Short Stories
Two Shifty Televangelists in Paradise
Taken from Trip 5 of my current project:
Beam Me Back to Bible Days
Bungling televangelists Ben Buck and Sam Malone are on an extended drug trip, and have landed in the Millennial Kingdom Age, a paradise on earth. They’re afraid of returning to their own time because they feel safer where they are. But their warped ways of greed and cunning clash with the prevailing culture.
* * * * *
“God’s love toward fallible man is tender,” Jonah added philosophically, “but sometimes it must be tough also. If people can’t love the God Who wars against sin and iniquity, they serve a different god of their own making.”
“Well, I’m a religious man too,” Ben said awkwardly. “In my day I could fill great big stadiums with worshippers. I was a famous TV evangelist, and will be one again when I get home. Folks would prove their love for God by filling up my big offering buckets, and they’d give even out of their poverty to prove their faith. Often,” he admitted, “people would go out on a limb with the Lord and promise Him money they didn’t even possess. Make a vow of faith, we’d teach them, and as you pay off that vow, God will keep His end of the bargain. You can’t outgive God, brothers and sisters. It works every time. ”
Jonah and Zack got a quizzical look on their faces. “Since when does our God need money to sustain His existence?” Jonah demanded. “How much money did our Lord demand of those He healed during His own ministry on earth? And what would you have done, Ben Buck, if some poor family went hungry by doing something presumptuous that our Lord never commanded them to do? After all, survival in the old days wasn’t the relatively simple thing it is in this Glory Age. If a poor family was turned out onto the street for lack of money to pay the rent, who took care of them? Back then, there wasn’t such an abundance of lush fruit trees with nourishment free for the picking. I’ve heard much about how it used to be, Ben. Some of my own resurrected ancestors told me of bread lines, and cold-hearted prelates turning away beggars who lay starving outside the very doors of the harlot church system. Truly, Ben Buck, who were you to speak on God’s behalf to make promises of a rich return on a poor widow’s investment?”
“Look,” Ben told them, “you’ve got no idea how hard it was to pay the bills for staying on the air and bringing in top talent to sing and testify on stage. Lots of people e-mailed us and told us what a tremendous blessing our show was to them. Lots of them were elderly shut-ins who couldn’t get out to go to a regular church. Listen, Jonah, we didn’t hold a gun up to those people’s heads and force them to send us anything. But we had to teach them about faithfulness, too. If you do make a vow of faith to God, woe be unto you if you welsh on that vow! Even the Bible warns that it’s far better not to make a vow of faith than to break it once you’ve made it.”
Zack frowned. “So once you hooked folks with your bait and they made a vow to send “the Lord” money, it was fear that motivated them to make good on that vow, not love? Did you ever once wonder, Ben, whether some poor widow did without her supper so you and your friends could enjoy the finest life had to offer? Did you even have a conscience, Ben and Sam? Is that why you’re here with us now, because you ran away from a time and place which pricked at your conscience day and night and gave you no rest?”
“Jonah,” Sam said hotly, “there’s an old Indian saying: walk a mile in my moccasins. You’re in no position to criticize me. I grew up in a poor home. I know what it’s like to wear thrift store rags while the rest of the kids wear designer duds. I got teased and called all kinds of names for it, too. Have you ever been called ‘wino’, ‘stinky’, and ‘hobo’ at school? They even picked me up and put me in the trash can. But I got so mad, Jonah, I swore that as soon as I got one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder I’d fight my way up to the top tooth and nail and the day would come nobody would ever again look down on Sam Malone. Green Manna Ministries was the answer to my prayers, and all I can say to those dweebs who bothered me is this: ‘Eat your heart out! The best revenge is living well! Ha ha ha! Who ended up with the oceanfront mansion, you or me?”
“But are you truly living well, Sam?” Jonah replied, more softly. “I did have an easier time than you because bullying is absolutely not tolerated in any of our province’s schools or workplaces. But the end does not justify the means. Have you ever once considered that your own Savior ought to be your dearest Treasure and your only reason to boast? Where is the rich man of Luke Chapter 16? And where is Lazarus, who languished in poverty all his life, but whose hope was in the Lord? Lazarus lives somewhere in our kingdom in his brand new, perfectly well, resurrected body. But the rich man who fared sumptuously is languishing in an eternal poverty of separation from God in a devil’s hell.”
“Jonah!” Ben waved his hand. “No need to get preachy, now. Let me ask you this, and don’t get offended: How hard could it possibly be for you guys to prove your love for God when your life is such a lark? You guys are so healthy you make my personal trainer look like a toxic waste dump. New Testament Scripture exhorts Christians to rejoice in time of suffering. But you Millennial saints are lucky. Instead of tears and trials, Isaiah Chapter 65 promises you long life, health, and quick answers to prayer. And you don’t have to put on a happy face even though you’re hacking your head off in the emergency room.”
