F4F | Joel Osteen: You are Good Seed

Opening Remarks and Why Joel Osteen Is Being Critiqued

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebrough, I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

Sadly, no shortage of crazy things being said out there. We take the time to do the comparative work. Now, in Christianity, or in visible evangelicalism, there's hardly a bigger name than Joel Osteen.

He's become synonymous with positivity. Some people have called him America's pastor, and I remember when this guy first came on the scene, and we've been critiquing him for the entire lifetime of the Fighting for the Faith podcast as well as YouTube channel.

So if you've ever heard of Joel Osteen, go ahead and hit the like button, don't forget to subscribe down below, and ring the bell. What we're going to be doing is we're going to be taking a look at where is he now.

I would note that he's gotten worse. When he first came on the scene, he at least made efforts to make it look like what he was preaching was from the Word of God, and nowadays, I mean, God's Word barely makes any appearance at all in Joel Osteen's sermons, and these can only be rightly said to be self-help motivational speeches.

That's the only way I can describe it. So let's whirl up the desktop. We're going to be heading over to Lakewood, and I need to make a note here, and that is because Lakewood always dings us whenever we do a Joel Osteen critique, in order to protect ourselves while still engaging in a proper use of fair use, we are going to warp the video and somewhat, not totally, change the pitch of Joel Osteen's voice.

So if you're asking, what's wrong with the video, and why does he sound weird? The reason for that is because rather than allowing meaningful discussion regarding his false teaching and errors, Lakewood likes to make our lives miserable, so we do this to protect ourselves.

That's just the state of things right now. So let's listen in, and we're going to note that this is a message that he delivered on August 9th at Lakewood, and it's titled, You Are Good Seed. And yeah, let's take a listen in and see if we can make heads or tails of this message.

The Parable of the Weeds and the Need for Repentance

I want to talk to you today about you are good seed. Life tries to convince us that we're average. There's nothing special about us. We have too many obstacles.

Life tries to convince us we're average. See, now, if you want to talk about good seed, I mean, there is a way to do that biblically, and that would require me to go to maybe like Matthew 14. Hang on a second here, I need to actually type in the number 14 in my Bible program.

By the way, this is Accordance Bible. You can find a link to it in the description. They are not a sponsor. I don't get paid to support them. So let's see. Oh, it's 13. It's going to be 13, I think. Yeah, I think so.

Let's see here. Yeah, that's it. So in Matthew 13, so you get a couple of parables that Jesus begins to teach. In fact, in Matthew 13, Jesus makes the turn from preaching out in the open and preaching plainly to preaching in parables, and the purpose of preaching in parables is to, well, make it so that some of his hearers wouldn't understand what he's saying.

So Jesus put another parable before them, saying the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. So, you know, in this particular case, what are we going to talk about here?

The seed are going to be the sons of the kingdom, but we're not born good seed. I'll explain that in a minute. So while his men were sleeping, his enemy came, sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away.

So when the plants came up and bore grain, the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?

And he said to them, an enemy has done this. So the servant said to him, then do you want us to go and gather them? He said, no, lest in gathering the weeds, you root up the weed along with them. So let both grow together until the harvest, and at the harvest time, I will tell the reapers, gather the weeds first, bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.

And then Jesus goes on to explain the parables. So the disciples came to him saying, explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field. He said, the ones who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world.

The good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. Just as weeds are gathered and burned with fire, so will it be at the end of the age.

The son of man will send his angels. They will gather out of his kingdom all causes of, watch this, sin, sin, yeah, and all lawbreakers, sin and lawbreakers gone, causes of sin and lawbreakers gone, and then throw them into the fiery furnace, which is a reference to hell.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and that righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And a parable like this, even with an explanation like that, you might want to ask yourself the question, how am I to be numbered among the righteous rather than the sinners?

So this is where the preaching of repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus' name, the preaching of the gospel, that Christ died for our sins, is a vital part of the message. And so you'll note that if you're going to preach the gospel, the gospel is a solution to a problem.

And the problem is that we are all born dead in trespasses and sins. A regular text that I go to is Ephesians 2, which says those very words, you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

Here, that's talking about how you conducted your life 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. So each and every one of us is born dead in trespasses and sins, and we were by nature, it says here in verse 3, we were by nature children of wrath like the rest of.

Mankind.

Another clear text along these lines is going to be found in Romans chapter 3, and in Romans chapter 3, this is a description of all humanity, and then, you know, Christians are going to be included in this prior to them being regenerated.

