Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Sermons and...utter nonsense!

I was listening to a sermon by John Macarthur while I was knitting today, and after listening to it, I was thinking that I would like to get the Macarthur Study Bible. So I did a Google search on it, to find out what places sell them, and it looks like you can buy them on Amazon. I just wish it came in KJV, because that's what I'm used to. Oh well, NKJV is close, or I could get the NASB and be able to follow along in church better.

The Macarthur sermon I listened to I found on sermonaudio.com, but they only had three on there, so I looked for some more.
This place has all the Grace To You episodes, and this one has other sermons. The problem with both of those places is there's no easy way to download the sermons. The GTY episodes look they can be downloaded easily, but they just pull up in the page. And the links on the pages don't work for "save link as".
With things like that I usually end up pulling a blog post page, make a link to the mp3 and then without publishing the post, switch to "preview" mode so I can right-click on the link and save it as an mp3 file. Is there another, easier way to save a file like that? It seems like there should be, but I haven't figured it out.

Oh, also while looking for the Macarthur Study Bible, I came across this lunatic's page! Wow, he certainly has a high opinion of himself, and an extreme dislike of John Macarthur among others. Some of the well-known teachers he lists on his homepage are in error, but certainly not all of them.

This Darwin Fish (and he says that's his real name) says he hasn't found any other pastor who's truly following the Bible and his group cult is called the "true church". Most of his arguments on the website seem to be based on him taking a person's, or the Bible's words extremely literally. Well, maybe not always, because you wouldn't think you could go that far off by taking the words of the Bible literally, but he's somehow twisting that even. As for men's words, they're in trouble if they use one slightly wrong word to explain something. Any word that you would usually look at and in context be able to know what the person was saying, is taken as flatly literal...sheesh. It's so illogical too, even I can see that!
I didn't read all the website...I'm sure he has even more things on there that are unbiblical, but his arguments against Macarthur and others are bad enough, and I couldn't take any more.

*groan* I think I have a headache now. The only bright point in this I can see is that he is pretty obviously teaching strange things, as opposed to say, the emergent churches that are closer to being mainstream churches. What has sadly become mainstream, that is.

And not that one logical fallacy alone could condemn them, but they also managed to insert a Red Herring into the answer to one of the FAQ:

Q6. Has Darwin ever been convicted of a crime?

No, as of this date Darwin has never even been arrested. Actually, Darwin served as a Probation Officer for several years prior to his full time ministry.

What does the fact that he was a probation officer have to do with that? It doesn't prove anything...it sounds impressive, but doesn't really have anything to do with the question.

Well, he says they only have about 50 people in their church...that's a relief, he hasn't deceived too many people yet. :( Oh wait, I don't know if he could or not...he also seems to think that if a preacher is very popular and well-known, with lots of followers, he must be wrong, because that many people wouldn't follow someone who was really speaking the truth! Hmm...I wonder what his reaction would be to a bunch of people following his teachings?

Whoof...sorry about the ranting. All that to say that Macarthur's sermons are good, despite what that nut says, and I don't know how to save mp3s easily. :p

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

That site is creepy...what's up with the skulls? His reasoning is so...strange! And he really doesn't like Catholics...

Stuff like this doesn't really bother me anymore, because hardly anyone would listen to this guy.

N said...

what's up with the skulls?

Because they're eeevviillll!!!! lol!

And he really doesn't like Catholics...

Well...hmm...I'll agree with him on that. But probably not for the same reasons.

Anonymous said...

Well, I was curious about what you could possible be writing about just from reading your title...

Anonymous said...

Well...hmm...I'll agree with him on that. But probably not for the same reasons.

I think I agree with you on this...but what he had against Keith Green was that he said "I love you" to a Catholic priest. When he obviously should hate him, like Christ does.

And I don't agree with that...

Will said...

John MacArthur has a lot of good things to say but it sometimes seems like he is pushing his own material too much, like that study Bible. There is nothing that can convince me that his study Bible will "transform your personal time in God's word" In the interest of not going on a rant I will leave it at that. :p

The sermons seem to work fine for me, once I click one, they open to a new page with quicktime and you just click "save as source". Also you could open the URL in quicktime and just save the file...

N said...

I'll have to find what you're talking about, Rebecca...I'm not really sure whether I agree or not.

Ha-ha! Yeah, I don't have any super expectations from the study Bible...I just thought it might be nice to see some notes with the text.

Click on what, after it opens in a new window?

Will said...

When I click one it opens in a new window with a little quicktime player. Once it has fully loaded you can move the slider to the end click the downward pointing arrow on the far right of the quicktime player and it should let you either save as source or save as a quicktime movie...

N said...

Oh, I see what you're talking about, Will. Unfortunately both of those options (saving from Quicktime, and saving in the browser window) are only available with Quicktime Pro...which apparently we don't have. :( So, I guess I'll keep saving the files the same way I have been.

