Truth Matters, November 2012, Volume 16 Issue 11
GIGO (Garbage In Garbage Out) A Cautionary Tale By Rev. Robert S. Liichow
Joel Osteen, America’s favorite pastor has published yet again another bestselling book entitled “I Declare 31 Promises to Speak Over Your Life.” However, before we delve into Joel’s latest masterpiece please accompany me for a quick trip in my “Wayback machine.”[1]
The miracle is in YOUR MOUTH. Dare to speak those promises out loud. Say them to yourself! Say them to the devil! Say them to the sickness! Say them to your mountain of trouble! Confess them in the face of all contrary evidence! Say them while the pain is there!! Say them while you are so sick you can hardly think!!. . .When we SAY and CONFESS His Word, He brings the miracle to pass!![2]
If John Osteen preached the above words once, he preached them thousands of times. John Osteen was part of the beginning of the fledgling charismatic movement. He was formerly a Southern Baptist pastor, and had an earned Master’s degree from Northern Baptist Seminary (one of the few sign-gift leaders with any genuine seminary education). Osteen was voted out by his congregation and left the Baptists due to his stance over the sign-gifts and began Lakewood Church as an independent ministry in 1958.
Much to my dad’s surprise, many of the people in that congregation didn’t appreciate his fresh discoveries. They were steeped in their traditions, and because of Daddy’s enthusiastic, fiery messages weren’t exactly what they were used to hearing, it made some of them uncomfortable. . .they were upset that the supernatural God Daddy described didn’t fit into their denominational guidelines.[3]
Even though I disagree strongly with his theology I will say that John Osteen always struck me as a decent man, good husband and father and faithful pastor to his flock. To his credit Lakewood was one of the early churches to being openly interracial, which was no small thing in Houston Texas in the 50’s and 60’s. Lakewood was also one of the largest churches in Texas many years before Joel came onto the silver screen.[4]
John was one of the main proponents of what was later codified as the Word of Faith (WOF) movement/cult led by its titular head Kenneth Hagin, a close personal friend of Osteen’s. I’ve heard John proclaim the belief that our words create our reality time and time again. Osteen was preaching positive confession before anyone heard of Kenny and Gloria Copeland.
John Osteen practiced what he preached. His daughter Lisa was born with some serious physical defects, they prayed, they confessed the promises of God and in the end their daughter was totally healed.[5] Many years later in 1981 John’s wife Dodie was stricken with live cancer. Even though she had Oral Roberts, Ken & Gloria Copeland, T.L. and Daisy Osborn[6] all pray for her it made no difference. It was up to her and Jesus if she was going to be healed.
I felt like I was going through a dark tunnel. There seemed to be no end to it and yet I still confessed, ‘I am healed.’ When anybody would ask me how I felt, I never confessed that I felt bad. I said, ‘I am blessed of the Lord.’ …Confession did not seem to work for me for quite a while, but it finally did work! I began to see a faint ray of light.[7]
Dodie was healed of metastatic liver cancer in 1983 and she shares her story in a little booklet “Healed of Cancer.” Dodie rightly gives God the glory for healing her body. However, it is her belief that she would not have been healed had she not done her part, i.e. positively confess God’s promises. Dodie can be seen sometimes sitting on the front row of her son’s stadium.
Why this trip in the Wayback machine? Because when you understand his parents and their home life, which John used to vividly describe in his messages, one begins to comprehend why Joel is as he is today. Joel was raised in an almost hyper-faith atmosphere.[8] He never heard a discouraging word at home nor was he allowed to utter one either! Every week on Sunday, during the mid-week services and daily at home Joel had the precepts of positive confession bringing possession drilled into his young malleable melon. I am sure his sister Lisa was probably a great “object lesson” to remind the family and congregation about the creative power of their words if anyone began to waver in their confessed hopes. When Joel eventually attended college he went to Oral Roberts University, Oral was a very close friend of John and Dodie’s. Even away from home and Lakewood Joel continued to have the hard core beliefs of the WOF cult, seed faith principles, etc. poured into him. Unlike his father Joel did not earn a degree in theology but was a communications major. Joel has no formal biblical education at all, and yet he finds himself at the helm of the largest congregation in America and by default is assumed to have God’s blessing due to the size of his church.