So what then, are we Jews better off, Paul writes in Romans 3, 9? Not at all. We've all already charged that both Jews and Greeks are under sin, as it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands.

No one seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They become worthless. 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, and their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law speaks, 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.

So you'll note here, the problem that we have is not that the world is telling us, or our experiences are telling us, that we're just average. No, the problem is we've turned aside. We are sinners. And so the good news is that Christ died for our sins.

So what Joel Osteen is doing here is not doing a favor for anybody, because he's not, number one, preaching from a biblical text. This is an exegesis. But he's creating the impression that the problem that we all suffer from is mediocrity.

That ain't the problem we suffer from. We suffer from the fact that we are born by nature, dead in trespasses and sins in an object of God's wrath. So mediocrity is the least of my problems.

Divine Nature, "Good Seed," and the Language of Potential

So accomplish our dreams. We've made too many mistakes. We'll never leave our mark. We don't realize who we are.

We've made too many mistakes. We'll never leave our mark. Now what I'm going to do here is I'm going to just back this up a smudge. And since I'm using the Lakewood player, their video player, doing this with precision is a little tricky.

So I'm just going to back up to, let's see, we're at 5833. I'll back up right about there and listen again. So he's finishing up the Lakewood creed. I will never be the same. Never, never, never. I'll never be the same in Jesus' name.

And so God bless you. I want to talk to you today about you are good seed. Life tries to convince us that we're average. There's nothing special about us. We have too many obstacles. We'll never accomplish our dreams.

We've made too many mistakes. We'll never leave our mark. We don't realize who we are. The scripture says we have the divine nature of God. We are his offspring.

The scripture says we have the divine nature of God. Has he gone Eastern Orthodox on us? What is this? Is this his version of a theosis or is this the word of faith? Little God's doctrine. This is wow.

This is bad.

It means you have the DNA of almighty God in your seed is favor, creativity,.

Courage, new levels in my seed. I favor creativity and new levels. What text says this? So you're going to note that in order to teach biblical doctrine, I know this is going to sound radical, you need to actually teach the Bible.

You know, just saying, you know, biblical doctrine requires you to open a Bible and say, this is what the Bible teaches. He hasn't done that yet. I don't even know what verse he was talking about. The talks about me having God's DNA or having the divine nature.

I don't know what he's talking about here.

You can't have God's DNA and be average. That seed will override challenges. That seed will propel you where you can't go on your own.

Well, if I have God's DNA, then, you know, if, if everyone is born with God's DNA, why is there so much mediocrity in the world? And on top of it, just rank sin.

Yeah.

If you're going to reach your potential, you have to know you are a good seed.

So you'll note that his focus is on the here and now. You're going to achieve your potential. What biblical text admonishes me to achieve my potential. I remember when I was growing up, the army had a military, you know, recruiting commercial.

And the slogan was be all that you can be. You know, that was what it's. I feel like, you know, this is kind of like along those lines. What is this? All right, let's keep going.

God wouldn't have breathed his life into you. He wouldn't have chosen you before you could choose him. If you didn't have purpose, destiny, greatness.

Man, am I amazing? You'll notice he's not preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins. I don't think John the Baptist would be welcome to preach a sermon at Lakewood. What do you think? I mean, even if they cleaned him up, you know, took off the camel's hair and the leather belt and decided to stick him in a suit and tie.

Do you think John the Baptist would be allowed to preach at Lakewood? I'm just saying.

An in you that will cause you to leave your mark. You may have made mistakes, but that didn't stop the seed.

You may have made mistakes. That's right. Man's problem is not that they're by nature dead and trespasses and sins. The problem is, is that humans don't recognize their potential, don't recognize their divine DNA.

So they make mistakes and slips and oopsies and oopsie doopsies and things like that. They're not sins, it's just mistakes, you know. Oh, boy, this is bad.

You come from negative circumstances, but that doesn't change your seed. Don't let how you were raised, what you didn't get, any dysfunction convince you that you're not up to par. You can't do something great.

Dysfunction, function, what's that?

The environment doesn't change the seed. You can have bad circumstances, but because you're a good seed, you're still going to shine.

Yeah, it just, you know, all have turned aside. None is righteous, not one. They've become worthless. No one does good, not even one. I mean, I don't know who you're going to go with. You're going to go with Joel Osteen or the Bible.

