A few weeks ago I saw a video on YouTube. In it a guy named Marjoe, who was a famous traveling preacher back in the 1940s and 1950s, tells his story. Later in his life, after his successful ministry years, he starred in a documentary in which he admits that he was only in the Gospel business to make a nice living. He'd learned the crucial combination of using the right words with the right inflection and the right emotion at the right time to move a crowd and even convince them that God was among them. Evidently he was good at it. He had lots of followers and even his closest staff members had no idea of his real intentions.
Yesterday another great Christian voice confessed that he hasn't been honest with us. For the last couple of years Michael Guglielmucci has been telling the world that he is dying of cancer when in fact he's not. In the middle of his "battle" he wrote a powerful song that has become a source of strength and peace for thousands of others who are fighting things terminal and incurable. Somehow he was even able to force his body to react to the non existent disease and treatments as though he was actually ill. He put himself through a lot of pain for reasons we may never understand.
If there's anything good about these schemes, it's that these guys actually told the Gospel truth when they stood on the stage. God has them figured out. I don't have to. He even had someone mention it in the Bible. (Philippians 1:15-18) The Message is pure and powerful regardless of the mouthpiece. Give that much thought and it'll mess up everything you thought you knew about "knowing them by their fruits." (Matthew 7:20)
1 comment:
God can use even ungodly people to do His work. It is mind boggling when you stop & think about it.
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