the Separation Begins By Thurmond Duke

I saw this today. It's a long read...but worth the effort:

The most dangerous and the most destructive voice(s) in your life are those that make you doubt yourself and wither and kill the dream within you. Been there, lived through that. it isn't a platitude, it is reality. As R. Carpenter has said, not everyone is meant to be in your life permanently; some are like scaffolding – they are meant to be there for a season, but when that time of building is completed, there is no longer any need for the scaffolding and it is removed.

As I talk to people and as I read and watch, it is becoming more and more apparent to me (as well as others) that there is a division taking place. If you’re not looking for it, it’s very subtle. On the other hand, well, do you remember back in the middle 90’s those images they had in the Sunday cartoons, the ones where if you held it close to your eyes and let them unfocus and then drew the picture away this amazing 3D image became apparent, appearing almost like magic? The similarity is that if you’re looking and can perceive it you can see the dividing that is going on. What we see now is just the beginning of what is going to take place. It’s a little like the proverbial snowball on top of the mountain. It isn’t all that big now, but as it continues downhill it’s going to get bigger and it will move faster.

Why the division? Simply put, it is part of the will of God and the plan of God. In 1984 while at seminary, I had to do a paper and presentation for a class. While doing the research for the paper, I came across some information that the Lord led me to, and I did dual research for a while, and continued researching it while I was there and had the resources available. It had to do with Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Some people at a think tank had researched her thoroughly and documented her travels to Nazi Germany, her talks with leading Nazi thinkers, movers, and shakers, and the fact that they weren’t just similar in thought and ideology, they were virtually identical. They then translated articles on eugenics, birth control, abortion, and that whole program of Nazi thought from leading German publications, and set them side by side with articles Sanger and her followers published in the US, and showed that in some instances they were so similar they were close to being thought for thought, word for word. It was my introduction to the parallels between Germany and the USA . The Nazis hated Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, and most people think they thought the Jews were the lowest of the low. Not so. There was one subset of humanity they thought was lower than the Jews – black people. And what better way to practice eugenics and deplete an undesirable subset of humanity than to make their ethnic cleansing a right and have them demand the right to do so? [Don’t believe me? Do some research on your own. Research the total number of abortions that have been performed and what percentage of those are of African heritage.] It is a diabolically brilliant plan, brilliantly executed. And dumb butt ignorant preachers want to stand in front of me and tell me the devil is stupid...?

I had to explain that so you’ll know how the Lord alerted me to something twenty seven years ago, which is how this country is being manipulated. I don’t name groups and I could care less about conspiracy theories. It’s just that the Lord asked me twenty years ago “Do you think the Antichrist is just going to spring up out of nowhere with no support group or support system?” I have lived through these frenetic end time ‘states of heightened awareness’ before. When I was young, everyone thought the end times were right on top of us. Every conservative Bible teacher out there was teaching that Jesus said “when the fig tree buds” referred to the reestablishment of Israel as a nation and that was the generation of the tribulation and Christ’s return. And since “everyone” knew that the fig tree represented Israel, and Israel, which had not literally existed since Titus burned Jerusalem in AD70, had been reestablished in 1948, and “everyone” knew that a Biblical generation was 40 years, “everyone” could look at 1988 as the year of Christ’s return and 1981 as the beginning of the tribulation. Oh yes, friends, I was there. I was teaching it. There are many now who will not admit it, but they did too. We had the sure word of scripture as our authority. I got married in 1977, and I remember telling my new wife, “You know, if we’re right about this it will be a short marriage.” But then 1981 came, and no sign of any tribulation. No rapture. 1988 came. No rapture, no Antichrist, no end times. So then a Biblical generation became maybe fifty years, then sixty years; now some people are saying maybe a Biblical generation is seventy, eighty, maybe even a hundred years. Hogwash and horse apples!!! We Americans are so bloody arrogant. We have to be on top of everything, know everything, and have the answer to everything. We will not admit it when we are wrong, we will not admit we got it wrong.