I'm going to go with scripture on this one here because I don't recognize his description as anything meaningful as far as an accurate description of sinful humanity.

Still going to blossom. A young lady told me how when her mother was pregnant with her, she was addicted to drugs. When she was born, she had the same addiction. It seemed like she was at a disadvantage.

She was sent from foster home to foster home. All the odds were against her. But today she's successful. She runs her own company. She has healthy children.

Yeah, but does she believe Jesus, believe in Christ for the forgiveness of her sins? That's my immediate question.

Marriage? Why is that? Bad circumstances can't stop a good seed.

So you'll note that the description, so a woman who is successful today was born as a drug addicted infant because her mother was on drugs while she was pregnant. And this is held up as an example of, you see, bad circumstances can't stop good seed.

But you're going to note that who he's describing could be a Buddhist, could be a Muslim, could be a Hare Krishna, could be an atheist. I mean, he hasn't described anything meaningful regarding a Christian, somebody who believes and trusts in Christ for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

You know, so so, you know, in fact, it sounds like this woman didn't even need Jesus. She just needed to recognize she's good seed. You know, this again, this is just fascinatingly.

Tell you, you are good seed. God has crowned you with favor. You have royal blood flowing through your veins. You wouldn't be here if you weren't equipped, empowered and anointed. You may have been raised in an unhealthy environment, but people that had issues.

But here's the key. You came through your mother.

Yeah.

Raised with people who have issues. Yeah, my parents are sinners. I was raised by sinners. I have a sinful nature. I raised my kids and my kids can look and say, yeah, my parents were sinners, too.

Issues.

You feel like he's diluting things here. Just a smidge.

Wow.

But you came from almighty God. Who you come from is more important than who you come through.

I came from heaven to earth to fulfill my destiny.

The soil may not always be perfect, but because your seed is so good, you will succeed despite the dysfunction.

My seed is so good, man. I'm going to just I'm going to succeed despite the dysfunction and the issues and the slips and doopsies and the mistakes. This isn't biblical. I don't know what this is. This this is nuts.

I mean, Joel Osteen's gotten worse.

Prosper despite the economy. You will raise great children despite negative influences. You will overcome the illness despite what the medical report says. All these negative circumstances, really, they're just fertilizer.

They can't stop your seed. The stinky stuff, the bad breaks, the people that walked away. We don't like it, but it didn't stop your destiny.

So where in scripture does it say the bad circumstances are the stinky fertilizer that make it so that your seed can grow because you're a good seed? There is no biblical text that says any of this. This is flat out man-made doctrine.

And I want you to consider this, is that what he's preaching here is every bit as man-made as Roman Catholicism's doctrine that Mary is co-redemptrix with Christ. That the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, the doctrine of that you can pray to dead saints and that they will pray on your behalf.

Yeah, those are all man-made doctrines. But what he's preaching is as man-made as all of that. This is nuts.

Simply fertilized your seed. It made you stronger, more competent. Don't complain about the fertilizer. You need fertilizer to boost your growth. We have some flower beds at home. A couple of times.

Whatever you do, don't complain about the fertilizer. That stuff's important, man. You know, because Jesus told the parable of the fertilizer.

The year we put mulch in them, one of the main ingredients of mulch is manure. It smells so badly you can hardly stay outside. But in a couple of months, the smell is gone and the plants are blooming, blossoming, seeing new growth.

The fertilizer, as stinky as it smells, it's providing valuable nutrients and minerals for the plants.

I mean, that's great and all. Yeah, sure. I'm not going to argue with the importance of manure and mulch when it comes to helping your garden grow. But this metaphor is not found in Scripture. You're supposed to be exegeting and teaching a biblical text.

Let me remind you of the job of a pastor. Job of a pastor is to preach the word. So 2 Timothy chapter 4, 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul says to young Pastor Timothy, 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 and his kingdom to preach the word.

Have you seen God's word make an actual appearance in this sermon yet? I haven't. Yeah, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke and exhort with patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching or doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

They'll turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. So the way he's preaching this message, this isn't biblical. He's not preaching the word and he's not talking about sin. He's talking about slips and oopsies, oopsies, oopsies, oopsies, mistakes and, uh, and issues.

Issues.

Yeah, but not sin and telling you that, oh, you know, you're, you're, you, you, you, you have the divine nature and you can't make this stuff up anymore. Okay, let's keep going.

