Before every story-time sermon Joel Osteen continues the tradition begun by John Osteen, his late father and fellow Word Faith prosperity gospel preacher. Based upon their belief in the erroneous “positive confession” teaching Osteen has his followers confess concerning the Bible.
Their mistaken idea is when people confess positive things they are speaking “faith-filled words” that, like God’s Own Words, quite literally have creative power. Of course this is stupid, but it is what they believe. Now Steven Furtick, one of the allegedly infallible Purpose Driven/Seeker Driven Popes Of The Carolinas, appears to have been gleaning knowledge from Joel Osteen.
Now, that Carolina Pope Steven Furtick would begin to sound more like Joel Osteen really shouldn’t surprise us though. You may recall I showed you in Steven Furtick Calls Joel Osteen Great Man Of God that not long ago Furtick was literally gushing when he tweeted to the world:
@stevenfurtick Great night w a great man of God. Thx Pastor Joel 4 your humility & msg of hope. Love & honor! http://yfrog.com/0rto4j (Online source)As I pointed out previously, if you click the link and you’ll be taken to a picture of a smiling Furtick, who is the next generation of PDL-type preaching, with his arm draped around Joel Osteen, who is one of the next generation—and most popular—preachers of Word Faith heresy ala Kenneth Copeland; you know, of “the Born-Again Jesus.” And Joel Osteen Blesses The Mormon Church as Christian.
Yet church planting Pope Furtick calls this heretic “a great man of God.” But as I also said before, a message of “hope,” “love & honor” does not ”a great man of God” make; because great men of God don’t de-emphasize the Cross and tell you lies in the Lord’s Name. However, Furtick’s past couple of tweets chirp loudly of Osteen-sims:
@stevenfurtick Send a message to your flesh today: you will not condemn or control me…the power of Jesus is alive & active in me! (Online source)The above link takes us to How to Trust God in the Good Times by Furtick at his blog. It’s been my contention for years now that there is a growing Ecumenical Church Of Deceit (ECoD), which is comprised of three main pillars in the pragmatic Purpose Driven/Seeker Driven community, so-called seeker-seeking Emerging/ent/ence Christianity, and the centered-on-the-self Word Faith movement.
Stop squandering your season of blessing by living in a state of suspicion. http://bit.ly/7IW7ro (Online source)
From where I stand there are so many in the apostatizing evangelical community who are busy burying their heads within the spiritual sand of whatever offshoot of the ECoD—poisoned by the semi-pelagian Church Growth Movement—it is that highjacked their particular brand of Christian sandbox. So they remain content to think everything is wonderfully progressing along toward some utopian unity.
As they each follow their own personal Pied Pipers, whether it be PDL Pope Rick Warren or Rob Bell, the Elvis of Emergence Christianity, or Joel Osteen for his brand of Word Faith-lite, the sad fact is that mainstream evangelicalism in America today is nauseatingly lukewarm; and far too many evangelical leaders have been unwilling to take serious theological stands that would require real faith.
Now I don’t agree with everything A.W. Tozer taught, however, he did put his finger right on the problem a few decades ago when he wrote:
That so-called Bible religion in our times is suffering rapid decline is so evident as to need no proof. I have observed one significant lack among evangelical Christians. The great deficiency to which I refer is the lack of spiritual discernment, especially among the leaders.
How can there be so much Bible knowledge and so little insight? Surely one of the greatest needs is the appearance of Christian leaders with prophetic insight. Unless they come soon, it will be too late for this generation.
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