Joel is without a doubt a product of his upbringing, the apple truly did not fall far from the tree. Joel has taken his father’s errors and spread them much further than his father ever dreamed possible. There are some major differences however between John and Joel when it comes to ministry. John Osteen did preach Jesus Christ fairly as the Savior from sin; he did keep that much of his Southern Baptist doctrine active, which I believe if why God allowed him the modicum of success he experienced. Joel Osteen hardly ever mentions Jesus Christ at all in his sermons or as I will prove, his books. Why is this? He did not learn this from his father or at ORU, he bears this guilt alone. Lakewood was always known as a cutting edge charismatic congregation. People getting filled with the Spirit and speaking in other tongues, men or women shouting out the occasional prophetic word; folks getting slain in the spirit were part-n-parcel of Lakewood services under John Osteen. From what I have observed on television Joel’s services are anything but Spirit-led in the Pentecostal sense. Joel assiduously avoids mentioning speaking in other tongues in his broadcasts; his father worked his enthusiastic experiences into virtually every one of his messages.
Joel has cleverly marketed himself as everybody’s pastor and has successfully divorced himself, at least publically, from his WOF cultic upbringing and his former charismania. I don’t know how he transitioned the former charismatic Lakewood into the seeker Lakewood it is today, but he did it and it is some sort of church-growth miracle. The unknowing channel surfer can watch Joel weekly and never know that Joel: (1) comes from a hyper-charismatic cult background; (2) that Joel and all his family practice speaking in other tongues; (3) everything Joel teaches is based on WOF heresy; (4) has no formal biblical education. These four “unknowns” are an example of the art of superlative spinning and of a marketing miracle.
Kenneth Hagin Sr. used to ask rhetorically “how do you poison a dog? You put the poison in the good meat.” How best to disseminate error to as many people as possible? Wrap the error around a fairly good looking guy, with great teeth & hair and winsome demeanor. Give him a communications background, television and media production experience (Joel was always behind the scenes at Lakewood) and PRESTO {a little magician’s lingo} the leaven of Lakewood is spread to spiritual seekers globally.
I had never preached before! Ever! I had spent seventeen years behind the scenes at Lakewood managing our television production. Over the course of those years, Daddy tried many times to get me out in the public to speak, but I never had the desire to do it. . .Keep in mind, I had never even prepared a sermon.[9]
By his own admission Joel was (and is) totally unprepared to serve as a pastor. He had no actual pastoral training, no seminary education, not even a diploma from an unlicensed “Bible” school! What he did have was an entire lifetime spent surrounded by the leaders of some of the most extreme enthusiasts around (Oral Roberts, Hagin, Copelands, Price, Yandian, etc.). Growing up in this environment was all the training Joel has received, and in his mind all he needs. Gigo, garbage in over a lifetime, now , garbage out to an undiscerning spiritually hungry world. Some of Joel’s foundational beliefs include things such as:
WOF & Words God created everything by speaking “faith-filled” words. God created man in His image. Man was to be the ‘god’ of this world, but Adam committed high treason and gave his dominion over to Satan, who became the ‘god’ of this world. Man, like God has the ability to create reality by speaking either faith-filled or fear-filled words. This is a spiritual law and it works for everybody whether they know it or not, but usually in the negative. Spirit-filled Christians are to function exactly like Jesus did on earth “speaking” to fig trees, mountains, devils, sickness — because we are to do His works & greater works. To learn how to walk like Jesus all it takes is revelation knowledge, which you cannot obtain in seminaries, but you can receive it via “anointed” teachers (Copeland, Hagin, Hinn, Dollar). |
As a graduate of Robert Tilton’s Bible School and former WOF cult pastor I can assure you that the lynch-pin of the WOF cult is their alleged doctrine of the creative power of our words. Virtually everything they teach hinges upon their concept of positive confession (pc). Once you swallow this false doctrine then everything else they teach makes sense within their specific paradigm. Everything is traced back to spoken words in their worldview. For the newer readers, or those without a sign-gift background the following is a very brief peek into the basic WOF doctrine of words:
Most of the above mentioned CON cepts are seen in his books or heard in his messages. Make no mistake about it — Joel Osteen is an ardent WOF heretic in the same class with Mr. Copeland, Hinn, Dollar, Meyers, Duplantis, et al.
