I know about scamming first hand: it happened to me when a scammer and his partner called to tell me I was to get a refund of $40.00. I won't go into the long story of the ins and outs of the deception, except to mention that on my computer screen they had pulled up my bank statement. Really! My bank statement. I saw it, it was right there. They were high tech slick operators.
But, praise be, I caught on in time to stop their nefarious scheme and ignored their threats to send the police to my house to charge with trying to steal $40,000 from them! I told them to get the police to my house fast; that would be A-OK, it would be all right with me.
Other scammers are at work. These are the prosperity preachers-- their scam is to use (i. e. abuse) an account in I Kings about a poor widow, her son, and the prophet Elijah and they, the scammers, are just as slick of the ones that almost got me. Let's examine how they skillfully work the scam.
In I Kings 7:7-17, Elijah the prophet finds that the brook has dried up and he's in need of water and food. God tells His poor prophet in need of food and water about a poor widow and her son, telling the prophet to go see her; she will give him water and food.
Elijah finds the woman gathering sticks and asks her to bring him some water and bread. She's in such a desperate condition that she tells him, “I don’t have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
But the prophet tells her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’”
"She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah."
And now the sheep, having heard the scammer tell that story, are setup for the shearing. Just as seeing my bank statement had set me up for their manipulation, prosperity preachers abuse this story all the time. They tell the sheep, "Even if you're as poor as this widow is, God will bless you when you give to my ministry.")
What's happened is that, in their telling, Elijah has become the multimillionaire Joyce Meyer, (or whoever is telling the story) and the sheep have become the widow. The sharing of the bread and water have transformed into money. Therefore, based on the Word of God, the scammer says, "Financial blessings will be yours when you give to the me, the millionaire, no matter how poor you are and that's a promise from God. (The scammers conveniently leave out the millionaire part.) God is at the ready to pour out financial blessings on you like you couldn't believe, they're told."
It's amazing how these scammers can sleep at night.
What they've done is take a description in Scripture and turned it into a prescription for the sheep. This account isn't a prescription of what you're to do, it's a description of God's providing for a poor widow and her son, as well as His poor prophet. Both of them are poverty-stricken. What we're reading in I Kings 7 is not a promise God makes.
These prosperity scammers employ various scamming tools to work this nefarious scheme on the unsuspecting sheep who have no idea they're being conned. The prosperity charlatans use their best selling books, their CDs, television, and church auditoriums to go to work, and churches cooperate with them because they're as ignorant as the sheep.
If your church library has any of the scammers' books, burn them. If your church has such CDs, throw them into the flames too.
As long as the sheep stay ignorant and have even scant wool, the scammers will come with their shears.
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