According to Jesse Duplantis, a televangelist with a global reach, God told him to buy a private jet. God was kind enough to let him know, that he needed to specifically purchase a Dassault Falcon 7X, a three-engine private jet capable of carrying 12 to 16 passengers at speeds up to 700 miles per hour. The plane has a range of over 6,000 miles and costs $54 million new.
Thankfully, used planes are listed for a modest $20 million. This would make the Falcon 7x the fourth plane owned by Jesse Duplantis Ministries. “Now, some people believe that preachers shouldn’t have jets,” Duplantis said. “I really believe that preachers ought to … have every available outlet to get this Gospel preached to the world.”
He helpfully explained that “if Jesus was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey.” “He’d be in an airplane preaching the Gospel all over the world,” he added. God told Duplantis he needed the plane “in one of the ‘greatest statements the Lord ever told me.'” According to the preacher, God told him “He said, ‘Jesse, you wanna come up where I’m at?’
Duplantis responded “And I said, ‘What do you mean?'” To which God responded, “He said, ‘I want you to believe in me for a Falcon 7-X.” “So, I said, ‘OK.’ But the first thing I thought of: ‘Well, how am I going to pay for it?'” he replied. Duplantis recalled something God told him in 1978. “‘Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.'”
Despite the appearance of self-serving luxury, he insisted he was interested in full transparency. “I like all people to know exactly what I’m doing in this ministry,” Duplantis insisted. “We don’t hide anything whatsoever at all.” he qualified his request by saying he wouldn’t personally own the plane. Instead, the jet will be owned by the ministry and would be used by the next person to take it over after his death.
The Almighty charged Duplantis to “preach the Gospel to every creature.” “Now how we gonna do that?” he quired. “I can’t live long enough to travel by car, or by ship, or by train, but I can do it by airplane.” “All it’s gonna do is touch people,” Duplantis said of the jet. “It’s gonna reach people. It’s gonna change lives, one soul at a time.”
He added, ” I don’t want to learn how to fly it, I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He recently posted a photo of his other three planes. The post was captioned, It’s not about possessions, it’s about priorities.” At the time, he also expressed excitement about the U.S. moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. He expects that the end times are “coming fast ladies and gentlemen.”
In 2015, he spoke alongside fellow televangelist Kenneth Copeland to defend their need for private jets. Copeland said that because the two men are famous they would be swamped with people coming up to them and asking for prayers. “You can’t manage that today,” Copeland clarified. “This dope-filled world, and get in a long tube with a bunch of demons. And it’s deadly.””And it works on your heart,” Duplantis concurred. “It Areally does.”