“I Declare” is Joel’s third major book and it is simply an expansion of some of the CONcepts he plated up for public deception in his prior book “Your Best Life Now.” In order for us to experience our “best” (as defined by his version of the American dream) now we have to do the following:
As long as you can’t imagine it, as long as you can’t see it, then it is not going to happen for you. It’s the same way with us. . .We have to conceive it on the inside before we’re ever going to receive it on the outside.[10] But if you develop an image of victory, success, health, abundance, joy, peace, and happiness, nothing on earth will be able to hold those things from you.[11]
God abides by the laws He established, and if you don’t sow, you will not reap.[12]
Your Best Life Now is around 300 pages of well camouflaged WOF ‘101’ doctrine. The spiritual law goes something like this: (1) First you begin by visualizing what it is you desire, say physical healing. You must begin to “see” yourself as totally healed, the more precise and vivid an inner picture you and paint the better. (2) Then you must begin to confess verbally to yourself and to others (when asked) that you are totally healed prior to any manifestation of healing at this point. This confession is usually comprised on various snippets of Bible verses taken out of their context, yet claimed as “God’s promises” for your life. (3) During this time of visualization and positive confession you will have to cast down every thought or report you are given that contradicts your stance. During the waiting period (between initial confession & final possession) one must guard against digging up their “seed” (words) by giving in and confessing negativity about what you want. When this happens then one must begin the process over. Negative words will cancel out the positive ones, if the individual has more faith in the negative coming to pass.
If you allow your thoughts to defeat you and then give birth to negative ideas through your words, you actions will follow suit. That’s why we need to be extremely careful about what we think and especially careful about what we say. Our words have tremendous power, and whether we want to or not, we will give life to what we’re saying, either good or bad.[13]
(4) In God’s timing, if you remain steadfast in your confession you will receive what you have conceived in your heart and confessed with your mouth, isn’t this what Jesus taught in Mark 11:24?
Your Best Life Now lays out the framework for why it is a necessity to verbally proclaiming the BEST desires of your heart until they manifest in your life. As further proof that Joel is nothing more than a clever redressing of old sign-gift heresy we come to Chapter 28 of this book is called “The Seed Must Lead” and it is a shortened version of Oral Robert’s “seed faith” heresy that he made popular back in the early 1950’s and this false doctrine has syphoned off untold hundreds of millions of dollars from legitimate Church ministries.[14] Gigo, garbage in, garbage out.
I Declare is Joel’s subtle next step into silently converting his followers into WOF demi-gods. This is a much shorter book than Your Best Life Now. This book is very similar to the previous one and honestly, it is like all of John’s and Joel’s sermons; one sort of ‘point’ with a lot of ancillary stories from either his father’s life or from people Joel knows. On a very infrequent basis Joel attempts to shore up his doctrine with some cherry-picked pericope from the Bible.
The book consists of 31 declarations aka positive confessions that the reader is to “declare” over their lives at the beginning of each day and then hold fast to that confession regardless of the circumstances or situations life may threw against you. I have heard Kenny Copeland say on numerous occasions “if you play the game right you win,” meaning that if we simply will implement God’s “laws” regarding our words, then we will be victorious every time!
The first words on the page of Joel’s latest book PROVE is a WOF heretic by writing the following:
Our words have creative power. Whenever we speak something, either good or bad, we give life to what we are saying. . .They don’t realize they are prophesying their futures. . .Here is the key; you’ve got to send your words out in the direction you want your life to go.[15]
For those who might say that Joel Osteen is not a WOF devotee, because he has never said he was let me simply point you to a few of the following titles, all from people personally known by the Osteen family and apart from Joyce, all of these enthusiasts have helped shape and form Joel Osteen into the proclaimer of error he has become.
