3) Osteen teaches here that God changed her name to Sarah in order to change her self image and reverse the curse of the negative I ams. Perhaps Joel should have checked some research materials first. The names Sarai and Sarah mean the same thing in Hebrew - princess. This eviscerates his entire premise that now she heard from everyone she was a princess because her former name meant the same exact thing. Most scholars believe that the true significance of the name change is a seal of the covenant God was making. Why let thousands of years of solid research and bible teaching stop you when you got books to sell?
Beloved if you read this and think it is no big deal that is really a big problem. That someone would abuse the sacred Word of God for what amounts to shameful monetary gain should offend us. Forget Kentucky clerks who do not understand the Bible. This is where we ought to feel grieved in our spirit because not only is His Word being butchered but it is being done to lead people away from Christ! For the unsaved person at his church that day do you think their biggest problem is they don't think highly about themselves? Probably the opposite! Their biggest problem is they do not know Jesus Christ. It would be as offensive as if someone preached that when we say the right "I ams" we invite the goodness of God. As if His goodness needs an invitation from our desperately wicked hearts. Yet that is exactly what Osteen says in this sermon. It would be as offensive as if someone said that the words we speak can bless or curse our future. You guessed it beloved. He said it during this sermon. As if we control the blessings of God by merely speaking it. As if we can actually lay a curse upon ourselves with our words even though Jesus broke every curse at Calvary! The unmitigated gall! But he was not done as Osteen next rips a verse out of context from the Prophet Joel where God was telling the nations to not look for excuses to avoid the coming war. The line is - let your weak say I am strong. What Joel Osteen does to this is breathtakingly evil:
"Scripture says, let the weak say I am strong. So let the sick say I am healthy. Let the poor say I am well-off." - Joel Osteen
Osteen of course added the second and third lines. They are not in the Bible. Can you imagine someone about to lose their home and this is what they are told God is saying? Or someone very ill. There was a story a few weeks back about a woman who refused cancer treatment because she was believing her "seed faith" was going to heal her by all the money she was sending in to Kenneth Copeland's ministries. She of course died. May God have mercy on Kenneth Copeland because he will answer for ever sheep he has slaughtered in pursuit of the riches of this world. The same goes for Joel Osteen. Even though this is an enormous amount of heresy for less than a half hour of preaching, Osteen was not quite done yet. He next goes into the story of the 12 spies and teaches that the 10 with the bad report simply had bad "I ams" while Caleb and Joshua had good "I ams." As silly as this is what he does next is far more egregious:
"These ten spies went on to say, "Moses, why did you even bring us here. We will die in the wilderness." God answered back something very powerful. He said in Numbers 14:28 "I will do for you exactly what you have said. You said you were going to die in the wilderness, so you will die in the wilderness." God is saying the same thing to us. I'm going to do exactly what you've been saying." - Joel Osteen
What? Beloved this is why understanding scripture is so crucial. The point here was not that they had negative I ams. It was that they had no faith in God. More importantly however is the presumptive exhortation that God is saying the same thing to us today. Is this sinking in yet? How wrong is it to fill believers and those seeking God with false hopes of fairy tales regarding God. That He is just waiting for us to speak so that He might act. Once again, that makes us God, not Him. In the theology of Joel Osteen, we are gods. That is what word faith believes. A lot of it is centered on the butchering of one particular scripture, which Osteen mentions throughout this sermon:
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations") in the presence of Him whom he believed--God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; - Romans 4: 16-17 (ESV)
Osteen teaches at different points in this half hour that we are taught to call things that were not as if they were. He openly admits that many of these affirmations may not even be true but that we are to call things that are not as if they were. That our words have the creative power of God. Let me assure you they do not. These verses from Romans cannot be clearer. It is GOD who has the power to call things that are not as if they were. That is because He is above our time. He has foreknowledge. He knew Abraham was going to be the father of many nations even before the child of promise was born. These verses do not teach us that we have this power at all.
But therein lies the rub beloved. The theology of Joel Osteen teaches us that we are in fact little gods. That our words have the power to create when only God's does. That we are to call things into existence when only God can. He is not a brother in error. He is a wolf of the highest order. His intent is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is his teaching. For years I have been warning against him. That every day is not a Friday and this is not our best life. That we do not go to church and worship for ourselves as his wife once famously quipped. We have to start thinking of the people who are too young in the Lord to know any better and those desperately seeking him who get taught this garbage. That if we just think better of ourselves then all the riches of this life will be ours. The entire concept of his latest book is utter blasphemy against the name of God. A revered name. A name to fear. The name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. Instead, Joel Osteen took that name, made it about you, slapped a glossy cover on it and for only $20 you can read about how great you art. Heaven help Joel Osteen to repent and those who follow him, may the Lord show them mercy. But for us who truly know better it is time to stop coddling the wolf. I am has sent me to you beloved.
Reverend Anthony Wade - September 17, 2015
1
1
1
