John Rich Calls Out Texas Megachurch Pastor For Being Afraid To Preach The Full Bible: “Joel Osteen Is Never Going To Make Anybody Uncomfortable, Ever”

We all know Joel Osteen, right? Megachurch pastor, prosperity Gospel pusher, one of the most recognizable figures in American televangelism. If you don’t, you’re not missing much, I promise you…

Joel Osteen the senior pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, which is one of the largest megachurches in the United States (and the world) drawing tens of thousands of people to weekly services and millions more through TV broadcasts and streaming. His father, John Osteen, founded Lakewood in 1959 and was the church’s longtime pastor. Joel studied radio and television communications at Oral Roberts University, and for years he worked behind the scenes producing his dad’s televised sermons. After his father’s sudden death in 1999, Joel reluctantly stepped into the pulpit—and within months, attendance skyrocketed.

Osteen has grown his massive audience on the back of what’s known as the “prosperity gospel,” AKA a heretical belief that faith and positive thinking can lead to material wealth and physical well-being. This controversial, and false, teaching has drawn millions of followers and sold millions of copies of his books like Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You, making Joel million and millions of dollars. His sermons are typically light on actual Christian doctrine, and heavy on fluffy, feel-good, positive encouragement appeals to a wide range of lost people seeking religious affirmation, hope and inspiration.

Osteen often faces public scrutiny over his massive wealth, his selective preaching, and how Lakewood Church has handled crises, like Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when there was backlash about how long it took the church to open its doors to flood victims. Still, his influence is massive: Lakewood’s weekly attendance is over 40,000, and his sermons reach an estimated 100+ million homes worldwide through TV and streaming.

John Rich Calls Him Out

Debuting yesterday, country music star, John Rich, was a guest on the popular Shawn Ryan Show podcast, a GREAT podcast if you’re not familiar. Shawn is a former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor who has recently exploded as podcast host. Completely authentic and apologetic, Shawn’s no nonsense approach to hosting has garnered him a massive audience this year, and deservedly so. He’s the real deal.

John and Shawn got to talking about everything from his start in country music, the genre’s shift towards pop music, dying awards shows, spiritual warfare, his song “The Righteous Hunter,” P Diddy, and more. And towards the end of the 4-hour conversation, they started talking about the end times, the Antichrist, Dispensationalism and pondering a ton of deep theological questions, but the point that caught my eye was when Johns straight up called out Joel Osteen.

And I don’t want to turn this blog into a eschatology conversation so feel free to look up Dispensationalism vs Covenant Theology on your own time, but John was basically saying that a number of American Christians don’t think they can go through hard times, specifically during an end times scenario with rampant Christian persecution. And he says a number of preachers are afraid to tackle that topic because it makes people uncomfortable. And for John, he believes that the stakes in that are extremely high because people won’t recognize evil in the end times:

“The Son of Perdition is who we would refer to as who’s going to be the Antichrist. The son of perdition will show up. And it says when he stands in the holy place, basically pronounces himself to be God. I am Jesus. I am God. I am whatever he’s going to say. It tells the Christians that are still alive at that point to run. Run. Don’t fight him. Run. Get out. It says run to the mountains. It says woe to the women who were who were with child or or in labor. the to the farmer in the field, do not return to your house to grab your cloak. Run, get out. Well, that ain’t the end.

And then it continues and it goes on and on and on. And after it gets way deep into that chapter, it says, “And then you will see the sign of the coming of the son of man.” Meaning, that’s when you’ll see me coming back after all this has happened. Then you will see me. The reason they stopped preaching that is because it’s very uncomfortable for Christians to have to think about that. You mean I’m going to have to go through that if I’m still here based on what that says? Yeah, that’s what it says. And then I’ve heard some Christians say and even some preachers that have attacked me online have said, “God wouldn’t put make us go through something like that. God wouldn’t do that to us.”

He then went on to question any preacher, primarily Joel, who refuse to preach the full Bible because they worried that it would make people uncomfortable. He also points out that Christians in America live a uniquely cushy life, free from the persecution that Christians face in many other parts of the world:

“And to them, I say, really? Why don’t you go tell that to the underground Christians in communist China right now who are being killed by the thousands? Why don’t you go tell that to the Christians in Syria right now who are being chopped up into pieces in the streets? Do you think fat, lazy American Christians are better than them? No. They are superior to us. They are willing to worship God and be a Christian when it means they could die for doing it. And we don’t have that problem in the United States.

So to say that God would never make his people go through something like that is one of the most ignorant, spiritually ignorant things a person could say. That’s number one. Number two is in modern churches even today, they still don’t want there’s a few but not many. They don’t want to preach that. Joel Osteen is never going to preach that. Joel Osteen is never going to say anything that’s going to make anybody uncomfortable ever on any level ever. He’s never gonna say anything that would prick the heart or conscience of his congregation and then offer an altar call like Billy Graham did when he speaks the truth about what Jesus said. And what happens if you decide to go the other way, and lays out what hell is, and lays out what heaven is, and lays out what this is, and then offers an altar call in those stadiums of people that will come out to see Billy Graham? Thousands of people coming down there to pray and and give their life to Jesus. You’re not going to see Joel Osteen do that and there’s a bunch of other preachers like that.”

John certainly has never been one to mince words and he isn’t gonna start now. And God bless him for it.

If you have 4 hours, give the whole podcast a listen, otherwise, this particular part of the conversation starts around the 4 hour and 20 minute mark:

The post John Rich Calls Out Texas Megachurch Pastor For Being Afraid To Preach The Full Bible: “Joel Osteen Is Never Going To Make Anybody Uncomfortable, Ever” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.