"I have not yet begun to fight!"

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Sunday, September 21, 2014

Lawsuit Naming Malik Obama as Defendant Cites Shoebat Research

By Ben Barrack on September 4, 2014 in Featured, General, Malik Obama

Citing a violation of RICO Statutes (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations), a lawsuit has been filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Named defendants include Barack Obama, Malik Obama, Hillary Clinton and Hamas.

[CLICK IMAGE TO READ ENTIRE COMPLAINT]

At issue is a claim by the plaintiffs – led by Larry Klayman – that the defendants committed “fraud, money laundering, mail fraud, wire fraud,” etc. by funding Hamas, which is an officially designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The suit alleges that President Obama has allowed the “apparent authority” of his brother Malik’s Barack H. Obama Foundation (BHOF) to raise funds for Hamas.

Barack and Malik Obama being sued for financial support of Hamas.

The details of the complaint against Malik and the BHOF specifically can be found on pages 25-29 and cite the following previously published reports:
New IRS Scandal: Islamic Extremism and Sex Slaves
Explosive Shoebat Exclusive: Islamic Extremism and Sex Slaves Courtesy of the IRS
‘Top Secret’ Documents Implicate Obamas, Clintons
The suit also references the photo of Malik Obama in Yemen in 2010 wearing a Hamas stole that calls for the elimination of Israel, as first revealed by Shoebat.com.
Moreover, the complainants do reference the favorable treatment received by BHOF from the IRS. One person who is not mentioned is Lois Lerner, who granted BHOF its 501(c)(3) status. Lerner, who is already been found in contempt of Congress is a key figure not only in the IRS scandal but in the Malik Obama scandal.
As Shoebat.com has reported previously, introducing this dynamic into the IRS scandal would have untold consequences. In fact, at this very moment, House Speaker could order the Sergeant at Arms to put Lerner in jail for being found in contempt of Congress. The political will for such a move once the truth about the BHOF comes to light could actually force Boehner to do it.
Of the suit, one report reads:

Klayman states it is unknown whether the president has given Malik Obama permission to use his name but also said no effort has been made by the president to discourage the authority of Malik Obama to be raising funds under the name of the Barack H. Obama Foundation.
Klayman points out he could have run the Malik Obama Foundation but didn’t, thus he is leading people to believe his efforts are sanctioned by his brother, the president of the United States.
Malik received an IRS determination letter dated June 11, 2011, granting him retroactive tax-exempt status, but only after it became public he had been operating as a 501(c) 3 foundation since 2008 without ever applying to the IRS.
According to the complaint, “Defendant Malik Obama raises funding and other support both through the Barack H. Obama Foundation and through other organizations to facilitate violence, terrorism, and warfare carried out by HAMAS as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and by the Muslim Brotherhood generally.”

It should be noted that while Malik quite likely knew exactly what he was doing when he named his foundation, he has maintained that it was named after the father of both he and Barack – Barack Hussein Obama Sr.
An interesting angle to the case is that the plaintiffs seek to establish standing by having actually been in Israel when Hamas was firing rockets indiscriminately from Gaza. As such, anyone guilty of funding Hamas would have a hand in the deaths inflicted by Hamas.
While it is true as the old saying goes that, ‘a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich’ so too can anyone file a lawsuit; the important thing here is that an extremely explosive case is being introduced to the American public through different venues. In this regard, the likelihood of the plaintiffs winning is not nearly as newsworthy as the fact that the suit was filed, especially in light of how many people are going OUT OF THEIR WAY to avoid this most explosive scandal.
As Shoebat.com reported, Cleta Mitchell – attorney for IRS victim and True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht – has shockingly also avoided contrasting the IRS treatment received by Malik Obama vs. that of her client.
The clock continues ticking on members of Congress like Rep. Mike Kelly who more than a year ago said the claims against Malik Obama are “spot on” but has yet to do anything about it. In fact, he completely avoided the issue when IRS Commissioner John Koskinen appeared before his committee.

Muslim Leader Who Works With Obama’s Brother Caught Arming Jihadist Terrorists

By Ted on September 21, 2014 in General

By Theodore Shoebat
Walid Shoebat and Ben Barrack have been, for a long time, the ones who expose the Islamic connections with Obama’s brother, Malik Obama.
These connections can be read here, here, here, here, and here.
Malik Obama works with the Muslim Sudanese government of Omar al-Bashir, and now this same government is said by Libya to be arming Muslim jihadists, as a report tells us:

Libya has expelled Sudan’s military attaché on Saturday over Khartoum’s alleged support of “terrorist” groups in the country, a government statement said.
The statement also said that a Sudanese military transport plane bound for a Tripoli airport under control of a militant group had entered its airspace.
“This work from the Sudanese state violates [the sovereignty] of the state of Libya and interferes into its affairs,” Reuters quoted the statement as saying.
Libya said the Sudanese plane had been bound for Tripoli-Matiga airport and made a refuelling stop in the Libyan desert oasis Kufra near the border to Sudan. Ammunition had been found loaded on that plane during an inspection at Kufra airport, it added.
“We, the Libyan government, firmly denounce that a Sudanese military plane has penetrated the Libyan airspace without an official permit from the Libyan government. The plane was carrying ammunition which had not been officially approved by the Libyan government,” the statement said.
In an interview with Al Arabiya News Channel, Libya’s renegade General Khalifa Haftar who was heading “Operation Dignity” against Islamist rebels, described Sudan’s position as not “clear” regarding his country’s attempt to get rid of “terrorism.”
In a related story, heavy clashes erupted between Haftar’s forces and Islamist fighters in the eastern city of Benghazi on Saturday, Reuters reported military officials as saying, one of several conflicts raging in Libya in the worst violence since Muammar Qaddafi fell in 2011.
Armed Islamists are trying to prize Benghazi’s civilian and military airport from the control of government troops allied to Gaddafi-era general Khalifa Haftar.
In response, Haftar’s forces used helicopters to bomb camps of suspected Islamist militants, military sources said.
Haftar, who was once accused by the post-revolution government of trying to stage a coup against it, has declared war on several Islamist factions and teamed up with government forces in Benghazi.
Three people were killed and three others wounded in clashes between the two sides throughout most of the day in a suburb of the port city, hospital medical staff told Reuters.
Western powers and Libya’s neighbors fear the country will turn into a failed state. The weak government is unable to control former rebels who helped topple Gaddafi but are now fighting each other for power.
Libya’s government and elected House of Representatives last month relocated to the remote eastern city of Tobruk after an armed group from the western city of Misrata seized the capital Tripoli and most government institutions.
A spokesman for Haftar’s forces, Mohamed El Hejazi, said his forces were planning a military offensive in Tripoli soon. He did not elaborate.
Those now in control of Tripoli have set up a rival parliament and government that have not been recognized by the international community.
On Saturday, local TV channel al-Nabaa showed how Omar al-Hasi, the man nominated as prime minister by the newly established Tripoli parliament, and his new cabinet took the oath.
In response the government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, who was elected by the House of Representatives last week, said in a statement it sought to represent all Libyans.

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God Wants Me to Be Rich

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THE HOUSE OF JOEL Joel and Victoria Osteen in their Houston home on May 13. Randal Ford

