Beware of Joel Osteen
By Bro. David Cloud
Friday Church News Notes, July 8, 2005 - Fundamental Baptist Information Service - David Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061, 866-295-4143. Send e-mail: fbns@wayoflife.org
Popular Charismatic Speaker Refuses To Say Those Outside Of Christ Go To Hell
In a June 20th interview on the international cable television program Larry King Live, the pastor of one of America’s largest churches said that he does not know who goes to heaven or who goes to hell. When asked if atheists go to heaven, Joel Osteen of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, replied, “I’m going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell” (Charismanow, June 30, 2005). When asked where Jews or Muslims go if they don’t accept Jesus Christ, Osteen replied, “You know, I’m very careful about saying who would and wouldn’t go to heaven; I don’t know.” In a letter posted to his web site, Osteen later apologized for being “unclear on the very thing in which I have dedicated my life.” He said: “In my desire not to alienate the people that Jesus came to save, I did not clearly communicate the convictions that I hold so precious.” In fact, in his statements on Larry King Live Osteen was indeed communicating the core conviction of his church-growth philosophy, which is to preach “positive truth.” He has not drawn a crowd of tens of thousands by preaching clearly on eternal Hell as the Lord Jesus Christ did, and even in his “apology” Osteen did not plainly state that those outside of Christ go to an eternal fiery Hell. When Osteen packed out the Coliseum in Charlotte, North Carolina, in March of this year, a local news reporter enthused, “Osteen doesn’t rail against gays or thump a Bible, like so many others do” (“Evangelist: Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” The Charlotte Observer, March 8, p. E1). Osteen’s message was, “Make a decision before you leave this place, you’re going to get happy where you are.” This is a direct fulfillment of 2 Timothy 4:3-4: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables.” Beware of ear tickling preachers who are willing to give a wicked, apostate generation a soft, new kind of Christianity that we do not see in Scripture.
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