THEY CROSSED THE LINE!

The job of a Christian pastor is to teach the Bible, which teaches the gospel of Jesus Christ. But many popular pastors teach a distorted version of the gospel that is no gospel at all, while other pastors teach the true, full gospel.

Comparing Popular Gospel Presentations

Let's compare what six popular Christians teach about the gospel. We have some unique insights into each of these teachers, so make sure you stick around until the end. In a sermon titled, The Power of the Blood, Joel Osteen presents the gospel, The Good News of Jesus Christ.

I want to talk to you today about the power of the blood. In the Old Testament, when Jesus hung on the cross, suspended between heaven and earth, He took all of our mistakes, all of our failures and weaknesses, all of the times we've blown it, and the times we ever will blow it.

This is the closest we've seen of Osteen teaching people that they are sinners who need to be saved by Jesus. But interestingly, Osteen never uses the word sin here.

He says, all of our mistakes, all of our failures and weaknesses, all of the times we've blown it, and the times we ever will blow it.

As expected, Osteen stopped short of teaching people that they have sinned against, offended, and rebelled against the Holy God. It's about our mistakes, our failures, our weaknesses, more than about our utter depravity and evil.

Osteen continues.

And He forgave it. The good news is not that God will forgive you. The good news is He has already forgiven you. Like John declared,.

Osteen says the good news is,.

Not that God will forgive you, but rather that,.

He has already forgiven you. Osteen is saying that God has already forgiven even non-Christians, which is certainly not biblical, since if all non-Christians are already forgiven, then there would be no need for any of them to be punished with hell.

Osteen also says, like John declared,. I'm curious what passage Joel Osteen is referring to, because I suspect Osteen is misinterpreting the passage.

The Lamb of God has taken away the sin of the world. Now, this sacrifice won't do you any good if you don't receive it. If you go around guilty, condemned, trying to pay God back for your mistakes, know the price has already been paid.

Receive His mercy. Receive His love. Every day, Father, thank you that I am forgiven.

According to Osteen, God has already forgiven all non-Christians, but this forgiveness won't work if they don't receive it first. But that doesn't really make sense. If a judge forgives you of your jail sentence, you don't have to serve that jail sentence.

You don't need to receive the judge's forgiveness to be free from jail.

Too many people live condemned, always thinking about their past mistakes. They've asked God to forgive them every day for the same thing for the last four years. They don't realize the first time you ask, God forgave you.

This is certainly true.

The first time we put our faith in Jesus, we are forgiven of all our sin. At the same time, our faith is the fruit of being born again, of being transformed by God. Salvation isn't just about asking God for forgiveness once and having full assurance of salvation.

Rather, it's about asking God for forgiveness and then gaining assurance because of the fruit we see in our lives that is evidence of being born again by God. But for Osteen, along with many other Christian teachers, salvation seems to be just about asking once and then having full assurance.

But you can say, Father, I want to thank you that my children, my finances, my health, my future, that we are all covered by your blood.

Of course, it wouldn't be a Joel Osteen sermon if he didn't mention finances and health. But God nowhere guarantees prosperity or good health. Rather, the Bible promises that God would sustain us through all persecution and suffering.

We never like to close our broadcast without giving you an opportunity to make Jesus the Lord of your life. Would you pray with me? Just say, Lord Jesus, I repent of my sins. Come into my heart. I'll make you my Lord and Savior.

Friends, if you prayed that simple prayer, we believe you got born again.

But being born again isn't just about praying a simple prayer. It's an act of God that results in lifelong transformation in a person's life. Being born again is accompanied by the evidence of being born again.

But Osteen is trying to make it as easy as possible to become a Christian when the reality is that true salvation is not that simple. There is persecution, suffering, and sacrifice. To help spread this truth, clicking subscribe does more than you might think.

Salvation as God's Work and Ongoing Fruit

Paul Washer is particularly known for being all about the gospel. In a sermon titled, Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church, Washer describes the gospel and salvation in this way.

Because I want you to know, my friends, salvation is by faith alone. It is a work of God. It is a grace upon grace upon grace. But the evidence of conversion is not just your examination of your sincerity at the moment of your conversion.

