My Car is my Church

Obviously, I have not been blogging much over the last week. I think the reason is that I have been spending a lot of time ripping CD’s.

A while back, I found myself listening to audio Bible files on Youtube, and I realized how useful they were. I decided I should get myself an audio version of the King James Bible, turn it into MP3 files, and put the files in all my devices.

Finding a good Bible was not easy. There is no perfect translation, but there are definitely some bad ones. I don’t want a feminist/socialist/environmentalist/anti-male/hipster translation. I want the paternalistic/cisgender/heterosexual/privileged Bible. I want God to “mansplain” to me. I’m pretty happy with the King James and the New King James, and the King James is the only translation which is a great work of English literature as well as a solid reference book, so the King James is what I picked.

Once I had chosen a version, I had to look through different editions. I finally opted for the Zondervan dramatized audio Bible. It doesn’t add to the text, but it does use different actors for different voices. It uses a woman’s voice for the book of Esther, which is moderately annoying, but overall, it was the best audio Bible I found for a decent price. The Royal Shakespeare Company did one that is supposedly phenomenal, but it’s only available on used cassettes.

Ripping the disks (Why do so many people insist on “disc”?) is taking quite a while. The Bible is a very big book. I’m doing one chapter at a time and then combining the files into single-book files. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me 10 more days.

Meanwhile, I have been watching a lot of Mark Hemans videos. It seems like the stuff I watch keeps increasing in quality. I watched a guy named Tom Fischer heal a lot of people, and it was great, but he got married and wandered off into talking about the health benefits of essential oils. I watched Tom Loud, Doug Collins, and The Last Reformation, and they were better. Mark Hemans is on the next step up.

Here’s what you usually see when charismatic preachers talk about healing. Some money-lover like Jerry Savelle will say someone he knows in Africa touched some person who was full of tumors, and that person was healed instantly and started running circles around the church. You won’t hear the preacher’s name or the name of the person who was healed. There won’t be any follow-up. Then the person you’re listening to will ask you for money.

Mark Hemans is not like that. He’ll say he healed someone of, for example, autism, and then he’ll say, “And you can find the video on Youtube.” Then you’ll find the video, and sure enough, there will be footage of some kid who used to be completely messed up, talking and behaving normally. You’ll see footage shot before the healing, proving the child had problems. You’ll hear the parents talk before and after the healing. You’ll see the kid doing things he couldn’t do before.

It seems like everyone is autistic these days. I have a small social circle, but I have four friends who have autistic kids! Four! And one of them has a parent who may well qualify. Autism is such a hot topic, I’ve had people try to tell me I have Asperger’s. People are blaming vaccines, pesticides, power lines, global warming…everything except demons. Why is that? We’re embarrassed to talk about demons. We think people will think we’re ignorant savages.

Here’s something interesting. Not only are demons involved in many, many conditions; they are involved in problems that seem to result from injury. You may think symptoms that follow injuries are purely physical. Mark Hemans healed a paralyzed boy whose are was injured during an emergency delivery, and he said a demon was the real reason for the paralysis. Go to Youtube and watch the video. You will see the boy raise his arm normally for the first time in his life. I know someone whose child has this problem. What if it could have been healed 25 years ago, simply by casting out a spirit?

Here’s something obvious which God showed me: even if you don’t believe diseases are caused by demons, it is definitely true that infectious diseases have spirits and that they live inside you. How do I know this? Every creature has a spirit. You can read Ecclesiastes if you don’t believe me; I know some Christians teach that animals have no spirit. Think about this: God puts life into inanimate matter by breathing his Spirit into them. There is no other way? How, then, can a living thing not have a spirit?

The Bible says there are horses in the supernatural realm. Remember the horsemen of the Apocalypse? If there are horse spirits in heaven, why would you think a horse here on earth can’t have a spirit?

If you have bacteria, fungi, viruses, mycoplasms, prions, parasites, or other types of living matter in you causing disease, you have spirits in you. All these creatures have spirits. I don’t know why this wasn’t obvious to me years ago. If the things that are in you causing disease have spirits, how can you not believe getting rid of spirits will improve your health? If you can make the spirit of a bacterium leave you, how can you not be healed of the disease it causes? It’s funny that no one ever teaches this.

Hemans healed a lady of bowel cancer, and then he forgot all about her. A year later, he returned to her area, and she showed up and surprised him. She brought a file of medical documents, including color photos. Whoever does the production work for Hemans dug up the footage of her initial meeting with him, and it’s part of the video in which she produces the documents.

This is not how healing preachers traditionally work. Generally, no one checks up on them. There is no documentation. There is no film, except for the film of the initial prayer and alleged healing.

These films are like those awful holiday newsletter cards some families send out. They always say Bobby got straight A’s again and George’s business opened three new locations. They never say Bobby turned gay and George got convicted of driving while intoxicated, even if everyone in town knows.

Many people have gone to meetings featuring Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts, to name two, claimed they were healed, and then either lost their healings or turned out not to be healed at all. This is what Christians are used to. We make no effort to check up on the healed. We don’t want to hear about those who didn’t get healed after all. They make us uncomfortable, so we ignore them.

It’s a new experience for the church when God confirms a healer’s work. We’re not used to that.

