I enjoyed this analysis of John MacArthur’s preaching. I listen to his Podcast almost every day and learn a lot. I go to a Methodist church but appreciate Reformed preaching as well — I suppose I’m just one of those wacky open-minded religious liberals!
Why do so many people listen to MacArthur, this product of all the wrong schools? How can he pack out a church on Sunday morning in an age in which church attendance has seriously lagged? Here is a preacher who has nothing in the way of a winning personality, good looks, or charm. Here is a preacher who offers us nothing in the way of sophisticated homiletical packaging. No one would suggest that he is a master of the art of oratory. What he seems to have is a witness to true authority. He recognizes in Scripture the Word of God, and when he preaches, it is Scripture that one hears. It is not that the words of John MacArthur are so interesting as it is that the Word of God is of surpassing interest. That is why one listens.
—
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
—
Shocking: Madonna is a sex-selling hypocrite who doesn’t want her daughter to act like she does.
—
Black conservative Tea Partiers — turns out that they do exist, even though they get savaged with all kinds of pathetic personal attacks for their independent thinking.
AP Notices Black TEA Partiers Called Racist Names, But, It’s Not Racism, Cause They’re Conservatives — That’s the MSM way: Unsubstantiated claims of racism by Tea Partiers = real racism. Substantiated claims of racism by Liberals = not racism.
—
Threats of violence by the loving, kind folks at Greenpeace (HT: Red State)
If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.
Think you’ll be hearing about these threats of violence on the MSM?
—
Non-Christian quotes about abortion — nice summary by Reason to Stand. Be sure to check out that blog, it is excellent! I especially liked this quote. Even the world’s bloodiest religion is better grounded on abortion than the Left:
You shall not kill your awlad [born or unborn children] due to fear of poverty. We provide for them, as well as for you. Killing them is a gross offence. Quran 17:31
—
Dear Liberal friends,
How often did you see this clip of President Obama tripping? How many times would you have seen it if it had been President Bush?
We now conclude this reminder that the MSM is hopelessly biased.
Love,
Conservative friends
—
Mormon update: Still nice neighbors and friends. Still not Christians. Same vocabulary, different dictionary. Many Mormons still as un-/mis-educated about their faith as many Christians are about theirs. Seriously, watch the whole thing if you have doubts.
Eternity Matters 
I’m not surprised at Greenpeace. I was involved, for a time, in the local peace movement. I didn’t find them very peaceful…. for the most part. There were a few, like Veterans for Peace, who were really nice to work with. Many in the movement had terrible things to say about soldiers. That didn’t set well with me. While I am a pacifist, my son was in the military and served two tours in Iraq. I took their insults personally. Now I work for peace and justice through my local church and United Methodist Women. My son has always supported me and I him.
LikeLike
Marty, it sounds like you’ve navigated the relationship with your son very well. Blessings to you.
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
I like the video (watched most of it, not all of it).
Saying that Mormons aren’t Christian isn’t an insult to them any more than saying Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists aren’t Christian… or that Christians aren’t Gaia worshipers. It’s simply a statement of fact, not a statement of judgment.
Nice folks, great neighbors, good people to have on our side on the culture wars… but not Christians, just like Orthodox Jews.
LikeLike
To Greenpeace:
BRING IT ON!
LikeLike
I have a friend who is Mormon. At the time that we talked a lot about the subject; she was going through all of the Mormon studies so that she could join the church which her husband was already apart of. She was asking about the differences about what I believe vs them. I did a ton of research and presented her with a ton of differences backed up with scripture and plain common sense and logic. Unfortunately, I came to realize that she was joining the church to please her husband and nothing I said could convince her otherwise. Mormons tend to have a view of: If a morman didn’t write or say it then it is an inaccurate view of what Christianity really is. Which to me makes no sense because I personally love it when science and/or archeology can confirm biblical places, names, beliefs, etc. No science or archeology has ever been able to back up the book of mormon and other mormon scripture (and in fact has often disproved some of it very strongly). It doesn’t help that they truly believe that they are Christians.
LikeLike
It’s part of the cult mentality that influences a lot of mormons (and I mean that in the negative sense). You see similar cult-thinking in groups like the Jehova’s Witnesses. Circular reasoning that automatically excludes contradictory opinions are a dead give away.
“The person can’t possibly understand Mormonism. Why? Because they’re not a Mormon. Why aren’t they a Mormon? Because they don’t understand Mormonism.” “That person’s statement’s aren’t trustworthy. Why? Because they’re not a Mormon. Why aren’t they a Mormon? Because their statements aren’t trustworthy.”
