Worst Easter Sermon of 2009 Award Winner

Click Here to Listen to Osteen's Award Winning Sermon and Rosebrough's Commentary

Comments

[Brian of the Hill People]

What a feast of missing-the-point Easter sermons! It's like a buffet of tantalizing delights considering the subject matter. It's difficult to choose considering that each selection is rich with nothing about what Easter really represents. With such delicacies arrayed in such attractive station and knowing I can only pick one, it becomes a real conundrum to choose the most resurrection-bereft treat.

Ultimately, I went with Joel Osteen. The reasoning being that at least the others varied their themes in handing us things Jesus didn't need to die and rise again from the dead to accomplish for us in the grace of God from what other nonsense they preach from week to week. Whereas Joel Captain Champion-Within-You Osteen just gave us the same dish he always cooks up. And what could be more precious than talking seeds, dirt, and mules to exemplify missing the point?

[Rev. Adrian Piazza]

I cannot vote because I could not bear to listen to all of the sermons. Even with Craig's fine commentary, my heart gets too heavy. I learn much about what is preached in purpose driven and other church's but often I must stop before the end because of the pointlessness or outright heresy and or blasphemy that is proclaimed. I continue to listen and pray.

Rev. Adrian Piazza

[George]

I went with Scott Hodge & Livin' Venti. Osteen is a good second choice but since he hardly ever references the Bible one can pretend he's just an infomercial guy. Hodge's though showed a complete & utter lack of Scriptural knowledge as well as a horrible inability to even get close to rightly preaching the Scripture.

[joshua of omaha]

goat-herder scott hodge's was the worst of the five.

was is scary is the 5

I bet are just the tip of the iceberg of the bad easter "sermons" that were given in churches on april 12 2009

[Brian of the Hill People]

I will say, it was painful listening to Livin' Venti. I know pagans who have a better grasp of the story of King David than Hodge did. But hey, some people believe Jesus died so we could have the biggest coffee cup lives possible.

[Neil]

I was having troubles between the Osteen & the Octagon sermon. Both of them made me cringe at how bad they were. And It was terrible, terrible, terrible doctrine. The Livin' Venti sermons was so bad it was humorous at times.

[Ann]

I had such a hard time picking between these. I went with the Venti one, but really they were all so bad. It is heart breaking for me. Praise to our Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes I just wonder how He can stand us. Thank you Chris for your tireless efforts. Let's all remain in prayer for our churches and what is occurring in them.

[Darren]

I really thought I was going to vote for "Beer Babes & Baseball", but Osteen kept shaking it off and stepping up (or is that down?). UGH

[Brandon]

Not many things make me yell at my radio, but Osteen's sermon had me screaming. All of these sermons were horrific (I voted for Easter in the Octagon), but i swear, osteen just makes me want to punch something.

Maybe if i "mercy" killed an animal through some long, horrible method like Osteen told me to, I would be able to release my buildup of "comeback power".

[Lane Chaplin]

Scott Hodge ftw! That was pathetic. What a sellout.

[Mark S]

I'm trying to listen to as much of Osteen's Easter motivational talk as I can stomach at http://www.lightsource.com/ministry/joel_osteen_ministries/20090412/ . I'm just over a minute into it and have almost vomited twice already. Both goat herder and goat herderess are on the stage, and the sad thing is, she is actually referring to Scripture and praying, whereas he is just puffing up the people's egos in a way that is sure to be making Satan and Pelagius proud!

[Mark S]

I watched most of the 2004 Ligonier Conference on DVD over the weekend. What a great series of lectures and sermons! One of the points that at least one of the men made was, when we see and hear things like this, we should not be like the Pharisee who said, "Thank you God that I am not like other men, like this tax collector..." but we should examine our own work and messages to see how we are like and how we do these very errant things. That is our tendency; we are naturally Pelagian, as Dr. Sproul likes to remind us. Perhaps that is part of why these false teachers get our ire up (at least on the natural side), is we hate parts of own nature that we dislike, when we see them in others. That's only part. The larger part I'm sure is that our minds have been and are being transformed by God's Grace, and we hate these things which are false and unholy, especially when they purport to be OF God, representing Him in the world and behind the holy desk of a church and called minister of the Gospel.

[Michael Ritzman]

A close second goes to Scott Hodge a.k.a. Captain Caveman for his attempt to get us to live a Venti life. But the Master of Motivation is still Jedi Joel.

Joel Osteen is ALL motivational speaker, and NO biblical teacher.

He is the best at completely ignoring the biblical narrative and preaching a self-focused motivational seminar. Any brief, fleeting bible passage is used merely as a prop to uplift his narcissistic audience. Everything is “me” focused. The questions are “How can God help me live my life?” “What example did Jesus give for my life?" (if Jesus is ever mentioned)

I, I, I. Me, me, me. You would think with all the focus on self, he would eventually find fault somewhere inside. But no. There is only the “seeds of greatness” inside. Where is sin? How can he so blatantly ignore man’s sinful condition? You’ve heard of Gospel reductionism; Joel Osteen practices Law-reductionism.

If he were on the Titanic and someone told him their room was flooding, Joel would tell them it’s just an indoor pool. If you were trapped in a burning building with Joel, he’d tell you to sit back and enjoy the sauna.

