish goals. Fredrick, a poetic mouse, uses his creativity and passion to entertain and delight his friends. In 'Inch by Inch' a little inchworm uses his intelligence to outwit a hungry robin. Using innovative lighting techniques and an original musical score, this series creates a unique sensory experience to rival any story-time circle.
Charlotte's Web
Sunday, June 1, 3 p.m.
Based on E.B White's classic story, this musical rendition of 'Charlotte's Web' gives children a new and exciting way to examine love and friendship. Charlotte, a spider living in the doorway of a barn, befriends Wilbur the Pig and works her hardest to save him from becoming pork chops. The unlikely pair forms a deep friendship. 'Charlotte's Web' is an engaging, colorful display of theatrics combined with schoolroom sensibilities.
Tickets for the Just For Kids Series are $10 to $12 individually, and $8 when all shows are purchased together. Packages and individual tickets are available online and at The Zeiterion Performing Arts Center's box office located at 684 Purchase Street, New Bedford, MA 02740. Box Office Hours: Tuesday through Friday 10:00am – 5:00pm and Saturday 10:00am-3:00pm. For more information or tickets, visit www.zeiterion.org.


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ThymeSoft necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 107 diseños de 9 diseñadores freelance.
Member Magic / Golf Magic / Marina Magic
We develop a family of software products used by membership clubs:
Member Magic - handles general member management at yacht clubs, golf clubs and country or exclusive clubs.
Golf Magic - manages scoring and handicapping at golf clubs
Marina Magic - manages boats and docking pen details at yacht clubs
We're looking for a set of three logos that are visually a matching set, one for each of the above products.
Our website and marketing materials have not been updated for quite some time, and have never been worked on by professional graphic designers in the first place. It's time to update our image, and the cornerstone of that is a good looking product logo.
Logos will be seen and be associated with our client clubs and their members, so it needs to be something they are happy to be linked to.
Member demographics vary significantly, but typically they are financially well-off. Male and female gender is well represented, and ages are mostly 35-70. Some families and some retirees.
1. Matching set of 3 logos (or 3 variants of one logo) for the three products: Member Magic, Golf Magic, Marina Magic
2. We have a current 'logo' for Member Magic which is 'Member Magic' written in red 'brush script' font, and no particular logo for marina magic or golf magic so far. Some kind of continuity from the existing logo by using the same or a similar font and same or similar text colour is a bonus but not required.
3. The logos must predominately feature the product names. Also, including an iconic symbol that represents the product area is desirable (golf, yachts, member management).
4. Colour associations: golf is green, marina is blue, and member magic could stick with red for continuity with existing logos (feel free to experiment with different reds!).
5. We are looking for the logo to have a professional feel, and a relatively modern feel to compete with some very slick competitors.
6. We will be using the logo within our software, on printed sales brochures and on our website so it needs to present well on all of these mediums. This lends to simpler designs, ideally that can be scaled back to a B&W/two-tone version and still look reasonable.
7. Potential ideas: A vague idea for making a matching logo set is using the same font and sizing for all three products and including an iconic symbol for the subject area of each product (golf, yachts, members). Ideally any used symbols are simple enough and the right shape to be used as product icons.
8. Yachts are sail boats, so don't use motor boats etc in your symbols. But if you think of some other symbol for marinas, feel free to throw them in the ring too!
9. NEW: Our current logo has our product name in brush script and that may be suitable to remain in the winning entry, but some entries so far have convinced us that other fonts may be far better. Please experiment with fonts in your submissions - we are interested in any font that is highly readable, has a classy feeling, has very clear capital G and M, and suits the style of your symbol.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Space station, an artificial structure placed in orbit and having the pressurized enclosure, power, supplies, and environmental systems necessary to support human habitation for extended periods. Depending on its configuration, a space station can serve as a base for a variety of activities. These include observations of the Sun and other astronomical objects, study of Earth's resources and environment, military reconnaissance, and long-term investigations of the behaviour of materials and biological systems—including human physiology and biochemistry—in a state of weightlessness, or microgravity.
Small space stations are launched fully assembled, but larger stations are sent up in modules and assembled in orbit. To make the most efficient use of its carrier vehicle's capacity, a space station is launched vacant, and its crew members—and sometimes additional equipment—follow in separate vehicles. A space station's operation, therefore, requires a transportation system to ferry crews and hardware and to replenish the propellant, air, water, food, and such other items as are consumed during routine operations. Space stations use large panels of solar cells and banks of storage batteries as their source of electrical power. They also employ geostationary relay satellites for continuous communication with mission controllers on the ground and satellite-based positioning systems for navigation.
Since 1971, 11 space stations launched into a low orbit around Earth have been occupied for varying lengths of time. In chronological order they are Salyut 1, Skylab, Salyuts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, Mir, the International Space Station, and Tiangong 1 and 2 (see table).
|station, or major module for modular station
|country of origin, or country of launch for ISS* modules
|date launched
|date reentered
|occupancy, total days (and number of major expeditions)
|*International Space Station.
|Salyut 1
|April 19, 1971
|October 11, 1971
|23 (1)
|first space station, equipped for scientific studies; abandoned after its first crew died returning to Earth
|Salyut 2
|April 3, 1973
|May 28, 1973
|military reconnaissance platform; suffered explosion after achieving orbit and was never occupied
|Cosmos 557
|May 11, 1973
|May 22, 1973
|scientific station; crippled after achieving orbit and was never occupied
|May 14, 1973
|July 11, 1979
|171 (3)
|first U.S. space station; successfully supported solar studies and biomedical experiments on the effects of weightlessness
|Salyut 3
|June 25, 1974
|January 24, 1975
|16 (1)
|military reconnaissance platform
|Salyut 4
|December 26, 1974
|February 3, 1977
|93 (2)
|scientific station; operated until its systems were exhausted
|Salyut 5
|June 22, 1976
|August 8, 1977
|67 (2)
|military reconnaissance platform
|Salyut 6
|September 29, 1977
|July 29, 1982
|684 (6)
|first second-generation Salyut, operated as highly successful scientific station; resident crews hosted a series of international visitors
|Salyut 7
|April 19, 1982
|February 2, 1991
|815 (5)
|problem-plagued follow-up to Salyut 6 that had to be repeatedly rescued
|Mir (modular)
|March 23, 2001
|occupied March 14, 1986, to June 15, 2000 (continuously from September 7, 1989, to August 28, 1999)
|first space station assembled in orbit using individually launched, specialized modules; successfully applied lessons learned from Salyut program
|Mir base block
|February 20, 1986
|habitat module
|Kvant 1
|March 31, 1987
|astrophysics observatory with X-ray telescopes
|Kvant 2
|November 26, 1989
|supplementary life-support systems and large air lock
|May 31, 1990
|microgravity materials-processing laboratory
|May 20, 1995
|module with apparatus for NASA research
|April 23, 1996
|module with NASA apparatus and Earth-sciences sensors
|International Space Station (modular)
|international consortium, primarily U.S. and Russia
|permanently occupied since November 2, 2000
|modular, expandable station intended to serve world's space agencies for first quarter of 21st century
|November 20, 1998
|U.S.-funded, Russian-built module supplying initial solar power and attitude-control system
|December 4, 1998
|U.S.-built connecting node
|July 2, 2000
|Russian-built habitat module and control centre
|February 7, 2001
|U.S.-built NASA microgravity laboratory
|July 12, 2001
|U.S.-built air lock, allowing station-based space walks for U.S. and Russian astronauts
|September 14, 2001
|Russian-built docking compartment, providing Soyuz docking port and additional air lock for Russian space walks
|October 23, 2007
|U.S.-built connecting node
|February 7, 2008
|European Space Agency-built microgravity laboratory
|March 11, 2008; May 31, 2008
|Japanese-built microgravity laboratory
|March 11, 2008
|Canadian-built robot
|Mini-Research Module-2
|November 10, 2009
|Russian-built docking compartment, providing Soyuz docking port and additional air lock for Russian space walks
|February 8, 2010
|U.S.-built connecting node
|Mini-Research Module-1
|May 14, 2010
|Russian-built docking compartment
|Permanent Multipurpose Module Leonardo
|February 24, 2011
|Italian-built module
|Bigelow Expandable Activity Module
|April 8, 2016
|Module built by Bigelow Aerospace to test expandable module technology
|Tiangong 1
|September 29, 2011
|April 2, 2018
|21 (2)
|first Chinese space station
|Tiangong 2
|September 15, 2016
|29 (1)
|second Chinese space station
Early concepts and plans
Between 1952 and 1954, in a series of articles in the popular magazine Collier's, the German-American rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun presented his vision of a space station as a massive wheel-shaped structure that would rotate to generate "artificial gravity" from centrifugal force, sparing its crew of 1,000 scientists and engineers the drawbacks of weightlessness. It would be serviced by a fleet of winged spaceships employing nuclear engines. One of the station's primary tasks would be to assemble vehicles for expeditions to the Moon. That concept remained a popular portrait of humankind's future in space as late as 1968, when the American motion-picture director Stanley Kubrick's classic science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey depicted a spinning double-wheel station under construction above Earth. On a regular schedule, a fleet of commercial space planes flew people up to the station, from which they could catch a ferry to the Moon.
