I want to preface this controversial note by saying that I write it not out of a desire to show that Joel Osteen is bad and I am good or that I know more or am smarter than Joel Osteen. Both Joel Osteen and I are in desperate need of Jesus and that apart from God's grace I would be a far worse sinner than Joel Osteen (or you) could even dream of. The reason I am writing this is to point any and all who read this to the salvation lavished on any and all who put their faith in Jesus Christ, stop trying to earn God's approval through anything they do or don't do, and come through Christ's mangled body on Calvary into a right relationship with the triune God on the resurrection side of Christ's tomb.
Before I point out the heresies in Osteen's teaching, I want to point out that the Bible clearly says there ARE false teachers who mislead people and teach falsehood and that God is very concerned that we not be led astray by them. This means there is a danger in Christianity of hearing people who claim to be the mouthpieces of God but are not and being led away from the Good Shepherd by their words. 2 Peter 2:1-3 says, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep."
We must NOT blindly accept anyone who claims to be speaking the Words of God or we will be led astray from the truth. God is warning us in this passage to keep our eyes open and listen carefully to what people who claim to speak for Him say. We must line it up against the rest of scripture to see if what they're saying is supported by God's Word all the way through. Here are three signs to look for when you're listening to a person who claims to be speaking for God:
1. Are they preaching the whole counsel of God? Are they covering both the negative things God says (warnings, threats, curses, etc.) and the positive things God says (encouragement, promises, blessings, etc.)? God says things both positive and negative to His people. Remember when Peter swore to Jesus that he would never let Jesus be hurt? Jesus did not say "Thank you, Peter, I appreciate your concern." He said “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”! Can you imagine being called Satan by Jesus? That was not, from our perspective, a kind, good, encouraging word from Christ! Jesus warned him that he was thinking from a human standpoint. Equally dangerous, though, are the teachers who never have any encouragement for the people of God but are always warning them about this or that. More often than not, these false teachers are very legalistic and unkind to those who are struggling. They are always telling them what they should and shouldn't do. The Pharisees were this kind of teacher. Jesus said to them, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” Jesus does not want His people to go around feeling dejected and exhausted by having hard commands wrapped around their necks. He says “Come to me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest... My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus opposes both kinds of false teachers. Look at a pastor's teaching! Does he only talk about blessings and promises and warm fuzzy things? Does he ever talk about God's anger? Paul talked a bit about God's anger in Romans 1. He said it's against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Does he only ever talk about God's anger and warnings and threats? What about Romans 8 where we learn that when we put our faith in Christ nothing can separate us from God's love? You see the full counsel of God needs to be heard, understood and believed. Now all teachers are going to have more of one than the other. There's nobody perfect but you're at least going to hear the full counsel on occasion. A pastor may speak about God's love 51 Sundays out of the year and on His holiness on 1 only. But if you NEVER hear mention of God's holy anger at sin and our need for brokenness and repentance you're not hearing the full picture. The full message of the gospel is not God loves everyone and is happy with everyone and is going to pour out blessings on your life. Nor is it that God is angry with everybody and is going to delight in smashing any unrepentant sinners for all eternity. The full message is that God hates sin in every form and fashion and that we are, in our natural state, rebels who are at war with God and living in open defiance of His kingdom. Apart from God showing mercy to us, we are all headed to hell of our own free choice preferring to rot for all eternity rather than submit to His rulership. But God, rather than destroying all of us for spitting in His face and defying Him, chose to send Jesus Christ the God-man to suffer and die, taking the sins and rebellions of His people upon Himself and freely giving us His righteousness. When we trust in God to justify our wicked lives for the sake of Christ, he takes our sin and puts it on Jesus and takes Jesus' righteousness and puts it on us and starts the slow process of changing our hearts from wickedness to holiness. God's personality has many facets. His patience is tempered by faithfulness, wrath with forgiveness, warnings with promises, justice with mercy. If a pastor is preaching only one side of these things all the time, never mentioning the other side, he is a false teacher.
2. Are they living in a way that magnifies the beauty of God? God is the most desirable thing in all the universe. He is more to be cherished and loved and feared and worshipped and sought after than anything in all of creation. Does a teacher push you to know God at any cost even though you might lose all your money, your home, your family and all other things in your pursuit of Him? Paul wrote in Philippians 3 that he considers this whole world as dung (literally translated as "shit") compared to knowing Christ Jesus. Jesus was not a means to an end for Paul. Jesus was not a ticket to happiness or a good family or a new house or car or emotional peace or a healthy body. Jesus was everything to Paul and He must be everything to us. He considered all the good things he once had as worth nothing that he would gain Christ. For the first three centuries of Christianity the only thing that coming to Jesus would do for you is promise you a long, slow, unimaginably painful death. If people found out you had become a Christian you would usually lose your home, all your possessions and your family. Often, the whole family would be taken and tortured with your children being murdered before your very eyes. Jesus compared himself to a treasure in a field and a pearl of great price. The one who found this treasure went and sold everything he had to get at that treasure. The people in the early church lost everything when it was discovered that they were Christians. Does the teacher you are listening to encourage you to not mind losing possessions or being fired from your job or having your family leave you? Does he point you to Christ as your only treasure or does he encourage you to want your life here on earth to improve so you can have a better car or a better house or a happier family? What does he want you to be hoping for? More importantly, does he practice what he preaches? Does he buy the biggest house for himself when many in his church (or abroad) are struggling financially? Does he only drive nice cars? Does he eat well every day and try to enjoy this life as much as he can? Or does he live in a small house and drive a normal car? Does he give as much as he can to help people that can't afford healthcare or need help buying groceries or paying rent? Now I'm not saying that having lots of money is a sin but LOVING money and trying to find ways of getting more and more stuff to enjoy is clearly described as sin in 1 Timothy 6:9-10 “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” Ask yourself why a teacher says it's good to want things that the Bible says will bring great suffering into your soul.
