Posted on 10/16/2007 11:16:36 AM PDT by Gamecock
October 14, 2007 Commentary:
"Faith & The Gospel"
Welcome to another broadcast of the White Horse Inn. Joel Osteen in his bestselling book Your Best Life Now, Seven Steps to Living at Your Full Potential writes, "Don't sit back passively, hey I'm just looking out for you own happiness when I say, "You do your part and God will do his. Sure we have our faults, but the good news is God loves us anyway." Instead of accepting God's just verdict on our own righteousness and fleeing to Christ for justification Osteen counsels readers to just reject guilt and condemnation all together. "If you will simply obey his commands he will change things in your favor. God is keeping a record of every good deed that you have ever done. In your time of need because of your generosity God will move heaven and earth to make sure that you are taken care of." It may be "law-light", but make no mistake about it, behind that smiling baby-boomer evangelicalism that eschews any talk of God's wrath or justice there's a determination to assimilate the Gospel to law: an announcement of victory to a call to be victorious, indicatives to imperatives, "good news" to "good advice." The bad news may not be as bad as it used to, but the good news is just a softer version of the bad news. The sting of the law may be taken out of the message, but that only means that the gospel has become a less demanding, more encouraging law whose exhortations are only meant to make us happy not to measure us against God's holiness. So while many supporters offer testimonials to his "kinder, gentler" version of Christianity than the legalistic, scolding of their youth, the only real difference is that he smiles when he says it! In its therapeutic milieu the sins we need to avoid are failing to live up to our potential, and failing to believe in ourselves, and the wages of such "sins" is missing out on our best life now.
But it is still a constant stream of exhortations, demands, burdens, follow my steps and I guarantee your life will be blessed. If you simply follow his commands, God will change things in your favor. It is still a message of God keeping a record, and if you follow my steps you are sure to be blest. This is what we might call the gospel of "God loves you anyway." There's no need for Christ as our mediator since God is never quite as holy, and we're never quite as bad as to require nothing short of Christ's death in our place. The harsh version of "works righteousness", legalism, is do all these things and you will go to heaven. Fail to do these things and you will go to hell. The kinder, gentler version is, "try harder and you will be happier. Fail to do them and you will lose out on God's best." One's greatest problem is loneliness, the good news is that Jesus is a reliable friend. The big problem is anxiety, the good news is that Jesus will calm us down. Jesus is the glue who holds our marriages and families together, gives us purpose for us to strive for, wisdom for daily living. And there are half truths in all of these pleas, but they never really bring hearers face to face with their real problem that they stand naked and ashamed before a holy God and can only be acceptably clothed in his presence by being dressed, head to toe, in Christ's righteousness. "How can I be right with God" is not longer the question, when the real question is not my holiness in God's presence, but my happiness for myself. And that puts it, I realize, in stark terms the issue that is before us, namely, faith and the gospel.
I challenge Osteen fans to listen to the above linked episode of the White Horse Inn and get the full flavor of what the hosts are getting at, and then post your replies. It won’t kill you. (and yes, I will on occasion watch Osteen, so turn about is fair play.)
Tozer said it well:
“The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them.
The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses.
The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.”
~ A. W. Tozer (1897-1963)
Just read the interview. Heresy upon heresy. But some like to listen to it.
NAsbU 2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound
doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for
themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
The White Horse Inn Boys discuss the loss of the gospel in the contemporary evangelical church.
H. Richard Niebuhr said of theological liberalism, “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” The same words apply to the so-called gospel according to Joel.
Amen. For nobody in particular through nothing for certain.
Happy, happy, slappy, slappy
Even little old calminian me is put off by this stuff.
Good stuff by Horton! I had him for a post-modernism class once, still good stuff, a real Doctor of the Church.
I’m waiting for the shoe to drop. You shall know them by their fruits.
I wonder if He has ever repented?
He SHOULD KNOW that no man CAN obey Gods commands, that is why we need a Savior.
He is selling the gospel for 30 pieces of silver
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