In Braun's day, the development of a space station was thought to be a preliminary stepping-stone to the Moon and planets, but, when Cold War politics prompted Pres. John F. Kennedy in 1961 to commit the United States to landing a man on the Moon before the decade was out, there was no time to pursue this logical route. Rather, a single spacecraft would be obliged to ride an expendable rocket into orbit and fly directly to its goal. Nevertheless, even as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) plunged deeply into the Apollo program, it studied several space station strategies as part of an Apollo Applications Program, which would exploit vehicles built for the Moon race for more general orbital activities.
Even as 2001 was restating Braun's ambitious vision to the public, it already was obvious to space engineers that the first real space stations would have to be much simpler than their fictional counterparts. One NASA plan was to have an Apollo spacecraft dock with a spent rocket stage, whereupon its crew would pressurize the rocket's empty hydrogen-propellant tank with air and install scientific equipment that would turn it into a laboratory for several weeks of occupancy. The U.S. Air Force had its own plan to operate a Manned Orbiting Laboratory fitted with an advanced camera to facilitate military reconnaissance activities. In 1969, however, just as NASA attained Kennedy's goal of a crewed lunar landing, Pres. Richard M. Nixon canceled the Manned Orbiting Laboratory and restricted the Apollo Applications Program to a single station.
Like the U.S. military, the Soviet Union had a plan to put a series of reconnaissance stations in orbit by the 1970s. In 1969, with development running late for the large spacecraft that was to ferry crews and supplies to the station, Soviet officials decided to accelerate the program by employing the Soyuz spacecraft that had been developed during the failed attempt to win the Moon race. Moreover, because some of the systems needed for a military reconnaissance platform were not yet available, it was decided to initiate the program with a station equipped as a scientific laboratory.
Salyut 1: the first space station
The Soviet Union's space station design took the form of a stepped cylinder 14.6 metres (48 feet) long, with its widest section 4.25 metres (13.9 feet) in diameter. Although the station could be oriented arbitrarily, its maneuvering engine was located immediately behind the wide section, which thus came to be defined as the rear of the station. At the front end was a docking system for Soyuz ferries. Internally, apart from an air lock in the cylindrical front section, the station formed a single rectangular room. The name of the station program, Salyut (Russian: "salute"), was chosen to honour cosmonaut Yury Gagarin's historic first orbit of Earth a decade earlier.
Salyut 1, which was launched April 19, 1971, atop a Proton rocket, was outfitted from the start to support two three-man crews for a total of two months over a six-month period. Although its first designated crew docked five days later in Soyuz 10, the cosmonauts could not open their ferry's hatch and had to return home. Once the fault had been rectified, the crew of Soyuz 11 spent 23 days aboard the station in June, although tragedy struck on the way home when a valve in the descent capsule allowed the air to leak out, and the three cosmonauts were killed. At that time, it was not Soviet practice for Soyuz cosmonauts to wear pressure suits. In redesigning the Soyuz to prevent such an accident from recurring, one seat had to be omitted to accommodate a life-support system for two pressure-suited cosmonauts.
The only element of NASA's Apollo Applications Program that did not succumb to Nixon's budgetary cuts was Skylab. Its plan, which called for a ready-to-use scientific laboratory that had been prefabricated on the ground, replaced the earlier concept of outfitting the tank of a spent rocket in space. Apollo spacecraft would ferry the crews and provide a very limited resupply capability. Although similar in concept to Salyut in that its useful life was defined by its initial resources, Skylab was larger and much more capable because it used as its main habitat the upper stage of the Saturn V vehicle that had launched the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon. The station's primary scientific instrument was the Apollo Telescope Mount, which at the time was by far the most powerful solar telescope ever placed in orbit. It also carried apparatus for Earth resources observations and materials science research.
On its launch in May 1973, Skylab's thermal shielding was damaged, which made it necessary for the first crew to carry up and install an improvised "parasol" to allow the station to function at its planned level of operation. Over an eight-and-a-half-month period, Skylab hosted a trio of three-man crews for a total of nearly six months. Its final crew set an endurance record of almost three months; in the process, it undertook a detailed study of how the human body adapts to prolonged exposure to weightlessness—the Skylab program's most significant legacy. (For a list of human endurance records in space, see the table.)
|primary habitat
|month and year launched
|days in space
|Yury A. Gagarin
|Vostok 1
|April 1961
|Gherman S. Titov
|Vostok 2
|August 1961
|Andriyan G. Nikolayev
|Vostok 3
|August 1962
|Valery F. Bykovsky
|Vostok 5
|June 1963
|L. Gordon Cooper, Jr.
Charles Conrad, Jr.
|Gemini 5
|August 1965
|Frank Borman
James A. Lovell, Jr.
|Gemini 7
|December 1965
|Andriyan G. Nikolayev
Vitaly I. Sevastyanov
|Soyuz 9
|June 1970
|Georgy T. Dobrovolsky
Viktor I. Patsayev
Vladislav N. Volkov
|Salyut 1
|June 1971
|Charles Conrad, Jr.
Paul J. Weitz
Joseph P. Kerwin
|May 1973
|Alan L. Bean
Jack R. Lousma
Owen K. Garriott
|July 1973
|Gerald P. Carr
William R. Pogue
Edward G. Gibson
|November 1973
|Yury V. Romanenko
Georgy M. Grechko
|Salyut 6
|December 1977
|Vladimir V. Kovalyonok
Aleksandr S. Ivanchenkov
|Salyut 6
|June 1978
|Vladimir A. Lyakhov
Valery V. Ryumin
|Salyut 6
|February 1979
|Leonid I. Popov
Valery V. Ryumin
|Salyut 6
|April 1980
|Anatoly N. Berezovoy
Valentin V. Lebedev
|Salyut 7
|May 1982
|Leonid D. Kizim
Vladimir A. Solovyov
Oleg Y. Atkov
|Salyut 7
|February 1984
|Yury V. Romanenko
|February 1987
|Vladimir G. Titov
Musa K. Manarov
|December 1987
|Valery V. Polyakov
|January 1994
Maturation of the Soviet station program
After failed attempts to establish a second station, the U.S.S.R. managed a 16-day tour in July 1974 by a two-man crew aboard Salyut 3. This military reconnaissance variant resembled its predecessor but had its docking system at the rear rather than at the front.