It is ongoing fruit in your life. It's the ongoing fruit in your life.

We immediately notice two stark contrasts between Washer and Osteen's gospel presentations. First, Washer describes salvation as a work of God and a grace upon grace upon grace. In contrast, Osteen emphasizes that you need to receive God's gift of salvation.

Of course, we need to have faith ourselves, but Washer recognizes that all of salvation comes from God, whereas Osteen emphasizes that salvation is dependent upon something that we need to do. Second, Washer does not say that people are saved simply by asking God for forgiveness once or by praying a simple prayer.

Rather, Washer says that Christians gain assurance through the ongoing fruit in your life. When Oprah interviewed T .D. Jakes,.

T.D. Jakes and the Problem of Religious Vagueness

Oprah asked Jakes, Are there many paths or different paths to God?

Now this would have been a perfect opportunity to present the gospel to Oprah. Jakes could have said something clear and unambiguous like, Jesus is the only path to God because Jesus' atonement is the only solution to sin.

Instead, Jakes hides his answer in a lot of obfuscation. First, Jakes said something unrelated about religious freedom.

Great question. Let me answer that this way. First, I believe one of the great lessons I think that we have today is to live in a country that allows us to have various religious notions.

Then, Jakes kind of answers the question saying this.

I believe that we all take different paths. Some people find God in church. Some people find God at the house. Some people find God in their bedroom. Some people find God in prison. There may be different paths to God, but at the end of the day, there's one God and there's one door.

I believe as a Christian that Christ is that door.

It's good that Jakes says that Christ is the one door, but Jakes never explains what the door is or why people need that door. It's almost like Jakes is ashamed of the answer and is trying to be as ambiguous as he can be.

And as expected, Oprah doesn't seem to be satisfied with Jakes' answer and asks a follow-up question.

Are all the religions leading to that path or is only Christianity leading to that path?

Jakes' answer is again telling. He starts with a criticism of Christianity.

I think you can get in Christianity and miss that path if you're not careful.

Then, Jakes is extremely vague with his answer, which is technically correct.

And I think that many people start in other religions and at some point, my prayer and my hope is that they will cross over. And I'm going to cross over and see Christ as Lord, even if it's at the final moment.

I believe he's the door.

But Jakes never explains what it really means to see Christ as Lord or what Jesus is the door to. He never mentions sin or salvation through faith in Jesus alone. Now, why would Jakes be so vague about what the gospel teaches?

Well, Jakes often appears on Oprah's show, talking about how great we are on the inside and how great our human potential is.

When you are able to get it down to the core, okay? The core essence, when you touch the core and you get down to the seed, you have then gotten to the place where you can find its fullest and best potential.

The sea turtles are born on land. The first thing they do is turn to the water because instinctively, they know that they were created to be in the water. What do you do instinctively? What is your sweet spot?

And when you flow in it, it is natural to you.

Of course, this is completely opposite of what the gospel teaches. But this is exactly what Oprah in her audience loved to hear. And Jakes' teachings about prosperity are also extremely unbiblical.

Don't let people tell you that God just wants to give you enough. Come on with it. His name, El Shaddai, means more than enough. Why would a God whose name means more than enough stop at enough?

Yet again, they are exactly what Oprah loves to hear.

I've heard people criticize you for having so much. Now you drive a wonderful car and you have a plane and you have all of the accoutrements of success. Listening to the sermon today, I understood very clearly because God doesn't just bless you and say enough.

He allows your cup to run it over.

Jakes has also made a video praising Oprah.

Dear Oprah, you have inspired an entire generation, informed us, exposed us and challenged us.

It seems pretty clear that Jakes considers Oprah and her audience to be good people who don't need to hear about sin and salvation through faith alone in Jesus alone. In other words, Jakes clearly doesn't teach the full gospel of Jesus Christ.

John MacArthur on Repentance, Judgment, and God's Sovereign Salvation

In a sermon titled, Giving People the Whole Gospel, John MacArthur says this about the gospel.

You talk about the need to repent and believe and when they reject that and you warn them about inevitable judgment and the escalation of that judgment, the more they know and the more they reject and they still are indifferent.

