Bless Birds, not Greedy Preachers

7/30/2019 Bless Birds, not Greedy Preachers

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Bless the Birds, Not Fat Cat Preacher$By Patricia Backora

Just imagine if Jesus had run His services like todays typical

fundamentalist church. On the goatskin wall to the far right of Jesusgrass podium youd see a giant scroll listing everything the

congregation needs to know to grow spiritually: all the dirt on tithesand offerings for this year and last year, and statistics on how many

warm bodies sat on straw mats listening to Jesus sermons both this

year and last year. When I was a kid in church, Id stare at thatwooden tote board on the wall and wonder why the amount the

preacher raked in enriched my personal relationship with the Lord.


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If Jesus had acted like todays typical televangelist, he would have toldhis disciples to hurry up and finish passing those big fish baskets

around so Judas could count all the bread they collected from the

hungry crowd.

Speaking of fish, there would have been no talk of feeding the poor

free of charge like left-wing radical hippie do-gooders in L.A. Instead,Jesus would have held a fundraiser fish fry, with Judas selling

parchment raffle tickets while Peter mans the charcoal grill, Jamesbakes the barley buns, and Matthew sits behind a flintstone cash

register to take payments for the takeout meals, which are served on

palm leaf platters. Unfortunately, the fare is pretty basic. Jameshollers: This aint Burger King, so you cant have it your own way! The

fish sandwiches are seasoned with your imagination, since tartar sauceis still being developed in some secret laboratory.


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The reason for the big fundraiser? To buy a Cadillac chariot and ateam of Hyundai horses for Jesus so he wont have to borrow other

peoples donkeys anymore.


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Instead of asking His disciples to hold a big yard sale and sell all their

valuables so they could feed the poor, Jesus would have preached ascorching sermon on the fires of hell awaiting those who refused to

pay him ten per cent of their wages and salaries. You cant outgive

god! He would have joyfully proclaimed. But if you dont outgive thatstingy heathen sitting next to you on the grass, this ministry will go

under, and satan will hold a victory march till the cows come home.

Besides, God is HELPLESS without your faithful contribution. Without

human help, God couldnt have created you. So how on earth could

God have created the world, without your prayerful financial support?


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Seriously, Jesus only said gospel preachers should expect to get theirmost basic needs met, stuff like food, clothes and shelter. Read Luke

10:7 where Jesus actually says that food and drink constitutes thewages his disciples earn by preaching the gospel.

Paul said that if we have food and clothes, we should be content. ButPaul was a male. Women need their war paint as well, but that doesnt

excuse TV preachers who ask you to prove god with your rent moneyso they can collect mansions in every state of the union.


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If Jesus had been like TV preachers, he would have told His disciples to

crash at some fancy hotel and eat at ritzy restaurants and stand on astage and beg for big donations like a cute puppy begs for a dog

biscuit instead of being satisfied with food and lodging (Luke 10:7).

Instead of saying let the dead bury their dead, Jesus would have been

peddling Haven of Rest Insurance policies to give your loved onespiece of mind after you go home to glory. It seems the peace God

gives for free isnt enough. Instead of telling people not to worry about

the burdens of tomorrow, Christ would have exhorted his followers toinvest in gold coins to protect them from the Antichrist when he melts

down the world economy. And jesus would have ordered His disciplesto work triple shifts at the pottery plant so he wouldnt have to worry

about his own tomorrows. After all, to keep the tithe money rolling in,

you have to give some thought as to where youll work tomorrow sothere will BE a paycheck to squeeze tithes out of.


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Instead of chasing the moneychangers out of the Temple, Jesus would

have suggested that they plant some of their profits as seeds of faithinto his ministry to get a hundred fold return on their investment.

If Jesus had been like todays typical televangelists, he would haveintroduced a guest speaker from Holy Land Health Foods to advise

believers to stock up on fig farina and barley bran so theyd survivethe end of the world in case the rapture didnt rescue them.

