Prosperity Gospel Gone Wild Joel Osteen and Myles Munroe charging over 1.Watch Church Services.Osteens event will charge as much as 1.Peter 2 1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.And many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.In what is just the latest excess in the name it and claim it Prosperity Gospel movement, Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church, the biggest church in America with approximately 4.Night of Hope sermon in Key Arena in Seattle Washington B E As the link to the January 2.Once, Peter Popoff was a magical, mystical man of Goda giant among 80s televangelists.And Lord, was he rich But he was also an enormous fraud who was ruined in.LZ_.jpg' alt='The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ' title='The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ' />While church services regularly have offerings where members can volunteer to make a donation to support a ministry, there is no Biblical support for cover charges just to hear a church service or increasing pricing to ridiculous levels for preferred seating.How fortunate we are that Jesus Christ The Lord never charged any of his followers money to hear Him speak or had preferred seating for a select few who were rich and could really pay for a good seat to hear Him preach.And when Jesus sent out His disciples on their own to go to different towns to preach the Gospel He told them.Matthew 1. 0 8. And what is Osteen actually preaching once you pay a cover charge for entering church A false message.As he says in his book, Live Your Best Life Now Its Gods will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty.Its Gods will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.Its Gods will for you to live in health and not in sickness all the days of your life.This sums up Joel Osteens prosperity gospel message, also known as the Word of Faith Movement, which is based on the false idea that a Christian can use their faith to obtain material gain and wealth.Other nuances include speaking wealth into being by pronouncing the riches before they arrive.At the heart of it, it is commanding God to provide a material blessing as if it is the individual who has power over the universe, fate and even God.The Bible says otherwise.Jesus Christ said Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal 2.F or where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.As Christians, our focus should not be on gaining material wealth.Christians can work, make incomes and enjoy material success, if it is Gods will for us.But it is certainly not our goal or purpose on this Earth.In becoming a Christian, believers are to surrender their sinful desires and worldly lusts to let the desires of Jesus and His righteousness fill us up.It is about living for Gods will, not our own.And Jesus will is not focused on our being wealthy and prosperous.He explained this in a parable He spoke 1.And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness desiring material gain for a mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully 1.And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits And he said, This will I do I will pull down my barns, and build greater and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.Luke 1. 2In this parable, notice Jesus begins in verse 1.Constant concern for material gain is not good, in fact it is a violation of the 1.Commandment which instructs us not to desire the things others possess.The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ' title='The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ' />And in the parable Jesus speaks of a man who was rich and successful to the point that he could not even store everything he had.Now this was not the sin.Success in and of itself, when lawfully gained, is not a bad thing in the Bible.It was what followed afterwards that was at issue.He stated to his soul, that he was now set for years to come, so he could relax, eat, drink and be merry.The wealthy mans misplaced confidence in his wealth made the man so blind that he assumed he knew how long his life would be.He gave no credit to God for the crops growing so well and then showed he had no fear of God by his boastful attitude and ideas that he knew his own lifespan.Wasted money on unreliable and slow multihosters LinkSnappy is the only multihost that works.Download from ALL Filehosts as a premium user at incredibly fast speeds There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist, and quite good reasons for believing that they do not exist and never have.It has all been a gigantic.The Book of Concord the Confessions of the Lutheran Church. The Adventures Of Tintin The Secret Of The Unicorn Keygenguru there. The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ' title='The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ' />This is what Jesus means by being rich towards God.What God wants is not our order and commands to Him.He wants our love, worship, respect and thanks.God is the one gives us life.Who blesses us. And the only one who can provide eternal life.The prosperity Gospel goes against this by making worldly prosperity guaranteed and just a matter of increasing