The DARK World of Joel Osteen

Why are all these pastors so similar to Joel Osteen? I want to talk to you today about the power of favor.

So just look at somebody, wink at them and say, I got the favor of God. Say it like that. Say it kind of like that with a little bit of swag.

I got the favor of God. I got caught up with this idea that this is going to be a year of favor.

And I really believe it. I believe there's going to be favor on your life. Do you know that there's a place, a circle of favor?

Amen. The ground of favor that God, Jesus paid for you to have with your name on it.

I think God loves people so much that whether they accept or reject him, he's still gracious. The Bible says,

Jeremiah 29, 11, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. God already has the plan.

In fact, the pressure is off of you. You don't have to come up with the plan. All we have to do is say yes to the

God plan. Joel Osteen, Mega Church Pastor, Lakewood Church.

God never called us to be judges. He called us to show his mercy. As long as you go around pointing out everybody's faults and judging and condemning and being critical, you'll never reach your highest potential in life.

Steven Furtick, Mega Church Pastor, Elevation Church. I want to speak to you today about the power of potential.

Carl Lentz, Mega Church Pastor, Hillsong Church. I mean, God's the judge.

People have to live to their own convictions. And I think if I have to tell you... Chad Beach, Mega Church Pastor, Zoe Church, where celebrity

Chris Pratt attends. We say all the time that if you were to meet Jesus, he would have been the most light person you've ever met.

Let's carry a light spirit. Judah Smith, Mega Church Pastor, Church Home, where celebrity

Justin Bieber attends. It's about knowing that you are of infinite value on this earth, and you are so important, and your life is so significant.

Joseph Prince, Mega Church Pastor, New Creation Church. The Lord told me that he wants me to preach on this.

And he says that I want my people to be established, to know that I love them, and I want them to prosper.

And I want them to be protected during this time. And I want them to be in health. It's no secret that Joel Osteen is one of the most successful pastors in the world today.

With Lakewood Church attracting thousands every week, and hundreds of thousands online, it's only natural then that whatever has worked so well for Osteen will be copied by others to attain similar numbers and success as Osteen.

And indeed, we see this clearly in the Christian world today. There's Stephen Furtick, who explicitly says that he sought after the kind of numbers and success that Osteen had.

I did want to take a moment and just honor Pastor Joel and Victoria again to say thank you for letting me stand here and preach.

Yeah, I didn't tell you this, but I actually came out here like one year into our church, maybe a year and a half into our church.

And I guess it was like round table thing that they had set up for pastors. I got to sneak up here and make a little video for our church and was just getting started and made a video of this place and talked to our church and said, if God can do it there, what could he do in our city?

And I wanted to just report to you, you know, I remember our church cheering for that, but it was kind of hard to imagine. And since that time, we've seen like over 20 ,000 people come to Christ in the church.

But I wanted to thank you for inspiring that vision for us. There's Carl Lentz, who says that Osteen paved the way for pastors like him.

Well, first of all, I love Joel and I'm thankful for men like him who have paved the way for younger guys like me to have an opportunity to do what we do.

Joel is a pioneer and his message of hope is similar to ours. There's Chad Veach, who writes books that are not only extremely similar to Joel Osteen's positive messages that gloss over the seriousness of sin, but are also endorsed by Joel Osteen himself.

There's Judah Smith, who wants to know how Osteen can be so smiley and positive all the time.

Why and how are you so happy and filled with joy? I know everyone calls you the smiling preacher, but you are not the smiling preacher, you're the smiling person.

You're always happy, full of joy. What's the key? What's the secret? There's Joseph Prince, who says that he and Osteen have the same message.

Now, if Joel and I were in the Old Testament, we would definitely be heretics for sure, because we are both preaching hope and grace when there's no foundation for it.

And of course, Osteen has very other close friends who teach almost the same message, such as T .D.

Jakes. I got more blessings than you got days. I got more healing than you got disease. I got more life than you got time.

I got more prosperity than you got strength to receive. And Joyce Meyer. And you do what he wants you to do.

And you know what? When you start living like that, God's blessings are gonna chase you down and overtake you. Now, why would anyone have a problem with these

Christian teachers? Their messages are extremely positive and filled with hope and encouragement.

Well, the problem is that that's all their messages are. They very rarely, if ever, talk about the seriousness of sin,

God's wrath against sin, or the hell that awaits sinners who do not repent. Now, let me talk for a moment about something that will be quite offensive to you.

I want to talk a moment about the hatred of God. Let me ask you a question. How many of you, just raise your hand, have ever heard a sermon on the hatred of God?

One, two, three, four, five. Well, this is better than normal. The hatred of God. Brother Paul, as one lady said,

God doesn't hate, God is love. Therefore, he cannot hate. No, God is love, therefore, he must hate.

If you scroll through the videos on their YouTube channels, it's pretty much impossible to find them teaching about what sinners are really saved from.

They are perfectly happy to teach about God's love, God's blessing, God saving people from a sad life, and how to live a happy life.

But they never warn people about their actual greatest need, which is to be rescued from God's righteous wrath against their sin.