Your Words Hold a Miracle: The Power of Speaking God’s Word, John Osteen
There is a Miracle in Your Mouth, John Osteen
Reigning in Life As a King, John Osteen
How To Release The Power of God, John Osteen
Living in the Abundance of God, John Osteen Words, Kenneth E. Hagin
You Can Have What You Say, Kenneth E. Hagin
Right and Wrong Thinking, Kenneth E. Hagin
How To Be A Success In Life, Kenneth E. Hagin The Power of the Tongue, Kenneth Copeland
Living in Heaven’s Blessings Now, Gloria Copeland The Tongue: A Creative Force, Charles Capps
How To Avoid Tragedy and Live a Better Life, Charles Capps Change Your Words, Change Your Life: Understanding the Power of Every Word You Speak, Joyce Meyer Power Thoughts: 12 Strategies to Win the Battle of the Mind, Joyce Meyer
Two Difference Between Joel and these authors —-
One major difference between Joel and the fifteen titles I cited (I could easily add 50 more titles) is that the above authors speak basically in reference to Jesus whereas Joel does not. Joel does not even mention Jesus until chapter 10 of his book. When he does mention our Lord it is in regard to Christ making wine at the wedding “Jesus sped up the winemaking process —God can do in a split second what might otherwise take you many years.”[16] Joel NEVER refers to Jesus Christ as God the Son, as our Savior, as the sacrifice for the sin of the world. Nor does he make any appeal to the readers to place their faith in the finished work of Jesus for them. He does not even invite the reader at the end of the book to consider the claims of Christ, to pray, to receive Him as Lord, nothing like the normal American “evangelical” pattern at all.
Secondly, the above books all proof-text[17] massively whereas Joel does not cite many biblical texts at all and sadly, when he does cite the Bible he also resorts to proof-texting since he has never learned how to properly exegete the texts. Here are some example of this truth-twisting Joel does:
1) Ephesians 2:10 says, “You are God’s masterpiece,” (p. 68) — yes we are God’s handiwork (ποίημα or worksmanship) created in CHRIST for good works. Joel leaves this out.
2) Jesus said ‘My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ God wants to make your life easier, (p. 105). He was comparing the heavy burden of keeping the Law as opposed to the liberty and freedom that come from walking in the light of the Gospel. Where does the Bible say God wants to “make our life easier”? Jesus said in John 16:33 that in this world we shall suffer tribulation, but in Him we have peace. Those who desire to live godly IN CHRIST JESUS shall suffer persecution 2 Timothy 3:12. 1 Peter 4:16 “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.”
3) It says in Romans 5:17, “We are to reign in life as kings” (p. 117). That is a misinterpretation of the text. Here is the entire verse “For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ) . AGAIN Joel leaves out any reference to reigning in life BY ONE, CHRIST JESUS. Paul’s entire thought is about Adam’s sin and the remedy for our ancestral and inherited sin —- the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the ungodly! Joel does not go here at all.
4) James 4:2 says, ‘You have not because you ask not,’ (p.143). The entire text reads “You desire and do not have; you murder and are filled with envy, and are not able to obtain; you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, in order that you may spend it on your pleasures. The lack in our lives is because we are not asking God for great things, never mind the part about asking with wrong (selfish) motives, asking for things to bring you pleasure and make your life a waking dream.
5) And He promises in Romans 8:28 that all things work together for our good” (p. 147). Joel’s statement is FALSE. God did not promise that all things are working for the readers good. What He DID promise is this: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
6) God says, ‘If you take the limits off Me I’ll amaze you with My goodness. I’ll not only meet your needs, I’ll take it one step further. I’ll give you the desires of your heart.’ (2 Cor. 9:8-9 NIV) (p. 113). The verse reads in the NIV as follows: “And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: “They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.” There is nothing in this text which indicates that God will give you the desires of your heart. That is a citation from Ps. 37:4. This text says that IF we delight ourselves in the Lord (only possible for Christians) THEN He will give us their desires of our heart. Also, does this mean that He will give us “our” hearts desires or that He will place in our hearts His desires? I believe the latter is true.
