Examining a recent teaching from Joel Osteen and the damage it wreaks in people's lives.

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"And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. -- Deuteronomy 28: 8 (ESV)

Discernment ministries are often considered thankless ministries because most people ignore or try to silence them. It is human nature to want to avoid confrontation. Most people desire the life filled with puppies and rainbows that preachers like Joel Osteen sells every week. There is a reason however, why Paul laments how quickly the Galatians had abandoned the Gospel that saved them. It seems unfathomable to his mind. Likewise today it often seems unfathomable that people can continue to fall for the likes of Osteen, Bill Johnson, or Benny Hinn. Then it hits you that they want to believe in what they are selling. They want to believe that God wants them rich beyond their most selfish dreams. They want to believe that God will magically cure them of all ailments with a swipe of someone's sports coat. They want to believe that they themselves are little gods with the power of creation on their lips. The Bible of course teaches us that we must suffer for the cause of Christ. It teaches that healing is within the sovereign purview of God Almighty and sometimes the answer is "my grace is sufficient for you." It teaches that the poison of asps is upon our lips, not the power of divine creation. But that does not stop people from desiring what they want and seeking out teachers that will tell them what they want to hear. Faith is not the problem as they have plenty of faith. It just often is not in God. We often hear the lament of "what's the big deal?" "Who cares if Joel Osteen never preaches repentance? He encourages people!" "Where is the damage?" Today we will answer those questions but first a word from the latest sermonette from Osteen entitled, "Commanded To Be Blessed"

"When we honor God with our lives, when we do our best to keep Him first place, the scripture says in Deuteronomy 28:8, "The Lord will command the blessing on you." When God commands, it's not, "maybe it will happen" or "I hope it will happen, if the circumstances come together." No. When God commands there are no ifs ands or buts, it's going to happen. -- Joel Osteen

Well that sounds pretty good! But what if God did not really say this? What if this was a promise that God never made? Wouldn't that matter? What if you put your faith in this "no ifs ands or buts" guarantee that Joel just made on behalf of God? Beloved I know it is easy to dehumanize these things but there are real people behind these false teachings that get hurt every single day. They may end up falling away from the Lord, blaming God, and never return to Christianity. Worse still, they may assume they are saved when they are not. Don't believe me? Here is just one comment from Joel's Facebook page after this small snippet was posted by his ministry:

"Pastor Joel, please pray for me. I have been out of work since March, all the rent has been paid for March, April, May and my last payment for rent was paid for June. I've been looking for work, applying for jobs, had a few interviews, I've called back on jobs I have applied for, no response or the job has been filled. I'm in a situation where it looks like I could lose everything. I am having a very hard time. I'm trying to be positive, Confessing God's Word, pleading the blood, thanking God for everything, binding demonic forces, I've tried to be patient, I am praying God will step in, not leave me on the street homeless." -- Osteen Follower

If this was not so sad in reality it would be comical. The amount of poor teaching is evident as she is "binding" things she has no power or authority to bind. She is engaging in churchy activities like pleading the blood as if it is a magical balm that will produce a job for her. She is "trying to stay positive" because Osteen teaches ad nauseum against negativity in your thinking. This person is two weeks away from homelessness and she is clinging to horribly false teachings including the one she is responding to about blessings being commanded over her. Can God deliver her out from this mess in two weeks? Of course He can. Does He always? No beloved. He does not. If He always did then there would be no jobless Christians. It does not work like that. This woman's focus is entirely on this world. Now, we can understand that with the problems she is facing but her faith and religion is all focused on this world as well. Joel Osteen has encouraged her to believe in a fairy tale god. A great genie that is there to grant us our wishes when we call on him. This woman has rubbed the lamp as Joel instructed her to however and there is still no genie. The only answer from the ministry to her post was a standard form response that they would be honored to pray with her and a toll free number for her to call. The other followers of Osteen however reveal much with their responses to this woman:

"I will pray for you and also to the patron saint of employment. Sending positive thoughts your way."

"Keep believing God always answers prayers from His faithful Son."

"His showers will be on you not later but soon. He is up there watching us. He is aware just wait and see the powers of His hand and the reason why He is mighty."

"Do not despair, your breakthrough is coming!"

I am not suggesting that people be negative to this poor woman but there is no patron saint of employment first of all. Secondly, her breakthrough may not happen in the next 14 days. Thirdly, God's answer is sometime no and sometimes the answer is not now. This woman was further encouraged by these responses of blessings showering her but what happens on July 1 when the eviction notice comes? Followers of Osteen clearly do not have spiritual maturity to realize the truths of Scripture so one of two things will happen. This woman will either blame herself for a lack of faith issue or she will blame God. Either way, she will probably walk away from the church that betrayed her. The church that told her that God was commanding blessings over her life as they were chaining the doors to where she used to live. If you really want to see a reprobate mind who thinks they are saved through Osteen's preaching, check out this response to his post:

"Joel you are an amazing preacher and I love listening to you. I was married for 18 years to my husband and he can't have any kids and I wanted to so I decided to give up in life and went to drive my truck from Canada to the west coast in the US. My trainer and I became friends and he was married for 15 years and says he can't have kids too. He went to the doctor for treatment but nothing helped so his wife gave up on him and they divorced. So we started dating and ended up living together and as we go to work every day I would read my bible and pray ask God to bless me with a baby and to see if this man could give me a child. After a year and a half I went to the doctor and they told me I was pregnant. God answered my prayers and my partner could not be happier. -- Osteen Follower

