By John Stallings
Dear Oprah,
It would be redundant to say I know everything about you, as I do everyone else who has ever lived on planet earth. I know that you were born in 1954 to Vernon Winfrey and Vernita Lee in Kosciusko, Mississippi to humble and inauspicious beginnings. You were named after Orpah who is named in the Old Testament Book of Ruth as being the wife of one of Naomi’s two sons, but the midwife misspelled your name when she was filling out the record of birth form. [Oh, and by the way, I’ve never been surprised that your first name spelled backwards is Harpo, a name you’ve used for your umbrella organization.]
You’ve done pretty well in the money department, amassing a reported $1.5-Billion net worth. Money isn’t the only measure of success, it’s not even a good measure, but it is one measure on Earth, I suppose. My servants Abraham, Jacob, David, and Solomon were all very wealthy as a result of serving Me, so in and of itself, wealth in any magnitude is of no concern to Me. As you know, I’ve always been more concerned with what people do with their money than how much they amass.
I know you remember the story in the Gospels of a rich and successful young man who came running to Me one day during My fleshly life on Earth telling Me of his desire for eternal life and what he must do to inherit it. When I told him to go sell all he had and 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 in giving your money to charitable causes. As I say, I have no problem with people amassing large sums of money, per se, rather I’m looking at your heart to see if you possess wealth or if wealth possesses you. Like any good parent, I take pleasure in seeing My kids be successful and prosperous. In fact, long ago I went on record as saying, “And let them say continually, “The LORD be magnified, Who delights in the prosperity of His servant” (Psalm 35:27). I also said, “But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity (Psalm 37:11 ). I’m certainly in no way intimidated by wealth in any measure of abundance. My personal wealth cannot be measured, and where I live in Heaven, there’s so much wealth that its streets are made of such pure gold that the saints can walk on it and yet see right through it “like transparent glass,” and each of the 12 entrance Gates are made of a single gigantic pearl (Rev. 21:21)!
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, and expect each person to employ to the best of their ability the gifts, talents, and abilities I’ve given them, though not everyone’s accomplishments will translate into the amassing of great amounts of money and wealth. I’ve given everyone certain gifts, but they are diverse gifts, meaning different for each recipient, but certainly each person is responsible to use their God-bestowed talents and abilities to the fullest extent possible. What you have accomplished with the gifts, talents, and abilities I gave you is highly commendable, especially compared to so many others who squander or misuse what I’ve given them.
Oprah, 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 abject poverty, both in rural Mississippi and in the ghetto of Milwaukee. Don’t even imagine that I didn’t see when you were raped at the young age of nine, and were by your own admission out of control for many years afterward as a result of the trauma you suffered associated with that and many other negative events and hardships.
You declare on your website that the Oprah Show is the highest rated talk show in television history, with a viewership of over 46-million each day in the U.S., 205 other markets, and 134 countries. In fact your show has been the number one talk show for 21 consecutive seasons, and since its beginning in 1986 has received 32 Emmy awards.
You’ve been lauded as one of the most influential women in the world. Vanity Fair Magazine made this statement about you: “Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.”
They say that when you put your seal of approval on a book in your club, it’s guaranteed to become a major best seller. When you smile and nod at a guest who is teaching on any spiritual subject, people take it as a personal endorsement from the lady millions invite into their homes on a daily basis as one of their best friends. And, because you offer such a diverse mix of New Age, Eastern, contemplative and past-life (reincarnation) teachings, you have the potential to powerfully influence untold millions of people’s spiritual lives and consequently their eternal life, including where and how they will live it. For example, on the opening of your website appears the statement: “Want to get in Touch with your Soul? Oprah sits down with leading spiritual thinkers and authors to talk about matters of the soul.” Oprah, here’s where you are walking on a very precarious slippery-slope!
So, now comes a very sober and serious warning, Oprah!
Being raised in church, you may remember what I told the Church in Ephesus, recorded in Chapter Two of the Book of Revelation. Just as I began this letter complimenting you, I complimented the members of the Ephesian Church for all their accomplishments. I told them I was favorably impressed by and approved of their good works, their labor, and their patience. I further complimented and praised them for not tolerating evil, and even exposing and purging out hypocritical false apostles who they found to be liars. I expressed to the church My deep appreciation for their unflagging patience for My name’s sake, and their standing firm in times of hardship and difficulty. But if you recall, I then told them, I also had something against them, which was that they had forsaken or left their first love, which meant, ME! In other words, in their haste to do so many good and noble things, they stopped loving Me as they used to love Me. Then I called on this church in Ephesus to repent, and return, and start loving Me as they did at the start of their relationship with Me.
Oprah, My message to you is identical! You have forsaken your First Love! I remember way back at that Faith United Mississippi Baptist Church, when you were just a young girl, where they used to call you “Miss Jesus” or “The preacher.” The kids called you that mostly out of jealousy because they knew how much you loved Me and longed to serve Me, and they didn’t.
I also remember later when you moved in with your father in Nashville, Tennessee, and you faithfully attended the Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. You even spoke in church now and then, and once you even traveled all the way to Los Angeles to speak to a church youth group. You were quite the young preacher, you were!
Moreover, I was thrilled about the incident one night in 1986 when you were in church after you’d begun to be well-known because of your TV show, and a man asked for your autograph, and you replied, “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t sign autographs in church; Jesus is the star here!” Thank you for that expression of sincere sentiment.
