Prosperity preacher

I watched a piece on 60 Minutes about television preacher Joel Olsteen over the weekend. He has been very successful with his ministry and now reaches over seven million people weekly. His message is one of prosperity; in fact he is referred to as the prosperity preacher. He explained his belief system in some detail. His message is simple; that God offers blessings and plenty of them. All one has to do is believe that good things will come your way provided you have enough faith, and those who do so should get ready because prosperity will soon be on the way.

The reporter honed in on that message and asked him why he did not address more conventional issues that evangelists talk about such as hellfire and damnation. His remarks were of great interest to me in that he said he wanted people to have hope, and that they already have enough in their lives that beats them down. Judging by his unbelievable success and numerous best-selling books, his prosperity message is exactly what people want to hear. I applaud that, but am disturbed by him at the same time.

I always try to look towards Jesus as my example of what message should be preached. To be sure Jesus Christ preached hope and assured us that God wants to bless us without reservation; however He also preached hellfire and damnation too and in fact has more to say about hellfire and damnation than anyone else in the entire Bible. My feeling is that telling people only what they want to hear in order for them to feel good about themselves and their future is a mistake. I am a firm believer in preaching hope and bountiful blessings and the power of prayer and positive thinking; my life is an example of the miraculous powerful healing power, blessings, and grace of God; however without the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ I would simply be another lost sinner condemned to eternal hellfire and damnation.

To be sure God is love; the Bible makes that clear. To be sure God wants only the best for us and He wants to bless us without reservation whereby we can prosper mightily; the Bible makes that clear. To be sure God does not want a single person to perish and spend eternity enduring hellfire and damnation; the Bible makes that clear. To be sure the only way to achieve prosperity and avoid hellfire and damnation for eternity is through Jesus Christ; the Bible makes that clear. To be sure if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your Savior and receive forgiveness for your sins, hell is exactly where you will spend eternity; the Bible makes that clear.

As Paul Harvey used to say, “And that is the rest of the story”.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son
that whoever believes in Him should
not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son
into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through Him
might be saved.
he who believes in Him is not
condemned; but he who does not
believe is condemned already, because
he has not believed in the name of
the only begotten Son of God.