The Soviet program achieved the operationally significant milestone of reoccupying a space station in 1975 when two crews lived aboard Salyut 4 for 30 and 63 days, respectively, and conducted scientific experiments. By the time Salyut 4 was abandoned, its environmental system had been exhausted, and the internal walls reportedly were laced with a smelly green mold. It served one final function, however, by receiving the prototype of an automated, uncrewed form of the Soyuz spacecraft, called Progress, that was being developed to resupply future stations.
Salyut 5, occupied by two crews in 1976 and 1977, was another reconnaissance platform. Salyut 6, launched in September 1977, introduced the second generation of Soviet space stations. It had a docking system at each end, which permitted Progress resupply ferries to link with an occupied station—i.e., while the crew's Soyuz was docked at the opposite end. The primary objective of this phase of the program was to extend crew endurance gradually in order to demonstrate that humans could survive in weightlessness for the length of time required for a round-trip journey to Mars, which was considered to be as long as 18 months.
A major problem facing the endurance program was that the contemporary variant of the now-venerable Soyuz was limited to a two-month stay in space; beyond this time, its propellant system would deteriorate. This meant that, for a Salyut crew to remain aboard longer, its ferry would have to be replaced periodically. As a solution, endurance crews not only received Progress ferries but also hosted a succession of visitors who would arrive in a fresh Soyuz, stay for a week or so, and then leave in the older Soyuz so that a usable crew-return craft was always available. By supporting crews for 684 days over a four-year period (with five long-duration crews unloading a dozen resupply craft and hosting 11 visiting crews), Salyut 6 greatly advanced the state of the art in space station operations. One indicator of the rapid maturation of the Soviet program came when the two resident cosmonauts made an impromptu space walk in August 1979 to cut away the frame of a radio telescope that had become fouled at the rear of the station.
A virtual copy of its predecessor, Salyut 7 was launched in April 1982. While extending the endurance record, a succession of crews were scheduled to occupy the station on a continuous basis, handing it over in an operational state. The cosmonauts' tours of duty would be more lonely because upgrades to the Soyuz—in its new guise it was called Soyuz T—allowed it to remain in space for six months, which obviated the need for frequent visitors. On the other hand, life aboard would be more sociable because weight reduction had enabled the ferry's third seat to be reinstated. Most of the scientific apparatus to keep Salyut 7's crews busy was to be delivered in large modules that would dock temporarily with the station. Salyut 7 received two such modules—Cosmos 1443 in 1983 and Cosmos 1686 in 1985—on its front docking system.
Unfortunately, whereas Salyut 6 had had a run of exceptionally good luck, Salyut 7's very ambitious program was frustrated by a series of operational problems. Nevertheless, crews successfully undertook repairs of malfunctions so serious that, until they actually had been faced and overcome, they would have been considered cause to vacate the station. After a pipe of the space station's engine developed a propellant leak, specialized tools were fabricated and sent up, and members of the station's third main crew spacewalked in May 1984 to install a bypass. In February 1985, while temporarily vacant, Salyut 7 suffered a total power failure and started to drift. Four months later, after making a rendezvous without the assistance of the station's radar docking system, the fourth main crew managed to link their Soyuz T-13 with the inert station and restore it to life. Various setbacks had caused the first three crews to leave the station unattended, and the objective of an in-space handover was not achieved until the Soyuz T-14 crew arrived in September 1985 with the Soyuz T-13 cosmonauts still in residence. Salyut 7's bad luck continued to the end; when one of the Soyuz T-14 cosmonauts fell ill, the crew was recalled to Earth.
Soviet officials decided to scrap the jinxed Salyut 7 and advance to the next phase, which was to assemble a large modular complex in orbit. At its core would be a base block derived from the Salyut design, which would be outfitted as the crew habitat. In addition to a pair of axial docking systems, it would have a ring of four peripheral docking units around its nose to accept modules mounted at right angles to the base block. Five add-on units would expand the station and provide its primary scientific instruments. To mark the advance, the new station was called Mir (Russian: "peace," "community," or "world.")
Mir's base block, launched in February 1986, was placed into the same orbital plane as Salyut 7. This allowed Mir's commissioning crew to shuttle between the two stations in their Soyuz T in order to wrap up Salyut 7's program and salvage usable apparatus from the older station. Like Salyut 7, Mir was intended to be occupied on a continuous basis, but delays in building the first of the add-on modules led to the station's being vacated for a time. When the second crew set off for Mir in February 1987, it was in a new form of Soyuz, called Soyuz TM. In April the cosmonauts received the first of the expansion modules, Kvant 1.
Mounted at the rear of the Mir base block, Kvant 1 was primarily an astrophysical observatory, but it also provided systems for attitude control and life support and carried a docking system at the rear for ferries. The second add-on, Kvant 2, carried additional life-support systems and a large air lock. It was first docked axially at the front of the station and then swung around to a perpendicular position by a mechanical arm, an adjustment that made the station L-shaped. Docking of the third module, Kristall, a materials-processing factory, transformed the L configuration into a T. Beginning in September 1989, Mir was continuously inhabited for nearly a decade by a succession of crews. Although in most cases they served a standard six-month tour of duty, Valery Polyakov, a physician, spent a record 14 months aboard in 1994–95. (For a list of human endurance records in space, see the table.)
It had been hoped to complete Mir within three years, use it for several years, and then start assembly of its successor by utilizing the Soviet version of the U.S. space shuttle, called Buran, then under development. By the time Kristall was added in mid-1990, however, the base block already was approaching its five-year design life. Delays in developing Buran meant that Mir's service life would have to be extended. Then in 1991, on the demise of the Soviet Union, Buran was canceled and funding for Mir reduced. Facing a financial crisis, the newly created Russian Space Agency offered Mir to the international community as a microgravity research laboratory, selling time aboard it for a fee. In the early 1990s, several of Europe's space agencies accepted the offer and sent astronauts to Mir to conduct a variety of microgravity studies.
Revival of the U.S. station program
In 1969 NASA proposed to President Nixon that a reusable space shuttle be developed to serve as the basis for post-Apollo activities in Earth orbit. At that time, still pursuing Braun's vision of a space plane and complementary orbiting base, the agency had hoped to use the shuttle to build a space station, but the high cost of funding the first project precluded starting the second. Once the shuttle was in service, however, the agency again began lobbying for a station. In 1984 Pres. Ronald Reagan ordered that a space station be developed within a decade and that it involve international participation. Unfortunately, because of legislative disputes over the station's design and cost and various setbacks to NASA's overall space program, no actual construction was begun during the assigned period.
In 1993, as the prospect of cancellation loomed, Pres. Bill Clinton ordered NASA to widen the multinational partnership by including Russia, with which relations had dramatically improved following the end of the Cold War. In an extension of that spirit of cooperation, the United States and Russia agreed to merge their respective space station developments into a program for a single orbital structure. The first phase of the integrated program called for a series of shuttle missions to Mir to allow NASA to gain practical experience operating in conjunction with a station and to make an early start on microgravity research. With this renewal of effort, Russia launched its last two modules, named Spektr and Priroda, to Mir. In 1996, a decade after its assembly began, Mir was finally completed.
The International Space Station
NASA's interest in Mir was strictly as a stepping-stone, and it intended soon after the final shuttle-Mir mission in early 1998 to put into orbit the first element of its multinational project, which had come to be called the International Space Station (ISS). Launched by Russia atop a Proton rocket in late 1998, the initial module, called Zarya, was designed to provide attitude control and solar power arrays for the nascent station. Shortly afterward, space shuttle astronauts ferried up and attached the first U.S.-built element, named Unity, a connecting node with multiple docking systems.
