The Only Acceptance That Helps is Acceptance of Rejection

I heard something surprising today in a video by Mark Hemans. He said he rarely goes to church.

Hemans is a healer who goes around prophesying and delivering people. A lot of his videos are shot in churches. So how can he say he doesn’t go to church?

He said his small grandson was with him recently, and they were walking to a hotel where Hemans was going to have a meeting. The grandson said the hotel was where “church” would be that night. The point of the story is to show that “church” is any place where people get together with God.

It looks like Hemans is trying to say he doesn’t go to church buildings for regular services. I don’t, either. But we are still part of the body. I haven’t been inside a church for maybe two years, but I’m not excommunicated, estranged, defrocked, or whatever. I’m as legitimate as any Christian.

The word “church” is a translation of a Greek word that referred generally to any group of people who belonged to God. It doesn’t mean an organization, building, or denomination. If you have 10 people over for prayer, you are literally in church in your own house. It’s not an imitation of church. It’s not an unauthorized church. It’s not a lower grade of church. It’s plain old church; legitimate and fully accredited with God.

Yes, you can have a real church without TV cameras. Hard to believe, I know.

In the same sermon, he talked a lot about getting impediments out of your life. As I listened, I felt like I was hearing myself. God tells everyone exactly the same things, so if you hear from him, and you listen to other people who hear from him, you will get confirmation of things you have already been told. My wife confirms such things to me every day.

He said it was important to get cursed objects out of our houses. Boy, do I agree. I threw out thousands of dollars’ worth of Cuban cigars. I threw out thousands of dollars’ worth of CD’s and vinyl. I threw out my dad’s Masonic garbage. I threw out heirlooms. I burned another religion’s scripture. I tore Rick Warren’s terrible, destructive book in half and threw it out so no one else would be hurt by it.

Unforgiveness and a desire to get reparations are like cursed objects. You have to dump them if you want to move on. It’s important to get used to being better to other people than they are to you.

He criticizes tattoos. Christians get really mad about this. They get gaudy tattoos of crosses, Hebrew words, and scriptures, and they claim God loves it.

God hates tattoos. They come from pagan cultures. American Indians, Africans, and Polynesians worship the devil, and along with other toxic cultures, they brought us tattooing. Post-Christian Europe doesn’t have much of a tattooing tradition. Apparently, once Europeans turned to God, they had more sense than to stain themselves. Tattoos are Satan’s parodies of torah verses written on animal skins.

Look up the history of tattooing. It’s about demon worship. It comes from religion, not the arts. Yoga is religion, not exercise, and tattoos are based in religion, not art. Many martial arts are religions. I had a karate instructor tell me I had to bow and make gestures when I entered his studio. A lot of things that come from exotic cultures are evil.

I’ve seen Hemans tell people the demons that were ruining their lives came in through tattoos.

Honoring God with a tattoo is like honoring him with a bong shaped like a cross.

I have no use for tattooed hipster preachers. First of all, hipsters are appeasers. They want to be cool, which is an undeniable symptom of the spirit of antichrist. If the spirit of antichrist has so much power over you he can make you turn yourself into a circus freak, the Holy Spirit is not dominant in you. He would never agree. Second, they have no knowledge. If you don’t know tattoos are bad, you are definitely wrong about a lot of other things, so I shouldn’t let you teach me.

Seems like tattoo preachers are always proud. They want people to admire them, not God. Why else would a person spend thousands of dollars decorating himself like a pagan prostitute, especially if he has a family to support?

Hemans says some people should get rid of TV and social media. He has a Facebook account, but he’s not using it to share stupid memes, read political indoctrination, or gossip. He quit using it for worldly things. He just informs people about his meetings and so on. He says he got a revelation that he should quit looking at the news, too.

I agree with all these things. In about 2015, I underwent what I call “the little rapture.” I quit Facebook and the other social diseases…I mean ministries…and I felt a whole lot better. I rarely expose myself to secular entertainment or even Christian entertainment, which is often the same thing. I think I need to keep looking for things to get rid of.

People are so ignorant and arrogant; it’s discouraging. You write about separating yourself from Satan’s world, and they call you a legalist. They have no idea what legalism is, but they’re sure that anyone who tells them to stop doing anything is a legalist.

Legalism is about substituting a game with a point system for a relationship with the Holy Spirit, who is God. You rack up points by doing things you think are good, and you avoid demerits by obeying rules that tell you not to do other things. God adds up the points, and if you score high enough, you get into heaven. Legalism is about pride. It’s about presenting God with a bill. “I did this, so you owe me help and salvation.” Job was a legalist until God corrected him.

Telling people not to do stupid things is not legalism. If I tell you not to walk through a minefield, it’s not legalism. Cursed objects, tattoos, and social sites are land mines. They give evil spirits access to you and your family.

My mother told me not to smoke. It was a rule she made. I obeyed it. My sister started smoking practically in the crib, and she got lung cancer. Was my mother being legalistic?

I wish she had made more rules, but she was a neglectful mother. I hate to say it, because I am used to idealizing her. It’s true. On the one hand, she loved me more than she loved herself, and she was extremely generous with me and she took care of me, but on the other, she and my dad didn’t teach me very much, and the neglect wrecked my life.

Hemans also talked about adopting the culture of heaven. I’ve been talking about this a lot this month. You can read things I’ve written about it recently. God really does tell us all the same things. The problem is that we reject speaking in tongues, so he doesn’t get many opportunities to talk to us. The ones who listen learn a lot, and when they try to share it, the others try to kill them.

Sooner or later, I will see some preacher somewhere telling people something else God told me: the rapture is not just a one-time event; it’s a process. God is not going to come down and pull you off the top of a whore. He’s not going to pull naked men out of a bathhouse. He’s not going to lift Christians out of yoga studios or Antifa meetings because at some point in the past they raised their hands for 15 seconds while watching Joel Osteen. He’s going to take people who are already sick of this place, not the ones who love it.

The Bible says God gives people the desires of their hearts. This isn’t just true for Christians. People who desire to be left alone by God will get their wish.

“He who loves his life will lose it.” This verse doesn’t mean you should be suicidal. It means you should love heaven and hate the culture of Earth. How can anyone question this? Jesus says Satan is the god of this world. How can you be conformed to God’s nature and not hate the culture of a world Satan rules? It’s not possible.

If you want to be taken in the rapture, you have to be ready to go. By the time Jesus comes, you should have gotten sick of TV, popular music, the culture of the Internet, drugs, drunkenness, lewdness, vengefulness, ostentation, pride, greed, leftism, feminism, and all the other nasty things worldly people love.

When I felt I needed to turn back to God, I resisted because I was afraid I’d become a fanatic again. In reality, fanaticism is the best thing that happened to me. It saved me and freed me from people and situations that made me miserable. The Bible says to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength. How is that not extreme?

I’m very glad to see someone confirm the things I’ve been told. I wish there was a way to convince more people to tap into the information pipeline. We could be much more helpful to each other.