Popular Minister Takes the Wrong Road

It’s amazing how you can count on the prosperity/feel-good gospel to corrupt ministries and render them poisonous.

Today I read that a preacher named John Gray is in hot water with Internet users because he bought his wife a Lamborghini. Maybe there is something fitting about it. His wife’s name is Aventer, and Lamborghini makes a car called the Aventador.

You know what? I’m going to check that.

It appears that be bought her a Urus, which is a Lamborghini Cayenne. It’s an SUV. It costs $200,000. The car does 0-60 in 3.6 seconds, it has over 600 horsepower, and it will do 190 mph, in case Aventer needs to get to a prayer meeting in a real hurry. The Grays live in South Carolina, where the maximum speed limit is 70 mph.

He is defending the buy. That is not surprising.

I know John. We are not buddies; I just mean I know him. I was his driver on one occasion when he appeared at Trinity Church in Miami. We talked a few times, and he knew me on sight. That’s about it.

John is a very, very gifted speaker. That’s probably not a good thing. Gifted people tend to think, “Wow! God must have given me this rare gift because he NEEDED someone like me to do something for him!” Then they may get the idea that they’re special, and that causes problems.

God doesn’t need any of your gifts. Not one. He chose Moses to speak for him, and Moses had a speech impediment. He chose ignorant Galileans to represent him to the world, including sophisticated Jewish scholars (who were not chosen). He picked a very small group of left-handed men to overcome a large Midianite force. Your gift does not make you special at all. It doesn’t mean you’re God’s favorite or that you have special authority. It’s not an anointing.

I don’t know if John has the “I am special” problem.

He is a very warm person, in his encounters with others. I think it’s real. And when he used to visit Trinity, he remembered insignificant people he had met on prior occasions. He remembered his interactions with them.

Unfortunately, he also gave a false prophecy to one of these people. He told some girl she would become a famous designer and that she would be very rich. He said she would be flown around the world for her job. If this has happened, no one at Trinity has noticed. Believe me, the Wilkersons would be chasing her all day, trying to get tithes and offerings, and she would also be treated like a VIP whenever she came to a service. There would be videos and so on. “Here is sister Shontelle, to tell us how her ‘Seven Blessings of Passover’ offering turned into a billion-dollar company!”

I doubt it bothered her when the prophecy turned out to be false. In charismatic churches, no one really expects prophecies to come true, and no one checks. It’s like going to a palm reader. You listen just so you can feel good for a while.

John was very bold. He was known for talking about his status as a virgin, and he was in his mid-thirties. You have to admire that.

I assume he was being truthful, of course. I can’t tell when people are lying, and neither can you or anyone else.

He spoke a lot about money and promotion. He was very impressed by Kari Jobe, who had just blown the Christian music world apart with her monster first CD. He talked a lot about networking.

It must have been years ago, but it seems like only yesterday that I found out that John had joined Joel Osteen’s church as some kind of sub-pastor. I was disappointed. Osteen is the king of feel-good pastors. He is as watery as skim milk. His ministry is about money and attendance. God has very little to do with it. I had hoped John would do better, because he seemed to hear from the Holy Spirit.

It wasn’t until the Lamborghini story broke that I knew he had his own megachurch. He must have left Osteen some time ago, because it takes some time to build up attendance to the point where you can pay yourself enough to buy a $200,000 second car.

Let’s check.

His church’s Facebook page says the business was launched in May. If so, John has done extremely well for himself in a short time. The church is called “Relentless Church.” There is a “Relentless Church” family of churches which started in Africa. Not sure if John’s church is part of it. If so, that would have helped. And I’m sure he didn’t work for nothing when he was with Osteen.

I’m unhappy to see his ministry turn out this way. He is a very, very charismatic man, and if he goes down the wrong path, he can take a lot of people with him.

Is it wrong to buy an expensive car? That depends, doesn’t it? If a Lamborghini Urus has some special quality the Grays actually need, then fine, let them have it. If they just want it because it’s a high-status luxury car, then it can’t possibly be God’s will, and it will serve to reinforce the covetousness of people who look to the Grays for guidance.

The Bible says covetousness is idolatry.

Idolatry is not a small obstacle to holiness. It’s a violation of the first commandment. God killed a lot of Hebrews over it in Exodus, even after they had been delivered out of Egypt.

The stories about the Grays say his wife bought him an $8000 Rolex. Should I complain? I have a Rolex. Of course, mine only cost $800, and I didn’t buy it for myself. I don’t wear it. I don’t like it. It keeps poor time and bangs into things. My dad got it used, in exchange for releasing a sports-betting debt. It was a high school graduation gift. His law partner owed him, and it used to be the partner’s watch. The partner stretched out the band, so the watch has never been right. A new band would run something like $3000. I keep the watch in my closet.

