Louisiana preacher Jesse Duplantis claimed that God advised him to buy a jet, specifically the Dassault Falcon 7x. The aircraft is worth $54 million. Image: www.dassaultfalcon.com
One Louisiana preacher asked his followers to help him fund a $54 million (around P2.8 billion) jet, as advised by God, allegedly.
Televangelist Jesse Duplantis claims that God instructed him to buy a Dassault Falcon 7x jet. The preacher first spoke about the supposed directive in a “This Week with Jesse” video aired on May 21 in the Jesse Duplantis Ministries site, later reported by USA Today on Monday, May 29.
Duplantis also tweeted about the video, citing “aviation as an amazing tool for evangelizing the world!”
Watch "this Week with Jesse" as Jesse shows the importance of using aviation as an amazing tool for evangelizing the world! Tune in each Monday at https://t.co/hnG6BhPAvH or on our JDM App. Click to watch https://t.co/PLfSYt2A3U pic.twitter.com/sAvKskmokO
— Jesse Duplantis (@jesse_duplantis) May 21, 2018
According to the jet’s official website, the Dassault Falcon 7x is “the benchmark for the 21st-century business jet.” It can carry 12 to 16 passengers and reach speed of up to 700 miles per hour. If bought, this would be the fourth jet under the preacher’s Jesse Duplantis Ministries.
“Now, some people believe that preachers shouldn’t have jets,” the minister said in the video cited by USA Today. “I really believe that preachers ought to … have every available outlet to get this Gospel preached to the world.”
Duplantis added that if Jesus was “physically alive on Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey.” Instead, “[h]e’d be in an airplane preaching the Gospel all over the world.”
The preacher also claimed he talked to God in getting the aircraft. The report quotes him, “He said, ‘Jesse, you wanna come up where I’m at?'”
“And I said, ‘What do you mean?'” Duplantis said he asked God, who allegedly replied, “I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7-X.”
Duplantis said he replied to God with an “OK,” but instantly, he wondered how he was going to pay for it. Duplantis then remembered what God supposedly told him in 1978: “Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it. I asked you to believe for it.”
“All it’s gonna do is touch people,” Duplantis said of the plane. “It’s gonna reach people. It’s gonna change lives, one soul at a time.”
“I don’t want to learn how to fly it, I’m not interested in that,” he said, stressing that what he is interested in is preaching the word of God. Katrina Hallare/JB
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