Development difficulties delayed the launch of the next ISS element, Zvezda, a crew habitat and control centre similar to the Mir base block, until mid-2000. Two weeks after it was carried up on a Proton rocket, Zvezda rendezvoused and docked automatically at the trailing end of Zarya. Later in the year, the first resident ISS crew, comprising two Russians and an American, arrived in a Soyuz TM. Subsequent installation of a large solar power array and cooling radiators on a truss mounted on Unity cleared the way for the shuttle launch of NASA's microgravity laboratory, Destiny, in early 2001. The addition of Destiny, which astronauts mated to the leading end of Unity, marked a milestone in the project because it facilitated science operations. Other components were subsequently appended. After the catastrophic explosion of the shuttle orbiter Columbia in 2003 and the consequent temporary grounding of the shuttle fleet, activity aboard the ISS was reduced virtually to a caretaker level, while Soyuz spacecraft provided the sole means for station crew exchanges.
After the shuttle fleet resumed regular flights in 2005, the ISS crew size was increased to three. Construction resumed in September of that year, with the addition of a pair of solar wings and a thermal radiator. The European-built American node, Harmony, was placed on the end of Destiny in October 2007. Harmony has a docking port for the space shuttle and connecting ports for a European laboratory, Columbus, and a Japanese laboratory, Kibo. In February 2008 Columbus was mounted on Harmony's starboard side. Columbus was Europe's first long-duration crewed space laboratory and contained experiments in such fields as biology and fluid dynamics. In the following month an improved variant of the Ariane V rocket launched Europe's heaviest spacecraft, the Jules Verne Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), which carried 7,700 kg (17,000 pounds) of supplies to the ISS. Also in March 2008 shuttle astronauts brought the Canadian robot Dextre, which was so sophisticated that it would be able to perform tasks that previously would have required astronauts to make space walks, and the first part of Kibo. In June 2008 the main part of Kibo was installed.
The ISS became fully operational in May 2009 when it began hosting a six-person crew; this required two Soyuz lifeboats to be docked with the ISS at all times. An external platform was attached to the far end of Kibo in July 2009, and a Russian docking port and air lock, Poisk, was attached to the Zvezda module in November 2009. A third node, Tranquility, was installed in 2010, and mounted on this was a cupola, whose robotic workstation and many windows enabled astronauts to supervise external operations.
After completion of the ISS, the shuttle fleet was retired from service in 2011. Thereafter the ISS will be serviced by Russia's Progress, Europe's ATV, Japan's H-II Transfer Vehicle, and two commercial cargo vehicles, SpaceX's Dragon and Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus. Until American companies develop crewed spacecraft, astronauts will use Soyuz spacecraft to reach the ISS. The space agencies that are partners in the ISS have not definitively decided when the program will end, but in 2010 the administration of Pres. Barack Obama announced that the ISS program would continue "likely beyond 2020."
The Chinese Tiangong ("Heavenly Palace") is an 8,500-kg (18,700-pound) cylinder that is 3.4 metres (11.2 feet) in diameter. It has two sections, a forward pressurized module that contains the astronauts' living space and an unpressurized rear instrument module that contains Tiangong's propulsion system. A pair of solar arrays attached to the instrument module provide power to the station. The expected operational lifetime of a Tiangong is about two years. The launch vehicle is a Chang Zheng 2F/G (CZ-2F/G, or Long March 2F/G), a modified version of the CZ-2F, which was specifically developed for the Shenzhou program.
Tiangong 1 was launched on September 29, 2011. The uncrewed spacecraft Shenzhou 8 automatically docked with Tiangong 1 in November 2011. The first crewed mission, Shenzhou 9, arrived at Tiangong 1 in June 2012. Tiangong 2 launched on September 15, 2016. Tiangong 3 will be a larger three-module station constructed between 2018 and 2022.
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spaceflight: Kinds of spacecraftA space station is an artificial structure placed in orbit and equipped to support human habitation for extended periods.…
Energia…Soviet Union's early generation of space stations, a series of seven spacecraft called Salyut. In 1971 it built and launched its first Salyut, the world's first space station. After recovering from a spate of failures, Energia mounted an unprecedented run of successful missions to the advanced Salyut 6 and 7…
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text:
JOHN: Well, this is always an opportunity for us to get acquainted with things that are on your heart. It's the preacher's greatest fear that he is telling people everything they don't care to know and this is the opportunity to tell you what you do care to know. Through the years it's been a part of our church to reason with folks from the church with Scripture and just kind of have a little bit of dialogue.
A couple of microphones out there, one in the aisle over here, one in the aisle over there. I think Bill and Kevin are there and we'll meet you and greet you and help you shape your question in a brief fashion. Don't let the line get more than about five deep or so, or some of you are going to end up standing there for a while. No...go ahead, you're already up and at 'em, that's fine, go ahead. You can sit down in an adjacent seat so you aren't uncomfortable because I've been known to give fairly long answers to questions.
But any way, this is your opportunity. The idea, of course, is to clarify something that is of concern to you on the spiritual level. So we'll begin over here, Kevin, with the gentleman there and give me your name and your question.
QUESTION: Yeah, I had a question about justification on concerning the timing of Abraham's justification, I thought you could help me with. My question is, was Abraham justified in Genesis 15 or by faith when he obeyed God to go to another land in Hebrews 11?
JOHN: That's a question that I can't specifically answer except to say that in the chapter which discusses Abraham's justification, Romans 4, his justification is associated with believing God regarding the promise of Isaac. So the promise of Isaac was the promise that God began to give to him in Genesis chapter 12 when He told him that he would produce out of his loins a great nation and that would have to start with one child and at that point he and Sarah were barren. To some degree, Abraham responded to God and believed enough to obey God to leave Ur of the Chaldees and start on the journey that God had promised him. But Romans 4 is the definitive chapter on the faith of Abraham and it associates his faith with the promise of Isaac. So I think that's the safest place to sort of set the justification of Abraham.
Justification occurred by faith, and that's the point. Abraham believed God and it was accredited to him for righteousness. And as I said, in Romans 4 that act of believing is connected to the promise of Isaac. So you're certainly safe there. If he was actually justified prior to that, you don't have a specific scripture to lean on. Okay? Good question.
NATHANIEL: Good evening, John, my name is Nathaniel. My father was saved as an adult and later led his parents to the Lord. I grew up in a Christian home. I grew up in the church. By God's grace He blessed me with a godly wife that comes from a second and third generation Christian home. We've seen our children make a profession of faith and bear fruit. What are the...are there unique challenges and opportunities in raising and ministering and shepherding multi generational Christians and if so, what would they be?
JOHN: That's a very good question. Fine...and I think there are challenges in raising multi-generational Christians. In fact, there has been a lot of discussion about the fact that first generation Christians are the passionate, committed, devout, energetic, sacrificial, enthusiastic Christians because they know what they've been saved from, because they have something to compare it to. And there is a zeal and a joy and a sense of wonder over the grace of God that rescued that first generation. And that second generation of Christians raised in the church never really knowing much other than the church, brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, coming to faith in Christ at some point loses something of the wonder and the awesomeness of conversion because they lack the experience of a dramatic transformation. It takes, I think, children raised in that environment, young people raised in that environment some years to engage in adult life to find out the wonder of what they've been rescued from because they usually have to find it out from somebody else. And they don't really see that when they're in the church. They're in a Christian family, a Christian church.