If one of todays typical fat, pampered preachers wanted to betempted by satan like Jesus was, that apostate preacher would go a

different route. He would choose a wilder wilderness than Jesus did.He would go to Vegas to be tempted by Jezebels and roulette wheels.


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Instead of sleeping on a rough rock, that preacher would camp out inCaesars Palace and hire a whole team of five-star chefs to help him

break his forty-minute fast.


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If Jesus had been like todays fake healers, he would have spent two-

thirds of the service on special music just to butter up the crowd forthe offering and kill time. Besides, that crowds so huge he couldnt

work his magic on each person if he spent a million years in that bigcoloseum. After soothing the crowd with long piano concertos, Christ

would have invited the crowd to rush up front to shower him with

shekels. In the last few minutes of the service, when it came time tobless the sick, he would have had his disciples herd the lame and the

blind out the back door, while making everyone think those folks werebeing ushered into a special prayer room. Then Jesus would have

invited only hired imposters and hypochondriacs to come up front. He

would have slam-dunked them on the floor and made angel feathersfrom chicken farms float down on them.

The preachers PERSONAL letters promise that if only you send in just

ONE MORE sacrifice of faith in tomorrow mornings mail, his prayerswill prevent satan from making the rest of your life sheer hell.


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To top it all off, Jesus would have said blessed are the rich for theirs isthe kingdom of GOT !When a new churchhouse needs to be built,

skilled carpenters, plumbers, painters and electricians are expected todonate their time and expertise free of charge so the pastor wont

have to cough up the cash for these professional services (so therell

be more for him when he takes one of his four annual vacations). Butlet those dedicated workers miss just ONE Sunday where they dont fill

out that dreaded blue offering envelope on the back of the next pew.Next Sunday, their spiritual dad will name and shame them as hell-

bound non-tithers before the entire congregation. In their book, giving

means onlyMONEY! Even if all the church brothers sacrifice theirSaturday to paint the church for free, time and labor arent worth a

da I mean, dime.

In Matt.9:13 and 12:7 Jesus said god would rather have mercy than

sacrifice. But TV preachers say God wasnt too sure about that andyou can only get Gods mercy if you pay sacrifices to god till it hurts.

We might not be redeemed by silver and gold, but they didnt have

paper wampum back in Peter and Pauls day.


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No matter how much TV preachers bellowed about giving out of our

need to plant a seed so wed receive more than we need if wed onlybelieve, God didnt dump money down from the sky like preachers

promised he would. Preachers sent me mail which promised me that if

I tucked in a love gift before tomorrows mail ran, God would bless mewith a zillion-fold return before the month was out.

This one preacher in particular sent a big packet with seven different

envelopes in it, a different color for each day of GODS SEVEN DAYS

OF MIRACLES. I was supposed to send in one color-coded envelope ineach mornings mail, after signing my name to the prayer rag in one,

tasting the salt in another, and kneeling on the Jesus doormat inanother, after sleeping over it all night long. But in each case, I had to

part with some greenery AND get up with the chickens to chase down

the mailman so each envelope would get that days postmark on itbefore the preachers red-hot anointing fizzled out of his magic

hands. I did my bit, even if it made my wallet a lot thinner. So why did

the well run dry after I primed the pump with seeds of faith? Why didthings go the opposite way? God did NOT shower us with winning Lotto

scratch cards in exchange for my seven-dollar offering on the seventhday of the seventh month.


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I went fishing for big bonanza blessings but God didnt take the bait.

No prosperity preacher will admit this, but Peter rebuked Simon Magusfor thinking Gods gifts are for sale (Acts 8:20).

If you pay somebody money to bless you, what they do is no longer afree gift of grace, but wages for work. Essentially, its WORKS, not


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grace youre moving in if you give to preachers to get from God. Youhad to work for that money, so that means you worked for Gods

blessing, which puts you back under bondage to law and removes youfrom being under Gods grace. And if youre under law, you come

under the curse (see Galatians 3:10). The whole book of Galatians

teaches this.

