F4F | Joel Osteen Hijacks Isaiah's Prophecy About Jesus

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. All right, so for years, really since the beginning of Fighting for the

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Faith, we have regularly featured Joel Osteen. And if you know anybody that believes that this man is a man of God, that he's a

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Christian preacher, that he rightly handles God's Word, and that he is substantively rightly handling God's Word, you need to send them videos like this so that they can have their eyes open.

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Joel Osteen is an egregious twister of God's Word, and somebody who teaches the

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Word of Faith heresy, that your words create reality, your faith -filled words create it, and he twists the

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Bible up so badly you can barely recognize it. That being the case, you can really clearly see that he's doing this when he takes texts that are clearly about Jesus and makes them about positive declarations.

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And so this is a video that I've been sitting on for months and have been loathed to actually bring to you for the purpose of doing some discernment work.

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And the reason being is that Joel Osteen, this guy is so bad,

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I have no idea how anybody takes him seriously. So what we're gonna do, let's whirl up the desktop.

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By the way, that's a photo I recently shot of the stars here in North Dakota. If you live in the city, you've never seen stars until you come out to some of the darker regions of North Dakota, but that's not what

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I'm gonna talk about here today. So we're gonna head over to Lakewood, and what we've done here on this video is

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I've sped up the video, the audio, just a little bit, and our editor is going to end up distorting the video just a little bit as well.

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And the reason being is because Joel Osteen thinks that he's above the law. And so I'm gonna make it very clear.

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We are using fair use. The purpose of fair use is protected so that people can offer criticism and critique.

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That's the purpose for which we are doing this. I've stated it in the video, and we're transforming it so that, you know, basically, you know, if they try to come at us and try to take down the video, we've made it very clear that's the purpose of this.

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So this video, the name of it is I Declare. I Declare. And you're gonna see

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Joel Osteen take one of the prophecies of Isaiah as it relates to Jesus. This is the prophecy that Jesus reads out in the synagogue in Nazareth in Luke chapter 4, and he doesn't make it about Jesus.

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He makes it about positive declarations. I mean, this is utterly blasphemous. And we would note that Scripture is clear that we worship

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God in spirit and in truth. And Joel Osteen, I mean, he's got so little truth in him that one has to wonder if he's experiencing a famine of truth.

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Or, you know, maybe he's off in the wilderness of non -truth. Who knows? But one thing is for sure, what we're gonna hear him do is utter blasphemy.

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And this is extremely dangerous. And so they go, well, Joel Osteen wouldn't hurt a fly. And he's just the nicest guy ever.

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He's just like Texas sweet tea. No, he's not. He's like Texas sweet tea with a little bit of strychnine in it.

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This is the kind of stuff that destroys true Christian faith, and the people who listen to him and are being pastored by him, they do not know their

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Bible at all, nor are they learning it from this man. Kind of case in point. So brace yourselves.

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And like I said, we sped up the audio just a little bit here on my end. The video editor is going to tweak it just a little bit for the purpose of trying to protect us as much as we can from the

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Joel Osteen takedown army. But here we go. I want to talk to you today about I declare. Words are powerful.

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They have the ability to help set the direction for our lives. When they're spoken over us by someone that has authority, like a parent, a coach, a mentor, they can determine our destiny.

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Words are so powerful they can determine our destiny? Which biblical text says that?

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Where does it say that words are powerful, they can determine our destiny? I mean, this sounds almost like witchcraft.

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The reason some people aren't reaching their potential is they've never had the blessings spoken over them.

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Is Christianity about people achieving their potential? They've never had anyone declare what they can become, who

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God says they are, how they have seeds of greatness. Now, Scripture is clear. We do not have seeds of greatness within us.

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Each and every one of us is born dead and trespasses in sins, and the Scripture is very clear in this regard.

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I'll just show you a couple of texts along these lines. One of the clearest is found in Romans chapter 3.

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And in Romans chapter 3, Paul, at the conclusion of this just amazing argument that begins in partway through chapter 1, declares, and boy

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I'm using that word, declares he rightly proclaims the truth about every one of us,

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Jew and Gentile. Paul asks this question, what then, are we Jews any better off? He says, no, not at all. We've already charged that all, that's both

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Jews and Greeks, that they are under sin. None is righteous, no not one.

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No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.

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No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

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There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

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Yeah, so you'll note that all of humanity is, well, because of sin has been made worthless.