The partner is a pretty nasty guy. When I wore the watch, sometimes I felt closer to him than I wanted.

I would not buy a Rolex today. Mechanical watches are inferior and expensive. You can get a waterproof watch on Amazon for under $20.

I could see getting a decent dress watch for occasions when I have to put on a suit, but I think it should be possible to find a nice stainless model for a reasonable price.

I think the Grays could have gotten along just great with a Ford Explorer. I got one for my dad in 2017, and it’s fantastic. We bought it used. You could get nearly seven of them for the price of a Urus.

Is it “a Urus” or “an Urus”? Terrible name. Sounds like part of the anatomy related to the kidneys.

You shouldn’t buy things just for the thrill of possessing them, and you shouldn’t buy them to teach the world a lesson. You can buy a $20 million property for a good reason, and you can buy a $100 bottle of wine for a bad reason. There is probably no good reason to buy a new Lamborghini. There is absolutely nothing it will do that a Ford Explorer can’t, unless you count breaking the sound barrier.

Christianity is about becoming like Jesus in your heart and mind. It’s about helping others to do the same thing. It’s about receiving salvation and obtaining relief from earthly problems with obedience. That’s it. Anything beyond that is probably from Satan. The prosperity gospel is from Satan. The feel-good gospel is from Satan. The gospel of hard work and pride is from Satan. The “God accepts absolutely everyone no matter what they do” gospel is from Satan.

People will say, “He baptizes people with the Holy Spirit!” “My grandma got saved in his church!” “My kids love the children’s ministry!” “He cried when my cat died!” They will look at superficial blessings and condemn anyone who picks at the infected root. I’ve seen this over and over. If you call out a popular preacher like T.D. Jakes or Joyce Meyer, put your Nomex drawers and Kevlar hat on first, because the people they have fooled will do their best to crucify you for God.

Satan gives us toxic leaders, and then he stirs up hordes of angry supporters to persecute those who expose them. Look at the crucifixion.

Gifts are dangerous, because people mistake them for God’s approval and authority. John can really sweep people off his feet with his preaching. Ignorant people who don’t pray in tongues every day will swallow the whole message, and they will be diverted. Instead of continuing toward God’s heart, they will be spun off into eddies of self-pampering and pride, and they will suffer for it.

Very sad.

Any time you see Joel Osteen put his stamp of approval on someone, you should consider it the kiss of death. He has probably never been right about anyone.

Back when John was a regular guest at Trinity, I bought a copy of his DVD, “Laughter in Black and White,” and he autographed it. A few weeks ago, I purged my house of things I thought were spiritually problematic, and that DVD was one of the things that went to the dump.

I am very glad God got me away from the prosperity movement, and I’m grateful for his help in telling gifted preachers from anointed children of God. Without his help, I am easily fooled, and I could be right there with the lost today if I did not hear from him.

John is defending the purchase. He says none of the money came from “the church.” That’s not a great defense. Even if he found a giant diamond in his yard and used it to pay for the car, a Lamborghini SUV is not a good thing to spend money on.

If he didn’t get the money from the church, where did it come from? He still works for Osteen while he works at the new church, and presumably, both churches pay him. He has some books and other products which haven’t set the world on fire. He also has a new reality show on Oprah’s network. All of these projects derive from his ministry, so it’s not honest to give people the impression that he’s not profiting from it. There is more to his ministry than his church.

It’s disturbing that he is associated with Oprah. The devil loves to buy hungry people off. She is not a Christian; she admits it. She supports homosexuality. She sponsors a non-Christian cult. Oprah works for the devil, so if you work for her, you probably work for him. When the devil does you a favor, there is always a hook in it.

The show is not doing great. It has a 0.07 rating, which puts it below Hugh Hewitt, whom most people have never heard of. In all likelihood, John is doing exactly what Richie Wilkerson did with the show “Rich in Faith.” He is whiffing at a spitball pitched by Satan. Jumping at this kind of bait does a lot of damage to a preacher’s credibility. The show will probably collapse, and then he’ll be remembered as just another preacher who let a false promise of fortune and fame blow his skirt up. It takes years to recover from that.

“Rich in Faith” got canceled.

This all goes to show why God is taking his show out of churches and putting it into the personal lives of obscure people. I hope he continues. I would like to see every megachurch in the world dry up. They do nothing but cause problems.