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Karl Taro Greenfeld

Who will save us? Who will lift us up from crushing credit-card debt and resetting mortgage payments and impending foreclosure, from increasing gas prices and decreasing health-insurance coverage? We are a nation stumbling through our worst financial crisis in a generation and our worst housing market in a lifetime. And so we come, seeking gentle salvation, inspiring prayers, steadying words, soothing notions, and calming thoughts that will allow us to become, in Joel Osteen’s words, “victors, not victims.”
We are in Greensboro, North Carolina, making our way into the downtown arena through the hot, buggy air, to worship with the pastor who will save us, the man anointed, by one of his congregants, as “Reverend Feelgood.” Sixteen thousand will file in this evening, as have millions more to coliseums, concert venues, and baseball stadiums around the country—all, in a way, his churches. (View a slideshow that tallies the budgets of some of the biggest churches.)
We are a diverse, representative swath of troubled America: families struggling under debt, husbands and wives seeking reconciliation, young couples on first dates, children dragged by pious grandparents who promise them popcorn and BibleMan action figures. It is religion as escapism, criticized throughout the Bible Belt as “Christianity lite” or “prosperity gospel.” But this murmuring crowd, slouching toward a kinder, gentler salvation, is a more telling indicator of the state of our union than consumer durables purchased or capital goods ordered. Unemployment they know; they don’t need to wait for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to publish a monthly number. O, but come to Joel, lift your hands to Jesus, banish your negative thoughts, and you can find in these dark times a beacon.
If, in this country, there is great hurting, then Osteen is here to soothe that suffering. He does not wish that pain on any of us, and the sight or thought of it will bring forth from him great torrents of tears—his eyes clamped shut, his fingers pressed into narrow eye sockets, his lips pulled back over pink gums as he grimaces. The crying has become a visual touchstone of an Osteen sermon, the born-again equivalent of James Brown’s pre-encore collapse from “exhaustion.”
Joel feels our pain and has made himself wealthy (reportedly earning $13 million for his last book advance alone) and his church prosperous ($75 million and counting in annual revenue) by urging us to let go of it, to turn it over to God, to accept God’s favor so that we may be as prosperous as Joel.
There was always a strain of American Puritanism that pointed to Scripture as justification for asserting that wealth is somehow godly. But ever since evangelical Christianity separated from the mainline faiths in the early 20th century, some preachers have gone further and linked their focus on personal piety to financial success. The big-tent revivals of the 1930s promised the dust-bowl destitute the possibility of finding Jesus and their next meal just by listening to a fire-and-brimstone message. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, televangelists like Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart made prosperity gospel big business, capitalizing on that era’s economic uncertainties to win over a new generation of acolytes, before those ministries were brought down by scandal.
Osteen is one of a new breed of televangelists—Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, and Creflo Dollar are also rising stars—who are preaching a less sanctimonious, more inclusive message. His church is in that part of the economy that thrives in troubled times, that can count on full pews when wallets are empty and an ever more receptive audience if we do go into a full-on recession.
Osteen hasn’t necessarily tailored his message for the downturn. Instead, he has continued his feel-good preaching, his exhortations to focus on the positive and banish negative thoughts, his reminders that God wants you to have a good job, a beautiful home, and decent cash flow. His vast ministry has become, in effect, shelter from the storm. “God wants you to have a big life,” Osteen reminds his flock. “That is his blessing. God has a big dream for your life.”
We live in a time of miraculous congregations. Osteen’s Lakewood Church, in Houston, is the largest in the United States, with 45,000 regular weekly attendees and 7 million more tuning in. His television show is the most-watched inspirational program in America and is seen in 100 countries around the world. He has sold 7 million copies of his two books, Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You. Podcasts of his sermons are downloaded 4.5 million times a month. He preaches to more than 15,000 people at a time in the basketball arena turned sanctuary that is Lakewood Church. His pulpit stands near the spot where Hakeem Olajuwon helped the Houston Rockets win two consecutive N.B.A. titles. But the Rockets, who have since moved across town, never put as many people in the seats as Osteen does.
Osteen will tell you that his success is a result of God’s favor, that his message is God’s message, and that all that he has achieved is a blessing from God. Clearly, he is more than just an inspiring pastor; he is also a master marketer and—pardon me for saying this, Joel—a damn good chief executive.
He presides over an empire that takes in tens of millions of dollars a year and has been growing at a boom-time pace. (Though Osteen gives a significant portion of his book and CD earnings to the church, his take is still ample enough to allow him and his family to live in 5,000 square feet of leopard-skinned luxury in one of Houston’s tonier neighborhoods.) Rough economic times, Osteen believes, make the business of saving souls that much richer. “I would think that our message would have increased relevancy in a time of economic uncertainty. I think people want to know that God is taking care of you. As it gets darker, I think the brighter message shines.”