3. Do they show the fruit of the Spirit?
This one you've got to get involved with their lives to see. If you don't know them personally it's hard to find this criterion. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness and self control. Do you see these things? Now you may be asking “What about unbelievers that you see these things in?” This is why you have to be involved in the teacher's life to see these things. Everyone can put a show of these characteristics but it's not until life knocks them down that you see if they are a show or real. Everyone can be patient for a little while but after a long period of time of that patience being taken advantage of or not acknowledged the film starts wearing thin. Look at how they react when life punches them in the gut or their good nature is tested. That's when you'll see if it's real or not.
Now back to Joel Osteen. I don't know Joel personally so I can only use the first two criteria. Is this guy preaching the whole counsel of God? Has he ever talked about God's anger or His hatred of sin? Has he ever issued warnings to his flock about persisting in sin? Has he ever warned people that if they run from God or reject Christ that they are under God's wrath? I'm not asking if he talks about it all the time; I'm asking if he has EVER talked about it? And when he has, has he confronted it head on and warned people that sin will destroy you and end in eternal punishment? Well, the fact is that Osteen has talked about sin before. But not from the pulpit and not in an urgent call to repentance and faith in Christ to save from it. The only time he has talked about sin is on television appearances and only when poked and prodded by the host. And when he talks about it it's from the perspective of "trying harder" to make good decisions. He never warns people! And he subjectivizes a lot. “Well, for ME, I think this is sinful but I'm not going to judge other people and tell them that this angers God.” On at least one occasion he has expressed unconcern for people following other gods and other religions. Jesus told people that He was the only way to get right with God. Osteen doesn't tell people that. He says he will leave the judgment up to God. But God has already judged. When we confront people with sin we are not judging them but showing that they are already judged in scripture and that they can only have that judgment reversed by running to Christ. Most of the time, Christ is not even the focus of what Osteen says. Faith is. If things are not going well, it's a problem with your FAITH! You need to have more FAITH! FAITH is what really counts! Pray for more FAITH! Friends, faith is, in one respect, the least important aspect of salvation. You are saved by grace THROUGH faith! Not BECAUSE OF faith. Faith is the empty hand that accepts the medicine from the doctor. Can you imagine how conceited/stupid a patient in a hospital would be who, after receiving medicine from the doctor, boasted that his hand moving the medicine into his mouth had cured him and thus he had been healed by himself? Faith simply receives. If you're struggling spiritually you don't need more faith; you need to put your faith in the right thing. When once you have put the smallest pittance of faith in Jesus, your criminal record is erased in heaven and you are declared a beloved child of God. Nothing you do after that will ever change God's love for you. You can lose faith completely and wander away from God for even years and God still looks with great favor on you. He will never remove his grace from you. You can wallow in sin and start getting drunk every night and you can murder thousands of people and have sex with hundreds of prostitutes and your family can leave you and your house burns to the ground and your car blows up and your bank accounts emptied and God still looks at you and says “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” and “Nothing... in all of creation will separate you from the love of [me]...” He will bring you back to faith eventually but it will be HIS doing and not your efforts to have faith again. Ephesians 2 makes it clear that God gives us faith and not we ourselves.
So we can see that Joel Osteen does NOT preach the whole counsel of God. And the fact that he says some things that are correct only shows that Satan often comes as an angel of light just like 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 tells us.
Number two. Does Joel Osteen live and speak in such a manner that people are driven by his example to forsake all else in their pursuit of Christ as the supreme treasure? Or does he encourage people to use faith in order to make themselves happy in this current life? Is he wanting people to enjoy this current life or is he warning them that pursuing worldly treasures (big house, new car, happy families) will destroy them in the long term and “pierce [them] with many pangs”? Does his life echo the prayer in Proverbs 30:8-9 “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”
Short answer? He is clearly focused on enjoying this life. 2 facts: he has a book entitled “Your Best Life NOW” (emphasis mine); he lives in a 10 million dollar mansion. He moved to the 10 million dollar one from one that was a little over 2 million. Now of course he gives away millions of dollars every year but the gospels tell us a story about something similar:
Mark 12:41-44
“And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’”
Jesus didn't have anything nice to say about the rich who flooded the treasury with large portions of money but he sure used that destitute widow to teach us a lesson. I'm not saying God wants us all to live in poverty but neither does He want us looking for good ways to enjoy ourselves more in this life. Whether the blessing you seek is a happy family or a bigger house or a thriving business or a good, happy mood all the time or a positive mindset, God is greatly dishonored when you seek Him for what He can give you. It's like a woman marrying a man so she can get into his bank account! It's so wrong to pursue God for any reason besides Himself! No wonder God gets angry at people pursuing Him just to be happier and more satisfied with life! Wouldn't you burn with anger if you got married and pledged yourself to another person only to find out that they didn't really care about you but about how you made them feel or what you could do for them emotionally, mentally, physically, financially and sexually? If when you told them you loved them the only reply was “I'm tired now. Can you go away while I sleep?” or “I'm hungry. Go make me dinner.” People who pursue God for His blessings and what they can get out of Him are a stink in His nostrils! He hates being taken advantage of and ignored.
One more thing. Come to Luke 6 with me. In this passage, Jesus is issuing a set of promises juxtaposed with a set of warnings. Which side of the table does Joel Osteen (or any teacher) fall? This is another great way to guard against false teachers.
Luke 6:20-26
And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
Jesus Pronounces Woes
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
“Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
“Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
“Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”
"He called his name Gershom, for he said, 'I have been a stranger in a foreign land.'" --Exodus 2:22
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