When the people of Israel rejected Gods direct rule and demanded a

human king to rule over them, God saw that as Israel firing him frombeing their ruler, and god took offense. God, through his prophet

Samuel, warned the Israelites that their kings would oppress them andbe a burden to them. That storys in I Sam 8. Especially notice verses

15 and 17, where God warns that their king would seize one-tenth of

their economic assets.


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Sounds a lot like tithing to me, only God put it in the negative

category. And in verse 18 God promises that HE WILL NOT HEARTHEIR CRY when they complain about their king.

So if you want God to ignore your prayers and let satan swoop in like a

whirlwind to trash your life, keep on paying tithes to your preacher

and keep on sending that love gift to preacherland, California.

Speaking of love gifts, those preachers still made a killing even afterthey sent out free love gifts in exchange for any size offering

because that because that I LOVE JESUS! Keychain probably cost awhole nickel to make in some third-world country.

Solomon was probably the richest king in all history. People came fromfar and wide to offer him precious gifts. But what does Solomon say in

Proverbs 22:16, a verse NEVER mentioned by any money-hungrypreacher?

He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that givethto the rich, shall surely come to want (which is extreme poverty). Now

if Solomon, as much as he loved luxurious living, wrote this warning,what else does it take to wake the people of God up as they continue

to storm the stage to stuff cash in some rich preachers pocket?


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Preachers tell us that giving to them equals giving to God. Plain logictells you that if thats true, then preachers must BE god! Thats the

way the human mind reasons, at least on a subconscious level.Preachers arent dummies. Theyre sinister ministers who manipulate

desperate, confused Christians who dont know how to correctly divide

the word of God to find out what the holy spirit is REALLY saying to the

church.

The word Antichrist in the Bible means instead ofChrist, or in place of

Christ. Any preacher who exerts psychological pressure on you to diginto your wallet in gods name is no better than satan, who tried to

steal the throne of God, and that preacher is operating in the spirit of

antichrist. Even if you treat some preacher as god and make offeringsto him out of ignorance, how can the REAL god of heaven be expected

to bless such a mess? God doesnt endorse such idolatry!

Preachers make the Bible say whatever they want. Theyll teach thatJesus wasnt REALLY poor. If you point out that verse where Jesussaid he had nowhere to lay his head, preachers will explain that away

like this: What Christ REALLY said was his agent had forgotten to makereservations for his entourage at the King David Hotel, so they had to

crash at Motel Seven! But preachers will change their tune about that

if you point out that jesus ONLY asked for donations for the poor,never for rich preachers. Theyll do a U-turn and say Jesus was poor


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after all, and since He only collected offerings for the poor, that wasJesus tactful way of raking in cash for himself.

If anything, God has blessed me far more for feeding the birds and

stray cats of the neighborhood than for any gift I ever gave a fat cat

preacher. God has taken good care of us, though we arent rolling inmoney. I dont feed birds and cats out of fear God will send me to hell

if I dont do it. Not even because Im trying to get something out ofGod. I just love animals. I feel compassion for songbirds that have a

hard time finding worms in the winter. My stale bread would end up in

the garbage anyway, so why not make some innocent critter happyand hang it up in my bird feeder?

Birds and cats are far holier than greedy preachers. What animal has

ever threatened me with hellfire and damnation for not going to one of

their meetings to hand over my grocery money? Not one of theanimals I feed has ever spoken a cruel, unkind word to me. The

goldfinches, woodpeckers, red robins and crows are lovelier to beholdthan rich preachers in their thousand-dollar duds. Birds do have to be

cleaned up after, but preachers leave a much worse mess, the lies

they tell live and over the air to get money out of ignorant, trustingsouls.

Cats keep the rat population down and birds sing for us. Ever shake

hands with your typical professional preacher? Most rich preachers

have silky smooth hands because theyve never done an honest dayswork. All those preachers do is tell tall tales and go fishing for funds at

the expense of human souls.


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So who deserves your love gift more?

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Bless Birds, not Greedy Preachers