Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

If you're like me, you cherish the verses above as some of the earliest you memorized as a child in Sunday school. Honey, you learned a long, long time ago that the fame, wealth, and glory a person accumulates during this brief life on earth don't amount to a hill of beans. You don't need to be told that earthly things are like vapor, and heavenly things are eternal. You understand these truths like you know your own name. So I have to ask you: Why on earth do you place your trust in celebrity preachers with enough stockpiles of earthly treasure to make King Solomon envious?

Now, by "celebrity preacher," I mean anybody who's rich and famous standing on a soapbox talking to the masses about God. Let me tell you something, honey: if you live in a mansion, fly around in a private jet, and employ an entourage of personal stylists, make-up artists and Starbucks-fetchers, don't even try to talk to me about Jesus. Not only do I question where your heart is, I resent your staking a claim on sacred ground and profiteering off it. Jesus didn't take too kindly to folks who set up shop in His house, and neither do I.

I think I understand why Jesus got so angry at those grifting Godsters. When you love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind you have quite a vulnerability, honey. You'd give your all if called upon to do so, and you can't even imagine someone stooping so low as to use your faith and love of God against you. Unfortunately, there are scad loads of filthy, soulless sub-human scavengers who'd like nothing more than to pick your sacrificed carcass clean and then deride you for being such a fool. I'm only telling you this because I love you, honey.  Your capacity to be taken in by these lowest of bottom feeders is the stuff of legend.

Way back in 1884 Mark Twain published a story about a boy named Huckleberry Finn. At one point in Huck's journey, he ran across two travelling con artists. These pathetic swindlers made a living perpetrating mostly successful scams on unsuspecting townsfolk. "The king" decided to work a camp revival meeting one night, as Huck recounts in Chapter 20:

Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He told them he was a pirate -- been a pirate for thirty years out in the Indian Ocean -- and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for the first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there without money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced a pirate he would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no credit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville campmeeting, natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!"

And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody sings out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well, a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let HIM pass the hat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too.

So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes, and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or six times -- and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he said as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to work on the pirates.

When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he had fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the missionarying line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with.

So now you know, honey: you have a soft-white underbelly and everybody has known about it for ages. Since only God knows whats in someone's heart and you can't always spot a manipulative egomaniac with deep rooted contempt for you, I wouldn't let just anybody talk to me about Jesus.  Come to think of it, I just remembered I'm a two-dimensional cartoon character commissioned from a caricature artist in Massachusetts. Good Lord, honey, I don't even exist!  Why are you listening to a word I say?  A very wise person once said, "Don't give to dogs that which is sacred or cast your pearls before swine."

Here's my advice for whatever it's worth:  Whether I'm a cartoon character, a politician, a minister, or a TV and radio talker, if I have a vast media empire, my own national talk show, a mansion, private jets, and an entourage of make-up artists and Starbucks-fetchers, don't be so quick to let me tickle your Jesus keys.  When someone's treasure is showing, be a little suspicious, honey.  If I'm not your minister, in your prayer group, or a close personal friend or relative, you should think twice about letting me quote scripture to you and talk to you about God.  I might just be looking to pick over your sacrificed carcass and mock you all the way to the bank.