These are not all the examples of Joel’s abuse of the scriptures, but I believe they are indicative of a very troubling pattern I have noticed in Joel’s preaching, in his televised interviews and now his writings —- he seems to intentionally leave out Jesus in all three venues of expression. I admit that intentionality speaks to motive (a little Barrister lingo here) and no man knows the motives of another man, however I make my claim based on the facts in evidence.
For example why doesn’t Jesus figure prominently in the preaching and writing of America’s leading pastor? When Jesus is cited it is by example of Him speaking “faith-filled” words into existence or taking life out of existence (the cursed fig tree, p. 164). He is not shown as God the Son, moving as Emmanuel among the people. Jesus is not portrayed as the suffering servant (what, Jesus suffer?) who came to die for the sins of the world.
Any Mormon, Jehovah Witness, Unity School member, theosophist, Christian Scientist, even Muslim’s can read this book as it is written and not be offended by its contents. Nor will they have their current belief system challenged. The book is so doctrinally insipid that any form of deist could place it on their bookshelves, and no doubt many have done just this.
I have counted the number of times the following words occur in Joel’s book to help prove my contention: the cross – 1 time, p. 17; Christ – 1 time; Jesus – 21 times; God – over 200 times. In the entire book only 18 times are biblical texts cited. Virtually every time Joel cites a text he misapplies it to such a degree that it is no longer “God’s Word” because he has made it a lie by taking it so far out of context. God is never referred to as “the God of the Bible,” or “the Father of Jesus,” He is presented as the generic God that any reader could claim as their current understanding of deity. The Holy Spirit is also never directly referenced as far as I could tell, after all, to do so might lead some readers to wonder if Joel is some form of Trinitarian (he is, but why share this and confuse others, right?).
A lot of times we pray about our mountains: God please help me. . .It’s good to ask God to help you. But when you face a mountain, it’s not enough to pray. It’s not enough to just believe. It’s not enough to just think good thoughts. Here’s they key: you have to speak to your mountains.[18]
You may be praying about things you should be speaking to…If you have health problems, instead of begging God to heal you, you need to declare to that sickness, ‘Sickness, you have no right in my body. I’m a child of the Most High God, You are not welcome here…I’m commanding you to leave my body.’[19]
There is a time to pray. But there is a time to speak. You don’t pray about your mountains; you speak to your mountains.[20]
These declarations are not prayers to God, so what are they? WOF doctrine teaches that words are carriers of either the spiritual force of faith or of fear. They take quite literally Hebrews 11:1 “faith is the substance of things hoped for. . .” To Joel faith is an actual spiritual substance, a force which is wielded victoriously via the mouthed words of the adept. These words (declarations) will cosmically draw the things, people, opportunities (Joel continually refers to them as “good breaks”), and money to us. Our words are either used by God or the devil and demons to bring to pass whatsoever we confess for good or bad. Joel is quite adamant about his belief that we all are living the lives we have created for ourselves.
There are many problems with the doctrine of positive confession which are beyond the scope of this article. Let the following be sufficient for now: 1) Positive confession is not taught anywhere in the Bible as a doctrine of the Church. 2) None of the writers of the Bible ever teach that our words have creative power similar to God who speaks things into being ex nihilo (out of nothing). 3) None of the Church Fathers wrote anything akin to what Joel is telling his readers to do. This idea that we create reality by what we believingly confess is a novel idea in the Church and as a teaching is less than seventy (70) years old. The mind-science cults that served as the fountainhead for this demonic deception are less than 160 years old themselves.
The Tyranny of Words
One more serious flaw with Joel’s doctrine is that it puts those who adhere to it in bondage. I experienced this personally as a WOF pastor many years ago. I learned I could not know how any member of the congregation was really doing by asking the members. Asking a PC person “how are you doing” will elicit a response of “oh Pastor, I am blessed in the city, blessed in the field, why I am the head and not the tail, blessed by Almighty God, filled with His Spirit, growing from faith to faith and glory to glory.” Joel, as a pastor, does not want to hear about how big your problems are, he wants to hear how big your God is (see p. 124 Your Best Life Now) and Joel’s people are afraid to confess the truth because then they will dig up and cancel out their (hopefully) sprouting faith-filled words by speaking negative (reality as it is) words.
