Friday, February 20, 2009

A Message To Oprah From Jesus

By John Stallings


Dear Oprah, it would be redundant to say I know everything about you, as I do everyone else alive on planet earth. 

I know that you were born to Vernon Winfrey & Vernita Lee in 1954 in Kosciusko Mississippi & you didn’t have auspicious beginnings.

You were named after Oprah from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament but the midwife misspelled your name when she was filling out the birth certificate. [Obviously I was never surprised that your name was really Harpo spelled backwards.]

You’ve done well in the money department amassing a 1.5 billion net worth. I know money isn’t the only measure of success, it’s not even a very good measure, but it’s certainly one measure. Abraham, Jacob, David & Solomon were wealthy. As you know, I’ve always been more concerned with what people did with the money they had, than how much they had.

One day a rich & successful young man came running to me telling me of his desire for eternal life. When I told him to go sell all he had & give to the poor, he went away very sad because he had many possessions. I wasn’t trying to make a poor man out of a rich man that day. Proverbs 19:17 says, He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.

I realize that you’re the object of criticism because of the vast amounts of money you make, but I also see you’ve been very generous with your money. I have no problem with people making large sums of money. I’m looking at your heart & what interests me is whether you have the money or the money has you. Like any good parent, I take pleasure in seeing my kids be successful, & remember, we pave our streets with gold in heaven.

I don’t expect everyone to be Billy Graham or Mother Theresa; neither do I expect everyone to take a vow of poverty. Quite the contrary. I have great expectations for everyone & expect each individual to have great accomplishments even though they won’t all translate into great amounts of money. I’ve given everyone gifts but they are diverse gifts & certainly people should use their talents & abilities to the fullest extent.

I take joy in the fact that you’ve come so far from that pig farm in rural Mississippi, knowing you spent the first third of your childhood living in poverty, both rural in Mississippi & ghetto in Milwaukee. Don’t even imagine that I’ve forgotten you were raped at 9 & were by your own admission out of control in those years.

Your website says the Oprah Show is the highest rated talk show in T.V history, seen by 46 million viewers each day in the U.S in 205 markets & in 134 countries. In fact your show has been the number one talk show for 21 consecutive seasons. Since its beginning in 1986 it has received 32 Emmy awards.

I know that you’re one of the most influential women in the world. Vanity Fair Magazine made this statement “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader except perhaps the Pope.”

When you put your seal on a book in your club it’s guaranteed to become a major best seller. When you smile & nod at a guest who is teaching on any spiritual subject, people take it as a personal endorsement from the lady whom they invite into their homes as a friend on a daily basis.

And because you offer such a mix of New Age, Eastern, contemplative & past life teachings, you have the potential to influence people’s spiritual life & consequentially their eternal life. Here’s where you walk on a slippery-slope!

Oprah, on the opening of your website is the statement: “Want to get in Touch with your Soul? Oprah sits down with leading spiritual thinkers & authors to talk about matters of the soul.”

But now comes a warning, Oprah. Since you were raised in church, you may remember what I told the Church in Ephesus, in the book of Revelation the second chapter.

Just as I’ve congratulated you, I congratulated them on all their accomplishments. I told them I was proud of their good works, their labor, & their patience. I complimented them for not tolerating evil, even exposing & purging out hypocritical apostles because they were found to be liars.

I expressed to the church my deep appreciation for their unflagging patience for my names sake & their standing firm when things got hard. But if you recall, I then told them I had something against them,-they had forsaken their first love. In other words, in their haste to do so many good & noble things, they stopped loving me like they used to love me. Then I called on this church in Ephesus to repent & return & start loving me like they did in their early days.

Oprah, I have the identical message for you. I remember you way back at that Faith United Mississippi Baptist Church when you were just a girl where they used to call you “Miss Jesus” or “The preacher.” The kids did it mostly out of jealousy because they knew how much you loved me & longed to serve me.

I also remember later when you moved in with your father in Nashville & you would go faithfully to the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. You spoke in church now & then & once you even traveled to Los Angeles to speak to a church youth group. You were quite the young preacher.

I was thrilled about the incident one night in 1986 when you were in church after you’d begun to get well known because of your T.V show. A man asked for your autograph, & you said, “I don’t do autographs in church. Jesus is the star here.”

But these days Oprah, things aren’t right between us. You’ve gotten so far away from your first love for me that you’ve actually said some hurtful things. You made the statement, “Jesus didn’t come to tell us how divine He was, but to teach that divinity was within us.” You also said, “One of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way. There are many diverse ways to God.” Oprah, have you forgotten what I said?—I am the Way, the truth & the life. No one can come to the father except through me. [John 14:6]

Then you even went further with it saying, “There couldn’t possibly be only one way…does God care about your heart or whether you called His Son Jesus?” Actually Oprah, He does & so do I.

Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten when I was baptized by John, a Dove came & sat on my shoulder & my father spoke out of heaven & said, this is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased?”

Have you forgotten these words? -There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. [Acts 4:12.]

Don’t you remember my saying, everyone who acknowledges me publicly here on earth I will also acknowledge before my heavenly Father, but everyone that denies me here on earth I will also deny before my father in heaven? [Matt.10:32-33.]

Oprah, I love you as I do everyone I’ve created but I must tell you you’ve put yourself in great danger by assuming the roll of teacher. My brother James made it clear that to take on the mantle of a teacher is a dangerous thing because teachers will be held accountable for what they tell people. [James 3:1]

Don’t forget, you have a congregation of many millions. Be careful what you teach & watch what you say! You’ll have to answer for every word of it at Judgment. You may say you’re not a teacher but the masses see you that way. You might not be preaching the gospel but you’re certainly preaching a gospel.

Remember, my words in Mark 9:42—But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone hung around your neck? Remember Oprah that according to survey expert George Barna—you have an 83% favorability among born-again Christians.

The teachings on your show run the gamut from New Age, Eastern religions, self-help & reincarnation. Shirley McClain has spoken on your show describing how to meditate-- going inside yourself, asking your own “intuitive Self” to seek answers to life’s questions.

Oprah, you said, “When you are connected to your higher Self, knowing you can do anything you want to do-is what other people describe as “born again.” Oprah, Oprah, this isn’t what I described as being born again. This has nothing to do with my words in John 3:3-6 when I spoke one night to Nicodemus. He asked how a man could go back into his mother’s womb & be born again & I replied-I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water & of the Spirit. --Humans can only reproduce human life but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.

I know you’ve done a lot of good & have achieved a lot personally & professionally. I also know that you believe the teachings you espouse on your programs & in the books you so wholeheartedly recommend. You feel they only complete & compliment the Gospel, but the Gospel doesn’t need completing, it’s already complete.

You can’t substitute “presence” for me & I’m not the “God presence” or “self’ as it’s called in Eastern religions. Neither can you make a mix of Buddhism & Islamic thought, & then sprinkle in a misapplied Bible verse or two.

Oprah, you’re doing what you’re doing in the name of tolerance, & Satan is having a field day. No one wants to be accused of intolerance. But you see, there’s no connection between light & darkness. Heaven asks you the same question Elijah asked the people on Mt. Carmel, how long will you waver between two opinions?

I give to you the same message I give to all nations & all people; turn from your sin & receive my forgiveness. My hands are extended toward you, just humble yourself & receive my mercy.

Satan is playing for keeps & desires to drag as many as possible into eternal hellfire with him.

The choice is yours. As I told the Church at Laodicea, -- I stand at the door & knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and will sup with him and he with me. [Rev.3:20]


Love, Jesus of Nazareth

No comments: