Pastor David E. Taylor is known for his name-it-and-claim-it faith-healing and prosperity gospel antics. The ministry of fleecing the desperate, ill, and elderly has been so good to Taylor that his ministry recently purchased an $8.3 million Tampa mansion. Taylor, who self-identifies as an “apostle”, claims that in 1997 he was “given the keys to the Kingdom of heaven by Jesus in a face-to-face appearance in a dream.” Taylor has parlayed the alleged experience to sell his book Face to Face Appearances from Jesus: The Ultimate Intimacy, in which he claims to offer readers the formula to “Meet Christ face-to-face in person”, as well as several other more typical name-it-and-claim-it promises:
When the self-proclaimed apostle isn’t pedaling self-centered Gnosticism or interpreting dreams on his 24/7 dream interpretation hotline, Taylor likes to pose with wheelchairs and medical devices that he claims belong to those who have been healed at his conferences.
In a recent promotional video for his upcoming online conference, “One Night With The King”, Taylor reiterated his ongoing claim to be a gatekeeper to Jesus. In the fever pitch of the promotional video, which sounds quite like a late-night television infomercial, Taylor presented clear evidence that Jesus has indeed been in attendance at his previous conferences in the form of this definitive high-definition cell phone photo of Jesus on stage, taken by one of the conference attendees.
But wait, there’s more! At this year’s conference, which can be viewed online only, Taylor says that he has “covenanted” with God to make big things happen.
The promotional video hype-man promises this year will be even greater than last year’s zoom adventure.
“Jesus Promised that when you’re watching online, he’s going to make a personal visit to your home and walk through it in order to bring healing and release of the supernatural open heavens to your entire house for the next year. How amazing is this! But it Gets Better. Jesus told Apostle Taylor that the Greater One, the Father, is coming to visit you.”
Never mind that God specifically told Moses in Exodus 33:20 “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Never mind that any man in his unglorified state, who entered the presence of God, would be utterly undone in the presence of God the Father, as Isaiah described his sense of depravity in the presence of God in Isaiah 6:5.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Those who believe that David E. Taylor is an Apostle should compare his pompous self-aggrandizement to the disposition of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 11:23-29, when he described the sacrificial call of an Apostle who lived a life that emulated the life of Christ.
Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