Authentic faith functions in a linear way, where Christians logically believe something that progresses from A to B to C, and the believer recognizes that there is a certain point where the “leap of faith” must be made. The leap of faith is still logical (since God is logical and rational), and doesn’t lead to a suspension of logic or reason.
With groups like the Mormons or the J.W.s, the leap of faith is made at the very start, accepting a different and special type of thinking that applies to their beliefs but doesn’t apply to anything else. The requirement for their set of beliefs is a suspension of logic and reason.
And so you get a faith where one thing is true one day, and a different thing is true the next. Blacks can’t be saved one day. Whoops now they can be saved. Polygamy is needed to become a god. Whoops now it isn’t needed to become a god.
LikeLike
“To Greenpeace:
BRING IT ON!”
I get sick to my stomach and cringe every time I hear or see that 3 word phrase. My son was in Baghdad when the president said those words and the attacks on him and his fellow soldiers increased with intensity after that. His letters from Baghdad chilled me to the bone.
Every morning I would turn on my computer and read: “Soldiers killed in Baghdad”.
Every knock at the door…. every ring of the phone….. caused my body to stiffen and prepare myself for “I regret to inform you……..”
LikeLike
Sorry to hear that. However, I think the media reports of attacks on our soldiers were overblown because of those 3 words. The liberal media didn’t like a president with bravado and swagger. I had 2 cousins there and they would report back to us that the media reports and what was actually happening on the ground were completely different.
Notice, since Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan, attacks on our soldier there have been relegated to new briefings instead of top stories of the day. That sickens me.
LikeLike
“I think the media reports of attacks on our soldiers were overblown because of those 3 words”
Think what you wish. I can only tell you what my son and others I know experienced.
Perhaps it depends on where they are and what they’re doing.
Both Obama’s war and Bush’s war sicken me.
LikeLike
Again, sorry to hear that. Part of being free and safe is having the courage to stand up to evil. I applaud those that have that courage.
I think in the final analysis history will look favorably on Bush II and what he did to fight global terrorism. But opinions do vary.
Again, my reason for the part you quoted was due to eyes and ears on the ground. My cousins never claimed that it was a safe place to be, just that it wasn’t quite what the media was painting it to be.
LikeLike
“the media reports and what was actually happening on the ground were completely different.”
My husband is active duty Air Force. Although he has not been stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan; we have several friends & acquaintances who have been in one or both places. Several of them would agree with this statement. I have heard many stories of how the nationals thank the soldiers or are happy that they are there. We don’t usually hear stuff like that in the news. We generally only hear the negative which puts the president(s) and the military in a negative light.
“Both Obama’s war and Bush’s war sicken me.”
War is a horrible thing any way that you look at it. Unfortunately, sometimes it is necessary. If we didn’t have war; we wouldn’t have freedom.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
LikeLike
‘If we didn’t have war; we wouldn’t have freedom’
So…in order to be free, we must fight wars and kill people? Wow.
I don’t believe that for a minute. Too many countries such as India, Czechoslavakia, Estonia, Bulgaria etc…have won their independence and freedom non-violently for that to be true.
“My cousins never claimed that it was a safe place to be, just that it wasn’t quite what the media was painting it to be”
Nothing is ever quite how the media paints it. From Fox to MSNBC. I was just telling you how the violence against my son and the troops he served with in the 1st Armored Division increased after those unfortunate words. So much so that he was extended three times. The third time he was getting ready to board the plane to come home. But it was not to be. They were sent back to Baghdad for another three months to help their replacements…1st Calvary Division… quell the growing violent uprisings.
LikeLike
I see you are dug in like an Alabama tick. 🙂 You are entitled to your opinion.
Peace.
LikeLike
More like a Texas tick. Peace to you also.
LikeLike
It would be wonderful if we lived in a world with no killing, no rape, no abuse, no evil, no crime, etc. Unfortunately when sin came into the world; so did war. It will be a wonderful day when we can enter a peace filled Heaven.
Freedom’s Never Free: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpH25WNKa40
LikeLike
Jesus said the truth will make you free.
And please don’t compare the sacrifice of the soldier to that of Christ. I already received that e-mail and deleted it.
“If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
–Wilfred Owen
LikeLike
I do not think that a soldier’s sacrifice is the same as Christ’s. Jesus’ sacrifice will always be greater than any man’s sacrifice for country or anything else. I believe that our freedom in Christ is because of Christ’ sacrifice on the cross and resurrection.
I believe that our freedom in America is in part because of the sacrifices of men and women who protect our country. I have great love and respect for those throughout our country’s history have given up their lives.
To quote Adam: “there are certain times when war is required to achieve freedom… [this is] basic historical fact.”
