God - All loving? All forgiving?

Last week our Pastor said, "There is no such thing as 'Just Forgiven'" This is true. A person's sins cannot be justified with the fact that "God forgives". If you sin, God is not going to "just forgive".

If you sin, you will be punished for that sin unless you have repented and put your trust in Jesus and turned from your sins. That is Biblical, that is exactly what Jesus taught. God's Law requires that all sin must be paid for, and we - sinful beings by nature - are unable of doing that on our own. That is why we need Jesus. He is the only one who can pay the fine for us, we cannot do it ourselves. Jesus did not come to this earth to make it a better place or to bless his people with riches and good times. He came to testify to the truth. He came to fulfill the prophesies and promises of God and to do the will of God, which was to pay the ultimate price of death for the sins of His chosen people, and then he defeated death and rose to life. Jesus said:

Mat 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Mat 10:34	"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Mat 10:35	"For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

There are many pastors these days that do not teach the Gospel as the apostles did. Does your Pastor talk about sin? If he never mentions sin, there is a problem there. Do all of the sermons uplift you and make you feel good? There is a problem there. This entire idea of self-esteem that our culture has grabbed hold of (including churches) is not biblical at all and a very selfish way of thinking. Many pastors soften up the gospel so that they won't offend anyone (the complete opposite of what Jesus did, I might add), they talk about forgiveness and God's love but they fail to mention sin and God's wrath. They fail to mention the real reason that Jesus came to this earth. The Bible teaches both God's steadfast love and his wrath/judgment, and there is a reason for that.

These pastors have come up with their own gospels (such as the Prosperity Gospel), that trivialize all that Jesus did. This is a problem, and a big one at that. People are flocking to these churches thinking they are being saved because they said a prayer and it's just not true. The act of praying does not save you. Repentance and trust in the Lord does. These pastors are not upholding their duty to spread the gospel, the true gospel - the one the Bible teaches.

Jesus took the punishment of all the sins in the world (past, present, and future), he suffered the wrath of GOD. Can you even imagine what that must have been like? Can you imagine the punishment for the sins of just one individual? The way I view sin is as a slap in the face to my creator. It is disgusting, it is low, and it is intolerable and a complete lack of respect. God created me, he gave me life - he gave me my family, my friends, my home...and how do I repay him? Think of how many times you sin in a day, multiply that by 365 and then multiply that by about 75. Wow. Brother, sister....That is what Jesus did for you. That is what Jesus did for billions and billions of people's sins. That is the ultimate sacrifice - God's own son. Is that not AMAZING? How merciful and gracious our Lord is!

We cannot pay for our own sins because we are sinful by nature. The payment had to be one that was pure, sinless - that was Jesus. We are destined to Hell because we are all sinners (Romans 3:23) and because of what Jesus Christ did, we now have a choice in where we will spend eternity.

See? It's not about self-esteem. Jesus did not come to make us live happy lives, he came to take our punishment so that we wouldn't have to go to Hell. How unbelievable is that? I mean seriously, it is beyond our own understanding. It is/was the most beautiful and perfect plan, ever. For a pastor to ignore this is to ignore the gift of true salvation.

If the Gospel is not preached, then people will come to Christ for the wrong reasons - to feel better about themselves, to make their life better, to relieve their fear of Hell, etc. They hold the title of Christian but if asked, they cannot tell you why they are a Christian. They simply do not know. Most people know that Jesus died to take away the sins of the world, they do not know why he died or that in order to be saved they must repent and turn from their sins, and trust Jesus Christ to be the one and only way.

Jhn 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

When we die we will face God on the day of judgment. Whether a person believes that or not, it is reality. If we die in our sins, God has every right to send us to Hell. We sin every day, we 'slap God' every single day. We have to believe that just as He is faithful in His promises to love and protect his people, He is also faithful to his promise to uphold proper judgment. He is just by forgiving those who have repented and he is just by destroying those who disobey his law. (I'll write more on God's law tomorrow)

1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So how does this tie in with what a preacher such as Joel Osteen preaches? I'm not a person who enjoys gossip or slandering another human being for the sake of gaining something for myself. That is not what this is about. I believe Osteen is one of the teachers the Bible warns us about, and I believe it is good to bring this up and "expose" a teaching such as this.

I believe Joel Osteen is one who has created a gospel all of his own. If you read this transcript from his interview with Larry King you'll see him say many times, "I don't know", when talking about very critical issues, he doesn't talk about God, he rarely (if ever) uses scripture and if he does it is taken out of its original context. I don't understand how a Pastor can ignore so much of the Bible. How can he not know the answers to everything Larry asked? The Bible speaks so incredibly clear on these things. When comparing his teaching to the Bible, is there any truth to what Osteen says? God wants us to be healthy, wealthy, and have great relationships? Is God really all-loving? Are we doing God's will by only taking the fact that He loves us? Is God really all forgiving? Do we have the right to anything?

And last but not least. Check out this video.