Ike Turner had Nothing on Kenneth Copeland

Just when I think I can’t get any more disgusted with preachers, I find there is still potential for more disapproval. Today while searching the web, I saw photos of people like Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer spread across the bottom of the page as suggestions, and I felt slight physical nausea. No exaggeration. These people are poisonous. This must be how a former prostitute feels when she sees her pimp.

The nausea must have come from the Holy Spirit, because I am not that good.

Why am I upset today? Very simple. God has given me a revelation about the baptism with fire.

John the Baptist said Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire, but the New Testament contains no explicit information about the baptism with fire. People have come up with guesses as to what it is, but most are wrong. The baptism with fire is this: God allows you to go through afflictions and trials in order to free you of things that keep you out of his kingdom. It’s that simple.

People wonder why Christianity doesn’t “work.” Christians don’t live in victory or peace. They don’t have prosperity or health, even though God promises us these things. There are some individuals out there who get miracles and healings and so on, but I would guess that more than 99% of Christians are not in that group. Most Christians don’t think God will heal them or work miracles for them. Many preachers tell their flocks these things can’t happen now, as if God had decided to shut off his help and his love. In truth, Christianity still works, but Christians suffer because they hold onto things God is trying to burn.

At my last church, we had a man who had breast cancer. His name was Ozzie. The pastors called him “Ozzie, healed of the Lord.” We fasted and prayed for him. We thought he would be okay. Then he got brain tumors and died.

While he was alive, I kept telling him it was important to confess and repent in order to get help from God. He was too proud to pay attention. I made people angry. People said I blamed the sick for their problems, which is true. We do cause our problems. Ozzie never took responsibility for anything, and he died, unhealed.

Ozzie was baptized with fire, but he didn’t let go. His pride blocked God’s help.

God does all sorts of remarkable things for me. He defeats people who threaten to cause problems for me. He helps me get difficult things done. He tells me things. He gives me miracle healings. Nonetheless, my life is not perfect. There are some nagging things I still deal with. They started to fall away when my dad went into assisted living, but not all are gone. I know it’s because there are things I need to identify and give up.

God told me to get rid of my blues and rock CD’s, so I did. He told me to get rid of other offensive objects, such as my dad’s masonry garbage and my questionable movie and TV DVD’s. He had me give up cigars. I’ve had to renounce certain behaviors and ways of thinking. Every time I give something up, things get better.

How many Christians are doing what God has me doing? A small fraction. When I used to belong to Trinity Church in Miami, most people around me didn’t even try. The Wilkersons, who own the church, don’t teach about repentance in a serious way, because they love money and flattery. They don’t care about people. They make them slaves and beg them for money, devouring people’s houses, as the Bible puts it. Their followers smoke dope, fornicate, work in strip clubs, and so on, because no one has told them their sins and iniquities block God’s help.

Trinity is not unusual. Many charismatic churches run by prosperity preachers work the same way.

Here’s something God taught me today: the word “pure” means “burned.” It comes from the Greek word for fire. Consider the familiar word “pyromaniac.” The root “pyro” is Greek, and it refers to fire. “Pure” comes from this root.

Greeks pronounce their Y (upsilon) the way we pronounce U. The word “dunamis,” which means “power,” contains a U, but the English word “dynamite,” which comes from the same root, contains a Y. It’s not uncommon for an English word containing a U to come from a Greek word containing a Y.

Burning is still used for purifying metal. We heat it so impurities burn off or rise to the top where they can be removed. In the Bible, God talks about refining us like gold. The parallel is obvious.

It makes me angry that no one showed me this when I sat in church and gave money and did free work. Trinity is a ghetto church. It’s full of cripples, addicts, financial basket cases, and criminals. Most people who attend are poor. Kids who go to Trinity get shot from time to time. There are a lot of sick people there.

Christianity doesn’t work at Trinity, because no one understands the baptism with fire.

The pastors themselves don’t understand it, and they don’t care. Rich Wilkerson, who claims to believe in God’s healing, is sickly and frail. He has new knees. He has a blood disorder. He’s diabetic. He has a disease that makes stones appear in his chest. How can those things be true, when Psalm 103 clearly states that God heals all our diseases? Wilkerson is holding onto greed and false doctrine (which he knows is false), so God’s power isn’t helping him.