You have your opinion and I have mine.
LikeLike
I respect your opinion Alysa, and Adam’s, and agree with both of you up to a certain point. I’m quite relieved that you don’t think the sacrifice of Christ is the same as a soldier’s. I have friends who think it is and keep sending me the e-mail. I apologize for assuming you felt the same way.
“there are certain times when war is required to achieve freedom… [this is] basic historical fact.”
Unfortunately, this has been the way of things. There have been 3 wars in my lifetime that I don’t consider those “certain times”…Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
My Dad, a WWII hero, thought he had fought the “war to end all wars”. He never understood why his grandson volunteered for a combat MOS in Iraq, when he didn’t have to.
When my son called me from the recruiting office to tell me he had joined up, he told me “Mom, I’m sorry, I know I am going against God and everything you have taught me, but this is something I gotta do.” We all have to do what we feel is right. I don’t begrudge anyone for that.
You’ve got a couple of really cute kids, btw.
LikeLike
All that being said, I do believe, however, that soldiers are pawns in the games kings play.
LikeLike
I too respect your opinion. I would like to comment about something though. I looked at your site to see if there was a way to personally message you since this really has nothing to do with previous discussions. But your site showed up in my computer as Japanese kanji which I can’t read (not your actual posts just the main page)–the joys of living overseas 🙂
One thing bothers me. You said your son said: “Mom, I’m sorry, I know I am going against God” when he joined the military. Maybe I am misunderstanding but do you and he both feel that way? I personally think that it is an honor for those who join the military and serve their country with the right motives. God used the Israelites in battle several times throughout scripture. Paul also calls a fellow Christian a “fellow soldier” and also tells us to put on the full armor of God as defense against spiritual warfare. Granted there are times where being a soldier would not be honorable or God approved but I feel that God is definitely okay with there 1. being a military and 2. for Christians to join the military and serve their country.
Here are a couple of articles that I found today (that you may or may not be interested in) on a site that I use very regularly:
Christian & Military: http://www.gotquestions.org/military-Christian.html
Bible & War: http://www.gotquestions.org/war-Bible.html
LikeLike
Every single one of your examples of freedom being won without war depends on the occupying power waking up to economic realities at home and having to abandon their colonies (India, and every African colony you didn’t mention) or satellite states (every single Eastern European country you cited).
Regarding your fallacious argument from in-credulousness, yes, there are certain times when war is required to achieve freedom. To disagree with that basic historical fact is either revisionist or ignorant.
LikeLike
Cheney and company (PNAC) put us in these wars for profit and to take away our freedoms. Afghanistan was the only justified war, unless you realize we set up Al Qaeda from the mujahadeen in the first place and allowed nine eleven to take place. Our troops are merely pawns in their game, sacrificing their lives for the control and profit of others. Iraq is an illegal war by all accounts. True justice would allow us to prosecute the criminals that got us into that war. Now Afghanistan is where we adjust our focus once again. Our killing machine is unleashed on the populace and they don’t want us there. Our occupation serves to create more enemies than allies and will feed our military appetite for years to come. There is nothing honorable about what we are doing over there, despite the propaganda given us by the MSM. Ask the locals.
LikeLike
What a truly perverse and morally repellent point of view.
LikeLike
Isn’t that the truth? I guess pointing out the numerous UN resolutions that Saddam was violating, as well as the terms of the 1991 ceasefire agreement, as well as a 2002 bipartisan vote to authorize the war by congress do not justify the war in Iraq. All those facts are overcome by one random guy on an internet site stating the the Iraq war was unjustified.
And then he destroys his own credibility by claiming that the MSM is using propaganda to make the war seem more honorable? That is laughable as the MSM spent the better part of the last 7 years trying to convince us that it was dishonorable. Obviously Poolman fell for it……………
LikeLike
Yeah, but Poolman if pro-legalized abortion so that makes it OK . . . oh, wait a minute, that’s much worse.
LikeLike
Yes Neil. We have established that I am pro-choice and that you have no tolerance for anyone with a differing view than anti-abortion, as is your position.
LikeLike
Yes, you are pro-choice to be able to kill innocent human beings.
Sent from my iPhone
LikeLike
We’ve also established that you are incapable of consistent reasoning. You can’t remember being in utero, so abortion is OK. Abortion is an act of free will that God permits, so it must be OK. Job was going through a tough time and momentarily wished he hadn’t been born, so abortion is OK. Since you’re not a woman, you can’t imagine protecting her unborn son or daughter. Abortions have gone down slightly, so we don’t need to protect the million unborn who will be slaughtered this year. And on and on.