Joel’s father, john osteen, was a pastor who dissociated himself from the Southern Baptist Church to start his own congregation, Lakewood, in an abandoned feedstore in 1959. It was John who started the family march toward a more gentle Jesus, focusing on the goodness and love of God and downplaying the Old Testament anger and wrath. One of John’s prevailing themes, and the underpinning for much of Lakewood’s current message, can be found in one of his sermons: “It’s God’s will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It’s God’s will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt. It’s God’s will for you to live in health and not in sickness all the days of your life.”
Joel is the second youngest of six siblings, and the one considered least likely to take the pulpit. To say that he was a quiet child would be an understatement. The diminutive boy—he would grow six inches after he graduated from high school—was easy to underestimate. As his lifelong friend Johnny McGowan says, “On the basketball court, guys would take a look at Joel and say, ‘I’ll guard him,’ and then Joel would go right by them.”
After a year at Oral Roberts University, Osteen dropped out to return to Houston, in part to care for his mother, Dodie, who was then recovering from cancer (a miracle regularly cited at Lakewood Church). He then married his wife, Victoria, and took a formal position at Lakewood, helping out with the television show and the design of the platform, as the stage around the pulpit is known, and eventually becoming the producer of Lakewood’s Sunday service. “Victoria would kid me because I would spend four hours adjusting a light,” Osteen says. “I learned you can’t separate the message from the presentation of that message.”
It was perfect training for a 21st-century televangelist. Osteen developed a keen understanding of the television market—time slots, lead-ins, cost per rating point—and to this day can tell you the top stations in most of his major markets. So passionate was he about the medium that he invested $2 million of Lakewood’s money for a stake in a television station, KTBU, in 1998, and an additional $6 million for the remainder in 2005. The independently operated station would turn out to be a wise purchase, returning $32 million when Lakewood sold it in 2006.
Even as he was making his father’s church more successful than ever throughout the mid-1990s, Osteen quietly grew frustrated with his father’s reluctance to expand as aggressively as Joel would have liked. “My dad didn’t have it in him. He just wouldn’t feel comfortable with that.” (In fact, Lakewood’s rapid expansion has put it $45 million in debt, thanks to a $75 million bank loan that is still far from being paid off.)
Nevertheless, though three of his siblings were actively involved in the ministry, Osteen never considered taking the pulpit. “He was so uncomfortable onstage,” recalls Phil Cooke, a producer and consultant at Lakewood. “He was very uncomfortable in public. He always loved being behind the scenes.”
One Sunday, Osteen agreed to deliver the sermon. He doesn’t know why and to this day asserts it was a kind of divine intervention, “a strong feeling of God” that compelled him to say yes to his father after saying no so many times. The story is often told of how Osteen gave his first sermon on January 17, 1999, as his father, who was suffering from kidney failure, lay in a hospital bed listening to it over the telephone. John Osteen passed away less than a week later.
Joel Osteen’s ascension to the pulpit was fraught with uncertainty. He was so nervous about taking over the ministry that he canceled the time slots he had purchased for his father, assuming that no one would want to watch the telecast anymore. Victoria vetoed that. “You call them back right now,” she told him. He did and stayed on the air. At first, Osteen explains, he just wanted to maintain Lakewood’s 5,000-person congregation. It soon became clear, however, that not only was the congregation not shrinking, but the television audience was actually growing. Osteen was proving himself a natural, more personable than his father, easy on the eyes, with a kinder, softer voice.
While Osteen’s message wins over the moderate masses, he has become anathema to more-traditional Southern Baptists. His appearance on Larry King Live in 2005, during which he waffled as to whether heaven was barred to Jews, Muslims, and atheists, was posted on YouTube as proof that Osteen doesn’t embrace the Gospel. And while Osteen is steadfastly Christian, he defers to God on the more contentious issues, recusing himself from condemning gays, for instance, or women who have had abortions.
Spending time with Osteen and his team, one can sense their discomfort when issues that could anger more-doctrinaire Christians are raised. Don Iloff, his brother-in-law and chief of communications, almost winces when I ask Osteen his views on intelligent design versus evolution. “I believe that God created it all,” Osteen says as he stakes out his usual middle ground. “I don’t know if it’s six literal days or 6 million years.”
Osteen’s message of prosperity doesn’t always go over well either. Fellow megapastor Rick Warren has called the idea that God wants everybody to be rich “baloney.” And some conservative Christian ministers have been quick to dismiss Osteen as a lightweight or, worse, a heretic. Osteen adamantly believes that “God wants to give you your own house,” explaining, “He’s not having financial difficulties. He owns it all.”
Much of the criticism of Lakewood, no doubt, stems from resentment at Osteen’s ministering to the largest and most financially successful church in America. He certainly makes an easy target, with the talk-show-host grin, the gelled hair, the bleached teeth, and the jocular manner. But there is no denying that his message, and his marketing of that message, is getting out to the world while so many other pastors are preaching to empty pews. Osteen dismisses the notion that he has watered down the Scriptures to win over worshippers. “It’s who we are,” he says. “The accessibility of my message doesn’t bother me a bit. Look, we deal with people who are fighting cancer, fighting to save their marriages, dealing with the death of loved ones. I don’t think they need to be beaten down. And I think the success of the message in the marketplace is because we are optimistic, encouraging.”