In our society today, however, it becomes pretty apparent very early because of the exposure to the things that are outside the church that once Christian families could insulate their children from and no longer are they able to do that. There is some indication among some people that the third generation of believers seems to drift toward a certain kind of apathy and indifference. Familiarity breeds a certain contempt.
This would be particularly true, and I think I have to say this, and not in a self-serving way, but because it's true, this is particularly true in an environment where there is no real stimulation of their hearts and minds in the things of Christ and the Word of God. What is really hard is second-generation, and even harder, third-generation Christians raised in a sort of insipid, superficial, shallow church experience that lacks penetrating conviction, that lacks clarification of the Word of God, where the Word of God is not continually taught and exposited and brought to bear on their lives in all of its unending richness and beauty and magnificence. It's easy to become familiar with the same old, same old, same old.
Many people were raised in churches where they heard an evangelistic sermon with a very little variation week after week after week after week. Second generation young people raised in that kind of environment find it very boring and it lacks the penetrating stimulation that they need to really grow. Third generation Christians find it even harder to do that.
But I think all of that aside, first generation, second, third, fourth or whatever it is, in my case fifth generation Christians, if they are exposed regularly, systematically to the church as the church should be and to the Word of God as the Word of God should be, when the Word of God comes to bear on their lives, it erases, it cancels out all of those issues because it has the power to penetrate. I don't think even third-generation Christians should find the Word of God boring. I think when they're led into the deep things of God and when they're drawn to think deeply and widely and to consider the greatness and the glory of God from every facet of the Word of God, it only enriches, enriches and riches them.
It's still a challenge. I think if you ask the guys in the youth ministry, they would tell you that kids that are saved in Christian...in non-Christian environments, non-Christian families, come to Christ in high school or come to Christ at the university and the college ministry, they have a freshness and a zeal and an eagerness that is unique to that. And sometimes the kids that are raised in Christian families don't have that same passion because they take these things for granted. But again, the answer to that is the power of the Word of God to take them to a knowledge of God, an understanding of God that is new and fresh week after week, month after month in their lives. That's why it's so important in the church that we cover the whole Scripture so that God gets full exposure in all His glory to all generations of believers. Okay?
AMAD: I want to thank the Lord for Grace Community Church because this is the place where I was saved, so thank you.
JOHN: Thank you, Amad, were you a Muslim?
AMAD: I was born in Muslim and I became atheist actually while I was in Germany, the Lord brought me here and during three months of the FOF class I became a Christian.
JOHN: During FOF class you became a Christian?
AMAD: Yes, sir.
JOHN: We're thrilled, we're thrilled. Yeah, let's welcome him to the church. All right, what's your question, Amad?
AMAD: Of course, all the praise goes to the Lord.
JOHN: Yes, I know, but we're just thanking Him. That's right, we're thanking Him.
AMAD: My question is, Dr. MacArthur, what happens to us when we are in heaven and like we do have the Holy Spirit in us right now, would we have a need for the Holy Spirit in heaven. Also, if yes how about the Old Testament saints? They do not have the Holy Spirit, would they have it?
JOHN: Yes, good question. In the Old Testament the Old Testament saints did have the Holy Spirit, they did. No one could be saved without the Holy Spirit. Salvation is the same in every age, in every era. No sinner can raise himself from death. No sinner can raise himself from ignorance. No sinner can by his own power escape Satan's clutches, that's a divine work of God done by the Holy Spirit. You get an illustration of it in the creation where the Spirit moves over the waters and creation begins to take shape.
In Genesis it says, "My Spirit will not always strive with man." So you have the Spirit striving with the sinner, bringing the sinner to conviction. Same thing in John. John 16, "The Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment."
So, the work of salvation has always been the work of the Spirit, always been the work of the Spirit. David acknowledges this. "Take Your Spirit...Don't take Your Spirit from me, restore to me the joy of Thy salvation." The Apostles understood it this way. They said this, Jesus said this to them, they're talking about the Holy Spirit and Jesus said, "He is with you, He shall be in you." There wouldn't be any salvation in the Old Testament apart from the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit was with them. The Holy Spirit ministered to them.
But in some new and full sense, He is in us. So it's not a question of the reality itself, it's the question of the degree of that reality. The Holy Spirit has always been with the people of God...always. And when you think about heaven, there will be no need for the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. There will be no need for the Spirit's work of conviction. There will be no need for the Spirit's work of instruction. There will be no need for the Spirit's work of illumination, as far as we know. In the sense that we know it now. There will be no need for the Spirit to show us Christ. Remember Jesus said when the Spirit comes, He will show you all things concerning Me, because we will see Christ?
And yet, the Spirit of God will function in some way in the glory of heaven to direct us into that form of service which God intends for us to do. But it never refers to believers in heaven having the Holy Spirit in them. No scripture in that regard. So when we go to heaven, we will be perfect, we will be like Christ. That doesn't preclude the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit, you remember, ministered to Christ. So there's some sense in which the Spirit of God will be part of even, I think, our eternal service, but in a way different than we experience now because we will have entered into spiritual perfection and Christ's likeness in heaven. Okay? Good question.
QUESTIONER JOHN: Happy father's day, John.
JOHN: Thank you...thank you. I tell you, I'm a blessed father because God has given me so many wonderful children...grandchildren.
QUESTIONER JOHN: Amen. Well my name is John and I have a question for you. We were in Bible study this morning discussing 2 Corinthians 13 and specifically verse 5 where it says to "Examine yourself whether you are in the faith." Well I guess my question is more pastoral. How do we navigate between the gravity of that verse, one that we should always be mindful of and also 1 John 3:20 where it says, "For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart."
JOHN: Yeah. That's a very well put question and I think the answer to it is you navigate it this way. You ask the question and you rejoice when the answer is affirmative. Right? You ask the question...there are times in your life when you ask the question and then having asked the question, when you run the test and you find that all the test validates the reality of your faith, then you rejoice. And then you are beyond the condemnation. The text is not holding us captive to some endless condemnation that can never be overcome. It is simply saying...ask the question. And the question can be answered.
What do you do to examine yourself whether you're in the faith? You look at evidences of salvation. It's the direction of your life, not the perfection of it. Simple things and basic things like do I love Christ? Do I desire to honor Christ? Do I resent the sin that is in me? Do I want to be with the people of God? Do I love the truth of Scripture? Do I love the Word of God taught and understood? Does it bring me joy? Do I love to praise the Lord? Do I love to sing the hymns that exalt and honor Him?
These are the evidences of a transformed heart. Those are the questions you ask. It's not about perfection, it's about direction, it's about what you desire, what you want, what brings you joy. Do I live with hope of the life to come? Do I trust in the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do I believe those things are true?
And having answered those questions then you have risen above the condemning heart. So it's important to ask the question, that's why the Lord's table says, "let a man examine himself." It needs to be done repeatedly every time the church does that because there's always going to be people who need to have the question answered. But you don't spend your whole life trying to answer the questions.
There were times earlier in my Christian experience where I would examine myself to see whether I was in the faith. Every time I would press the test home, I would find failure and sin in my life but I would pass the test because I would have to ask myself...where did these holy longings come from? Where does this hunger for the Word of God come from? Where does this desire to honor God come from? Where does this desire to serve Christ? Where does this hope of heaven come from? Where does the strong desire to avoid hell come from? This is not normal to me. Where does this desire to be with the people of God, to fellowship with them come from? I would a hundred times rather be with the people of God than with a group of unbelievers in some activity that they're engaged in. Where does that come from? My heart belongs to the things of God. My heart belongs to the Kingdom.