We cannot humble ourselves under the scripture that with regard to that day, no man can know when it is , it is reserved for the Father alone . Having said that, knowing that the day is twenty three years closer than it was in 1988, it isn’t what people around me are saying that makes me feel that we are dangerously close to the day of the Lord, it’s what I feel in my heart. It is that whisper of the Holy Spirit. For thirty four years I have continually served the Lord. I have paid attention to prophecy. I have studied scripture and commentaries. I have read books. I have prayed. I have listened to teachings. I have watched our society degenerate. In less than the space of a lifetime I have seen the culture deteriorate to something I don’t even recognize. My high school years were 1965 to 1969. In those years yes, there was sex, but the girls having it kept it as quiet as humanly possible. Now we have friends with benefits, abortion on demand, and girls routinely get pregnant and have babies in high school without benefit of marriage. And it’s just as much a problem within the church as it is outside of it. When is the church going to wake up and admit that it has lost the battle with the culture? When is the church going to admit it has been an abject failure with its youth?

I’ve never had much of a voice that anyone ever cared to listen to, but thirty years ago I saw churches, from conservative non-Spirit filled to Spirit filled adopting this strategy of making the church as much like the world as it could, the idea being “See? We’re not so different… You don’t have to be like those fanatics who believe in separation and holiness to be a good Christian.” I said then that strategy would destroy the church, and I was right. The church compromised, and it lost its young people. Think I’m wrong? Talk to them. Ask them what they think about abortion. Ask them what they think about homosexuality. Ask them if they thing “Jesus is THE way, THE, truth, THE life, and that no one comes to the Father but through HIM.” Ask them if they know astrology/(horoscopes) were called an abomination by God in the Old Testament. Ask them what they think about Wicca, or the “old religions,” the “earth” religions. Ask them if they believe in absolutes. If you talk to them long enough, you will find out most are terribly uncomfortable with the idea of sharing their faith with someone else, especially with a mind to asking them to accept Jesus as their Savior. In other words, they don’t accept evangelism, because they are “uncomfortable” with the idea of “imposing” their faith and value system on someone else. In other words, the multiculturalists have won the ideological war that all faiths are equally valid and attempting to convert someone is imposing their value system on someone else, which is not tolerant. [Of course, that notion doesn’t apply to Muslims who are converting others.]

I have watched. I have studied. I have seen the culture degenerate. I have noted, as the Lord wished me to, how our decline and the ideas now being promoted bear a remarkable resemblance to Germany from the Weimar Republic to the rise Of the Nazis. America is being deliberately polarized. I’m not the only person who’s figured out our society has precipitously fallen an incredible way in an inordinately short amount of time. I am, after all, a little fish in a huge pond… My country is being polarized. The principalities and powers in the heavenlies and their pawns here on our plane are driving us like we’re game in a hunt. The polarization is deliberate so when the engineered crisis occurs and bedlam is let loose upon this country the people will cry out for a leader to bring peace, order, stability, and a return to the old values. We will vote him in just the same as the Germans voted for Hitler. If this engineered crisis comes on the heels a catastrophic natural disaster, like the California quake and the releasing of the Northwest volcanoes, there will be pure hell to pay. All this is reality to me. I’m just waiting for it to unfold.

As far as people are concerned, I take my stand with Amos. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet. I’m a little fish in a big ocean. But the Lord has spoken, who can but prophecy? But I do know this, because the Lord just “spoke” it to me – do not be deceived by any time, any season, by anything that happens, or by any situation you find yourself in or by anything you must face. The dragon will fall.

Now, in the last few months, and what ties all of this together, is the answer to the question “Why?” As I read the Old Testament, the Lord has been drawing me away from the comparison of the USA to Germany. Instead He keeps impressing upon me, deeply impressing in my spirit, the similarity of Jerusalem/ Judah with America. I love reading, studying, and teaching from the Old Testament, but it’s becoming almost painful to do so. I read daily the messages of the prophets to Judah, and it’s as if they were speaking not to them but to us. God is telling me to notice the parallels only between Judah and America, and it’s as if the Spirit within me were “standing” over every passage, passages like this:

