Child Preachers: Anointed or Imitation?

It's weird.  I am going through YouTube and happened on some videos of children preaching.  I am curious to see these so-called "pint-sized" preachers.  I click on one of a little guy in Florida and my heart just drops.  He "whoops", lays on hands, dresses in nice gear and what he is preaching is not sound and very empty.

In researching this young man, who is all of 11 years of age, his grandmother and father seem to be grooming him to be the bread winner of the family.  His grandmother is an evangelist with a criminal background of fraud and theft and his father spent time in jail for narcotic sales.   They have now turned this young man into a money machine for the family.

Now, I do believe that children can be touched by the hand of God to preach, but if you hear this young man "preach", he is not saying anything worth anything.  It is all empty rhetoric.  Do you blame the child? The grandmother? The father?   No! Blame the churches and congregations that have invited this young man to preach to their congregations.

People no longer want to hear the REAL Word of God.  If they did, then they would realize that for all of the whooping, hollering, talking in tongues that this young man is doing has been orchestrated by the adults responsible for raising him.  He is imitating what he sees and is being paid very big money for what he does (Interestingly, the father, when questioned to whether he has put aside money for the young man's future education could not verify that income).

My heart aches when I see such abuse of children.  Some would argue that Jesus was twelve when he taught at the temple so why not these "pint-sized" preachers.  Yes, Jesus was twelve, but we also have to keep in mind that Jesus himself was the Word.  Read John 1:1 where it says, "  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."  Jesus could teach and preach because He already KNEW the Word because He was the Word.

I am very skeptical of these "pint-sized" preachers.  My heart goes out to them and my prayers are with them.