So, you process those questions and you look for evidences of God's work in your life. And one great evidence in your life, and this is where you rehearse this, is how does your faith do in severe trials? That's why Peter says "The testing of your faith is so important because it produces endurance." Hey, I've been there at the edge of the disaster. I've been there on the brink and my faith did not fail...it held. And so God has given me a faith that can prevail in the most difficult situations. And when I examine myself, I can look back and say, "I remember this event, when human faith would not hold up but my confidence and my faith was strong and so it's a faith given by God."
So you examine by looking at your longings and looking at the history of God's work in your life. And once you've taken the exam and the answer is in the affirmative, then you don't allow your heart to condemn you, then condemning heart is simply a temptation. Okay? Good question.
ANDREW: Hi, Pastor, my name is Andrew.
JOHN: Hi, Andrew.
ANDREW: I'm very grateful that you're back safe and sound from your recent travels. And I'll be praying for your safe return with your next state of travels.
JOHN: Okay, thank you.
ANDREW: Psalm 36:6 says that God cares for people and animals alike. Proverbs 12 says that godly people care for their animals. And Scripture also says that the lion will lay down with the lamb. My question, Pastor, is that for those of us who are animal lovers, or pet owners, do we have any biblical hope to reassure us that we'll see our pets in heaven?
JOHN: No. But there are people who are gardeners and they're not going to see their plants there either.
ANDREW: Plants don't fetch, Pastor.
JOHN: What?
ANDREW: Plants don't fetch.
JOHN: No, I understand that. And there are people who are rock collectors and they're not going to see their rocks there either. So there are just a lot of things in this world that God has given us for enjoyment in this world. God does preserve man and beast, Psalm 36:6 does say God preserves man and beast. God has filled this world will all kinds of wonderful and rich benedictions and blessings. And animals do bring a joy into our lives. I know my precious wife, Patricia, is a lover of birds and that's kind of a wonderful pet to have, I think, because they never come inside and all you do is put seed out there and they just arrive and fly all over the place. And if you want to get rid of them, just don't put any seed out there and they'll go somewhere else. But we love the creation of God. We enjoy the creation of God.
A beautiful garden in our yard is always filled with many birds because she's so careful about putting up all these different little receptacles full of seed so that we can enjoy them and feeders for humming birds and things like that. And God has filled this world with wonderful beautiful creatures that really we don't ever shoot them, we don't ever eat them, so they're not there for that purpose. They're there just to display God, that's all, just to show His love of beauty and color and a kind of music and wonder. These are the things that God has given us for this life. They are not everlasting or eternal. When they die, they do not go to heaven. So there is no indication that there will be animals in heaven. Somebody will say immediately, "Well, doesn't Jesus come out of heaven in Revelation riding a white horse?" Well there may be one white horse in heaven. But whatever it is, it's not a horse like any horse you've ever seen or I have ever seen. So there is no indication of that about heaven. Heaven is only a place for people in terms of how Scripture describes it.
But that's true of so many things in this life. There are many, many, many things that we enjoy in this life that the Scripture doesn't say has a counterpart in heaven. Okay? Good question, Andrew.
ROBERTO: Hello, Pastor, my name is Roberto.
JOHN: Hi, Roberto.
ROBERTO: I've been wanting to ask you this question for a long time because you have a habit of looking at things more deeply than other pastors. As the body of Christ, are there any insights that you have extrapolated that we might gain from the fact that woman was the only living being that was not made from the dust, but that was made from man who is the obvious bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh? Is there something maybe that you can share with us that is a little bit deeper than that.
JOHN: Well, the series I did in Genesis, I covered a lot of those kinds of things. I would simply say this. Woman is the direct creation of God and she was made with dust in a secondary sense since Adam was made from dust. She being made from Adam was made from the same stuff that he was made from and so we don't want to make too big an issue out of that. But what is clear, and it must be understood, is that woman was created for man because man without her was incomplete...obviously. You can't procreate. But procreation wasn't even the first issue. The first issue was companionship. So woman is the one who completes man. I don't think we want to draw any conclusion that because she alone was not created from the dust, she is something higher than man, nobler than man because bone is more exalted than dust. But I do think what we want to understand is that man is incomplete without woman.
There is a temptation to make a case for woman's inferiority because she was the one who was deceived and brought the race down. Adam was not deceived. I don't think you want to go there either because Adam was completely agreeable with the iniquity which Eve was engaged in.
So I think it's simply the design of God rather than creating a man and woman out of dust and bringing them together, to make the point that rather than being viewed as absolutely and always equal, man is created as the head clearly and woman is then later created from man to be his helper. And this is the divine order, as God is the head of Christ and Christ is the head of man and the man is the head of the church...of the woman. So I think it's trying to show us that it's critically important in marriage that there be a man who is in charge and a woman who is there to help. And then, of course, out of that comes procreation.
In our society today, of course, that has been literally obliterated by the Feminist Movement. And now the latest assault on family, lesbian marriage, or homosexual marriage...by the way, you've seen that happen now in the state of California. It isn't going to change a lot now because in countries where they've allowed homosexual marriage, only about ten percent of homosexuals ever get married. They don't want to get married. That isn't the point. They do not want to get married. Only ten percent of them, as I said, do get married. They don't want to get married, they just want to have sex with somebody of their own sex. That's what they want to do. It's a very small group that wants to get married. But what they do want is legitimacy for their behavior. And this gives them that.
But when a state or an entity says that marriage is a coupling of two people on any term, it has completely denied the biblical kind of marriage because biblical marriage is not a coupling of any two people for sexual reasons. It is by God's design of coming together of two people to produce families. That's what it's for. And the exception is barrenness. But the pattern that God ordained was a man and a woman to support that man and the bearing of children to produce families to pass righteousness from one generation to the next. So as soon as you eliminate children, and we've already seen that of a wave of people wanting to get married but not have children, then you come to the place where homosexuals and lesbians can come together and be called marriage, you know that marriage has been redefined now as a coupling of any two people of any sex for sexual purposes and nothing else, and it has lost its identity, its biblical identity, its true identity as a means by which people can bear children in well ordered societies.
Now we'll tell you what will happen. When you define marriage as any other thing than for the purpose of bearing children to be raised by a father and a mother so that society can be protected and preserved by well ordered families, you will see a massive increase in delinquency, crime and all kinds of mental disorder. And it's going to get worse and worse and worse because children who are exposed to those kinds of environments are going to be so warped in the future as to have no bearings morally or socially. And that's what's coming and it's going to come like a flood.
So I think the point of Genesis is that God made the man as the head, and the woman as the helper, and the purpose was to raise families, to bear children and fill the earth and to pass righteousness and order down through society. When that family is disintegrated, society literally flies apart at the seams. Okay?
QUESTIONER: Good evening, John. I wanted to thank you, first of all, for your years of ministry. My first experience with you is back at Hume Lake in 1966.
JOHN: Those were fun days.
QUESTIONER: Yeah, they were great days. My question for you tonight comes from the gospel of John, the tenth chapter, and just to preface out why I'm asking is, I think God has given me my life mission of just trying to bring this one friend of mine to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and he is a Jehovah's Witness. It seems, and maybe this will be useful to everybody here who has to deal with Jehovah's Witness is no matter what subject you get on when you start narrowing it down, the subject they always want to return to is John 10. And just to set the stage, it's Christ when talking about being the Good Shepherd, and it says just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father, I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep who they claim to be the ones, the other sheep. And my references and study and different commentaries that I've read never really seem to narrow it down very well...at least to my satisfaction, to who Christ was referring to as the other sheep.
JOHN: Yeah, in verse 16, "I have other sheep which are not of this fold, I must bring them also and they will hear my voice and they shall become one flock with one shepherd."