Phil Cooke, a longtime colleague and the author of Branding Faith, says, “Oprah has a brand, Nike has a brand, and Joel Osteen has a brand. Joel has made his brand the inspiration brand.”
In person, the 45-year-old Osteen is certainly both optimistic and encouraging. As he sits in the family suite after Sunday services, taking a break before heading up to the editing bay, he has the calm, gentle gravity of a man who never raises his voice and never has to. Everyone leans in to hear Osteen. With his too-small eyes, a sharp nose, and thin lips with parenthetical dimples on each side, his long, drawn face is like a happy, joyous, and free version of Munch’s Scream. In his preacher’s slacks, yellow tie, and blue striped shirt, he has a disconcerting habit of seeming to run out of words before finishing his sentences; the effect is that you’re always left hanging, waiting for another word that might or might not come.
“Have you read Good to Great?” Victoria asks me at one point, referring to the phenomenally selling business book. “Joel is a level-5 leader. He knows there is more than one way to get to a point, and he lets his people get to the point their way. He’s a true level-5—great delegator, great empowerer, great big-picture thinker.”
Osteen’s boldest brainstorm was leasing the Compaq Center from the city of Houston in 2002 and investing $98 million to renovate it. For Osteen, who had always put a premium on the look and feel of the church, renovating and refitting a basketball arena as a sanctuary was both a great opportunity and a daunting challenge.
The scale of the renovation—a five-floor office annex, two 30-foot waterfalls, and a children’s facility capable of hosting 5,000 kids while their parents are in the main sanctuary—was a logistical challenge better suited to Halliburton than a house of God. Osteen’s brother-in-law Kevin Comes, the chief operating officer and a former construction executive, was the point man on the project, but like almost all of Lakewood’s top executives, he deferred to Osteen: “Joel made the decision to do it right the first time. We gutted the place and started over.” Osteen was consulted on almost every major decision, responding with his usual quiet nod when he was presented with, for example, the new lighting scheme or platform design.
The resulting church is a modern technological marvel and perhaps the most family-friendly worship venue in the world. Kidslife, the $25 million children’s facility, was designed by a group of former Disney staffers and provides care and religious services for the children of parents attending Lakewood. It has the look and feel of a giant version of a McDonald’s play area, only with neon lettering that refers to a verse in Philippians on the walls.
Such a sterling facility is the logical extension of the Osteen brand. Last year, Lakewood generated $76 million in revenue, which amounts to just over $1,600 for every member of its congregation. Its take includes $44 million donated directly by congregants, who are asked to give 10 percent of their gross income; $10 million in product sales and sermon tapes; and $13 million brought in through direct-mail solicitations, up from about $6 million two years ago. The church’s greatest expense is the TV airtime it buys: $22 million last year to broadcast the show in more than 100 markets, a 10 percent annual increase in spending that is easy to justify. “Cutting back on airtime would be like saying we won’t be sending any trucks to deliver our product,” Comes says. An additional $13 million goes to administrative costs and salaries, and $9 million a year is spent on facilities and maintenance.
Osteen hasn’t drawn a salary from the church since 2005. He bought his own home, for $331,500 in 1994, and pays to have his kids homeschooled. The considerable income from his books and related products (there were 19 spinoff calendars, daybooks, and inspirational pamphlets from his first book) goes to Osteen, who gives much of that—people inside Lakewood say more than 50 percent of his income—to Lakewood ministries and other charities. That still leaves Osteen with plenty of “God’s favor.” The operation—the TV time, the basketball arena, the worship events staged across the country—should all simply be considered as, Comes points out, the delivery system for getting the product, Joel’s message, out to the marketplace. The goal of Lakewood’s 350 employees is to facilitate and spread that message. The return is measured in souls saved and lives changed. “We’re always looking for ways to get our message out there more efficiently; in that way, we’re no different from any other big brand, a Coke or a Starbucks,” Iloff says.
But it takes revenue to win souls, and within the organization are constant discussions about how to most efficiently package the message. Osteen’s podcasts, which are free, consistently rank in the top 10 on iTunes, and Comes wonders aloud about how to monetize that. The team is not shy about dreaming big—and commercially. “We sit and try to imagine what our program would look like with a Coca-Cola logo on the front. We’re just looking into it,” Comes says.
Still, when it comes down to “message versus revenue,” Comes says, “message always wins.” At Lakewood, message and revenue tend to work in blessed harmony. Duncan Dodds, Lakewood’s executive director, took the podium recently in Greensboro to make a few announcements before Osteen, the choir, the entertainers, and the rest of the Lakewood team began their Night of Hope. “We have great worship at Lakewood,” Dodds told the crowd of 16,000 still settling into their seats, “and that worship is for sale on CDs out on the concourse level.”
