J____ wrote:

Hi mike,
Hope you and your family are well. I was just watching the easter celebrations on the T. V. and wondering as I watched their joyous faces worshiping, how most of them are entwined in Babylon. Are we not to worship in spirit and in TRUTH (Joh 4:23). I guess what I’m asking: is all that mass showing out and backslapping preaching to the masses acceptable to God? I suppose it’s part of my maturing that I no longer am part of all that. It all just was a show for the itching ears brigade.
Thanks Mike.
J____

Hi J____,

Yes, we are to worship in spirit and in TRUTH. But in spite of all the talk about love and truth, there is neither one in Babylon. It has been replaced with mere rhetoric. “Love thine enemies” will not be tolerated in Babylon. And the Truth of God’s sovereignty over both good and evil will not be tolerated in Babylon. Confessing to God’s sovereignty is to dethrone the beast, and the beast receives his power and great authority from the dragon. And the dragon will not be dethroned without an earthshaking struggle.

Rev 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

That is plain language and yet it is so very few who are willing to be “separated from their brothers in Christ. “We need to just all love one another” is what they say. And they say it for the purpose of annulling words like these:

Deu 33:16 (b) … Let the blessing come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the head of him that was separated from his brethren.

“Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say” has been replaced with “Love is all that matters.” And this is the argument in our own midst all too often. Heb 6:1-2 is not written in vain. Eternal judgment is but milk, and yet it is as far as most want to go. Separation in any real sense is just not comfortable.
Joseph knew that his brothers “hated him and could not speak peaceably unto him.” And yet when his father sent him to check out how his brothers were doing with their father’s flocks, Joseph’s words were “Here am I.”

Gen 37:8 And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.
Gen 37:9 And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
Gen 37:10 And he told [ it] to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?
Gen 37:11 And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.
Gen 37:12 And his brethren went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.
Gen 37:13 And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.
Gen 37:14 And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.
Gen 37:18 And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him.
Gen 37:19 And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.
Gen 37:20 Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

Christ tells us the rest of the story in the parable of the evil husbandmen:

Mat 21:35 And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another.
Mat 21:36 Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise.
Mat 21:37 But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.
Mat 21:38 But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance.
Mat 21:39 And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him.
Mat 21:40 When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen?
Mat 21:41 They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

Being separated and hated is just simply more than most in this time are able to bear. It has not been given to them. Let us pray that we are able to be “separated from our brothers” and receive the blessing of Joseph.
Mike