Source: Contest of the bizarre in the spiritual world | Daily News
THE “resurrection” miracle performed by popular Congolese pastor — Alph Lukau — on a “dead” Zimbabwean man about a fortnight ago in South Africa has raised a lot of questions.
The video showed Lukau of Alleluia International Ministries in Kramerville, Sandton, in Johannesburg, performing the stunt, sending social media abuzz while leaving many who watched it in awe.
In no time, the parish in question was exposed while the funeral palour said to have transported the corpse distanced itself, forcing the pastor and his church to retract their earlier claim, saying the man was actually alive but the pastor had just woken him up.
The same pastor claimed to have previously healed people on their death beds without using any hospital equipment, not even an intravenous drips. Charismatic churches have been sprouting all over, especially in developing economies where poverty and strife are the order of the day.
Zimbabwe has not been an exception as some of these churches have become safe havens for people in need of divine intervention in their lives.
Some of these churches have been famed for creating and performing miracles to show the strength and divine power of the pastors to lure the naive and vulnerable. it is not only the poor who are attracted to these churches, but also the rich, politicians and academics are not spared either.
Zimbabweans have heard about one pastor telling his congregates to pay him money along with a list of prayer requests on it, claiming he would take these to Jerusalem and lay them out on the Wailing Wall and leave them there in Israel or would hand over the backpack to God at Golgotha or the garden of Gethsemane.
One pastor made a video of “miraculous” weight loss performed on an overweight woman in a red dress with a balloon you could see clearly being deflated by another woman standing behind her.Why this has not been to assist obesity sufferers boggles the mind. Clearly, one can see a woman standing behind the alleged afflicted woman with a swollen belly pull a string to deflate a balloon giving the viewer an illusion of the swelling belly reducing.
These men of cloth take advantage of the naive and desperate. Their aim will be to convert a fellow human being who is out there to make a quick buck have seen the need to prey on those in need who feel their salvation is in the hands of these fake prophets.
Some of these have made millions by pretending to assist desperate people.
In the western world, the church is dying among the people as compared to those in the Third World with massive populations of impoverished and desperate. A survey has shown that the church is no longer as popular in the United States as the majority only go on holidays like Easter and Christmas.
There is no Good Friday like we have here in Africa, they only celebrate Easter Sunday because for them, production is a top priority as compared to closing business for religious reasons.
Certain western churches have now realised there is more money to be made through touring the Third World where they are likely to find those in need of such miracles.
It is not just Christianity that has suffered from these charlatans but traditional beliefs as witnessed some years ago when an entourage of top government officials were made to sit on their laurels, barefoot in praise of a woman who claimed to have discovered diesel in rocks in the Mashonaland West provincial capital of Chinhoyi.
It was clear the diesel had been stored and piped, causing it to ooze out of the rock. I am not advocating for people to stop believing in miracles, but let us be wary of the deceiver who is on the prowl — he will come and take away your soul and hard-earned money.
What has happened to the religion that preached, sang four hymns and a prayer and you all went home filled with the spirit for just being enriched in the word of God from the Bible without the need to preach prosperity when the mere power of prayer and our strong faith could be enough for our loving Father in Heaven?
The post Contest of the bizarre in the spiritual world appeared first on Zimbabwe Situation.