Osteen on Larry King Live

As recorded in Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity:

“In his interview with Larry King (CNN, June 20, 2005), Osteen said he is not sure what happens to people who reject Christ. King followed up with the question about Jews, Moslems, and other non-Christians. ‘They’re wrong, aren’t they?’ Osteen replied, ‘Well, I don’t know if I believe they’re wrong. I believe here’s what the Bible teaches and from the Christian faith this is what I believe. But I just think that only God will judge a person’s heart. I spent a lot of time in India with my father. I don’t know all about their religion but I know they love God. And I don’t know. I’ve seen their sincerity. So I don’t know. I know for me, and what the Bible teaches, I want to have a relationship with Jesus.’

“King (and a caller) gave him a few more chances to answer the question, but it kept coming back to the heart: ‘God’s got to look at your heart.’ Evidently the last judgment will be based not on God’s standard of holiness and justice but on the purity of our hearts.

“Certainly there is truth in this position. God will expose all the secrets of our hearts on the last day. But where Osteen seems to think that God’s judgment of our heart (like his record keeping) is good news, Scripture treats it as the worst possible report since ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?’ (Jer. 17:9 NKJV). Jesus adds, ‘For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies’ (Matt. 15:19 NKJV). My heart has conceived and committed sins that my hands have never carried out. Far from being a relatively unspoiled beach of sanctity, the heart is the citadel from which our mutiny against God and neighbor is launched. Even when I have done the right thing as far as other people are concerned, if my sincerity were weighed, it would actually count against my righteousness. So it is a dangerous mistake to think that our trial before God’s all-knowing justice can somehow turn in our favor by examination of our heart or the record of our life.”

My Take: A little bit of truth can make make a lot of things sound good. That is what goes on with all the cults. There is a little bit of truth in them or they wouldn't be believable and have the followings they have. The greatest danger is that Osteen has a lot of charisma and pulls those who don't know truth. He's a feel good guy. Coleen