This places people under a tremendous weight. They must watch their words at every waking moment. They must be careful who they associate with, because negative people can also hinder one’s receiving. Every thought must be held captive to whatever the dream/vision/hope one is trying to create. Any thought to the contrary (even warning’s from the Lord) to what you are declaring is automatically consigned to Satan and cast down. Once one starts down the path, there is no turning back unless the goal is willingly forfeited by the practitioner.
There is also the agony of doubt created by such a subjective concept. Faith-filled words only produce when they are spoken from the heart and not the head (mind). Their view is of man as a tri-partite being comprised of spirit, soul and body. The spirit is reborn; the soul (mind, will, emotions) must be renewed by the Word. Then together these two will control the body. The only way they can know for certain that they are speaking true faith-filled words is when they receive what they are confessing. Remember, these folks are either trying to confess the dream in their heart OR they are confessing things mentally to get them down in their spirit. In either case, the acid test is the obtaining of whatever is being sought. Since generally the things being sought do not arrive automatically, one must be prepared to begin confessing and never stop until the manifestation, even if it takes many many years.
Since Joel is very clear that this spiritual law works every time it is properly used I would like him to explain these various events in light of this doctrine. How did his father John end up on kidney dialysis for several years prior to his death? John taught Joel all about confession brings possession yet John did not receive his deliverance from kidney failure. Nor did he receive healing from the heart problems which eventually took his life. Also, the positive confessions of his entire church for John while he was in the hospital were also of no avail (I will not go into the prophetic words that said John would live and not die, but be died anyway). How is it that his mother got cancer in the first place? We rejoice over God’s grace in restoring her, but she should not have gotten ill to begin with, how did that cancer spirit gain entrance? Why did his sister Lisa’s first marriage end in divorce? I know beyond any doubt that much confession went up prior to the marriage and during it. Why didn’t those words work?
Joel’s View of Sin
Something else is troubling about Joel’s writings. In these two books and in his preaching and television interviews he does not talk about sin, judgment or hell. Joel’s father planted the fetid seeds of “you are no long a sinner, you were a sinner but now you are a saint.”[21] Joel grew up believing that he is not a sinner any longer. I buttress this belief with these comments:
…King David, made a lot of mistakes. . .David didn’t focus on his faults or on the times he had done wrong. No, he lived favor-minded.[22]
That’s not to condone wrongdoing, but the truth is, we all have areas in which we need to improve. We can’t become so focused on our faults that we cease to enjoy who God made us to be.[23]
…David wasn’t perfect. He made mistakes, he became discouraged, but he prayed. . .You may need to pray something similar. ‘God please help me to get rid of this negative attitude.[24]
Your job is not to judge. Your job is not to figure out if someone deserves something, or to decide who is right or who is wrong.[25]
Joel never uses the word “sin” or “sinner” in the entirety of his books. To say the word “sin” is to give it place in his life and I suppose those of his hearers. King David did make a lot of mistakes, but he also sinned grievously against his Lord. He did not confess he missed it, he confessed his sins.
We should be focused on our faults and wrongdoing if they are indeed sinful, which all wrongdoing is. Guilt is a good thing when it drives the person to their knees seeking forgiveness from our Lord Jesus Christ. We should feel guilty when we sin. However, if we ignore sin and simply cast down guilt feelings immediately as “negative” is spiritually unwise.
Obviously to Joel sin is no real problem in the Christian life, if it were as a pastor he would surely address it. No, the pressing problem for us is not sin, but a poor self-image created by our negative words and those who accepted into our hearts from others. Joel would have people believe that if they just change their thinking, renew their minds according to the cherry-picked promises (many of which are really not promises per se) then their former wrong doing will cease and via their declarations God will bring good things to them.
Where the Bible does urge we confess — “If we confess (ὁμολογῶμεν) our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9) — Joel is silent. Or how about in James 5:16 “Therefore, confess (ἐξομολογέομαι)your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” Note that it does not read “confess your mistakes” but says sins. Lastly, what of our Lord’s own statement in Matthew 10:32-33 “So everyone who acknowledges(ὁμολογήσει) me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Where is the acknowledgement/confession of Jesus Christ as Lord in his preaching or his writing? It is absent.
