Joel Osteen BUTCHERS The Prodigal Son Parable!

Fight For Truth

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real

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Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video. So Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, and prosperity teacher extraordinaire, recently preached on the story of the prodigal son.

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And this one, well, it's gonna be a doozy. Because the fact is, Joel Osteen and sound exegesis are a lot like two parallel lines.

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They simply do not intersect anywhere. So in today's video, we are going to listen to Joel's interpretation of the passage, and then compare it to the actual story in Scripture.

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In order to do this, we've got to watch the video though, so check this out. God has a robe of honor waiting for you.

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It's not in the hog pen, it's with your father. He has a ring of authority. He wants to not just receive you back, but restore what's been taken.

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Restore your honor, restore your reputation, restore your joy. You're condemning yourself when he has a fatted calf out in the field with your name on it.

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Don't believe those lies, you'll never really be happy, never be fulfilled. If you'd only made better choices, it's time to arise and go to your father.

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So the first thing I want to recognize is that there is a very common false teaching tactic being used in this video.

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In fact, it's so subtle, so subversive, that you may have even missed it entirely. Notice that false teachers will always mix in their lie with a seed of truth.

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But as Paul says in Galatians 5 .9, A little leaven leavens the whole lump. As yeast spreads through a whole batch of dough, so a little false teaching will spread through a whole community.

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And it has disastrous consequences. So we must work hard to understand the parables of Jesus for what they actually are.

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We must not read our own worldviews and our own perspectives into these stories, but that is precisely what

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Joel does here. Notice that Joel does get all the facts right, well, almost all of them. It is true that the blessing of the

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Father did not come to the prodigal son when he was in the hog pen. It is also true that when the

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Son came to the Father, he was blessed with a robe, a ring, and a feast centering around a fatted calf.

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These things are all 100 % true, and all Christians should acknowledge them as such. The problem is not these facts, but rather how

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Joel Osteen approaches them and how he describes them to the audience. Notice something important in the parable of the prodigal son which

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Jesus gives in Luke chapter 15. You see, in Luke 15, 18 -19, the prodigal son says this,

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I will arise and go to my Father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

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I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

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Notice the lowly, the humble posture of the prodigal son here, which of course Joel Osteen conveniently fails to highlight in almost any way in his sermon.

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It's interesting how the least popular part of the passage with his particular audience happens to be the part he forgot to add into his speech.

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This is the fundamental error of the prosperity gospel in action. It promises blessing without properly highlighting the process by which blessing is granted to you and the type of blessing that is guaranteed to all

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Christians. It fails to recognize the wretched and sinful position that we are all in before we come to Christ.

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This is a serious error. The prodigal does not approach his father in the way Joel Osteen encourages people to approach the father at all.

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Joel Osteen tells you to boldly go to your father expecting a robe, expecting a ring, and expecting a fatted calf.

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These privileges are supposed to be in your mind before you even go back to your father. In fact, in Joel's perspective, they are the impetus of returning to your father in the first place.

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If these blessings were not going to be given to you, then you really have no reason to return to the father and repent if you listen to this

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Joel Osteen sermon. That is a serious problem and a severe deviation from the true meaning of the parable and the nature of salvation.

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Here, he is calling people to approach the father because he will bless them with these things. But again, that is not why the prodigal son does what he does.

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Remember, the prodigal son does not expect or demand any kind of reward. Rather, he comes to his father fully and completely expecting to be one of his hired servants, and to achieve even this lowly position, he approaches the father with guilt, shame, condemnation, begging him to make him just a servant and nothing more, because that's all he deserves.

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In fact, that's more than he deserves. So to tell people to approach God with these blessings in their mind beforehand is encouraging them to do something that is simply not in the passage at all.

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Joel is skipping over some very important steps here. The blessings came to the prodigal son only after he acknowledged his lowly, sinful, and guilty position before the father.

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The blessings only came after he demonstrated a sincere commitment to be only a servant of the father's will and no longer go his own way, regardless of any kind of blessing whatsoever.

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Again, the blessings of the father were not in the forefront of his mind. I can't stress this enough. In fact, they weren't even in the back of his mind.

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Instead, the robe, the ring, and the fatted calf all came from the mind of the father.

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So why is Joel Osteen encouraging people to approach God with these blessings being their utmost concern?

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In fact, Joel tempts these people to come to the father using the blessings as a sort of bait.

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Again, this is the prosperity gospel in action, folks. Come to God, and he's gonna bless you.

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Yes, that is true in a sense, but you should not come to God because he will bless you exclusively.

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That is a different thing entirely. In Matthew 23, 12, Jesus says the following, and whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

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When you preach to people, telling them to come to Christ as lowly sinners, the father will exalt them on the back end.

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But if you tell them to come to God saying, first, what's up, dad, where's my ring and my robe, you're doing them a massive disservice.

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Approach the father with servanthood at the forefront of your mind, and spiritual blessing will follow as the father decides in his mind.

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These things are totally separate. That is what the prodigal son did. If, on the other hand, you approach the father with guaranteed blessing in the forefront of your mind beforehand, then you are surely acting in a way that the prodigal son did not.

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And you're actually demonstrating, plain as could be, for all the world to see, and especially God, that you do not have the heart that the prodigal son had.

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And therefore, you really have no reason to expect these blessings in the first place. So if you really want people to achieve these blessings,

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Joel, you should not tell them to focus on the blessings, but on the humble and repentant posture that you simply owe to God after living in sin and rebellion against Him.

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There is a world of difference between this posture and the one that Joel is advocating for. The interpretation done by Joel here is pitiful, and obviously so.

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Joel says that you ought to go to your father boldly expecting blessings. But the prodigal son went to the father guilty and expecting servanthood.

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They couldn't be more different. Again, there is a world of difference between the preaching of Joel Osteen and the teaching of Jesus Christ.

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You see, when Joel Osteen interprets the parable in this way, he is butchering a story of our Lord Jesus that is etched into the very

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Word of God for his own prosperity gospel purposes. It's disgusting. As 2 Timothy 4, 3 -4 says, quote,

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For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

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End quote. So stay away from Joel and teachers like him. They are poisoners of the Christian well, they are bad news, they are false teachers, and you must flee from them.

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And pray for Joel Osteen himself that he would repent of this foolishness and turn to the truth of God's Word.

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Thank you so much for watching. If you liked that video, please like, comment, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell so that you never miss another one.

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If you didn't like that video for any reason, then I invite you to watch my Frequently Asked Questions video, link in description, where I deal with common objections and define the purpose and goal of my channel using

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Scripture. This channel is funded by generous donations from my amazing patrons. If you'd like to help us put out more videos just like this one, hit the link in the description or go to patreon .com

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And until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open. Thank you and God bless.