They still have no interest. You turn to this confident reality that all whom the Father has chosen will come. They will be love gifts from the Father to the Son. The Son will receive them. The Son will keep them.

John 6, He will lose none. He will raise them all at the last day.

First, we notice that MacArthur emphasizes the need to both believe and repent. Too often, the need to repent and be born again is left out of gospel presentations which basically just say, believe once or pray this prayer once.

Second, we notice that MacArthur talks about judgment for rejecting Jesus which we pretty much never see from pastors like Joel Osteen and T .D. Jakes. And third, MacArthur recognizes that salvation comes from God alone and Christians remain Christians because of the love and power of God.

Stephen Furtick, Resurrection, and the Missing Call to Repent

In a sermon titled, Let the Dirt Do Its Work, Stephen Furtick says,.

This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what the kingdom of God is like. That certainly sounds promising.

Now let's take a look at what Furtick says is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was not buried on Friday. He was planted. Now because He was planted on Friday, there is the expectation of harvest. He is the firstborn among many brethren. So when He lay in the grave, it wasn't over.

It was just beginning. And I came to declare today to everybody who's been going through a season of failure or depression or uncertainty or rejection or disappointment, let the dirt do its work. Don't fight it.

Don't run from it. And don't pluck up the seed because you don't like the season. Let the dirt do its work. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is what the kingdom of God is like. There's nothing man can do to you that God cannot use for his good.

And I believe that. I believe that all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.

Furtick talks about Jesus' resurrection and about letting Jesus' resurrection do its work to save you and about God working all things for the good of those who love God. None of this is really wrong, but Furtick doesn't present the call of the gospel anywhere here.

Furtick never talks about sin, the punishment for sin, or the need to repent and believe to be saved through Jesus' resurrection. As with pretty much all of Furtick's sermons, Furtick seems to always just assume he's speaking to Christians and he always focuses on how good God is to Christians.

That's all fine, but the gospel is that God saves sinners who are in rebellion against His law from wrath and hell through being born again, repentance, and faith alone in Jesus alone. And I can't find where Furtick teaches this.

Voddie Baucham's Gospel Clarity

In a sermon titled, Gospel Clarity, which Votie Bauckham preached at John MacArthur's 2022 Shepherds Conference, Bauckham summarized the gospel in this way.

Because of that one man, sin entered the world and death through sin and everyone born from that man through ordinary generation inherited that man's sin nature. And because of that sin nature, sins proceed from it.

And our world is broken because of that sin. And we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God. And we know that He's holy and we know that He's righteous and we crave justice. But the problem is that if God gives us justice, we all die.

And so that God, in His goodness and in His mercy, sent forth His Son who was not born of ordinary generation, but was born of a virgin. Yes, the virgin birth matters. Why? Because if He's born of ordinary generation, He's born in sin.

But because He's not born of ordinary generation, He's not born in sin. He's clean of sin. His record is clean. And He keeps His record clean. And He obeys God's law. And because He's fully God and fully man, He obeys the law of God on our behalf in His active obedience.

And then in His passive obedience, God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. All we like sheep had gone astray. Each of us had turned to His own way, but God laid upon Him the iniquity of us all.

And Christ died for sin once for all, the just for the unjust. And God imputes our sinfulness to Him. And He nails our sinfulness to the tree. And Christ dies and raises again on the third day for our justification.

And there's another imputation. The righteousness of Christ is actually imputed to us so that God can be both just and the justifier of the one who places faith in Jesus Christ so that all those who come to Christ may enter in, so that all those who place faith in Christ might be saved, but not only saved, but sanctified, because He's the firstborn of many brethren.

We're justified and we're adopted into the family of God. And we're sanctified. And as His children, we begin to bear the family resemblance. And we're further sanctified throughout this life by the very same gospel that saves us until one day when it's all said and done.

We're not just saved from the penalty of sin. We're not just saved from the power of sin, but one day we're glorified and saved from the very presence of sin. That's the gospel that we preach. That's the gospel that we need.

And that's the gospel that's more than enough.