Yesterday I fixed a laptop for dad that had I promised to fix a while ago but just got around to doing. It still worked but dad had to prop up the power cord on something to keep upward pressure on the socket. I took the thing apart and immediately found the damage.

The top circle is the plastic socket, the bottom circle is the mount on the laptop body. The socket had grooves in it to hold it flush to the laptop body, but the flanges on the body had snapped off, leaving nothing for the grooves to slide over. Additionally, the socket connector itself was damaged.

 
Plug — Socket ——Connector — Wires

The center (hot) rod of the socket was attached to power on the back of the socket with a rivet-like flair over the power wire’s washer connector, but the flair had broken off leaving the red power wire with nothing to hold it against the back of the center socket rod. That’s why holding up the plug worked… It leveraged the little hinge under the failed center rod connecter, pushing the center rod and connector out against the red power wire. Sorry, it’s hard to explain without a better picture. The whole back of the plug was covered with another plastic cap as well.

I ended up scrapping the back cap and soldering the red power connector directly to the socket’s center rod. I then insulated the red (hot) and green (ground) wires from each other and created a cap to strengthen and protect the back of the socket with a blob of waterweld.

I went ahead and used the rest of the Waterweld to cement the socket into the laptop body. Dad’s pretty happy with it, so I’m happy too. There’s only one problem with Waterweld. When you mix it (it’s like putty) it warms up and smells like urine… and the smell is a bit hard to scrub off. Oh well.

Dr. Steve Price uses his medical knowledge to dramatic effect as he speaks on the “dead church” of Sardis in Revelation 3:1-6 and applies it to the local assembly.

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Quotes and Excerpts

25m:07s He’s saying, ‘You have an external veneer that you are alive, just like that gangrenous extremity. But if we were to merely make the slightest of spiritual incisions, what we would find is a whole slew of necrotic spiritual tissue.’

26m:24s Friends, my fellow brothers and sisters, this can easily be a malady of your own personal life, your own fatherhood, your own motherhood, and your own place and service in the local assembly, and anything else you touch. And yet you can fool yourself. This is kind of the beginning, in the letters, where we really fool ourselves, really blinded to our true condition. What amazed me about that patient with the diabetic extremity is that she thought everything was ok! She just thought that she would come in, maybe have me look at, and that she would be gone. Actually, what happened was that we had to amputate her extremity. It was that serious. And the same is true here, it’s that serious. That’s why the spiritual physician of the hour, he comes right to the issue. This is serious, it’s urgent, it’s emergent, and we must deal with it straight away. We have to cut through all the commendation and we have to go straight to evaluation. No time to waste, Christian, no time.

37m:10s Let me tell you, there are some things worth staying awake for. There are some things that are more valuable to deal with than attaining your sleep. And saints, this condition of spiritual deadness, with the name that you’re alive, is such an urgent situation that it will require all night spiritual surgery. And if that’s what you gotta do, that’s what you gotta do. That’s how important it is.

36m:16s This is what the Lord is saying: “I’m not ready to just end it. I’m ready, I want to count you, I want to bring back what’s nearly dead.” We have one chance, and let’s make the most of it. Have you ever said that in medicine, have you ever heard a patient say that? I have! And I know exactly what they mean. “Doctor, let’s not quit. There’s a chance.” And I think the Lord Jesus is saying, “There’s a chance! A good one! let’s get to it.” This text right here [Rev. 3:2] is what kept me at a place where I was going bonkers in there. It kept my feet to the fire. Many a saint came and left, and I fault them not, but I could not, I could not leave, because of this verse.

Verses

Revelation 3:1-6
“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write, ‘These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.

Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God.

Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.

You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.

He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

David Dunlap highlights the work of the Holy Spirit in the Lord’s supper and the importance of the cross to the Godhead and to the believer.

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Quotes and Excerpts

10m:54s More important than anything else the Lord Jesus Christ would reveal to Paul was the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want this to anchor your heart, and anchor your soul. I want this to be the centerpiece of your Christian life and walk. I want the cross to be remembered in the Lord’s supper when we come together week by week. I want the cross to be that ‘radius oracle of the faith, at the forefront of Christian doctrine and teaching.’ The cross should be important to us, and we should know something about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I think it’s sad sometimes that there are many Christians that seem to know very little. They know a lot about songs, they know a lot about Christian performers, they know a lot about preachers, but how much do they know about the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? The Lord came to the apostle and said, ‘This is of first importance.’

19m:46s What have I done to make the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ ever more precious, ever more important to myself? What do I know about the cross of the Lord Jesus?

28m:25s But he also makes special reference to the sufferings which the Lord Jesus Christ bore upon His face. It’s interesting to pause and think about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus receives upon His face. You know, the face is the most vulnerable part of our body, the part of our body which we protect first. And I think it’s significant here that the Father speaks about the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ receives upon His countenance and then the sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ receives upon His body. I think there are five different suffering the Lord Jesus Christ receives upon the face. He was spit upon the face; there was a crown of thorns upon his head. They pulled the beard from His face. They beat Him in the face with their fists, with their open palms, and with rods. And I think it makes us ask, ‘Why? Why is it recorded so frequently about the sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ endured upon His face?’ The Father invites us to consider the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ upon His face, and He says in verse six, ‘I gave my back to the smiters,’ and then He says he gave His cheeks, He presented His face, He says this: ‘I gave My cheeks to them that pluck off the hair, and I hid not My face from the shame and the spitting.’ The Lord Jesus actually presented, He gave his cheeks to those who would pluck off the hair. You know, it’s interesting to me, and you might want to discuss this; there’s no place in the New Testament where it mentions the beard of the Lord Jesus Christ being plucked out. There are places that I think it may have taken place, but there’s not mention of it, no specific mention of where the Lord Jesus Christ had His beard plucked from His face. And I believe that this is one of the most graphic sufferings the Lord Jesus Christ ever endured.

You know there was a movie, you may have seen it, ‘The Passion,’ or if you haven’t seen the film, you may have seen the pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ’s face bloodied and suffering, but all through that movie… they never plucked the beard from His face. The film was said to be ‘too graphic, too bloody, too violent.’ But I would say, if it was realistic, it wasn’t violent enough. It wasn’t brutal enough, of what actually happened to Jesus there on the cross.

Here is says that He presented His cheeks and it says that He hid not His face from the shame and the spitting. Why are there so many mentions of the sufferings that the Lord Jesus Christ received on His face? I think it’s because He’s showing to us the great love and great obedience that He had to the Father. The most vulnerable part of His body, He did not reserve, He did not protect. He gave Himself with abandon. He gave Himself completely.

37m:04s Do you know of any rabbi in the history of the Jewish people who has introduced more people to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Verses

Isaiah 52:13-15 Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, So His visage was marred more than any man, And His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; For what had not been told them they shall see, And what they had not heard they shall consider.

2 Corinthians 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.

References / Recommended Reading

The Moral Glory of the Lord Jesus (online)
Author: J. G. Bellett

(Here’s a ton of his stuff online.)

The Glory of the Cross (in PDF format)
Author: Samuel Zwamer

Studies in Isaiah (online) or purchase used from Amazon.com
Author: F. C. Jennings