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Christianity is not about tapping into the seeds of greatness that are inside of you.

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Another clear passage along these lines, Ephesians 2, 1 through 3, and you, you

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Christians in the Church at Ephesus, before you were Christians, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

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By nature, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. So, you'll note that Christianity doesn't teach, oh, you have latent seeds of greatness inside of you, and you just need somebody to speak the blessing over you so that you can blossom like a tulip in the spring.

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No, that's not what the Bible teaches at all. Let's come back to this nonsense. Isaiah said, the

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Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Now, I'm gonna back this up. I want you to hear what he says here about Isaiah.

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How they have seeds of greatness. Isaiah said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to declare the year of God's favor, to announce freedom to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, good news to the poor.

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Now, we're gonna get to this in a minute. See, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and what is this passage referring to?

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Who is this passage referring to? It's not referring to you or me, it's referring to Jesus, and I have it on no greater authority than Jesus himself.

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But I want you to hear what he does here. Isaiah went around declaring favor, freedom, victory, all those that would receive it, those that would let those words take root.

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So, Joel Osteen believes that Isaiah was running around Judah and declaring favor and blessing, that Isaiah was a preacher of positive thinking.

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Let's just take a look at a little bit of Isaiah, shall we? Isaiah chapter 1.

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Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for Yahweh has spoken. Children have

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I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know.

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My people do not understand. Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly.

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They have forsaken Yahweh, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged.

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Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel?

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The whole head is sick, the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it.

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But bruises and sores and raw wounds, they are not pressed out or bound up or softened with oil.

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Your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire. In your very presence foreigners devour your lands.

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It is desolate, as overthrown as by foreigners. And the daughter of Zion is left like a booth in the vineyard, like a lodge in a cucumber field, like a besieged city.

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If the Lord of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we would have been like Sodom and become like Gomorrah.

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Hear the word of Yahweh, you rulers of Sodom, and he's referring to the of Judah. Give ear to the teaching of our

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God, you people of Gomorrah. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says

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Yahweh. I've had enough of burnt offerings and rams and the fat of well -fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats.

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And when you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts?

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Bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath and calling of convocations.

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I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates.

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They have become a burden to me. I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands,

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I'll hide my eyes from you, even though you make many prayers. I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood.

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Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil.

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Learn to do justice. Seek justice, correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless and plead the widow's cause.

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Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.

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Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. You'll note that Isaiah, like all of the other

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Old Testament prophets, was a repentance preacher. He wasn't running around declaring blessing and telling everybody, you know, you just need to recognize the seeds of greatness that are inside of you.

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No, no, not at all. So already we've got a big problem here because Joel Osteen thinks that Isaiah is an early version of Joel Osteen, which means he really hasn't read

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Isaiah, nor does he understand what Isaiah is doing and what his book is about. It's about calling people to repent and return to God who will forgive them.

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And though their sins be as crimson and scarlet, he will make them white as snow. All now because of the shed blood of Christ.

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But Joel Osteen is not a repentance preacher. No, no, no, no, no. So listen again, you know, to his description of Isaiah.

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To declare the year of God's favor, to announce freedom to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, good news to the poor.

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Isaiah went around declaring favor, freedom, victory. All those that would receive it, those that would let those words take root, would see it come to pass.

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No, this is absolutely blasphemously wrong. Isaiah was not that kind of a preacher.

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He was a repentance preacher. He preached sin and forgiveness of sins, calling people to repent.

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He didn't preach to people latent greatness inside of them. Hundreds of years later, Jesus was in the synagogue in Nazareth.

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He picked up a scroll that had the writings of Isaiah. Of all the things he could have read, hundreds of different passages, he found this same place and read it to the people.

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The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to declare the year of God's favor. Jesus knew the power of declaring.

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He knew you have to hear victory spoken over you. You have to hear abundance, healing, freedom for it to come to pass.

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Right. So is the reason why Jesus quoted that passage from Isaiah is because Jesus knew the power of positive words and declaring victory and things like that?

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No. In fact, if you just read the text, you can see what it's really about. So in the

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Gospel of Luke chapter 4, starting at verse 16, and we're gonna apply our three rules for sound biblical exegesis, which are context, context, and context, here we see what this passage is about that Jesus is quoting from Isaiah.

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It's not about learning the power of positive blessings and speaking positive words over people.

