Smiling Joel Osteen was in Boston a while back for a book signing and an O so grueling two hour worship “show.” The subject of same sex marriage was brought up, and while it temporarily wiped the smile off of his face, Osteen did manage to keep his composure long enough to answer in his customary vagaries. But at this late hour my colleague Ingrid Schlueter, host of the Crosstalk radio program, is so right when she says:

The church doesn’t need men in skirts like Joel Osteen, effeminized compromisers who are self-serving, craven cowards. These men betray the Lord Jesus Christ who not only spoke the truth out of love for His creation, but Who willing suffered crucifixion on our behalf. Lord, give us men who reject the world and its accolades and point fearlessly to the narrow path that leads to the Celestial City.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. They are from the worl and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. (1 John 4:4-5)

The Most Popular Preacher In The Country

The issue of acceptance of openly practicing homosexuals into the Body of Christ continues to slither deeper into the apostatizing $evangelical$ community. Note carefully that I said those openly practicing this sinful lifestyle. The reason more and more churches are *ahem* “debating” [read: preparing to accept] this “issue” is due to a plethora of spiritually spineless leaders and prominent “pastors” like Joel Osteen. And Jessica Heslam, Boston Herald Media Reporter, tells us:

He’s the most popular preacher in the country right now – a best-selling author and the “most watched minister” in America.

But when asked yesterday about gay marriage during a trip to the bluest state in the land of the free – and the only one where same-sex nuptuals are legal – the Rev. Joel Osteen suddenly got sheepish.

“I don’t think it’s God’s best,” the handsome Holy Roller said of homosexuality. “I never feel like homosexuality is God’s best.”

“If you read the last line from this article on Osteen from the Boston Herald,” said Ingrid Schlueter on the old Slice of Laodicea, now Christian Research Net:

it pretty much sums up Joel Osteen and the depth of his “ministry”. It also sums up the level of expectation most American evangelicals have for their spiritual leaders. “He has pretty teeth.”

God has given American evangelicals the kind of pastors they deserve. Here we have a so-called pastor who can’t even give a clear cut answer on something as basic as gay marriage.

Smiling Much And Saying Nothing

Spiritually malignant milquetoast men like Joel Osteen are simply the deliquent descendants of Robert Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale, Satan’s Twin Towers of Sappy Sentimentality, and would rather please the world than tell it the Truth. Sin was long ago redefined by these counterfeits ministers as merely “mistakes,” as in not “God’s best.” But for those who wish to follow in the timid footsteps of these putrid purveyors of the foolish philosophy of befriending the world they would be wise to remember the following Words from God the Holy Spirit:

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? (James 4:4-5, NASB)

And yet Heslem tells us that when this man supposedly sent by Christ is asked for an answer concerning what the Lord says about homosexuality Joel Osteen simply whimpers, “I don’t feel like that’s my thrust…you know, some of the issues that divide us, and I’m here to let people know that God is for them and he’s on their side.” O no wonder Osteen, is known for his smiling Schulleresque “positive preaching” and that:

the 43-year-old Osteen heads the biggest church in the country and has garnered rock star fame in the world of television evangelism… His weekly TV broadcast is the “No. 1 inspirational program nationally,” his Web site boasts.

In Boston yesterday, more than 400 fans – most of them fawning females – lined up to meet Osteen at a book signing at the Prudential Center’s Barnes & Noble. Only a visit by former President Bill Clinton drew a bigger crowd, book store employees said. (emphasis mine)

This Is What God Says

In Romans chapter one we are informed that our Creator, the LORD God Almighty’s patience will (and possibly now has) run out with those who pervert His creation. In verse 26 we read – Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. It should be obvious enough we are being told here that what we will read next would be considered shameful lusts by the Creator.

And notice this has nothing to do whatsoever with a particular culture, but with what God Himself judges universally to be shameful lusts. The b part of verse 26 – Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

The logical question that arises is: “What are these natural relations women exchange here for unnatural ones.” God the Holy Spirit anticipates this question and provides our answer in Verse 27 – In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. We see then – In the same way as the women the men also abandoned – or exchanged – national relations with women for unnatural ones.

So now we can understand that according to the created order, the LORD God Almighty-the Creator Himself, has defined “natural” sexual relations to be that which occurs between one man with one woman after marriage.

As a result therefore, Scripture then defines sexual activity between members of the same sex as being “unnatural.” And this is reinforced in the b part of verse 27 – Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Now we can put this all together and come to the realization that according to the Bible God refers to sexual relations between members of the same sex as shameful lusts.

Homosexuality is also said to be abandoning natural relations and being inflamed with lust (a sin in itself) for a member of one’s own sex. Verse 27 lists this among indecent acts and clearly refers to homosexuality as perversion.

There is just no way around what these texts are saying because this passage of the Bible concerns proper sexual conduct for men and women period, and as such this would be regardless of cultural mores of any generation. So Joel Osteen the question is: What’s so difficult?

The Allure Of Worldly Riches

Could it be that by informing your “fawning female fans” of what God has said about the abomination of homosexuality then you’d no longer sell out places like “the TD Banknorth Garden…with [a] two-hour worship service, which fetche[s] $10 a ticket. And you’d no longer have those “[g]ushing fans of all ages snapp[ing] pictures and br[inging] their $19.99 copy of [your] best-selling book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential.

Wait a minute I think I understand Joel. If you were to fulfill the vows you made as a minister of the Gospel to preach the Word whether it’s convenient or inconvenient you would no longer have “the big bucks com[ing] from [your] books.” Yes, there would be quite a cost as Heslem points “Osteen reportedly got an unprecedented $13 million advance for his next book, which is due out next year.”

O wait a minute, now I can see it! The allure of worldly riches would be much too difficult to resist for any professing minister of the Gospel who doesn’t truly love the Lord Jesus Christ with all of his heart and with all of his soul and with all of his mind and withall of his strength.