John MacArthur Rebukes Joel Osteen

“When men and women are awakened to the facts of judgment and their own sin, they become eager listeners to the Good News of the Savior who brings forgiveness. There is grace in such preaching because any Christ whom men receive without being in the wilderness, without the stern preacher of sin and judgment, is but half a Christ, and the vital half is missing.” - Kent Hughes

My husband Chris showed me this video clip of John MacArthur, renowned Bible expositor and preacher, who I've been listening to via my dad for as long as I can remember. MacArthur is never one to beat around the bush because, as he says it, his prerogative is to present and defend the true gospel of Jesus Christ. He rarely publicly rebukes specific false preachers, and he does so only after they have refused his private counsel to preach the Word, lest they keep leading others astray. I recently listened to an interview on apostasy where MacArthur explained that since he was younger, he has been extremely distressed by friends that have "abandoned" the faith because they were deceived - whether by self or a false teacher - and therefore he aims to expose false teachers in order to protect people from their lies, because the followers of these distorters think they're christians when they are not.

In this clip, MacArthur goes so far as to call Osteen and others like him "satanic", which is shocking, but someone needs to say it, for anyone presenting a half-gospel is leading his followers to hell, and therefore the term is fitting. Osteen would be a fine secular motivational speaker, and seems like a great guy, but he distorts the Bible as if it's all about our present comfort, trying make us bigger and God smaller. I've watched Osteen sermons on TV where he diminishes the main points of Jesus's birth, ministry, and death to some weak self-help example instead of (like the Bible) proclaiming the Messiah's redemption of sinful man. Chris can vouch that he made me vow to never watch Osteen again because I've almost damaged our TV by hurling things in the direction of Osteen's image.

Without exposing sin, there is no gospel. Without a God who detests sin, there is no gospel. Without exposing the therefore consequences of sin, there is no gospel. Without highlighting God Himself becoming man, yet without sin, paying the consequences of our sin for us, and abating the wrath of a justly angry God, there is no gospel.

Those who merely believe that God is here to make our lives better do not believe in the God of the Bible, which is a huge tragedy. Those who "receive" Christ without the stirred preaching of sin and judgment, and therefore have not repented from their sins, turned from their ways, and sought to follow Him though it cost them every worldly thing, have not received the gift of Christ offered in the Bible. For if you don't think you need to be saved from anything, how can you be saved at all? A "half" gospel is a damning one, for it produces deceived people who are then unreceptive to what the Bible says about real things like sin and death and hell and a just Judge. They'd "rather" believe in a fluffy, fake god who accepts people the sinful way they are, requires nothing of them, and will give them any trite thing they want in order to have their "best life now", which (J.M. so perceptively puts it) means there is either is no heaven or they don't care to go there.

Chris and others who have posted this video have received some harsh criticism by people who incorrectly interpret scripture that we should not judge others to mean that we should blindly and indiscernibly let distorters lead our friends astray by tickling their ears with hollow, false, worldly hope. Other critics claim the postmodern ideal that no one knows truth, so therefore Osteen's interpretation of the Bible just as valid as MacArthur's... to which I just laugh at the ignorance. There's a difference between opinion and research, and, as I said before, MacArthur is one of the most well-known (world-wide) preachers for how well he teaches the Bible, verse by verse, word by word, every Sunday. Few people in the world today know the Bible as well as MacArthur. As lastly, to repeat just as a disclaimer, MacArthur rarely rebukes other pastors, his sermons are always straight from scripture (as I just said), and calling those who are in error to repentance and truth is the most loving gesture any Christian can perform. May God forgive us all from vices we commit or say, and may we daily seek knowledge and understanding of Who He has revealed Himself to be in his precious Word.