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No. Watch what Jesus says. So Jesus came to Nazareth where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the

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Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.

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He unrolled the scroll, found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the

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Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

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He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the

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Lord's favor. And that's quoted from Isaiah chapter 61 verses 1 and 2.

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And then Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

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And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them,

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Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

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In other words, Isaiah 61 is a prophecy about Jesus. And Jesus is saying this prophecy about the

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Messiah, whom those in the synagogue in Nazareth would have understood that this is a messianic prophecy, that Jesus is saying without saying it so many words,

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I'm the Messiah. I'm the one Isaiah prophesied about. This text is about Jesus, not me, not you, not about the power of positive words.

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And so he says, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

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And they said, Is this not Joseph's son? And then he said to them, Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb,

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Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.

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And he said, Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth

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I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up for three years and six months and a great famine came over all the land.

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And Elijah was sent to none of them, but only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow.

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And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha. None of them was cleansed, but only

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Naaman the Syrian. And when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

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And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff.

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But passing through their midst, he went away. This time had not yet come. So when

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Isaiah prophesies in Isaiah 61, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.

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He's anointed, anointed Mashiach, anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

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That's a prophecy about Jesus. It's not about the power of positive words. And the fact that Joel Osteen would hijack this prophecy of Isaiah, and note that Jesus quoted this portion of Isaiah, and then make it about the power of positive declarations rather than about Jesus, whom this prophecy is about, shows you he is completely ignorant, in the dark, under the delusions of the devil, to think that this passage is about declarations rather than Jesus.

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And that shows his utter blasphemy and failure to pass even basic Christianity as it relates to basic Christian doctrine.

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Let me back this up. "...place and read it to the people. The spirit of the Lord is upon me to declare the year of God's favor."

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Jesus knew the power of declaring. He knew you have to hear victory spoken over you. You have to hear abundance, healing, freedom for it to come to pass.

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That's not why he quoted this passage. He quoted this passage because Isaiah prophesied about him, and he was saying he was the

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Messiah. You may have heard it in the past, but life happens. 2020 may have taken your passion. You go through disappointments.

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A dream didn't work out. You're still believing to meet the right person. The thoughts of doubt come. It's never going to happen.

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You're never going to get well. You've seen your best days. The negative starts to drown out what was spoken over you.

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What are you talking about? That's why you need a fresh blessing. You need...

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I need a fresh blessing? What? Fresh favor spoken over your life. You need a fresh anointing.

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That's what I'm going to do today. Like Isaiah declared the blessing, Jesus thought it was so important that he repeated it.

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Just like Isaiah declared the blessing, Jesus thought it was such a great blessing, he repeated it.

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This guy doesn't understand who the Bible is about or what the Bible is about. The Bible is about Christ.

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I'm going to declare some things that God says about you. If you will let these words take root, if you will receive them into your spirit, they're going to put you on a path to greater joy, better health, stronger relationships, to new levels of your destiny.

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That has nothing whatsoever to do with Christianity at all. We're called to suffer.

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So I would note something along these lines that this is the quintessential example of the fulfillment of 2nd

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Timothy chapter 4. Let me explain. What is Joel Osteen? He is an ear -scratcher.

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He does not abide by sound doctrine. In fact, the reason why he makes so much money and he's so popular is due to the fact that he rejects what the

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Bible says, he doesn't preach it, and instead he tells people what they want to hear.

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And so that's the reason why he's as successful as he is. So Paul, the Apostle Paul prophesied about this nearly two millennia ago.

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He says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, to preach the word.

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Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

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For the time is coming, and I would say is now here, when people will not endure sound doctrine.

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But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they will wander off into myths.

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Yeah, that's exactly right. If you think that Isaiah was a prototype of Joel Osteen and just knew the power of blessing and speaking positive words over people, that's a myth.

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I mean, it's an easily debunked myth. Just read Isaiah chapter one. It's like nothing could be further from the truth.

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And Isaiah 61 is a prophecy about Jesus, not about the power of positive declarations.

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And Jesus quoted that passage, not because he knew how powerful speaking positive words were over people, but because he is the fulfillment of that passage and that prophecy.

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And so, yeah, Joel Osteen is the quintessential example of what it means here to, you know, to scratch itching ears.

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Let me come back and see if we can endure just a little bit more of this. These words have the power to ignite something in your spirit, to wake up dreams, to unleash the favor, the gifts.