In place of leading the people in a united public confession of sin and then standing before them as Christ’s mouthpiece and speaking forth the words of absolution Joel leads them in another confession he got from his father: ‘No wonder he held up his Bible every service and said, ‘This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what I says I have’ (see p.64 Your Best Life Now). Joel and his people confess a longer form of this same confession in each service. I doubt Lakewood has ever been led by Joel or anyone in confessing the Apostles or Nicene creeds, I doubt Joel knows them.
Joel’s latest book is simply more of the same heresy continued from his previous publication. Both of his books prove beyond any controversy that Mr. Osteen is a Word of Faith heretic. He may hold the title ‘pastor’ and his people may refer to him as such but Mr. Osteen is no biblical pastor. He does not meet the qualifications to serve as pastor. He refuses to preach Christ crucified for the SINS of the world. He has not openly preached Jesus Christ in his services, books or interviews. He intentionally leaves Jesus out of the verses that pertain to Him! Joel is a false shepherd and he is misleading (unintentionally let us hope) multitudes further from Christ and not closer to Him. DMI urges that prayer is offered for Joel’s deliverance from doctrinal darkness for the sake of his soul and those who follow him.
[1] The Way Back machine was an integral part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show, okay I date myself.
[2] Osteen, John. There is a Miracle in Your Mouth. A John Osteen Publication. Houston, Tx. 1972 p. 6.
[3] Osteen, Joel. Your Best Life Now. Warner Faith. New York, NY, 2004 p.172. Bold type added for emphasis.
[4] There is no dispute that Lakewood has grown exponentially under Joel’s smiling gaze. He started with something like a mere 6,000 or people and now speaks to 40,000 people in person on Sunday and multitudes more via television.
[5] There are a great many accounts, sadly, probably most of them that are false. However in the two cases in the Osteen’s life we see the genuine mercy of God.
[6] Daisy Osborn would later die of cancer, no confessions could heal her.
[7] Osteen, Dodie. Joel . John Osteen Publication. Houston, TX. 1986, pp. 42-43.
[8] I followed the hyper-faith teachers, Dr. Hobart Freeman and Elbert Willis. These men took the WOF teachings to their logical conclusions. Eschewing doctors, medicine, insurance, hospitals were all proof of “faith.” The few hyper-faith teachers were not welcomed by the other WOF leaders, because the hyper-faith preachers “walked the walk,” whereas Hagin, Copeland, Harrison, etc. did not.
[9] Osteen, Joel. Your Best Life Now. Warner Faith. New York, Ny. 2004, p.215. Underlining added for emphasis.
[10] Ibid. p. 3
[11] Ibid. p. 5
[12] Ibid. pp. 256-257
[13] Ibid. pp. 121-122. Bold type and underlining added for emphasis.
[14] The dirty little secret is that Oral Roberts PAID Eugene Ewing for the CONcept of “seed faith” when Roberts SINistry was about bankrupt in the late 1960’s. Ewing taught Roberts the whole scheme of “give and God will give back to you.” Ewing has remained a “mystery man” ever since, his great wealth has kept him well insulated.
[15] Osteen Joel. I Declare. FaithWords. New York, NY. 2012, p. v. Bold type and underlining added for emphasis.
[16] Ibid. p. 56.
[17] Proof-texting is the bad practice of simply taking a biblical text out of its context, thus making it a pretext and using it to buttress a point being made. With proof texting the person simply tries to find texts that “fit” their doctrine as opposed to making their doctrine submit to the contextual authority of the passage.
[18] Ibid. p. 161 Underlining & bold type added.
[19] Ibid. p. 162
[20] Ibid. p. 165
[21] This is not a direct quote from John, but he has made this statement, as have virtually all of the WOF cultists.
[22] Osteen, Joel. Your Best Life Now. P. 48
[23] Ibid. p. 66
[24] Ibid. p. 192
[25] Osteen, Joel. I Declare. P. 89
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