Never listen to anyone who has no testimony. If your church’s doctrine is not working for your pastor, it won’t work for you. Rich Wilkerson has no testimony. He’s sick, and his church is in debt. His son has a bloated ego and runs around with Kim Kardashian. He can’t help anyone.

Wilkerson had a young underpastor named Terrance. Terrance is very concerned with appearances. Like many young prosperity preachers, he always dresses like he’s about to make a music video. Very proud guy. Older people can’t tell him anything. He broke off and started his own church. It’s called “COOL Church.” This is the kind of fruit Wilkerson produces.

Predictably, based on Wilkerson’s penchant for appropriating other people’s dubious ideas, COOL Church has a name that was already in use elsewhere. There is a C.O.O.L. Church in Houston. There is also a “Cool Church” in Cool, California. The domain for COOL Church isn’t coolchurch.com, because they couldn’t get it. Someone else took it more than 20 years ago. So much for inspiration, creativity, and originality. God gives Spirit-led people fresh material.

Years ago, Wilkerson came up with a membership-building campaign called “2020 Vision.” It was about saving a certain number of souls by 2020. Go online and Google “2020 vision” and “church.” You will see many references predating Trinity’s scheme. To put it nicely, it was not Wilkerson’s idea.

It rotted on the vine, like many of Trinity’s “long-term” projects.

I don’t think COOL Church will make it. The location is bad, the preaching isn’t exciting, and the response seems weak. No one is watching their Youtubes, and they don’t have a single Yelp review. That’s amazing, since Trinity always hammers away at people, trying to get social media support.

I forgive the people who taught me nonsense, but I have to be open about what they did, because they’re still doing it to other people.

When you give yourself to God, you have to be separated from the world. You can’t keep your pride, your self-reliance, your worry, or your record collection. You can’t keep your friends. You can’t hold onto astrology or yoga, which is demon worship. When you turn to God, you enter a gauntlet, and the way to get through it quickly is to admit fault and give things up.

I have often said that Satan’s world is like a gang. Gangs jump people in, and they jump them out. “Jumping” means “beating.” When you join a gang, they give you a beating. When you leave, they give you a beating to “jump you out.” The baptism with fire is Satan’s way of jumping you out, and God permits it because you have given Satan access.

Remember what Paul said? He said he delivered a sinner to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit might be saved. I’m right. Satan is allowed to touch many Christians who need correction.

I think it’s time for me to dump my jazz CD collection. I thought it was harmless, but maybe it’s not. I don’t listen to it any more. I have no desire to. I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s a problem. It’s the music of addicts and losers. Louis Armstrong smoked dope every day. Bix Beiderbeck drank himself to death. Miles Davis was a wife beater and drug abuser. Thelonious Monk was mentally ill. Chet Baker killed himself. Billie Holiday was a hopeless junkie. It’s not a happy fraternity.

I wonder if classical music is also on God’s hit list. Whatever. Anything he wants, he can have, because he loves me and wants the best for me.

God told me some things. He said I had been raised by demons, which is true. He also said my mother and father had abandoned me. That’s correct. My mother loved me, but she didn’t teach me much about God, and she was a weak and inconsistent parent. God also says this, in a psalm: “When my father and mother abandon me, the Lord will gather me up.” He put “father” before “mother” in that verse because mothers are supposed to submit to fathers.

God told me bad things about my past so I would know he was adopting me.

I am not embarrassed to say I was raised by demons. I welcome the knowledge. You can’t expect treatment and recovery without diagnosis, and diagnosis is not pleasant.

No good father raises a child without correction. Not one. If you’ve never said a harsh word to your child, you are not a good parent. God allows us to be afflicted, but on the other hand, he also fully intends to heal us or otherwise compensate and relieve us, once we’re back on track. No good parent would give a child punishment and then continue it after the child repented.

I asked God to tell me what the baptism with fire was, and now I know. Unfortunately, I am part of the charismatic church, and most charismatics teach that God is their fairy godmother. Very few people will want to hear what God told me. Anyone who talks about the harsh side of Christianity will be attacked and slandered by fools. Persecution is a big part of the church.

Feel-good Christians persecute because correction isn’t COOL.

God told me one more thing today. Psalm 23 is true. It says, “The Lord is my shepherd.” The word “pastor” literally means “shepherd.” When you are in touch with the Holy Spirit, you don’t need a carnal man in a funny suit to tell you what’s what. Listen to men until you get connected with God, and then make him your teacher.