Last month a post landed in my WhatsApp with the cautionary word ALERT emblazoned on its frontispiece. Curious, I opened it to find a flyer announcing a most unusual conference, the one you see above. It went on with messages negating the truth of physical death and proclaiming the possibility of immortality. What’s more, it carried Bible verses in support of this view. Wow!
Among the video clips packed into the virtual flyer was one that made my jaw drop right out of the skull! One pastor Jestin India was encouraging his audience to say that “I am God”; that is each one of the members of the audience in the screen numbering about a hundred or so! It seemed his point was God is perfect and immortal (no quarrel there). (Now comes the whammy!) So, as God’s children, we too are entitled to these privileges. As the audience began to roll its collective eyes in wonder and disbelief, our man went on to coat the concept with credible humour such as: “Does God ever catch a cold and report sick?” To a man, the audience shakes its head with a titter: No. The argument was that likewise we should not be ill ever, or die.
Now, the critic in me wakes up. If the audience was god, then the person tutoring them must be at least one level above – a super god. But this cannot be! For by character, god is all powerful, omnipotent. Then how can you have about a hundred gods all vying with each other for supremacy plus a superintend type of god. The field gets a bit crowded,what?
Then again what qualifies these characters to be god to me, admittedly a non-god, a frail and fallible human. Did any one of them have a part in creating me, did they go to Calvary, get crucified, shed their blood and die vicariously taking on themselves the due punishment of my sin? Hey, wait a moment! These guys don’t die – remember? Which means no resurrection, no ascension, no sitting on the right hand of God the father, no right to take the scroll from Him and break the seals, for the simple reason that they were not slain in the first place (Rev. 5:9). Oh, it is all so very convoluted and humongously confusing. May be they are not gods after all!
Enter Covid-19. These claimants of immortality and divinity didn’t have a clue about its coming, what will be its effect or how long it will last. They scheduled their ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious“conference for 28 – 30 April 2020. And simply got swallowed in the lock-down. Now these self-appointed gods are looking for another slot in the calendar!
So, help me God!!
______________________________