The Tyranny of Joel Osteen's Positive Declaration "Theology"

When I'm feeling lonely, sad as I can be All by myself, an uncharted island in an endless sea

What makes me happy, fills me up with glee Those bones in my jaw that don't have a flaw, my shiny teeth and me

My shiny teeth that twinkle just like the stars in space

Oh, addin' beauty to my face My shiny teeth that glisten just like a

Christmas tree You know I'm walkin' miles just to see me smile Shiny teeth and me of the

Word of Faith heresy that he engages in. And like I pointed out at the intro, the beginning part of today's episode of Fighting for the

Faith, when we're talking about Joel Osteen's theology, people will think, oh, you know, I love

Joel Osteen. He's so positive and he makes me feel so good about myself.

And what could possibly be wrong with somebody who has such a positive message as Joel Osteen has?

Well, actually, that's kind of the problem, is that if you really believe the theology that Joel Osteen teaches and preaches, you believe in magic.

And not only do you believe in magic, you believe that your words, either good or bad, will create your future.

Now think about this for a second. When was the last time you were fearing for your life, if you ever sang along with that jingle that shows up from time to time on the television, touting the wonderfulness of Oscar Mayer Wieners?

You all know the song, right? Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener Because everyone would be in love with me

Well, those are our words, right? And so you're singing, you wish you were an Oscar Mayer Wiener. Well, how many of you out there are afraid that if you were to sing that song, that God would, poof, cause you to become, well, an

Oscar Mayer Wiener? And when was the last time, you know, that you had a large rainstorm blowing through your neck of the woods?

And, you know, your husband or wife came into the house and said, whew, it's raining cats and dogs out there.

And they said, no, no, no, don't say that. Don't, don't, don't, don't do that, no. Now there's going to be cats and dogs all over the place.

No one thinks that way, right? Right. There's a reason why. It's because the theology that Joel Osteen is preaching isn't true.

We all know this intuitively. We don't fear that if you sing the Oscar Mayer Wiener song that you're going to become an

Oscar Mayer Wiener. Or if your spouse says, oh, it's raining cats and dogs out there, that that means that the future, you know, it's going to go from raindrops to, you know, to animals falling out of the sky.

No one thinks in those terms. But see, the thing is, if you believe Joel Osteen's theology, then you are believing in magic, that your words create reality, either good or bad.

Now to make this point, I will be now playing for you the first four paragraphs, not three, first four paragraphs from the introduction to Joel Osteen's book,

I Declare. This is one of his most recent books. And I want you to hear him for himself talk about how our words have creative power and negative or positive and how he catches himself so that he doesn't accidentally say negative things.

Why? Because, well, Joel Osteen is almost superstitious. He has a magical worldview.

And then we're going to talk about when this theology gets into the church, what's the impact it has on church folks.

Or, you know, you'll listen in. Here's Joel Osteen, again, the first four paragraphs of his book from the intro of his book,

I Declare. Here we go. Our words have creative power. Whenever we speak something, either good or bad, we give life to what we're saying.

Too many people say negative things about themselves, about their families, and about their futures.

They say things like, I'll never be successful. This sickness will get the best of me. Business is so slow,

I don't think I'll make it. They don't realize they are prophesying their futures. The scriptures say

Now, in the written book, it says, he also says, flu season is coming and I'll probably catch it.

So notice what he said. Okay, our words have creative power. Whenever we speak something, either good or bad, we give life to what we are saying.

Too many people say negative things about themselves, their families, about their futures. They say things such as,

I'll never be successful. This sickness will get the best of me. Business is slow. I don't think

I'll make it. The flu season is coming. I'll probably catch it. And then he says, they don't realize they are prophesying their futures.

By the way, folks, the Bible does not teach this.

This is magic. And there's a very dark, tyrannical side to this.

We'll talk about that in a minute. But let's continue. He says, we will eat the fruit of our words.

That means we will get exactly what we've been saying. Now, let me back that up so you can hear that again in context.

Here we go. They don't realize they are prophesying their futures. The scripture says, we will eat the fruit of our words.

That means we will get exactly what we've been saying. No, actually, that's not what the Bible means there.

Saying that we'll eat the fruit of our words is not saying that our words create the future. That is a complete mismanagement and twisting of what that passage says.

