“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
“And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.” John 2:16
Those thousands every Sunday, the majority are not simply being innocently deceived by him, they’re just like him, they are there because they want him on that stage, they require someone with the same message tickling their ears, a message even Oprah could wipe away a tear at,
I’m sure all these mega pastors earn their salaries from books, buts that’s no different than the pharisees allowing money changers in the Temple, having some pretense that their book sales have nothing to do with their pulpit duties, and even if we all took that view as seemingly being valid, then what are we to believe when we see how carefully they choose their words when being interviewed on CNN/MSNBC, where merely answering from the Bible a straightforward question posed about certain favored subjects would cause the mainstream crowd to quit loving them, so they always opt to please man rather than God lest their books fall off the NYT bestseller list and their invitations to oval office gets cancelled,
“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” John 15:18-19
If John the Baptist had preached a smiling ambiguous airy ‘God is love and love is God’ happy feel good message for which even the most despotic politician could clap halleluiahs at, then he would’ve never been beheaded and maybe even been asked to preach at Herod’s wedding,
“For Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.” Mark 6:20
The ‘message’ of those like Osteen should be enough for anyone to recognize them, that we should all be ‘increased with goods and in need of nothing’ this is the last days Church of Laodicea about which Jesus specifically had nothing good to say,