It’s important to note that Hemans doesn’t run around begging for money and threatening people with poverty if they don’t pay up. He’s very unlike the healing preachers Americans are used to.

Hemans is coming to America this year. He’ll be in the Eastern United States part of the time. I plan to go see him in action. I don’t worship men, and I don’t chase signs, but I need to see people doing things right, in person. Cessationists, who think God inexplicably turned selfish in about 200 A.D., criticize anyone who likes to see miracles, but how can you have Christianity without them? God is love, among other things. He loves healing his children. Miracles aren’t the foundation of Christianity, but Christianity without miracles is anomalous and crippled. It’s sick. God promised us signs and wonders would follow us. He promised we would heal the sick and cast out demons. If we’re not doing those things, something is amiss.

Cessationists amaze me. Miracles clearly take place today, and there is proof. How, then, can cessationism be correct?

I know some cessationists say all miracles and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit come from demons. That’s amazing. What lower form of blasphemy is there than calling God a demon?

God says people who call evil good and good evil will have serious problems, and he says he will not forgive those who speak against the Holy Spirit. Look it up for yourself. Even if you thought all miracles performed in the name of Jesus might be demonic, why would you say so if you weren’t sure? Like Gamaliel said to the Jewish leaders of his time, you might be fighting God himself.

A long time ago, God showed me that one of the curses on man is that we have to work very, very hard to get things he wants to give us simply for being his children. We struggle and suffer for millennia, trying to solve problems he can, and will, solve instantly.

What is technology? Like hard work, it’s a substitute for God’s help.

Consider cancer. We still can’t cure it. We have been building our medical knowledge ever since we were created, and there are many forms of cancer we can’t cure. Even if your cancer is curable, you may have to go through terrible things in order to be rid of it. Doctors may simply amputate things until you’re cancer-free. They cut off limbs. They cut of breasts. They cut out eyes. They cut off penises. Doctors castrated Bobby Riggs, and he died anyway. Now think about God’s way. Either he prevents you from getting cancer in the first place, or he drives it away and cuts the root instantly. No surgery. No drugs that make you vomit and lose your hair. No disfigurement. No loss of function.

I have known more than one man who had to wear diapers because of prostate surgery, and some also became impotent. All became sterile. After thousands of years of medical progress, that was the best human effort could do for them. I know a lady whose leg was removed at the hip. I would hate to guess how many women I know who are missing ovaries or their uteruses because of cancer or other problems man can’t fix.

God created us to be heirs, and heirs don’t earn. They simply receive. When man fell, he cut himself off from his inheritance. When Jesus came and made people well, he wasn’t giving them special favors. He was simply showing them what every human being was originally supposed to have, all the time.

We can’t cure a cold, the flu, arthritis, allergies, migraines, high blood pressure, diabetes…all sorts of common diseases. We can treat viral diseases, but we can’t really cure them. This is where we are after thousands of years. It’s pathetic, really. But God heals every type of problem, and he does it free of charge. Why aren’t we pursuing his help?

I’m going to pay about $8000 this year for medical insurance, even though I probably won’t see a doctor or receive any treatment. I don’t smoke. I barely drink. I’m not obese. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t have circulatory problems. I don’t take prescriptions. I still pay a fortune, because the government says I have to. That’s what man’s curse has done to me, and I’m much better off than most Americans my age. It’s remarkable that we pretend God won’t help us, considering what we spend and endure as a result.

Mark Hemans is the real deal. I’ll stick my neck out and say it. How much proof do you need? If he’s the real deal, I can be, too, and so can you. And we’re supposed to be.

One of the powerful things Hemans teaches is that you need to confess your faith. Very often, before he heals someone, he says, “Do you believe Jesus will heal you?” If the person won’t say yes, he won’t pray for them. He makes people sit down until they get their faith working, and he has people help them. They can’t weasel around, either. They can’t say, “I think he might.” They have to say they believe he will.

These days, when I pray, I say, “I believe you will do this,” and it makes my faith roar through me. Very good thing to know.

Here’s another useful practice: pray for people throughout the day. You may be busy, and you may be frustrated because you feel you can’t do anything for God. You don’t have to feel useless. Just pray for people. If you’re in a grocery store, pray that everyone on the property, and their families, will be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. If you’re driving to work, pray for all the people in all the cars you can see. Make a point of praying for people who offend and mistreat you. Pray for obnoxious people. You may think it’s a sorry excuse for a ministry, but that’s an insult to God. Your prayers do more for people than your human effort could ever do. It’s better to pray all day, all by yourself, than it is to go to Africa on a mission and build a latrine or dig a well with your own strength. Elijah shut off the rain for several years by praying alone. Try and top that with your mission trip.

God’s power is like electricity. It needs a path. It has to have a destination. When you pray for people–especially people no one else wants to pray for–you open a channel for God’s power. When all you do is sit and beg God to help you with your problems, you’re like a wire that isn’t connected to anything. The current doesn’t want to flow.

I’ve found that praying for other people–anyone I can think of–during the day increases God’s faith and peace in me. It makes sense. Why would he make his power and virtue flow through someone who only wants to help one person?

Right now I’m working on ripping Isaiah. I look forward to having this job done. I want to be able to hear the Bible when I’m driving and here at the house. Once I’m done, I should be more communicative.