I went and found the article about Keith Green, Rebecca. I'm not sure what to think...simply going by what's on there (which may or may not be accurate) I wouldn't agree with Keith Green in saying that there are true believers in the Catholic church. If they were believers they would see the error of the Catholic church. What do you think?

Anonymous said...

I think, re: the Catholic issue, that you have to be careful about limiting what God can do. Your dad was a real believer and attending a Catholic church for several years because he was still a young man living with his parents and followed their rules in order to be obedient to them.

Then you have famous examples like Martin Luther. :)

Yes, the Roman Catholics believe and teach heresy, and yes a true believer in Christ will not stay where heresy is being taught...but sometimes there is a learning process before a person can recognize these things. It would be similar, although not exactly, to saying anyone who believes in the Doctrines of Grace should not be a member of a church which leans in a more Arminian direction. Sometimes God doesn't give us an option to get out right away. Some people are called to be Puritan and some are called to be Separatists.

And I will, longwindedly!, agree with Will about MacArthur's merchandising and study Bibles in general. MacArthur is a good teacher, but you've got to be careful to not get into the habit of filtering your Bible study through the mindset of one teacher. Study Bibles can be a tool to help you focus on the meaning of a passage, but they could also distract you from the entirety of God's Word by focusing on what the study Bible author thinks is important.

God gave us the Holy Spirit to guide our Bible study. He also gave us the preaching, teaching, and accountability of the local church and fellow believers. Someone who knows you personally can help you apply Scripture to your life in a way that the study tools of a famous Bible teacher won't usually be able to.

**End diatribe** Everybody, repeat after me: "Mom/Aunt Beth/Mrs. Roth: Get your own blog...oh wait..."

N said...

That's true, Mom, I hadn't thought about that. And I know Pastor Beasley always says that someone can even be saved in a Mormon, or Jehovah's Witness, or other church like that...I guess I wasn't thinking about there being reasons that a person didn't or couldn't leave the Catholic church right away.

What Rebecca was referring to, is that apparently (and I say apparently because that's only going from Fish's website) Keith Green said a Catholic priest was a sincere believer and friend of his...BUT, looking at it as being like Luther, for instance, he could be still struggling with figuring out what's right, or I suppose, trying to witness to his congregation. (Or do they call it a congregation? Parish?)
Anyway, I see what you're saying, Mom.

Oh and, Rebecca, of course I also didn't mean we should hate Catholics!

Yes, that's the one thing that's bugged me in the past about study Bibles...they all seem kind of gimicky (sp?) and mostly "now hear what I have to say about this passage of scripture!"...in which case I should probably find one of these in bookstore and look at it before buying one.

*ahem* We are long-winded aren't we...you have the beginning of a blog post now though, right Mom? :D

Now I should probably go fix breakfast...

Christopher said...

I didn't have any trouble saving the MP3 files. All I did was hover my mouse over the MP3 option for a recording, right click on it, and choose "save target as..." for IE or "Save link as..." for Firefox. HTH

N said...

Oh wait, you're right it does work, Mr. Hargett.
Okay, the Grace To You episodes work fine, but the ones on sermonindex.net work too if I change the extension from php to mp3...I didn't think it would work to change that.

*sigh* Okay, thanks everyone...apparently this was not a problem with the files, but with the person trying to download them!!! :p Just when I think I really know how to use a computer...good grief!

Oh well, NOW I know, and I won't have trouble from now on! :) At least not with downloading mp3s...

Anonymous said...

I don't know if this priest was a true believer or not, I don't know anything about him...I just thought this Fish guy was crazy to say that other people can't really be Christians because they aren't hateful enough. Or because (in Billy Graham's case) too many people respect them! :)

N said...

Yes, there seemed to be a lot of hate...because they think anyone who isn't in their church is their enemy, and they hate people who are their "enemies". It's sad really.

Anonymous said...

oh my goodness! that guys blog is horribley ridicoulous! oh please.....

N said...

I know, Lauren! Fish is rather...*ahem* fishy. ;)

Travis Carden said...

Hello, Natalie. I maintain the Grace to You Podcast Archive you made mention of above in this post. As some of your readers have pointed out, you can download sermons using the Mp3 links in the sermon lists and on episode detail pages. But if you listen regularly, I have an even easier way of getting them--through a podcast file. To subscribe, just plug the address http://www.traviscarden.com/resources/grace-to-you-podcast-archive/podcast software (like iTunes), and new episodes will be automatically downloaded to your computer every weekday. I hope that helps you. If you have other ideas, I welcome your feedback. :)

N said...

Thank you! I had downloaded a few podcasts that I found through iTunes, but I think they were from a different place and there were only two.