Humor

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Prosperity Pandemonium
by Patricia Backora, author of the book
Tough Love in Christ’s Millennium
Which you can order online from: http://www.publishamerica.com

One day a prosperity preacher had to take over a boys’ Sunday School class when the regular teacher was home sick with a migraine. Here’s how it went:

“What did you mean, Pastor, when you told everybody in church they could bring forth money by travelling in birth with it?” little Billy asked.

“The word is ‘travailing’, Billy. When you want wealth you just imagine it’s inside of you before it comes out where you can see it,” said the pastor, pointing at his midsection. “Just like before a baby is born.”

“Well, maybe my mom didn’t imagine hard enough,” said Billy, “or I’d be made of paper and she could’a gone shopping with me.”

“Well, maybe next time, Billy. But let me tell you. The power of faith is so great it can bring great blessings into your life. I drive a brand new BMW.”

“Does your wife drive too?” tow-headed Tad asked.

“Yeah, she drives me crazy till I let her take the wheel.”

Laughter all around. “Even my clothes closet is bigger than some people’s homes,” the pastor bragged. “The Bible says: ‘God has set my feet in a large room.”

“With a little help from that scarecrow you talked about in church?” Billy piped up.

“That’s ‘escrow’, Billy. We went into escrow with the mortgage company to finance all our church building programs, including the new parsonage.”

“Then why not skip the praying part and just go to them?” Tad ventured.

“Because it takes a bit of prayer to prime the pump to get the givers to give in church. Otherwise the well would run dry. I’d end up so poor I’d have to buy all my family’s clothes at the church thrift shop.”

“That would be weird,” said Hank, a skinny boy with huge brown eyes. “Your kids havin’ to buy back their own stuff.”

The pastor looked more closely at Hank’s threadbare jacket and faded jeans. “If I weren’t so prosperous, Hank, I wouldn’t be in a position to be a blessing to others. Hey, my son’s about your size, and he’s just cleaned out his closet. Why don’t I bring you a sackful of designer duds next week?”

Hank looked round at the other boys, some of whom were smirking. Squaring his shoulders, Hank said: “Don’t need ‘em, pastor. We ain’t so poor.”

“Well, just look at your clothes, Hank. What kind of wealth does your family possess?”


“I bet you don’t have as many cars as we’ve got jacked up in our front yard,” Hank said. “My Uncle Gus is always layin’ underneath ‘em fixin’ ‘em up to sell to the neighbors.”

“At least he’s putting a little elbow grease to his faith,” said the pastor. “And the day just might come when your uncle’s faith grows up to my level and he can enter into the ‘rest of faith’ and cease from his own works. All I have to do is confess what I see through the eye of faith and it comes to pass.” The pastor pointed at his forehead. “Remember what I told you about how faith brings the object of your desire into the realm of sight. That’s very similar to giving birth. That’s called ‘faithing your desire into manifestation’. ”

“I’ll try and do that till church is over,” said Billy. And if I ‘faith’ hard enough, maybe it’ll give birth to a new Play Station before I get home, but I sure do hope I don’t have to go to the hospital like my mom did when she had me.”

“Well, If her faith had been more focused, your poor mother would have been at the mall instead of the maternity ward having a kid like you, said the pastor with a wry smile. “Let’s discuss a real example of Biblical prosperity, class, someone whose faith took him all the way to the palace. David was a very rich man, and he got that way by faith.”

“Didn’t David hang out in a cave, Pastor?” little Joshua asked.

“Well, yes, Joshua, but only for a little while. David was only camping out on his vacation, taking a break from the rat race like any tired businessman would do. Poor people can’t afford to go camping. David said: ‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures’. So green is the color of prosperity.”

“Well, what about that wino I saw in the park, Pastor?” asked a red-haired boy. “Is he rich? He’s always laying around in a green park. Is a park a pasture?”

“In a manner of speaking, Rufus. But generally you have to have lots of greenery in your pocket to put a little color in your pastures. One of the biggest lies of history is this notion that Jesus was poor while He was on earth. My, Jesus was so rich he fed 5000 people out of His own pocket. Billy, what did Simon Peter do when he saw that 5000 people were hungry and needed to be fed?”

“Maybe Peter pulled out his Master’s Card and took them all out to McDonald’s,” Billy answered, proud of his cleverness.

“You kids are really enjoying this lesson,” said the pastor. “King Solomon was rich too. What sort of blessings did he have? Yes, Joshua?”

“He had 300 wives and 700 porcupines!”

“That’s concubines, Joshua. Now what else did Solomon have?”

“A kid named Rebox.” another kid answered.

“That’s Rehoboam, Troy. Now somebody tell me why Solomon was so smart.”

“He had lots of wisdom teeth!” Rufus cried.

The pastor grinned and shook his head. “Time to get serious, boys. Now I’m going to teach you all about giving. The more you give, the more you get back. That’s one of the laws the Lord set in motion and it always works for me.”

“You wanna make yourself even richer by whipping out a twenty so I can get a new CD, pastor?” Billy excitedly asked.

“Well, why don’t you guys give first, and then I’ll think about it. It’s time for the Sunday School offering. Time to put what we learned into practice. You can learn and learn until the cows come home, kids, but faith without works is dead.”

The boys dug out their dimes and quarters and dutifully plonked them into the offering plate.

“Come on,” said the pastor, frowning at the lone dollar bill in the plate. “Dimes and quarters are kid stuff. Give like a grownup man or you won’t get a decent return on your investment. I’ll pass the plate around one more time.”

Like most of the other boys, Billy was dressed for success. He pulled something off his neck and put it in the plate.

“Quit clowning around, Billy. What’s the idea?” The pastor looked peeved.

“I gave what you always ask my dad for, Pastor. Ties and offerings.”

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