faith to receive it.This me centered false theology has exploded in church across the world and led to great material gain for the pastors.Notice the passage at the opening of the article states And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you.The Prosperity Gospel preachers use human desire for wealth, health and success as their means to make millions upon millions of dollars.All the while they distort the Bible and even go so far as to deny Jesus Christ.Here is Pastor Osteen on Larry King Live These are tell tale signs of a false teacher.Not only did Osteen deny Jesus, a caller had to quote Scripture to Him to remind Him that Jesus unequivocally stated.Father God but by me.The Lord Jesus left no wiggle room.A basic concept of Christianity is Jesus Christ being the exclusive way to Heaven.Jesus went on to say but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.So for Pastor Osteen to say its not for me to judge in the case of someone who clearly does not believe in Jesus he was denying the Lord that brought them.Osteen, supposedly, the Number 1 pastor in America says its not my business.And he even indicates that people he has met in India who are not Christians are going to Heaven as well.This is a blatant denial of the Gospel, Jesus Christ and the Bible.Again, we stress that it is not wrong for Christians or pastors to make an income.Joel Osteen has written many books and rightfully deserves the income from the millions of copies that he has sold.But it is the doctrine that is being preached that is at issue as it turns the focus from eternal life to the present life and emphasizes personal desire of following the desires of God.Jesus said If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.The essence of being a follower of Jesus is the willingness to forego the sinful pleasures of today or their own personal agenda for the greater glory of eternal life and membership in Gods Kingdom.What if it is Gods will that a well to do young woman, give up a great future in college, a successful career and lifestyle to go live in one of the poorest, war torn regions of Africa and start a ministry That is precisely what happened to once Christian woman.What if it is Gods will that a star professional football player, set to make millions in the prime of his career, retire early to start spreading the Gospel as a pastor Or that a faithful Christian never makes any money Would you still be interested in following JesusWhat would Joel Osteen say about this A me centered form of Christianity would say to always stick to whatever personal goals you have made and God will just give you what you want.But the bible says otherwise.Jesus has the answer already 2.Galatians 6 1. 7 From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.The Apostle has done.He will not dally with these vexatious attacks upon himself and his authority any more.He dismisses them with an appeal which ought to be final.He points to the scars of wounds which he had received in his Masters service.The branding irons of Christ, he says, have imprinted these upon me.They show that I, like the slaves of a heathen temple, am devoted and consecrated to His service.They are my credentials, and I shall produce no others.My assailants must leave me in peace.The marks. The stigmata, or marks inflicted with branding irons, such as those which show that a slave is attached to a particular temple or to the service of some particular deity.Branding was applied in some other cases, but especially to temple slaves.Those with which the Galatians were most familiar would be engaged in the worship of Cybele.There does not seem to be evidence to connect this passage directly with the incident of the stigmata in the life of St.Francis of Assisi, but it would seem very probable that the use of the word, which was left untranslated in the Latin versions, suggested, whether by a more or by a less distant association, the idea which took so strong a hold upon his mind that in a moment of extreme spiritual tension the actual marks of the Passion seemed to imprint themselves upon his body.Of the Lord Jesus.The true text is simply, of Jesus.Verse 1. From henceforth.This genitive form is found, in the New Testament, only here and in Ephesians 6 1.Textus Receptus reads.As being less ambiguous, it is chosen in preference to, because this latter word is also used in the sense finally, as in Philippians 3 1 Philippians 4 8, as well as for henceforth, as in Matthew 2.Hebrews 1. 0 1. 3.The meaning of is illustrated by Aristophanes, Pax., 1.You shall never dine henceforth any more in the Prytaneum and Herod., 3 1.Letno man trouble me.The phrase, cause trouble, or annoyance, occurs also in Matthew 2.Luke 1. 