All that's talking about...some people say aliens on other planets, that's another popular interpretation of that. Gentiles, plain and simple...Gentiles, non-Jews. He is simply saying that I know My sheep, My sheep know Me. I lay down My life for the sheep. He's talking concerning the Jews. And I have other sheep not of this fold of Israel and I will bring them as well and both will come to be one flock. And this becomes the theme of Ephesians 2 where the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile is broken down, they become one body in Christ. So that's what He's talking about, Gentiles.
It's a very simple, simple understanding that this salvation is not just for the Jews, and He had already made that very evident by revealing His Messiahship, first of all, in the fourth chapter long before this to a Samaritan woman, a half-breed outcast. And so that's what our Lord has in mind, the sheep of another fold are the sheep of the non-Jews, those who come to Christ from the Gentile world. Okay.
RICK: Hi, John, my name is Rick.
JOHN: Hi, Rick.
RICK: I just want to say on behalf of me and my family, we thank your for your ministry to us. It's changed our lives. My question is about marriage and divorce.
If woman is regenerate and has no official biblical grounds for divorce and departs from her husband, would she be under church discipline?
JOHN: Yes.
RICK: Okay. Cause we've talked to people that have intimated that that was not always the case, that may not always have been the case here and we didn't think that was correct. But...
JOHN: No, if someone leaves a spouse, divorces...a believer leaves a spouse, a believer, that's a sin.
RICK: If they promise not to get....I'm sorry, they said, "I promise I'll never get remarried." And to my wife and I, we said it's still sin.
JOHN: Yeah, it doesn't change anything.
RICK: Okay, thank you.
JOHN: Sure.
JOE: Hello, my name is Joe.
JOHN: Hi, Joe.
JOE: I was wondering, in heaven as Christians when we get to heaven, do we forget about those non-saved friends and relatives in heaven?
JOHN: Right. It's a question that is often asked...how much of life in this world will we remember in heaven? And the answer to that is heaven is...I think the best way to describe heaven, Joe, is it is sheer joy, it is unbounded, limitless, unhindered joy, undiminished joy.
I would conclude that, that would preclude anything that would be sad, produce remorse, no more tears, no more crying, right? So I don't think heaven is going to be a place where we have all these vivid memories of the people who never made it. I think all of that is behind us. I think all of that disappears. And we are so swept up in the thrill moment by moment by moment of heaven's glories that there's no room for any such things. I think all that fades away, all that diminishes and disappears and only things that produce joy occur.
I know there are people who think that when we get to heaven we're going to remember, you know, our dog and we're going to remember the house we lived in and we're going to remember our neighbors, and we're going to remember the things that we enjoyed in life and hum some of the same songs we sang when we were down here. I don't see anything in Scripture to indicate that at all. I think this world gets completely left behind, completely. And I think we enter into a new level of knowledge and a new level of experience and a new kind of transcendent joy that can't even connect with the best of what we experienced here...to say nothing of the worst, okay?
SHELBY: Hi, I'm Shelby Sinclair.
JOHN: Hi, Shelby.
SHELBY: In Joshua, was it wrong for Rahab to lie to save the two spies? Some Christians I talk to disagree about lying. Some say that God sees your heart and if you lie for a good reason, like if you're having a surprise party and someone asks...Are they having a surprise party for me?...and you say...No, they're not having a surprise party for you." Is it always wrong to lie, say even to save someone's life?
JOHN: Let me tell you something, Shelby. I'm going to ask you a question. Does God need a lie to accomplish His will?
SHELBY: No.
JOHN: I don't think so. What would have happened if Rahab told the truth? If God wanted the spies to escape, and Rahab told the truth, would the spies have escaped another way? Sure...sure, because look, God doesn't need your lie. God doesn't need your lie. They ask the same question, this is touching on some sacred ground, remember the story of Corrie Ten Boom who as a Dutch lady who was hiding Christians in her house when the Nazis came? Now there's no overt lie, you don't have to tell everybody everything. You don't have to say to the person, "Hey, by the way, did you hear about your surprise party? I know you'd want to know about it." You don't have to say that. You don't have to go outside your house and say, "Hey, by the way, Gestapo, we have some Christians in here under the floor boards." You don't have to tell everybody everything. You don't have to if they don't ask you. But I'm convinced that if you are asked a specific thing that you can tell the truth and trust that God can still accomplish His purposes without a lie to help Him. He doesn't need that, okay? Good question, honey, thank you.
JOHN: You could also say this, Shelby. You can also say, "I'm not going to tell you." Okay.
QUESTIONER: Good evening, Pastor... My question is about the order of Melchizedek. He was a most...he was a priest of the Most-High God, as Jesus, and he had many of the names that Jesus had, King of peace and so forth. And I specifically have a question about Hebrews 7:10 where he's talking about Melchizedek, he says, "For he was yet in the loins of his father when the Melchizedek met him." So there's all this mystery about Melchizedek and I would like to know if you'll share with us whatever you have to share with us.
JOHN: Well, yeah, he's a real person. Okay? He's a real guy back in Genesis. He's a king and a priest to God before there was an Aaronic priesthood, before there was an official priesthood along with the Mosaic Law. This is a priest. What is a priest? A priest is someone who takes people to God. Here is a man who knew the true God. Here is a man who had approached and believed in the true and living God. And he could tell other people how to know God, how to approach God, he's a real priest.
He is outside the Aaronic priesthood so he is a priest of another era. This makes him in some ways analogous to Christ who is also outside the Aaronic priesthood. He's outside the Levitical priesthood. Christ, as you know, is not of the tribe of Levi, He's of the tribe of Judah. So the writer of Hebrews wants to show that Christ is of a superior priesthood to the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priesthood came to a screeching end at the crucifixion. Christ is a priest to the Most-High God, but of a different order. He's a priest of another kind. And Hebrews is being written to Jews. And the question that Jews would be asking is, "Well what other kind of priest is there?" And so He is analogous to another priest that they would know about in Genesis named Melchizedek, who interestingly enough appears without ancestry, which is analogous to Christ, in a sense, who has no prior priestly family from which He comes.
So Melchizedek is a priest who is kind of a stand-alone priest. He is a priest without genealogy, Hebrews 7 says, doesn't have beginning of days or end of life which almost makes him appear sort of like an everlasting priest which again is analogous to Christ. And so he's simply a way to illustrate to the Jews there's a such a thing as a priest other than Levitical priests and that this is not an inferior priesthood that Jesus belongs to but a superior priesthood.
And the verse that you commented on has to do with Abraham paying tithes to Melchizedek, ascribing honor to him and worshiping him and paying his tithe to God to this priest. And the writer of Hebrews makes the point that Levi paid tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham.
In other words, this is a Jewish concept. Adam sins, we all sinned in Adam. Abraham paid tithes, Levi who is in the loins of Abraham also paid tithes to Melchizedek. Therefore if Abraham and Levi in the loins of Abraham pays tithes to Melchizedek, Melchizedek is a superior priest to Levi. So this is consistent with Jewish thinking and it's all analogical to show that the Levitical priesthood is not the only nor even the superior priesthood, but that there is a greater priesthood, the priesthood of Christ which is analogous to the priesthood of Melchizedek. Okay?
QUESTIONER: Thank you.
JOHN: There is more about that in the Study Bible, I wrote a lot about that, or in the commentary that I wrote on the book of Hebrews where you can dig a little deeper. Okay?
QUESTIONER: Hi, John, happy father's day. I have a question about your opinion on your Christianity and culture. There's Christian rock that has a hard sound what you might call hard rock, and I'm specifically interested in representations in film and television and theater, how rough can you get in the representation of an unredeemed life and still maintain the purpose of a Christian presentation? In other words, is there...is it possible to have a mature audience for a Christian movie, play?