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These words have the power to waken dreams? Says who?

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Where? Potential that God put in you. When Jesus chose his disciples, they were ordinary people, a fisherman, a tax collector, carpenters.

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Yet he looked at them and said, you are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. They could have thought, what's he talking about?

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There's nothing special about us. Their reasoning said he has the wrong person, but down in their spirit, something ignited.

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Yeah, no text says this, especially Matthew 5. Now, by the way, he was quoting Matthew 5. Jesus does say, you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

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But let's take a look at what Jesus actually said, because I think it'll help. By the way, so the opening portion of the, this is known as the

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Sermon on the Mount. And this is the first full sermon that we have of Jesus's from the

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Gospel of Matthew. And it's just a fantastic sermon, by the way. But so we'll walk through just a little bit of the context here, because what we need to get to is just a little bit lower in the context, but I want you to see the fuller context.

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So Jesus opened his mouth and he taught his disciples saying, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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So what does it mean to be poor in spirit? To be poor in spirit is to be a penitent. It's to basically say, spiritually,

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I'm impoverished and confessing your sins to God. Okay?

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Blessed are those who mourn. By the way, everybody mourns to one degree or another. So what are these ones who are mourning that are blessed?

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Those who mourn over their own sin and lament their own deeds of unrighteousness by which they have come up short.

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Okay? Blessed are the meek, as opposed to the proud, right? They shall inherit the earth.

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Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Righteousness.

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How is that defined? According to scripture. You want to know what righteousness and holiness looks like?

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Look at the 10 commandments. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart.

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You say, but alas, that's not me. Ah, but Christ has given everybody who is truly a

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Christian a new heart. All right? He's taken, he's removed their heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh.

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Blessed are the pure in heart. They shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God.

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And here's not talking about just generic peacemakers. It's peacemakers of a particular stripe.

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I would note, if you want to see the cross reference on this, I would go to 2 Corinthians 5, where it says, all of this is from God.

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Verse 18, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

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That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God is making his appeal through us. We implore you then on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

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For our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

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Yeah, indeed, blessed are the peacemakers, those who preach the gospel of peace and are part of the ministry of reconciliation, reconciling sinners to God through the message of the good news that Christ has bled and died for their sins.

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And blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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And blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

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Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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You are the salt of the earth. Now we get to the context. But if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

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It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

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You are the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the house.

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In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your

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Father who is in heaven." Jesus wasn't saying, you're the bee's knees. He was saying, your light is your good works.

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So here Joel Osteen is twisting up Jesus's words horrifically, turning this, just taking

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Jesus totally out of context and ascribing motives to Christ that cannot be found in the scripture.

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Oh, Jesus knows the power of positive words. And there he was telling his disciples, you're the light of the world.

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You're the salt of the earth. And they were going, me? Wow, that doesn't sound right, but that kind of makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

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Thanks, Jesus. That's not it at all. This is, this is utter blasphemy and he's feeding people's egos, scratching their ears and telling them what they want to hear rather than telling them what they need to hear.

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Something came alive. Their seeds of greatness begin to take root. They felt faith rising up, destiny calling them.

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Yeah, I got to back this up because you can see that the whole narrative he gives here, it's not at all there in Matthew 5, at all.

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He just completely added it to the text. Him and said, you are the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth.

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They could have thought, what's he talking about? There's nothing special about us. Their reasoning said he has the wrong person, but down in their spirit, something ignited.

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Something came alive. Their seeds of greatness begin to take root. They felt faith rising up, destiny calling them.

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Instead of talking themselves out of it, they got in agreement. Yes, we're the light of the world. Yeah. So where in the scripture does it say the disciples got in agreement with Jesus and said, you know, yes,

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I am the light of the world. It sounds like Shirley MacLaine standing on the beach in Malibu going,

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I am God. No, you're not lady. You're going to meet him someday and you ain't going to like how that goes.

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And yes. Oh my goodness. You get the idea. This is utter blasphemy.

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This man is not a Christian. He is not a Christian minister. The message he preaches will send people to hell rather than bring them to Christ so that they can receive from Christ forgiveness, mercy, reconciliation, peace as a gift and eternal life also as a gift.

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This man is deplorable and he's just telling people what they want to hear.

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I think you get the point. So if you found this helpful, because it was irritating for me to have to listen to that guy.

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If you found this helpful, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description. And until next time, may

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.