I’m used to idiocy from pro-aborts. I just wish you didn’t parade as a Christian on the pagan blog where we met. It is really confusing for people. You are supposed to be a light to the world but you keep them covered in darkness.
And while you are passive-aggressively inviting your other buddies to come here to comment, please have them respond to this post as well — http://tinyurl.com/y6m8uby . The visitor thought that was such a clever comment but was too gutless to follow up. Shocking. By all means, send ’em this way. I’ll be glad to share the same facts and logic here as I did there. Drives ’em crazy, I know. They repeat the same fallacies over and over and it doesn’t bother them one bit. Sad.
LikeLike
Okay, Bubba and lonewolfarcher, let’s review the simple facts about the Iraq war. A pre-planned war sold to us with lies for it’s oil assets and strategic location. We are the ones that put Saddam in power to begin with, or did you forget that, too?
LikeLike
And it isn’t just “one random guy on an internet site”. “This type of indiscriminate killing has been typical from the initial invasion of Iraq.”
LikeLike
1. We’re getting the ‘oil assets’? Really? From my angle, in the oil business, located in the Persian Gulf, the Iranians and Iraqis are the oil revenue from the newly re-opened Iraqi fields.
2. Your point about Saddam? We also trained the mujaheddin in Afghanistan. So what? Democracies make decisions based on proximate needs/perspectives. That is how they function. Saddam was the best buffer Iraq offered against the Iranians. At the time, he was the best option.
LikeLike
It isn’t so much about who owns the revenue as about who gets to control how it is sold and to whom.
The US needs compliant governments in charge of these countries who will do what it says. Any regime that steps out of line gets replaced. In the past they supported muslim fundamentalists who were fighting against secular nationalist regimes threatening to undermine US influence in the region.
Regimes who obey the US are allowed to remain in power no matter how un-democratic or despotic they may be. The biggest ally of the US in the Middle East is not Israel, by the way. It’s the democratic paradise of Saudi Arabia.
And Lone Wolf, please don’t talk to us about UN resolutions. The US has zero respect for the UN, and your security council veto is just a rubber stamp (actually an erasor) to ensure that the attempts of the rest of the world to restore some sort of balance to the Middle East disappear from history.
Having said all of that I do agree with you about the media treatment of your military’s actions. I feel genuinely sorry for your troops,and those of Britain and other countries involved in these wars, who after all are just doing what they do best – their jobs. These are wars you cannot win, not because you lack military power, but because you no longer have the popular support required, either in those countries or at home.
LikeLike
I would agree, I have 0 respect for the UN.
The building should be demolished and a park should be built for the people of New York, dedicated to the memorial of all those who suffered and died in genocide under the UN’s watch.
The AfPak theater does present itself as a rather tough nut to crack, but for all intents and purposes the Iraqi theater is won and pacified. Free and relatively fair elections are taking place, violence is down dramatically (in large part due to participation from the Iraqis), Iranian involvement in the country has been reduced (probably through the relentless use of drones on the Iraqi/Iranian border)
Iraq has been won.
As for the argument that the wars have revolved around oil, that just doesn’t pass the laugh test. We can drop a trillion or two for wars for oil that we don’t really benefit from… or for 1/10th that we could have just drilled our massive domestic reserves. We could have even gotten a little frisky with cuba and seized their large off-shore reserves, and used another 1/10th of the saved money to fund exploration.
I just don’t believe that persons who supposedly craft a massive conspiracy to successfully invade and occupy a country, expending massive amounts of blood and treasure, are at the same time so incompetent that they can’t do a basic cost-benefit analysis of known oil reserves. Further, we could have far more easily gone in and simply secured the oil and ignorned the major cities.
LikeLike
As I said it’s about control of the resources, not whether you need them or not. It’s about having a say over who gets it. Re Cuba, yes, you could just seize it, but the sanctions you have in place are probably just as effective. If you can’t have it, neither can they. It costs money to actually get the stuff out of the ground, especially if the ground is under water. You don’t just turn on a tap and have oil running all over the place.
LikeLike
The various OPEC countries of the Middle East share an interest with the US, namely stable oil prices. They differ on where those prices should be. As such, they are compliant as long as they are making money from the industrialized West and increasingly Asia. Abu Dhabi, with 10% of the worlds proven oil reserves, sells almost exclusively to Japan. We do business with those who pay. Yes, even Iran, despite the US ‘trade embargo’ with the Iranians, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq all continue to trade heavily with the Iranians. Why? $.
US influence < $.
Yes, any nation looks out for it's own self interest. It's one of the pillars of the Realist school of international relations.
LikeLike
Lies, not “simple facts”. Good try.
LikeLike