Fertilizer as a Metaphor for Suffering and the Story of Joseph

Life stinks. We go through things that are not fair. We came down with an illness.

Well, the sermon stinks.

Our child is struggling. The business has slowed. We think these negative circumstances are going to stop us. Have a new perspective. It's fertilizer. It stinks, but it's not work.

Have a new perspective, man. Bad circumstances. They're just fertilizer, says fourth hesitations. Chapter nine against you.

It's working for you. God is going to take what was meant for your harm and turn it to your advantage. It was meant to stop you. But if you'll keep believing, keep thanking God, keep doing the right thing, you're going to come out stronger, healthier, better than you were before.

Don't sweat the stinky stuff.

Put that on a bumper sticker, man. Don't sweat the stinky stuff. My wife says when I sweat, it's all stinky stuff. Anyway, that's.

We all have fertilizer, that co-worker that gets on your nerves, always trying to stir up trouble. Next time you see them, instead of being frustrated under your breath, you're just fertilizer. You're trying to push.

So curse your co-workers underneath your breath. So if you have a difficult co-worker under your breath, say you're just fertilizer. Can you show me one of the prophets of the apostles who modeled this for us?

You don't realize I'm good seed. I have the DNA of Almighty God. What he's...

You know, I, hang on a second here. I seem to recall, I'm going to do a little search here in the Gospels. Father and, so you can put a little modifier in, in your, in your searches, and devil. I know it's in the Gospel of John.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

John 8, 44. You are of your father, the devil. Your will is to do your father's will and his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning. Does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character. He's a liar and he's the father of lies. That's Jesus talking to the people who didn't believe in him. I would note that Jesus didn't sit there and go, you know, your problem is you just haven't recognized that you're, you have the divine nature.

You're a good seed.

He didn't say that. He said, you're of your father, the devil. So they, they, they were bad seeds, you know, just, just saying, you know, it just seems to be, that's what Jesus says. But what do I know?

You know.

And for you, no person can stop what God has put in your seed, that greatness, that purpose, no sickness, no addiction, no.

No, no sickness, no addiction.

Really?

How long have you lived on this planet?

Well, all the forces of darkness cannot keep your seed from flourishing. Just ask Joseph, betrayed by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold into slavery, falsely accused, put in prison, one bad.

Now, a little bit of a note, uh, you know, the pirates, Pirate Christian's Guide to the Old Testament, I did a whole, uh, episode on the story of Joseph. Uh, what he's saying has no meaning. Joseph is one of these fellows who brilliantly in the types and shadows exemplifies Christ.

So, uh, what we'll do is, uh, up here, we'll put a link to that episode of a Pirate Christian's Guide to the Old Testament. If you haven't heard that already, uh, you might want to watch that so that you can get a good picture of what the story of Joseph really is about or who it's about, it's really about Jesus.

But we continue.

After another, he could have been depressed. God, you said I'd be in leadership. I must've heard you wrong. He understood this principle.

He never said that. You're not even, did, are you going to read any texts at all from the Bible in this sermon?

Bad circumstances cannot stop good seed that negative situations are simply fertilizer. They're necessary.

So that is not the point of the story of Joseph.

And no text says these things can bloom. When his brothers betrayed him instead of trying to get even his attitude was they just fertilized me when Potiphar's.

No, his attitude was not. They just fertilized me. Joseph exemplifies God's grace and the mercy of Christ. Let, let me see if I can find this. Hang on a second here. Um, we're going to look for meant for, and we're going to look in the Old Testament.

So we're going to look in the Torah. Ah, what you meant for a evil God against me, God meant for good. So here is our text, Genesis 50, uh, Genesis 50. And, um, Joseph has revealed himself, uh, to his brothers.

He's forgiven, uh, you know, and, uh, and so now he, he sees his father. Uh, he sees his father for the first time. And, and so this is, I mean, this is just an amazing story. And again, I, I can't even do it justice in this episode.

We have a whole episode dedicated to, uh, A Pirate Christian's Guide to the Old Testament and looking at how, how this all worked out. So here's, uh, when Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead.

So, you know, after, after, uh, Israel dies, they said, it may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him. They're concerned about that because what they did was absolutely evil.

The guy spent 13 years in prison and, uh, and he was sold into slavery, you know, and he begged for mercy from his brothers and they didn't listen. They wanted to murder him, by the way. So they sent a message to Joseph saying, your father gave this command before he died.

