The Lord told me I needed a fourth jet, televangelist insists
The televangelist Jesse Duplantis stood before photographs of the three private jets that his followers had paid for with donations to his ministry. He had some news for them.
The Lord wanted him to upgrade to something with a higher cruising altitude, capable of flying a shade below the speed of sound. ‘‘It was one of the greatest statements the Lord ever told me,’’ Duplantis said in his broadcast This Week With Jesse. ‘‘He said, ‘You want to come up where I am at?’’’
Duplantis said that as he struggled to understand, the Lord said: ‘‘I want you to believe me for a Falcon 7X.’’
A Falcon 7X costs about US$54 million and about US$1.3 million a year to run, according to Sherpa Report, a private jet website. Duplantis said he wondered for a moment how he would pay for it, then remembered something the Lord had said to him back in 1978. ‘‘He said, ‘Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.’’’ Duplantis preaches ‘‘pros- perity theology’’, which holds that the faithful, including those who donate generously to their church, will be rewarded with wealth on earth. Pointing to the photographs of the three jets on the wall of his Louisiana complex, Duplantis said that all had been paid for in cash and the new one would be as well.
He did not say why commercial airlines, though he explained why they were impractical. But said: ‘‘I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the earth today, He wouldn’t be riding a donkey.’’ - The Times