Now, this is important. You will never see Joel Osteen engaging in sound exegesis and reading things in context.

The only thing he knows how to do is to proof text his false theology. And he does it using kind of the

Rick Warren method of hermeneutics. He takes the Bible out of context, uses different translations and paraphrases, and then proof texts the things that he's saying.

If you're going to engage in real sound biblical doctrine, you begin with the scriptures and what they say in context.

And then you exegete out the meaning that's there in context. Joel Osteen doesn't do it. He engages in Bible twisting and proof texting of this magic worldview that he's promoting here.

But let's continue. Here's the key. You've got to send your words out in the direction you want your life to go.

You cannot talk defeat and expect to have victory. You can't talk lack and expect to have abundance.

You will produce exactly what you say. If you want to know what you're going to be like five years from now, just listen to what you're saying about yourself.

With our words, we can either bless our futures or we can curse our futures. That's why we should never say things like,

I'm not a good parent. I'm unattractive. I'm clumsy. I can't do anything right. Now, those thoughts may come to your mind, but don't make the mistake of verbalizing them.

The reason why you don't verbalize them is because if you say them, then you're cursing yourself and prophesying your future.

Listen to what he does then with this. The moment you speak it out, you allow them to take root.

There have been plenty of times where I've thought something negative. I'm just about to say it, but I'll catch myself and think, no,

I'm not speaking defeat into my future. I'm not speaking failure over my life. I'm going to turn it around and speak favor into my future.

I will declare I'm blessed. I'm strong. I'm healthy. This will be a great year.

When you do that, you are blessing your future. Okay, now that's the first four paragraphs of the introduction to Joel Osteen's book,

I Declare, and that sets up his theology perfectly. And what

I mean by that is that now that you've understood this principle, it's real simple. What you say will create your future.

If you say something negative, then your future is going to have negative outcomes.

If you say positive things about your future, then your future will have positive outcomes.

This, by the way, folks, is witchcraft. This is magic. This is not what the

Bible says, and it doesn't teach this in context anywhere. Now, looking to somebody like the

Reverend Bob Lico of Discernment Ministries International, this is a man who spent time in the

Word of Faith movement, and he is no longer in the Word of Faith movement. He is a

Lutheran pastor, and here's what he wrote regarding the tyranny of words and this particular theology and the tyranny that it creates.

And again, think of Joel Osteen in this case as something really wrong in kind of a

Stepford Wives kind of way. Here's what Bob Lico writes. He says, One more serious flaw with Joel's doctrine is that it puts those who adhere to it in bondage.

I experienced this personally as a Word of Faith pastor many years ago. I learned

I could not know how any member of the congregation was really doing by asking the members.

Asking a Pentecostal charismatic person, How are you doing? will elicit a response of,

Oh, pastor, I am blessed in the city, blessed in the field. Why, I'm the head and not the tail, blessed by the

Almighty God, filled with the Spirit, growing from faith to faith and glory to glory. Joel Osteen, as a pastor, does not want to hear about how big your problems are.

He wants to hear how big your God is. And Joel's people are afraid to confess the truth because they will then dig up and cancel out their hopefully sprouting faith -filled words by speaking negative reality -as -it -is words.

This places people under a tremendous weight. They must watch their words at every waking moment.

They must be careful who they associate with because negative people can also hinder one's receiving.

Every thought must be held captive to whatever dream, vision, hope one is trying to create.

Any thought to the contrary, even warning from the Lord to what you are declaring is automatically consigned to Satan and is cast down.

Once one starts down the path, there is no turning back unless the goal is willingly forfeited by the practitioner.

There is also the agony of doubt created by such a subjective concept. Faith -filled words only produce when they are spoken from the heart and not the head or the mind.

Their view is of a man as a tripartite being comprised of spirit, soul, and body.

The spirit is reborn. The soul, mind, will, emotions must be renewed by the Word. Then together, these two will control the body.

The only way they can know for certain that they are speaking true faith -filled words is when they receive what they are confessing.

Remember, these folks are either trying to confess the dream in their heart, or they are confessing things mentally to get them down in their spirit.

In either case, the acid test is the obtaining of whatever is being sought.

Since generally the things being sought do not arrive automatically, one must be prepared to begin confessing and then never stop until the manifestation, even if it takes many, many, many years.