Say to Joseph, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. Now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of God, of the God of your father, Joseph wept when they spoke to him, his brothers came and fell down before him, said, behold, we are your slaves.

We are your servants. Joseph said to them, do not fear. Am I in the place of God? As, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

So do not fear. You'll know, he didn't say, well, you know, those bad circumstances, they were just the manure that showed my greatness and the fact that I was a good seed, you know, no, he, he, he noted that God was the one in charge of this.

And, you know, and he offered them mercy, grace, and forgiveness and pardon. He exemplifies Christ. So what Joel Osteen is doing with this text is, it's criminal.

I falsely accused him. I'm not worried. More fertilizer. One day, unexpectedly, the Pharaoh called for Joseph. He went to the palace. He ended up making Joseph the prime minister of Egypt. When you understand that you are good seed, that what God promised will come to pass, then you won't complain about the fertilizer.

Ah, okay. So I'm going to be the prime minister someday.

Really?

Really? I mean, this, this is, this just feeds narcissism and delusions of grandeur.

This, what is this?

Fertilizer is necessary.

Yes.

It stinks.

Yes.

It's uncomfortable, but it's making that seed stronger. It's developing your character. It's giving you endurance. It's getting you prepared to blossom.

Oh yeah.

So all that, those bad circumstances, man, it's just the manure that's, your flowers are about to bloom. No text says this. Notice he hasn't read a biblical text at this point. He only references, you know, referenced a particular portion of scripture without meaningfully reading out any of it and all these doctrines that he's, he's teaching here.

None of them are biblical. This is just flat out narcissistic doctrines of demons.

Position to see the greatness of our God. I talked to a man that was so upset because his boss was against him, always trying to make him look bad. I told him what I'm telling you, it's fertilizer. Stay on the high road and God will not only do a work in you, but he'll take care of your enemies.

It may stink right now, but don't worry, fertilizer stinks.

I think I got to stop there.

A Biblical Warning About Deception and the Need for Sound Doctrine

I mean, wow.

Um, hang on a second here. I got, I got to find one more text and it's in the new Testament and, uh, I'm going to look for bad and then we'll put a modifier we'll look for and worse.

All right.

So, uh, there it is. Second Timothy 3 .13. Second Timothy 3 .13. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted. While evil people and imposters, they will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

I remember the day when Joel Osteen actually put some effort into making it look like his sermons were biblical. Not anymore, man. I mean, he has just, he's given up, I guess, and making no effort at all to, uh, to preach meaningfully anything regarding sin, repentance, the forgiveness of sins, our crucified and risen Savior who died a bloody, torturous, painful death, the death we deserved in our place so that we can be forgiven and live.

None of that is there. Uh, this, I, I, wow.

I, I, hmm.

All I can say is that scripture is right. Then, you know, they go from deceiving and being deceived from bad to worse. And Joel Osteen's gotten worse, noticeably worse. And, uh, it's kind of shocking for me to say it, but I mean, even I'm surprised at how far he's fallen and how much worse he's gotten, but that's, those are the days we live in and here's the thing.

He fills that place every week when COVID -19 isn't keeping people from coming multiple times a weekend. And everybody just loves to hear what he's saying, but what he's saying isn't biblical. They're not being confronted with their sins.

They're not being convicted of their rebellion against God. They're not being told to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. Uh, in fact, that message, you can kind of sum it up by saying Joel Osteen just told us that we need to just trust that we're good and then we'll achieve our potential.

No biblical text says this. This isn't Christianity. I don't know what religion that is, but it's not the religion that's revealed in scripture. It's not the religion. It is not the religion taught by Christ.

It is not the doctrines recorded for us in scripture by the prophets and the apostles. It's powerless to save anybody. In fact, if anything, it keeps them dead and blind in sin rather than preaching them the truth so that they would live.

So what'd you think? I'd love to get your feedback. If you'd like to leave a comment down below, you can do so. You can also email me. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com. If you found this video helpful or insightful, please share it with other people, all the information on how you can share this video is down below.

And of course, if you'd like to support us, you can also support us by becoming a crew member, become a patron on Patreon and things of that nature. All the information on how you can support us is also down below.

And everybody who joins our crew at Gunner's Mate or above, we're going to extend this out into the end of September. I will send you an autographed copy of my fine art print, War Road. This is a morning shot, so this is some War Road sunrise on the docks.

So that would be my way of saying thank you for everybody who joins our crew at Gunner's Mate and above. And so until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all your sins.

Amen.