This is not about material wealth. This is about rescue and redemption.

This is about God, in his providence, orchestrating all of history in order to bring about that which we need more than anything else, and that is to be rescued from God.

And all of these pastors have also followed in Osteen's footsteps in choosing to never talk about controversial subjects like homosexuality or abortion.

Of course, Osteen admits he only ever talks about homosexuality when he's confronted with the issue during interviews.

And so, I mean, our message, I mean, you know, if you listen to my message, they're about lifting people up, and so it's not,

I mean, I really talk about the homosexuality when we get on the interviews. But one, I don't necessarily focus on that.

I only talk about that on the interviews. T .D. Jakes, likewise, works hard to soften his position when asked about homosexuality.

Trust me, I've talked to enough LGBT, they are not all the same. Oh, for sure. They're not all Christians. No, no.

But how do we, first of all, has your thinking evolved on this? Evolved and evolving. Carl Lentz flatly refuses to call homosexuality or abortion sin.

But do you feel like, you know, you have a moral imperative to speak publicly about some of these more controversial issues?

No, because we try to be like Jesus. Very rarely did Jesus ever talk about morality or social issues.

He was about the deeper things of the heart. So it's not a sin in your church to have an abortion? That's the kind of conversation we would have, finding out your story, where you're from, what you believe.

Work through it. Like, talk about things. Yeah, I mean, God's the judge. People have to live to their own conviction. Chad Veatch just wants to be a hip and happy -go -lucky preacher who declines to publicly discuss politics.

Veatch says that Instagram built his church, which means that everything he teaches needs to be

Instagram -friendly. Judah Smith deleted this part of a sermon because people started asking him questions he didn't want to answer.

Jesus systematically opposes all forms of exclusion. He opposes it. He is against it.

Any form, any system, any policy, or any program that excludes anyone,

Jesus diabolically and very obviously opposes it. So when it comes to our own country and when it comes to exclusions of all kinds and any policies or systems or worldviews or perspectives that you and I might have and maybe has never been challenged or questioned,

Jesus, if you follow him long enough, he will take you to Matthew's house. And all of us together, as followers of Jesus, will have to deal with any exclusions we have allowed in our mentality, our perspective, or in our heart.

Stephen Furtick deleted the one sermon where he once addressed the issue of homosexuality, one titled

Cow Tipping. Osteen, his imitators, and his friends have a very specific, proven strategy for building megachurches that attract thousands and that even the non -Christian world largely accepts.

If you like this video, subscribe to help spread the truth. Downplay the seriousness of sin,

God's wrath, and hell. Sin has consequences. It has personal consequences. It has physical consequences.

It has relational consequences. It has national consequences. It has global consequences.

And most significantly, it has personal consequences and ultimately eternal consequences. Every sin ever committed by every person will be judged.

Avoid controversial topics like the plague. This is why pastors stand up today and when they preach on a topic that's controversial, their message usually dies the death of a thousand qualifications.

I mean, think about it. You will not hear guys stand up, for the most part, and preach on the issue of homosexuality without 15 minutes of justification.

Now, I love homosexuals. I have friends who are homosexuals. I am not here to say, you know, just say what the book says.

Focus everything on positivity, encouragement, and living a happy life. You have to kick your will into gear.

I will be happy. Joy is a point of view. Joy is a way of looking at things. This helps me.

When you are flowing with the Lord, the Lord wants you to be happy. When you have repetitive feelings, those feelings are not just feelings.

That is who you really are. But of course, the messages that Osteen and his imitators teach is not the true, full message of the

Bible. They deliver messages that make people feel good about themselves, that make people feel they are in a good place with God.

Knowing that God loves you perfectly and unconditionally, that he will never stop loving you, it can remove the fear from your life.

However, without a true understanding of sin, there is no true repentance, which

Jesus commanded. In fact, Joel Osteen and Joseph Prince's view of repentance is simply turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts.

Joel, or me, preaching the word without using the word repentance sometimes. But people's minds are being changed all the time, from thinking this way negatively to thinking positively, from depression to having a positive expectation of good.

You know, repentance is going on all the time in Joel's church, in my church, and hopefully in your church as well. And you don't have to have this breast -beating shout, oh,

Jesus, Jesus. If this is what Osteen and his followers think this is all repentance consists of, then it is likely they haven't repented at all, since repentance consists of both recognizing the utter seriousness of sin and feeling deep sorrow and hatred toward that sin.

But if you came here this morning with all the wrong reasons and you sat here wondering when this was gonna be over, but partway through this sermon, you knew that someone was dealing with your heart and you began to see the holiness of God like never before.

You begin to see your sin as never before. And your attitude towards that sin about which you once boasted has totally changed and you hate it and you're ashamed.

Sir, that is repentance. You can be saved. You lack one other thing. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Osteen and the pastors who are achieving so much success through imitating Osteen are robbing people of the true gospel of sin and salvation they desperately need to hear.

Christians, instead of delivering motivational, feel -good messages that make the world happy, we need to proclaim the true gospel of Jesus Christ, which is deeply offensive to the world.

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 began 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.