For as long as I have been a believer, I have noticed there are many preachers who prey on weaker or more immature Christians. They play into the fears many of us have, and much like the main stream media, they use fear and paranoia to bring in listeners and build an audience. Prosperity preachers play into our fear of poverty, and promise wealth and riches if we just give enough money to God. I’m noticing in the middle of this pandemic that there is a plethora of people playing into another fear – the fear of the end of the world.
Sadly it’s very low hanging fruit, to simply say the world is ending and then share words as to why. You would think we’d recognize the fear mongering by now but for some reason many still fall for the latest viral sermon video , crazy dream someone had, or latest book on how everything is burning to the ground.
It’s one thing to share a prophetic word the Lord laid on your heart in the middle of a hard season, but it’s another thing to take this global difficulty we are experiencing and turn it into in ministry marketing campaign.
I worked in marketing for a mega ministry years ago, and it left me kind of cynical for good reason – Seeing the dark underbelly of how mega ministers turn good messages into money making machines is a little bit unsettling at the minimum (who knows , maybe I’ll write a book about that one day 😉).
Maybe the world is ending and we’re in the middle of it. Maybe it’s not. Either way I’m not a huge fan of preying on people’s fears.