“But you aren’t looking at the bigger picture, Ben,” Jonah protested. “You speak of the sufferings endured by Church Age Christians, and the fact they were obliged to bear them cheerfully. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been, because we ourselves have always lived in a veritable paradise in this earth. I sense that you’re just trying to steer us away from the real issue of exploiting poor worshippers. Read all four Gospels. Our Lord did not do this when He lived upon the earth. Instead, He exhorted the rich to sell all they possessed and help support the poor. How do you rationalize that further impoverishing the sick and the poor will make them richer spiritually? How can you possibly justify tempting God Himself by urging others to pledge to Him what they do not possess?”
Ben spun his way out of that one. “In my day emotionally hurting people would go to psychiatrists…but most could not afford them. Far cheaper to come to ministers of a gospel of hope, sit through a service and go home feeling refreshed. I was the poor man’s shrink, Jonah! Inadequate people need somebody to give ‘em hope, and that’s what I did. You sow seed in fertile ground for Micah Campbell, but I did something even harder. I sowed seeds of hope in hopeless souls. Some folks were so depressed they were ready to jump off a bridge. Those people who came to my miracle meetings, well, they were crippled people and sick old ladies who were desperate for a miracle. They had bills to pay and the wolf was always howling outside their door. But here the lions the tigers and the bears are all tame. When’s the last time you had to pull a rabbit out of your hat to beat the rap for tax evasion?”
“Ben,” Sam warned, sensing a buildup of tension in the bunkhouse. “This world is a no-war zone. Don’t rock the boat, man.”
Zack gasped. “What manner of men are among us, Jonah? Are we to be blamed for enjoying the Sabbath rest of this Millennial Age? Is this not an issue of envy in the heart of men who suffered trial and tribulation in a far more wretched world than we know?”
“Far be it from us to pass judgment, for we are also human,” Jonah said mildly. “Perhaps you did some despicable things in your career as a televangelist, Ben, but while you are among us you will be held to account for how you behave in our society, which is under the direct rule of Jesus Christ Himself. Our employer feels personally responsible for you two, since you have become youthful and strong with the aid of the emulsion Sister Eunice shared with you. Brother Micah sees this as an opportunity for you to begin anew in a life committed to God. His heart goes out to you since you find yourself stranded in a world you never knew, but he has repeatedly told you that if only you would go with him to consult Lord Stephen, our ruler, perhaps he could help you return to your own time.”
“It’s a hard thing to decide, Jonah,” Ben said. “I do miss my old friends and my ministry back home, but I love being young again, just knowing I won’t age for hundreds of years.”
“And we definitely don’t miss the I.R.S. chasing us with auditors,” Sam added. “Jonah, you’ve got no idea how stressful life in the twenty-first century was, even for the rich!”
Ben and Sam weren’t entirely above board about their reasons for not wanting to go back to their own time. The disgruntled old lady in Missouri was waging a campaign to have them investigated for fraud. The net of the I.R.S. was closing in on Sam’s shifty book keeping. To top it all off, what if Dr. Loopy and Dr. Hacksaw decided to report Ben’s repeated drug abuse and possession? What if those two saw past the juicy insurance money they were collecting from Ben and Sam’s treatment, and decided to report them to the police? Hopefully, strict doctor-patient confidentiality would be observed.
Jonah pondered the mystery of it all. “You honestly would give up the chance to participate in the Rapture of the saints in order to live among us as mortals? You were right when you pointed out that we have it so much easier than people of your time had it. Unless we fall into sin and rebellion against God, we know neither heart-rending tragedy nor fiery trials. But don’t you realize, Ben, that if you go back to your own world and suffer its inconveniences and heartaches for a brief time, you could return to us someday as a co-ruler with Christ?”
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” Sam argued. “We were no angels when we lived 300 years ago, and who knows but after all the bother and aggravation of earthly life we’ll still ended up missing the Rapture? Why run the risk of falling into Antichrist’s clutches by missing it? It’s not too bad living on this futuristic farm, and it’s only a step up the ladder. I’m young again, and there’s no I.R.S. on my trail. Why go back to my worries and wrinkles? Besides, I like living in the future. I like that Nerve-plex I can interact with just by talking to it, and I don’t even need any keypad or mouse. It’s nice of Brother Micah to let me come in and surf on it. It’s a bit humbling having to borrow other people’s gadgetry for the time being. And sure, I had to say good-bye to my winter penthouse on Oahu and my oceanfront manor, but my overhead’s much lower now, and manual labor isn’t the affliction it’s cracked up to be. Unlike those poor folks who donated to my ministry, I get to keep most of my take-home pay. Besides, I like Eunice’s cooking so much I wouldn’t even go back to the Blue Lobster for all the tea in Beirut.”
* * * * *
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