1 7 Luke 1.Obviously the apostle refers to such trouble as was now accruing to him from the endeavours of the Judaizing party to pervert his Galatian disciples.On him fell the anxiety of all the Churches 2 Corinthians 1.In any of his Gentile Churches, the defeat of the work of the gospel by Judaizing perversion was a worry which touched him to the very quick.There is nothing to warrant the supposition that he alludes to assaults made in particular upon his apostolical authority, such as he had often occasion to deal with, as, for example, at Corinth.None such have been referred to in this Epistle, though he has found occasion to complain of the alienated affections of his converts.For. I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Receptus, I am one who bear branded on my body the flesh marks of Jesus.The is inserted with emphasis.Being such as he here describes himself, he had a claim upon his brethren to be spared unnecessary annoyance.The Greek word stigma here employed denotes a mark on the flesh, either by puncture, its proper sense, with a hot, sharp instrument, very often with hot needles see Prudentiuss lines quoted by Grotius in his note on the, mark, in Revelation 1.It served sometimes as a mark of permanent ownership, as upon horses or cattle Liddell and Scott, sub verb.In respect to slaves, it was not considered humane to brand them, except for punishment, or as security in particular cases against running away.Hence, brandling, designated a scoundrel or a runaway slave as Aristophanes, Lys., 3.Av., 7. 60. Others besides slaves were sometimes branded in ignominious punishment Aristophanes, Ran., 1.Herod., 7 2. 33. Thus we have in schines 3.Vegetius quoted by Facciolati, sub verb.Do Re Milit., 1 8 2 5 that, in the Roman army, raw recruits had to be proved fit for service before they were allowed to have the tattoo put upon them.After due trial, they were punc turis in cute punctis milites scripti et matriculis inserti.But this testimony does not establish the fact of such usage prevailing in the Roman army in St.Pauls time though it is quite supposable that then, as now, soldiers might sometimes tattoo on their arm or hand the name of a favourite general.Instances are cited of consecration to a particular god being signalized by stigma.Herodotus, writing five hundred years before, says of a certain temple of Heracles, on the Egyptian coast, that if a servant, belonging to any man whatever, took sanctuary in it, and put upon himself sacred stigmata, giving himself to the god, no one could touch him 2 1.In 3. Macc. 2 2. Dionysus ivy leaf being, by means of fire, put upon the body of Jews in Egypt in the time of Ptolemy Philopator but this would seem to have been intended rather as a barbarous indignity, because especially abhorrent to their religious feelings, than as an actual consecration of them to Dionysus as his slaves.But that it was in some cases employed to signalize a sacred slave is attested by Philo, De Mon., 2.M and Lucian, De Dea Syr., 5.Bishop Lightfoot, who remarks that such a practice could not have been unknown in a country which was the home of the worship of Cybele.An example more familiar to the apostles mind might, perhaps, be cited from Isaiah 4.Septuagint, shall write upon his hand, I am Gods, which rendering Gesenius Thes., in verb.But if this rendering be the right one, it may yet be doubted whether it means writing by puncture for appear in Leviticus 1.But even thus the use of such in idol worships has a further confirmation.It appears, however, to be a strong objection to our supposing the apostle to be here alluding to either the stigmata of consecration or those of other ownership, that such would infer no more suffering than would attend simple tattooing whereas it is plain that the apostle alludes to marks which evidenced the undergoing of inflictions of extraordinary severity.The word stigma had passed into Roman usage, being employed both in a literal sense and also in a figurative one of a stigma, as we also speak, cast upon a persons character as by a poets lampoon.Thus Martial Epigr., 1.Frons haec stigmate non meo notanda, This forehead to be marked with a stigma not of my affixing, where the word frons indicates a close adherence to the original notion of a slaves forehead branded.Suetonius Caes., 7.Catullum, a quo sibi versiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimulaverat, satisfacientem eodem die adhibnit coenae.Reviewing the evidence now adduced as to the manner in which the term was used, we observe that the words brandling and branded and were used to describe a person made infamous to open view by brand marks put upon his person.It was natural that the word stigma would thus acquire the sense of a mark of patent infamy left upon a mans person by some corporal abuse which he had been subjected to, without any other qualifying idea.Now, it appears most probable that it is in this sense that the apostle here uses the word.The term points to those scars, seams, perhaps long continuing sores, which the long course of ever recurring hardships and ill usage, through which he had passed, must have left upon him patent evidence to all who looked upon him of the manner in which his fellow men regarded and treated him this only, apart from any qualifying idea, whether of ownership, or of military allegiance, or of religious consecration.It is in this general sense that Chrysostom appears to have read the clause and this general sense satisfies all the requirements of the context.A strong light is thrown upon this matter by what the apostle, near about this same time, wrote to the Corinthians, in 2 Corinthians 1.
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