Video After The Jump
(USA Today) Jesse Duplantis, a televangelist with viewers across the globe, says God told him he needs a new jet.
Specifically, God told Duplantis he needs 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 Falcon 7X, which would be the fourth plane owned by Jesse Duplantis Ministries, has a range of almost 6,000 miles and costs about $54 million new, according to SherpaReport (although used ones are listed online for as little as $20 million).
"Now, some people believe that preachers shouldn't have jets," Duplantis said in a video posted last week. "I really believe that preachers ought to ... have every available outlet to get this Gospel preached to the world."
In fact, Duplantis said 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 said. "But the first thing I thought of was, 'How an I going to pay for it?' And then that great statement that [God] told me in 1978 flooded into my mind. He said, 'Jesse, I didn't ask you to pay for it. I asked you to believe for it.'"