Wow. So let me see if I have this right. You were married to a man who physically could not have children so you left him and divorced him after 18 years. You then met a man with a similar problem whose wife left him and divorced him for the same reason. You did not get married but moved in together, fornicated in sin, read your bible every day, prayed to God for a baby and when you got pregnant you attribute it to God blessing two divorces without cause and a lifestyle of complete disobedience to Him and His Word. The people who responded to this woman all praised God and said amen! Are you kidding me? This is what happens when you sit under gross false teaching. There is no question this woman fancies herself saved but even though she claims to read the Bible daily she is ignorant to what it teaches. Why? Because without the indwelt Holy Spirit to lead her into all truth she cannot possibly fathom the things of God. That He hates divorce. That sexual immorality is not allowed. Instead it all puppies and rainbows because that is what Joel Osteen teaches her. That you believe you can live in abject sin, pray for God to bless that sin, and then when something happens think God answered your prayers is frightening. Why? Because she will be one those people in Matthew 7 standing before the Lord on the last day only to find out that He never knew her. Instead of "well done" she will hear "away from me, you who practice lawlessness."

So what is the anatomy of a false teaching? Let us go back to the Osteen post, which is taken from his latest sermon. This week Joel is selling the notion that you are commanded to be blessed. The first aspect we see that is in nearly every false teaching is a mangling of the Word of God. A twisting of the Bible to fit the teaching. Joel rightly states that Deuteronomy 28:8 says the Lord will command the blessing upon you." He left out the context however. Is Deuteronomy 28:8 a blanket promise for Christians? Or course not. The first context Joel omits is the key verse today -- the first verse of the chapter. This verse contains the condition for the promise held in verse eight. So it is not just that He commands the blessing over you and have a nice day. No beloved first, you must faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that He has commanded you today. What day? The day Moses is referring to is the day in which he was speaking. What are all of the commandments he is speaking of? In order to understand that you need to read the entire Torah for context. The first five books of the Bible. Moses is referring to the Mosaic Law, which consisted of 613 different laws. Are we starting to see the problem of citing only verse eight? Beloved, no one was able to keep the Mosaic Law and if you broke one of them you were guilty of all 613. This is why God sent Jesus! That is the real preachable point but Joel does not want to focus on Jesus so he takes one verse that sounds good to itching ears and ascribes promises to it that God never made you or me. Why not randomly take a different verse from the same chapter and sees what happens:

The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. -- Deuteronomy 28: 21-22 (ESV)

You see what Joel doesn't want you to know is that there 58 verses of curses God commands if His laws are not adhered to. These are only two of those verses. Deuteronomy 28 is a fantastic chapter to preach on to show the underpinning of the great plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. Not to claim some command of temporal blessings for people.

Secondly we see that false teaching often downplays the requirements God has instituted. Actually most times they simply ignore them but if confronted you see language like Osteen utilizes here. Remember that the condition for the commanded blessings was keeping all 613 Mosaic Laws. Joel cannot sell that though so he changes it to "honoring God with our lives" and doing our best to keep Him in first place." Yeah that really sums up the 613 Mosaic Laws. Honoring God with our lives is purposefully vague and since Joel never offers any functional definition he leaves it up to his listeners to decide what that looks like in their lives. For some it may be praying to patron saints and for others it might be living with someone you are sleeping with but reading your bible every day. Just gimmee that blessing! The second caveat is equally nebulous. As long as we try our best? Seriously? Hey I know I am not supposed to keep on sinning but hey I tried my best! Gimme that blessing!

The third facet of a false teaching is the over-focusing on a word that was not the actual point God was making. This is often the result of proof texting, which is when preachers decide what they want to preach about and then scour the Bible for any verses that contain the magic word they are looking for. Joel wanted to preach on God commanding blessings over us and Deuteronomy 28:8 contains the word commanded. More often than not false teachers use verse two because it says the blessings will "overtake" you but Joel was looking for "commanded." This now becomes the focus of the sermon. To finality of the word command. How because of this word there are no ifs, ands or buts. The word command here however is not the point. It is merely a descriptive used. By overly focusing on it, Joel distracts people from what God is actually saying.

Lastly, false teaching will always point you away from the real Christ, real Gospel, and thus real salvation. My pastor is fond of saying that every sermon should be able to come back to the cross or it is not worth preaching. The entire Bible is the story of Jesus and Deuteronomy 28 brilliantly shows this. Even at the end of the Torah, after Moses had gone through the Mosaic Law, this chapter is ultimately about Jesus. The Bible says we either gather people to Christ or scatter them away. Joel Osteen's twisting of this chapter in order to sell promises God never made, guarantees to scatter people away from Jesus Christ when he could have used this chapter to point people to Calvary. Foreshadow the coming of Jesus Christ to fulfill the law. But that doesn't sell well. Showing people their sin, which is what the law does, is not very marketable. So false teachers like Joel Osteen take a verse and chapter about the law and turn it into a winning lottery ticket for commanded blessings. How truly sad for those deceived under his teachings.

Beloved, only the true Gospel has to power of God unto the salvation of man. The false gospels that are poisoning the body of Christ today cannot save them. Their false jesus that commands blessings and rewards sin does not exist. False teaching might encourage people. It may even help them temporally and temporarily. For everyone helped or encouraged temporarily, there are those who will be evicted in two weeks. Pleading the blood to no end. Binding imaginary demons without authority. Compounding sin on top of other sins and praying God blesses it. Do not believe for a second that there are no victims from false teachers. They litter the landscape of modern churchianity. Wandering around aimlessly, either hurt to the point that they blame a God they never knew for things He never promised or blaming themselves for not having enough faith to bring to pass the commanded blessings of God. Thinking they are saved when they never knew Him. They are the true victims of false teaching and they will pay an eternal price.

There are no ifs, ands or buts about that.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- June 16, 2017

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.