One hears certain words repeated constantly by the Lakewood team. Meals, services, meetings, and even smoothly flowing traffic over on I-45 are described as awesome. The goal of every operation, sermon, television production, and even expenditure is excellence. And the ultimate purpose of all staffers is to spread the message. That message, functionally, serves as Lakewood’s core product. Sure, it is repackaged into books, CDs, DVDs, Bible covers, scented candles, cross necklaces, JESUS FREAK T-shirts, and coffee mugs, but those are all just ways to deliver the message.
The Osteens, like so many American families during the recent real estate boom, spent the better part of the past decade buying, renovating, and selling homes, and became so proficient in the process that Osteen and his wife were able to skip hiring a contractor for their last renovation and go directly to the subcontractors to complete their mansion. Coming off the boom, during which the average American dwelling doubled in size, the Osteens’ digs are more modest than one might guess. The house is decorated in a rococo style that Victoria has called “French” and Osteen calls “fancy.” Their son, Jonathan, 13, and daughter, Alexandra, 9, are homeschooled, in part because their parents’ schedule requires that their weekend be shifted to Monday and Tuesday. During breaks in their lessons, they can play in the elaborate treehouse or the fenced-in rabbit pen behind the house.
As the actual weekend nears, Osteen rises at 5:30 a.m. to work on his sermons, which he delivers twice weekly. Osteen labors over them, speaking the words aloud as he types them into his computer. He considers the writing, shaping, and memorizing of his sermons to be the single most important part of his job. The message supports the whole enterprise, and he frequently turns to God to guide him when the burden of Lakewood, his success, or the scale of the church and business threatens to overwhelm him. “It’s just in me, God’s favor, faith, and hope.”
He believes, resolutely, in the value of the product he is crafting in his office on those quiet mornings. “Very rarely will you find a company that produces a widget where everyone is mentally and spiritually into producing a better widget,” Osteen says. “There’s a purpose behind what we’re doing. We believe in our widget. We’re doing more than giving people a good time or a better toothbrush, because it’s hard to put in your heart and soul and sacrifice so much to make a better toothbrush.”
Being backstage at a Joel Osteen worship event is remarkably similar to being at an N.B.A. game or a rock concert. Beefy security guards tell you where you can and can’t go. Crew members chow down on a buffet laid out by a local caterer and bark into walkie-talkies between bites. At some point, black Town Cars head down the long, curving driveway into the belly of the arena and drop off the pastors and performers, who retreat into private suites. The night is a celebration of music, state-of-the-art visual effects, and, of course, Christ. Lakewood spends a great deal of money attracting top gospel and Christian talent, and music minister Cindy Cruse-Ratcliff leads a team of Grammy Award winners, including gospel singer Israel Houghton. It’s a thumping occasion, with people dancing in the aisles and even the security guards singing along to “Come Just as You Are” and “We Have Overcome.” Osteen’s entire family is in the act. His mother, wife, and children often play parts in the service. But it’s Osteen himself we have come to see. He wins the crowd over with wholesome jokes and inspires with his sweet-voiced message. The sermon today is based on the notion of “hitting the DELETE button when you have those negative thoughts.” He urges us to banish that voice telling us, “I’ll never get that great job. I’ll never meet that special someone. I’ll never get married.” Hit the delete button, he urges, and reprogram your mind. “Just one inferior thought can keep you off balance and away from your God-given destiny.”
The crowd is eager, multiracial, and well-intentioned. We want to hear good words, have uplifting thoughts, be inspired by a positive message. Who doesn’t? We are here to escape our worries, or even better, to overcome them with hope. These are uncertain times, and we all feel the pangs of doubt. Can we pay our mortgage? Will we keep our job? When will we finally achieve the plus-size life we have been visualizing? Listening to Osteen, it all sounds so easy. Delete those negative thoughts. Focus on the positive. We are victors, not victims.
The highlight of every service is when Osteen asks those who are willing to turn their lives over to Jesus to stand up in the vast arena and make their commitment right then and there. It is an inspiring moment, filled with raised Bibles and palms outstretched to heaven; Osteen and some of the congregation are in tears. If we have been suffering, if we have been in pain, if we have dealt with financial insecurity, then this standing up, this raising of hands to heaven, this simple vow of faith, Osteen assures us, will start us on the road to wellness and prosperity.
For a moment, as the choir sings, “When the battle is over / and the fighting is done / we’ll lay down our armor / the victories all won,” and the orange, red, and purple stage lights are flashing, and a halolike luminescence surrounds Osteen as he promises to free us from our fears, to lift us above our doubts, to lead us to prosperity and joy, I think about my own worries, my debts, my career, my woes.
How tempting it would be to just stand and turn my will and life over to Jesus if, in exchange, I will be led down a righteous path of prosperity, taken in hand by Jesus, and Joel, and delivered to my gilded acre of the American dream. Yes, yes, why shouldn’t I stand? Because who am I not to want to be saved? Who doesn’t need a little bit of Joel in their life, tonight, every night, forever, leading us from this dark place to our promised land? Together, hands joined, shoulder to shoulder, we will march forward into our glorious future. Delete the negative thoughts, Joel preaches. Yes, yes, delete them.

Joel Osteen: Moses Saw Sun Stand Still for Joshua, Hebrews Thrown in Fiery Furnace

September 20, 2014 | Filed under: Apostasy,Life & Society,Top Stories | By: Heather Clark

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Many False Prophets Will Arise and Deceive Many'

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article by Tom Robinson

When Jesus Christ foretold the major trends that would precede His return to earth, the first sign He mentioned was religious imposters who would come in His name. Do you take that warning seriously?

When Jesus Christ's disciples asked Him what would herald His coming to rule all nations, He answered by first relaying a series of developments that would lead up to the grand climax of the present age: religious deception, wars, famines, pestilences and earthquakes (Matthew:24:3-8; Mark:13:3-8; Luke:21:7-11).
Jesus said that these were just the " beginning of sorrows" (Matthew:24:8, emphasis added throughout)—or, as the New International Version better renders this, the "beginning of birth pains." As birth pangs—or labor contractions—get stronger and closer together as delivery approaches, so these trends would appear with increasing intensity and frequency as the end of the age approached.
Let's take a closer look at the first of these trends—religious deception.

"Many shall come in my name . . ."

Just what is the nature of this deception? Notice Jesus' specific warning: "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many" (verses 4-5, King James Version).
Modern Bible versions often place quotation marks around "I am Christ," the translators assuming that Jesus was talking about people who would claim to actually be the Christ or Messiah themselves. There have been such people, and Jesus warned later in the same discourse of "false christs" at the end of the age (verse 24).
Yet there clearly have not been, as verse 5 requires, "many" such individuals who have been taken seriously—much less deceived the "many"—in the two millennia since Jesus said this. And there certainly has not been a great increase in such individuals in recent centuries—while there has been a marked increase in the other prophesied signs.
Some have proposed that Jesus was referring to false "savior" figures like the Roman emperors of New Testament times or Napoleon, Hitler, Mao and Saddam Hussein in the modern era. But this is stretching the concept of "the Christ" or "the Messiah" far beyond what Jesus' disciples would have understood it to mean—the prophesied anointed king of the line of David.
Indeed, notice again that Jesus said, "Many shall come in my name "—His name being Jesus . Furthermore, they would come in His name, not with His name or bearing His name. In other words, they would presume to represent Him—not assume His identity.
So a clearer rendering of what Jesus meant in verses 4-5 would be: "Take heed that no one deceives you. For many shall come claiming to represent Me, saying that I [Jesus] am the Christ, yet shall deceive many." That is, they would proclaim Jesus as the biblical Messiah and would claim to be His representatives—but they actually would be part of a massive religious deception.
It is these people—false preachers and teachers claiming to be Christian—who would proliferate and deceive ever more people as the end of the age neared.
The apostle Paul later affirmed, in a Christian context, that "evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived" (2 Timothy:3:13). So not only do they deceive others. These false teachers themselves are deceived.

Lawless fruits

In His famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus issued the following warning regarding false prophets or preachers: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves" (Matthew:7:15). Jesus being the great Shepherd, His followers are portrayed as sheep. Yet these false prophets only appear to be Jesus' followers. Their true nature is one of devouring the lives of the unsuspecting—as a wolf among the flock.
Paul would later warn of this as well. He told the leaders of the church in Ephesus: "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves" (Acts:20:29-30).
Yet such imposters would be identifiable. Jesus explained: "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit" (Matthew:7:16-17). By "fruits," Jesus is referring metaphorically to visible results or outcomes.
He then gives us an example of something to look for in our evaluation: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' [merely acknowledging Him as Lord], shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven" (verse 21). Then notice: "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied [preached or taught] in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?'" (verse 22).
Again, as in Matthew 24, we see such preachers coming in Jesus' name —having done various works in His name. But their lives are not lives conformed to the will of God. Jesus concludes, "And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matthew:7:23).
Practicing lawlessness means living as if God's law is done away or of no consequence. Notice that these individuals are deceived about their own spiritual state. They think they have a special relationship with Jesus—but He ends up telling them they are gravely mistaken. In reality, He doesn't know them at all.
Why? Because they don't honor God by obeying His law. As the apostle John would later explain: "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, 'I know Him,' and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John:2:3-4).
Jesus is telling these false prophets that He doesn't know them and they don't know Him. For if they knew Him, they would understand what He required—obedience to God's law. As Jesus stated in Matthew:19:17, "If you want to enter into [eternal] life, keep the commandments. "
Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: "Whoever . . . breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called the least [by those] in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew:5:19).
Notice that Jesus speaks here of those who would disobey God and those who would teach others to disobey Him. So it's not only a matter of practicing lawlessness —but also of teaching it, whether through word or example.

Exalting traditions over God's law

Jesus applied these principles to the religious leaders of His own day. For instance, Jesus chided the scribes and Pharisees for establishing many legalistic traditions that sidelined God's actual commandments. He said: "Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: 'These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men'" (Matthew:15:6-9).
Thus it is actually possible to worship God in vain—uselessly—in this case by putting the traditions of men ahead of the commandments of God.
Moreover, the scribes and Pharisees went beyond mere false teaching. As Jesus explained, "All their works they do to be seen by men" (Matthew:23:5). He castigated them, "Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness" (verse 28).
Yet it should be made clear that it's not necessary to be a hypocrite to be a false preacher. A man preaching that God's law is done away may be completely sincere in his belief—yet he is nevertheless a false teacher and certainly not a true representative of Jesus Christ.

