Forbidden Fruit

In Indonesia, God sends a group of Pentecostal children on an evangelism trip to a neighboring village (apparently without parental supervision).  God tells the children to go straight to the village without stopping, but, on the way, the children pass a fruit tree and decide to stop and eat some fruit.  They take off their nice clothes first so as not to get them dirty while climbing the fruit tree.

 

Soon, the children are playing and munching happily, but all that comes to a crashing halt when they look around and discover that their clothes are gone.  Then they see the clothes--way up in the top of a huge tree that they cannot climb.

 

God is punishing the children for their disobedience.  The children cry and pray and repent, and so God speaks to them and tells them to send one of the boys to climb the tree.  The boy doesn't think he can do it, but when he starts climbing the tree, his hands and feet stick to the bark like a spider.  He scampers up the tree and retrieves the clothes, and the children continue their evangelism trip.

This whopper appears to have originated in the twisted mind of Mr. Mel Tari.  It is one of many, many ghastly lies promoted in his books Like a Mighty Wind and Gentle Breeze of Jesus.  According to Mel, there was a Great Revival in Indonesia, during which people were raised from the dead, evangelists walked on water, amazing healings occurred, and water was turned into special God-brewed nonalcoholic wine.  Too bad nobody got any pictures.   The most disturbing thing about this story is that it reveals Mr. Tari's twisted concept of God.  In this story, God sounds like a schoolyard bully, stealing little kids' clothes and holding them out of reach until the children start to cry.   And the spider-boy?  That's just weird.   Side note:  In 1994, evangelist Mel Tari was convicted of fraud in a California courtroom and ordered to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars that he stole from a former supporter.  During the court proceedings, excerpts from Tari's books were read and the victim testified that these had led her to trust Tari, believing that he could perform "physical and financial miracles".   To see an article on Tari's fraud conviction in Christianity Today archives, click on the link below: Christianity Today: Mel Tari fraud conviction