Since Joel is very clear that this spiritual law works every time that it is properly used,

I would like him to explain these various events in light of this doctrine. How did his father,

John, end up on kidney dialysis for several years prior to his death? That's John Osteen.

John taught Joel all about confession that brings possession, yet John Osteen did not receive his deliverance from kidney failure, nor did he receive healing from the heart problems which eventually took his life.

Also, the positive confessions of his entire church for John Osteen while he was in the hospital were also of no avail.

I will not go into the prophetic words that said John would live and not die, but he died anyway.

How is it that his mother got cancer in the first place? We rejoiced over God's grace in restoring her, but she should not have gotten ill to begin with.

How did that cancer spirit gain entrance? Why did his sister Lisa's first marriage end in divorce?

I know beyond any doubt that much confession went up prior to the marriage and during it.

Why didn't those words work? These are great questions.

The tyranny of words. So what we're dealing with is those people who are buying into Joel Osteen's...

Well, it's not really a theology because true theology is talking... These are

God words. It's a study of what God has revealed. God hasn't taught this doctrine, but those who buy into this lie, this heresy, are now in bondage.

They're in bondage to the positive. They can't dare say that things are going badly in their lives.

If things are blowing up, they've lost their job, things like that, they can't say that.

They can't say it. And in Stepford plastic, inauthentic fashion, they are now under the bondage of the smiley face.

Why? Because, well, in this magical worldview, if they say how things really are, they're digging up their faith -filled words and can't expect

God to act on their faith because they're not showing faith, they're showing doubt, and God doesn't reward that.

Wow. What a tyranny. Absolute tyranny indeed. I mean, so, think about that.

Next time somebody talks about how positive Joel Osteen is, I mean, that's what, you know, if you have friends who watch his program, that's what they're going to say, you know, oh,

I just love Joel Osteen. Oh, you know, I know he's a little thin in the scriptures. And you're thinking, thin, a little?

Just a little thin? Yeah, it's a lot more than a little thin. But, you know, they'll say,

I understand that he's just a little thin, but every time I listen to him, he just makes me feel so good about myself.

I mean, he's so positive, and he's got big smiley teeth. I mean, I, you know, what could possibly be wrong with Joel Osteen?

And the answer is, that's what's wrong with Joel Osteen. It's the tyranny of the positive caused by a magical worldview.

You know, in the witchcraft kind of sense that isn't taught in Scripture, that holds its people in bondage.

Bondage to, well, this idea of the positive, because you always got to say, you have faith -filled words, you got to only speak the positive in order to prophesy your future into existence.

That means you can't say, I'm not feeling well. You can't say, I'm depressed.

You can't say, I'm angry. You can't communicate anything going wrong in your life.

To do so, well, is to undo everything that, you know, you've been working so hard in sowing those faith -filled positive words.

Again, it's absolute, utter tyranny. And this is not what

Scripture teaches at all. Think of it. You know, Jesus tells the parable of the two men that went into the temple to pray.

One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. Remember the story? And what did the

Pharisee say about himself? He said nothing but positive words.

In fact, let me pull that up and let me read to you the text here. It's in Luke, chapter 18, and I'll start at verse 10.

Here's what it says. Jesus is giving this parable. He says, two men went up into the temple to pray. One a

Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus. Notice all these positive words here.

God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners of the unjust or adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. Boy, he was really smitten with himself, wasn't he?

All those positive words. Look how wonderful he is. They'll talk about a positive confession if you would. But notice the negative words of the tax collector.

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but he beat his breast,

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. No, you don't say that.

Don't say you're a sinner because you're prophesying over your future. You get, no, no, no.

Uh -huh. That's what he did. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

He spoke the truth. He said the truth, and the truth is ugly.

The truth is negative. It's not pretty, right? And Jesus said,

I tell you this, man, the tax collector went to his house justified, declared righteous by God rather than the other, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

All right, we're up on our second break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

Faith, you could do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com

forward slash piratechristian or you can follow me on Twitter, my name there, at piratechristian. Quick break. When we come back, we're going to go to Audacious Church in Manchester in the

United Kingdom listening to a sermon about favor. Stay tuned. Don't want to miss it. We'll be right back.

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