But these days, Oprah, things aren’t right between us. You’ve gotten so far away from your “first love,” that is, your love for Me, that you’ve actually said some erroneous and harmful things concerning Me. You once 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, and 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 on His Son Jesus?” Actually, Oprah, He does care who people call on as their Savior, for there’s only ONE! and so do I!
Have you forgotten who I Am? Have you forgotten when I was baptized by John The Baptist, the Holy Spirit came in a form of a Dove and rested upon My shoulder, and My Father spoke out of Heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased!” (Mat. 3:17)?
Have you forgotten my words in Acts 4:12: “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved?”
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” (Mat. 10:32,33)?
Oprah, I love you as I do every human, who are all My Creation, but I must tell you, you’ve put yourself in a perilous place by assuming the role of a teacher or preacher. My step-brother James made it clear that to take on the mantle of a teacher is a dangerous thing because teachers will be held accountable and incur a stricter judgment for what they teach people (Jas. 3:1)!
Don’t forget, the “congregation” of those who hear your teaching numbers in the manifold millions! Be careful what you teach and watch what you say! You’ll have to answer for every word of it at the final Judgment. You may say you’re not a teacher or a preacher, but the masses see you and receive what you say that way. You might not be preaching the gospel, but you’re certainly preaching a gospel, and the gospel you are preaching is a false gospel that will lead those who hear and heed it to Hell, not Heaven!
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 rating among Born Again Christians. Yet, the teachings on your show run the gamut from New Age, Eastern religions, self-help, reincarnation, and many other “gospels” that are contrary to My Word. Shirley Maclaine has appeared on your show numerous times describing how to meditate as “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, it is what other people describe as being ‘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 and be born again, and I replied, I assure you, “No one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and of the Spirit!” Humans can only reproduce human/fleshly life, but only the Holy Spirit generates spiritual life.
I know you’ve done a lot of “good” in human thinking and the world’s system, and have achieved a lot personally and professionally, and I commend you for that. I also know that you believe the teachings you espouse on your programs and in the books you so wholeheartedly recommend. You have stated you feel those teachings complement and complete the Gospel, but the Gospel doesn’t need completing, as if it is insufficient, inadequate, or flawed, and needs addendums or additions in order to complete it; rather, the true Gospel of Jesus Christ is already totally complete in and of itself, and anyone who attempts to add to or subtract from it is accursed, or Anathema (Gal. 1:8; Rev. 22:18)!
You can’t substitute something you call “presence” for Me, and I’m not the “God presence” or the inner “self” as it’s called in Eastern religions. Neither can you mix up a rue of Buddhism and Islamic vain philosophy, and then sprinkle in a few out-of-context and misapplied Bible verses and still have Truth. And then, to further cajole your hearers into accepting all this errant theosophies, you throw in a strong dose of twisted accusations that to say that, as I Myself have declared, there is only one Way to God, and that all the other religions and their teachings are all false and do not lead to God, is being “intolerant,” and worse, hateful, knowing that being accused of being intolerant and hateful is something most carnally-minded humans shrink from; and Satan is having a field day with it all!
But you see, Oprah, as I clearly and unambiguously stated in my Word, there’s absolutely no symbiosis or fellowship between righteousness and lawlessness or unrighteousness, or light and darkness; there’s no harmony between Christ and Satan, False Christs, and antichrists; no spiritual common ground between true believers in Christ and unbelievers; agreement or accord with the temple of God (i.e., the habitation of God) and false gods (idols) [cf., 2 Cor. 6:14-18]. Heaven asks you the same question Elijah asked the people on Mt. Carmel: “How long will you hesitate between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal (Satan), follow him” (1 Kgs. 18:21).
Oprah, I give to you the same message I give to all nations and all people: Turn from your sin and receive My forgiveness. My hands are extended toward you, just humble yourself, and receive My mercy.
Satan is playing for keeps and 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 and 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
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John Stallings is an award-winning Southern Gospel songwriter, who wrote numerous classics such as: Learning To Lean, Love Grew Where The Blood Fell, Touching Jesus, One Day I Will, You’re All Invited To My Mansion, Blessing After Blessing, Light The Light, Angels Camping All Around Me, God’s Gonna Do It, and many more. His songs have been recorded by many well-known Gospel artists, including The Blackwood Brothers, The Speers, The Stamps Quartet, J.D. Sumner, Wanda Jackson, Del Reeves, Wendy Bagwell, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans, among many others. His singing career was launched at the age of six in a citywide revival at famed Soldier Field in Chicago. At the age of sixteen he began preaching. John was Nashville’s prestigious Dove Award recipient in 1977, and many other awards over the years. He’s also a veteran pastor, evangelist, church-planter, and travels internationally with his wife, Juda, as singing evangelists. They reside in Altamonte Springs, Florida. John’s twin-daughters, Mary Alessi and Martha Munizzi, are both award-winning Gospel recording artists and songwriters in their own right, who with their husbands co-pastor churches. John’s blog, Wisdom and Wit of John Stallings, is a featured column here on Spirit Life Magazine (see left sidebar).
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The following video is posted by Spirit Life Magazine and was not a part of the John Stallings article above.
Oprah Denies Christ
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