Mankind has a sin/death/damnation problem. Is anyone in Joel’s congregation aware of their sinfulness? Christ came to redeem sinners. But who needs Christ if they’re living their best life now?

[joshua of omaha]

I would love to see Chris do a sermon review of the sermons of

Kerry Shook and Ed Young Jr. 's easter "sermons"

they and Perry Noble 's easter sermons deserve a review.

[Romayne]

Can I just vote for all of them?!! My thoughts initially are that it's no wonder God stated we would be in apostasy in these end times given the way in which so many of these men treat their "God-given!" gift of preaching. However, I have at one time been in a church that had teaching very much along these lines and (in my youth and ignorance) I used to think it was great to get "relevant" sermons rather than what I perceived to be the stuffy ones from mainstream churches. I'm SO thankful to God that He has allowed me to live long enough to discover my error and to start truly living a life for Him and putting His Word first in it. The onus is on the Pastor first and foremost to teach and preach as he is commanded to by scripture, but we "sheep" have an onus to go where the best food is too, otherwise we will end up spiritually dying through spiritual malnutrition!

[Richard Watts]

Joe Olsteen still retains a special ability to cause cringing and wincing, so he is still The Man!

[beon]

Not to cause undue expense, but we should really pitch in to help Chris to send out a kit to the contestants and their church leadership. We could include the sermon review audio for all five sermons, along with the award for the winner, and ribbons for all of the runners up. Maybe hearing how off they are in great detail will bring repentance.

[beon]

I had to choose livin venti over osteen, because while they equally satanic, osteen's was at least semi-coherent.

[Enyi]

Including Joel Osteen's motivational speech is almost unfair since it had absolutely nothing to do with Easter and bears no resemblance whatsoever to a sermon; his by far the worst of the lot.

[Brian of the Hill People]

It's also unfair because Joel has come-back power.

[Frank]

All 5 were pathetic.... All anemic dripping with useless anecdotes and illustrations...Hard decision I bet! Joel will have his better life now...Too bad so many people are deceived by his Million Dollar smile and Dr. Phil Opra-fied feel good message. Lot's of tickling ears and a very wide gate...

[Slumdog Millionaire]

I can't believe this poll was up for a whole week and only got a few votes..... This tells me that you have no influence. It reminds me of N. Korea launching a missle. We were worried about them until they showed the world how weak they were.

[Jay Allen]

I'm not surprised Osteen won this dubious honor, though I've yet to hear his "sermon" and Chris' take on it (I'll do that this evening). I did hear the other four and voted "Beer, Babes and Baseball" as the worst of those.

[Brian of the Hill People]

Slumdog Millionaire:

Do people exercising discernment, who make Christ the center, and not themselves, so offend you? I'm not surpised. The Gospel is an offense and the cross of Christ a scandal.

Good luck exegeting movies instead of God's Word, though!

[Kim]

Slumdog
I rarely am able to get online and comment, but I like many others do listen to every show. I can't (or maybe I can) believe that you are more concerned about how many votes are given rather than the quality of the sermon. Do you think there is any truth to what is posted regarding the awfulness of these sermons? Do you care?

[Chris Rosebrough]

Slumdog,

I was very pleased with the number of listeners that participated by voting. In total the votes represented about 3% of F4F's total listening audience.

If you do the math on that figure then you'll realize that F4F has a very sizable listening audience.

[LRC]

Chris,
My sincere apologies for not voting. They ALL made me cringe. The Worst? How could I begin choosing? ...Certainly not by which one was 'better' :-(

[Slumdog Millionaire]

I promise you .... I am not trying to offend .... but most of what goes on here on this website is just so full of hate and poison, that it makes me sad. It is so unlike Christ.

This is my last post - I won't visit here anymore - so any rebuttal you have will be for your own benefit .... not mine.

Thanks - God bless.

[Kim]

I sure hope that slumdog isn't in one of these churches.

[Brian of the Hill People]

It's the famous 'you're-not-loving' card being played.

There is a large segment of professing chrisitianity that has little interest in Christ. The interest is all turned inward and all temporal. It's entertainment and numbers.

Christ crucified is too offensive, the Gospel too much a scandal, and it's far easier to be everyone's buddy by feeding them, not the full counsel of the Word of God, but me-centered and me-marketed life tips and strategies for my temporal happiness and assuaging of guilt. Sin is not mentioned, the cross of Christ is preached as something other than what the Word reveals it to be, if preached at all, and the people in the audience are 'loved' straight to judgement, because after all, who are we to judge?

The truth is that it is not loving to exegete a movie rather than tell the enemies of God their condition before Him (law) and how they can be reconciled and saved from sure and just wrath (gospel). Catering to a felt need rather than an eternally dire consequence is not love. Making people comfortable with their sin, postulating strategies to fill your heart and life with anything other than Christ, and never defending the faith is not love. It's cowardice before Christ, it's desire for the world rather than Him, it's to lull the already dead in tresspasses to comfortable sleep rather than sound the alarm of coming judgement.

And of course, in this large segment of professing christianity, the biggest sin of all is to offend. Christ stating that He came to divide has no meaning. Long live the influence of fleshly appeasement and spiritually anemic preaching! Who cares who is going to hell, as long as everyone is comfortable and entertained getting there? (sarcasm on the last 2 sentences)