Counterfeit Christianity

Jesus' prophecy of false teachers coming in His name began to be fulfilled even during the era of the apostles. Paul mentioned a number of false teachers. He said a "different gospel" was already being preached (Galatians:1:6).
Paul even identified a heretical system he referred to as "the mystery of lawlessness," which during his ministry was "already at work" (2 Thessalonians:2:7).
This system, he showed, would persist until the end of the age: "And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved " (verses 8-10).
The book of Revelation refers to this lawless mystery religion as "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT" (17:5) and shows it appearing with "two horns like a lamb" (presenting itself as Christ-like) but speaking "like a dragon" (13:11). The "dragon" in Revelation is Satan the devil, who deceives the whole world (12:9). So what we're seeing here is an extremely powerful "wolf in sheep's clothing."
What Paul and this section of Revelation are describing is a great counterfeit of the true religion—a world-dominating false Christianity led by Satan and his ministers, who appear as ministers of righteousness (see 2 Corinthians:11:13-15).
As shocking as it may sound, the world religion that now lays claim to the name of Christianity, having nearly 2 billion adherents, is that very lawless mystery system! This is not to question the sincerity of its many followers. Most are motivated by a sincere desire to please God. But sincerity is not the measure of right and wrong. God defines what is right by His laws and commandments, and Christianity in general has rejected many of God's clear instructions.
Early on, this religion shed many important biblical doctrines and commandments in favor of popular pagan concepts and traditions. Christmas and Easter, for instance (the name "Easter" even deriving from the pagan goddess Ishtar), are merely pagan holidays covered over with a Christian veneer—despite the Bible's explicit command that we not worship the true God with pagan customs (see Deuteronomy:12:29-32).
It is just as Jesus said of the Pharisees: "In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. "
The true Christian Church, holding fast to God's commandments throughout history, has remained, in the words of Jesus, a "little flock" (Luke:12:32). In contrast, the popular substitute for Christianity has grown enormous and powerful—just as Jesus foretold in Matthew 24.

The worst yet to come

Recall Christ's warning that false teachers would be on the rise through history, culminating in the vast and powerful deception of the last days. Of the time just before His return Jesus said, "False christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect" (Matthew:24:24).
These signs and wonders are the same ones Paul mentioned. They have happened at times throughout history—yet will grow in magnitude at the end of the age, reaching their height with the coming of the great false prophet, who also appears to be representing Christ but in reality is the Antichrist.
All of us need to be wary and watchful. We must examine the fruits of all those who claim to represent Jesus Christ—in the way they live and the doctrines they teach. Do they insist that we are required to obey God's commandments? Or do they preach a message of cheap grace—that we can come to God just as we are without making any fundamental changes in our behavior?
Remember, most of those who claim to represent Jesus actually don't. Moreover, as time goes on, ever more pretenders will arise, however sincere they may be. And finally, bear in mind that the greatest period of deception ever is just ahead of us. "See," Jesus said, "I have told you beforehand" (verse 25).
He was warning us to be prepared. Are you? GN

Beware of false prophets

Matthew 7:15-20King James Version (KJV)

¹⁵Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
¹⁶Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
¹⁷Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
¹⁸A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
¹⁹Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
²⁰Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Joel Osteen Facebook Post Reveals Horrific Lack Of Knowledge Of Scripture

NTEB News Desk | September 19, 2014 | 132 Comments

Pastor of America’s largest church has no understanding of the holy bible

“The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” Jeremiah 5:31
Mega-church pastor Joel Osteen may lead the largest Protestant church in the United States, but a recent Facebook post shows he might need to go back to Sunday school.
A Monday post to his verified Facebook page, Joel Osteen ministries, read: “God said in Numbers 11:23, ‘Moses, is there any limit to My power?’ He was saying, ‘Moses, you saw Me part the Red Sea, stop the sun for Joshua, keep three Hebrew teenagers safe in a fiery furnace, don’t you realize that I can bring water without rain?’ There’s no limit to God’s power.” As of Friday afternoon, the post had over 317,000 likes and 52,000 shares. It has since been deleted by the Osteen camp.

joel-osteen-this-is-my-bible-that-i-dont-know

Some of Osteen’s followers noticed the error, with one commenter asking “Bro, do you even know Scripture?”

There’s just one problem: According to the Bible, Moses was dead before Joshua asked God to stop the setting of the sun, and long before the three Hebrew youths were thrown into the furnace.
The Old Testament Book of Joshua explains that God appointed Joshua as Moses’s successor after Moses’s death (the first sentence literally begins, “Now after the death of Moses…”), who led the Israelites into battle against the Amorites, during which he commanded the sun and the moon not to move. “And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” Joshua 10:13
The story of the the three Hebrew youths is told in the Old Testament Book of Daniel. According to the passage, the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, who reigned around the 6th century B.C. (long, long after the projected time of Moses), ordered his people to worship a large golden idol, “And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.” (Daniel 3:6). The three Hebrew youths refused to worship the idol and were thrown into the furnace, but were not burned because Jesus showed up.
This passage is particularly important because it is understood to prefigure Christ — when the king asked whether the three were burned, one of his counselors replied “He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” Daniel 3:25

Joel Osteen Facebook Post Reveals Horrific Lack Of Knowledge Of Scripture http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/blog/?p=25117 via @NowTheEndBegins