JOHN: Well I understand what you're saying...David, right? I can't see back there. Yeah. And that's really a very good and a very practical question. How rough can it get? How edgy can it get and not pervert the message, or corrupt the message? It's a very difficult question to answer.
First of all, from my viewpoint, I have to honestly say that there's a generational issue here and so I'm probably not the best person to ask that to because I like simple things. You know, I can handle the content, I don't need to be overpowered by a lot of other stuff. I mean, even at the Resolve Conference, I'm working harder than ever to worship because so much stuff is going on there for me. I can...just give me the words and I'm good and I can handle that.
But I really think some of it is generational. I also think that mature Christians can be offended by things that immature Christians are not offended by. On the one hand, there are...and this again opens up the question we talked about a little earlier...immature people in some ways can almost handle anything unless they were converted out of it. If you take a person who was converted out of a profane life, drugs, etc., hard music, and then you put that all in a Christian media presentation, film, theater, and sort of baptize it as if it's okay, that person might be deeply offended who was rescued from that.
On the other hand, if you're talking about a third generation Christian teen-aged kid who is a little bit bored with the church, he might think that's really cool because it gives him a little taste of what the world is pulling at him about anyway. It's a really delicate thing.
I think the purity of content is the essence of it. I think you can portray sinners acting like sinners. I think there's a lot of latitude in where you can go musically. But I think you can cross the line where it's so much of the world that it's impossible to penetrate to the truth and have the truth really protect it. But it's a delicate thing and people have been working on that for a long, long time. And sometimes they go over the line and sometimes they don't, even musically.
I have been exposed recently to Christian rap. I thought that was something you did at Christmas. But I have been exposed to it and what is really funny is I've heard lots of Christian rap songs with me in them. They take parts of my sermons and turn them into rap rhythms and this is a new experience for me. I know it's my voice, but I can't understand what I'm saying, that's the problem. And so my response is, get rid of the music and you get the message. But I understand the world is changing and I understand all these genres are out there.
You can't dishonor the Lord. You can't be profane. You can't be perverse. You can't be base. You can't be overly sexual. There's some delicate areas there, but I think a mature Christian, a sensitive Christian can lean on the Spirit of God to produce some things that are reflective of a society we live in without being purient(?) in any sense and we can show honestly the way things are in the world. But the things your heart will do because of your love for Christ and you desire to honor Christ, your first and foremost is going to protect that. And I think that's the heart of a Christian to do that. I think there are immature people who get into this kind of thing and don't have the discernment, go over the line and it can become offensive. Okay. I know it's kind of a wandering answer but it's a tough question.
CAESAR: Hi, Pastor. My name is Caesar and I was just wondering about my salvation cause I was a heroin addict for a lot of years and I always wanted to stop heroin and I never could do it on my own strength. I get really emotional.
JOHN: That's okay.
CAESAR: So one day I really got tired, I got on my knees and I asked God...You know, God, I don't have any control...
JOHN: Step up to the mike a little bit, Caesar.
CAESAR: I told Him, "Lord, I've got no control over my life, if You can control it, control it." And I started crying and it was at my mother's house. So after that, I went to a home, I stayed there a year in a Victory Outreach home. But there was something missing in my salvation that I couldn't understand. So during that time I was searching and searching for some sound doctrine and that's when I heard R.C. Sproul and then I heard you, John MacArthur. And I was visiting churches because I couldn't catch it. I could see a lot of the emotion. People would actually get up on the church and run around the whole thing. Wait a minute, what's going on here?
So I was wondering through all that time, was I saved all this time. Or when did I actually become a Christian, you know? And I hear genuinely...you're a genuine Christian or you're not. But when I did say that prayer and I knew that if I died in sin, I was going to go to hell. I knew that much. But through all that time, this was even the church I was in wasn't giving me sound doctrine, but the Lord kept me through a lot of the stuff. I haven't used heroin since, it's been 13 years.
JOHN: Amen.
CAESAR: And when I came here, I learned more in this church...(crying)...it's His grace, nothing else. What I learned from you and R.C. Sproul through messages that it was grace. And that has my word more clear now. But my question was, was I saved back then?
JOHN: Well, listen. I never took heroin but you and I have something in common. I don't know when I was saved either. I don't know when. I can't identify a moment. There never was a time that I had some kind of dramatic...I had a dramatic accident that almost killed me but I believed I was a Christian then. I don't know when God regenerated me. There never was a time I didn't believe. But I don't know of when I became a new creation. How many of you would put your hand up and say, "I don't know exactly when I was saved." Look around, these are your people, Caesar. These are your people because how can you identify that moment? I don't know when that happened. The only thing is, I know I'm saved. Do you know you're saved?
CAESAR: Yeah.
JOHN: That's all. That's what matters, right? And we're blessed to have you here...blessed to have you here, brother.
Now, folks, I don't know how to tell you this, but we've got to do a Seeds concert here. Look at all you dear folks there. So can we...Kevin, will you ask them what their question is real quick, get those four questions, and just give them to me real quick?
JOHN: Okay.
QUESTIONER: Hi Pastor John.
JOHN: Hi.
QUESTIONER: I have a question about the verse on Psalms 37:25 it says, "I have been young and now I'm old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." And in so many years as a Christian I've been involved with supporting missions and everything, and I have met a lot of people, especially servants of the Lord that are so faithful preaching the Word to the point of starvation. How can... can you make me understand why...?
JOHN: Sure. This is just a simple principle that the Lord takes care of His own people. It's the same as Matthew 6, "Take no thought for what you shall eat or what you shall drink, what you shall wear. Don't you know that your Father who takes care of the sparrows takes care of you? Who produces the lilies of the field who don't toil or spin, and yet they're clothed in beauty?" It is simply a true principle to say that God cares for His own people. That is not to say they won't be persecuted some times. That is not to say they won't get into prison some times. It is not to say that some of them may not starve to death when God's time for them to go has come. But it is to say as a general principle, the people apart from God have no divine sustenance. The people apart from God have no promise of divine care. People who belong to God have that divine promise.
And the psalmist is simply saying God cares for His people, God provides for His people. Historically, manna in the wilderness, right? That's a truism. It is not to say that no Christian in history hasn't starved to death because many have in prisons and dungeons. It is simply to say as a general principle, God sustains His own people until it is His will for them to go. Okay? Good question.
Just very quick. I'm only going to take one more question, so you decide, Kevin, which one. Go ahead, sir, on the left over here.
QUESTION: My question is simply, do you believe that C.S. Lewis was a Christian because some people don't believe that. I'm not one of them. I've read his books.
JOHN: I think C.S. Lewis came to a true faith in Christ. Yeah. I do. Okay.
KEVIN: Bill wanted me to ask his question for him. He's been coming here his whole life and he wanted to know how long you've been the pastor of this church?
JOHN: I've been the pastor of this church since 1969 and so...(Applause)...that's a very long time...1969. This is coming up on forty years, next year I'll have my fortieth anniversary. Thank you...thank you, Bill.
We're going to draw this to a conclusion and let's close in a Word of prayer.
Father, we do thank You for just the opportunity, interact and fellowship with and look at Your Word. Thank You for these folks and for the testimonies. We've heard of Your grace tonight, just the joy of the truth working in their lives. Lord, we would ask that You keep bringing to this church the new in Christ. We celebrated tonight the little babies, new life physically. We also celebrate new life spiritually. Continue to grow Your church to Your glory. Give us a great evening of fellowship out on the plaza. May we rejoice in songs of faith, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.
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text:
Sometimes, after a few hours, my system works slowly. I have checked status of these resources:
- Hard disk using
- Ram usage using
- CPU usage using
None of them are busy.
top also shows that there is no process using too much memory or cpu.
Slowness is in switching between windows, typing, etc...
Is there anything else I should check?