In Africa they don't necessarily, because of the dark skin, do tattoos; but what they do is they do extreme forms of body piercing with the lips, and ears, and whatever.
It is about allegiance to their Gods. It's about calling on their Gods to protect them, so they don't have trouble with evil spirits. It's all over the world, so think about that - that's where it all came from.
Now we look at it, and we think: I wonder why this is such a big deal. We look in the western world - seamen would get tattoos. People were criminals, they'd get tattooed. The Nazis tattooed all the Jews - so tattoos are part of a slave culture; and part of an occult culture.
So what's the big deal anyway, if you get a nice little picture - the picture of the dove; or a cross; or ‘Jesus Loves Me’ - what is the deal about all of this stuff?
I sort of ask the question: I wonder why this is such a big issue today; and this is what I believe is the reason it's such a big issue - and this may surprise you.
How many believe that we're living in a time of unprecedented supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Okay, we all agree on that; and if you were to look into the world right now, and look at the age of the populations, you would find that more than 50 percent of the population of the world - much more than 50%, I heard it's a lot higher than that - is under 30; and it's in this age group that tattooing is very, very prominent.
Now here's why I believe it's such an issue. I believe we're living in a day of outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when God is raising a generation for whom the supernatural and miracles will be normal.
I have longed all my life for such a day. I've longed to be a young person today - how glorious. How wonderful to be in a day, and an hour, when there are miracles happening, where the power of the Holy Ghost is coming, where ordinary people moving in the gifts of the spirit; young people and older people being called up, and having visions of heaven. We're living in a day of unprecedented openness of the heavens, unprecedented miracles.
When I was involved in the church in the early days, it was rare to find anyone had any supernatural ministry at all, rare. It was rare! It was something that used to happen, but didn't happen anymore; and now 30 years later, we have a generation - and you're that generation that God is raising up.
He has in mind that you would learn how to reach into the realm of the spirit, how to discover the ways of the spirit, how to move into the heavens, and begin to experience the glory of God, engage God.
One of my children at the age of nine had an encounter, took her up to heaven. This is a great hour to be alive! This is an hour for the supernatural.
Now isn't it interesting, that in a time, and a season in history, when God is pouring out His spirit, making supernatural experiences available for a generation; that the devil is trying to make inroad after inroad into the young generation, to try and find ways to hold them, restrain them, hold them back, compromise them, destroy their lives.
Let me share with you something I found when I was in Singapore. I was in a Bible school. We had 700-800 students there, and the Lord just began to speak to me about video games opening a door through sorcery, through role playing games; and opening the imagination, through playing those games for extended times.
The Lord told me that there's a door open to the occult realm - people get involved with sorcery. I had a word of knowledge on someone, who was struggling with addiction to a particular game - and it was tormenting them, and they couldn't get this thing out of their life.