…But your wrongdoing has upset nature’s order, and your sins have kept you from her kindly gifts, For among my people there are wicked men, who lay snares like a fowler’s net, and set deadly traps to catch men. Their houses are full of fraud, as a cage is full of birds. They grow rich and grand, bloated and rancorous, Their thoughts are all full of evil, and they refuse to do justice, The claims of the orphan they do not put right Nor do they grant justice to the poor. ‘Shall I not punish them for this?’ Says the Lord; Shall I not take vengeance on such a people? An appalling thing, an outrage, has appeared in this land: Prophets prophecy lies and priests go hand in hand with them, And My people love to have it so. How will you fare at the end of it all? (Jer: 5:25-31, NEB)

The Spirit is standing over the passage and He’s pointing at them and He’s like a totally frustrated tutor and He’s asking “Don’t you get it? Don’t you see it? Do you not understand? I am the Lord, and I do not change. My word never goes out of my mouth void! It will never return to me void! It never has in the past, and it never will today, or ever!”

The parallel about which we should have fear and trembling is between America and Judah. We should rediscover a true fear of God and tremble at His word. (A quick aside about the fear of the Lord. The notion that it is just a reverential fear and awe is a nice enough notion and it preaches well and it doesn’t upset the donation plate. But go back and read Exodus 19:1 through 20:21. Brothers and sisters, these people had a real life, space-time encounter with the true and living God, and it scared the boogers out of them. Then read about people’s encounters with the resurrected Jesus. They all fell at His feet as if dead. Then figure out that Hebrews isn’t kidding when it says “it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” which is exactly what is going to happen to this world, to this society, and all of us in it...only the children of God will not see God's wrath.) There must be repentance, and it must begin with us. Because of all of this, there is a separation beginning. The Lord is beginning to cull people out of our lives.

There are people who will read this and it will mean nothing to them. They are what I call the 167 Club. That’s the ones who say they are Christians but for 167 out of 168 hours a week they live as the world lives. Remember that snappy little witticism that used to show up on church signs “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” These are the one who, if they judged themselves and examined their own lives would have to say, “NO. There isn’t enough to convince anyone I believe in Jesus.” Your words alone are not enough. Your life must reflect Jesus. Yes, I believe in salvation by grace through faith alone, but if your confession of faith is real, if it truly meant anything, it will result in a changed life and a different life. If you have but one hour a week for God, if you have no real prayer life, if you never spend time in the Word of God (eg, you have no fellowship with God), if your friends are all nonbelievers, if your talk is about anything but the faith and your words are not those you would use in church, ask yourself, do you really have anything? If you’d rather go to a bar than meet with believers, you have a problem. If you talk like one of those bleeped out people on Jersey Shore, you have a problem. Or did you go down the aisle of a church to mumble some words to get yourself a “get out of hell free” card and then leave to live your life just the same as before and no one would otherwise know that you are supposedly a Christian? Brothers and sisters, people like that have no use for words like these and they are an offense to them. No, I do not judge you or anyone else.

Who am I to judge? I’m just a little fish in a big ocean. But I will not be guilty of your blood, and I will not stand in front of my Savior and have Him ask me why I didn’t love you/them enough to give you fair warning. us. will begin to separate themselves OF Such people - who are among us - In the days to come, this may hit some, as it did me, terribly close to home. In Corinthians Paul told his readers that even if an unbelieving spouse wanted to leave, not to stop them. The unbelievers among us are going to be made manifest, even those who call themselves believers now. They will walk away from the faith and true believers because they are not of us. They spoke some words, but their hearts were untouched. I did not say unmoved, I said untouched. Their tears are Saul’s tears. They will leave believers and churches where they are challenged to leave the commonplace and the compromise behind. Those believers and churches that challenge them to step out boldly into the life of faith will be an offense to them. Any believer who says “I will follow God anywhere, any time, at any cost – come with me” will be an offense and a rock of stumbling to them. They may continue to live a charade of a Christian life, but they are not the Lord’s, they are their own. Therefore, they will separate themselves from those who choose to follow God with singleness of heart and seek out their own; they will walk in their own paths and keep company with those who will not disturb their carefully arranged illusions.

Of course we should entreat them, implore them, speak encouragement to them, witness to them, pray for them, but if they choose to go, let them go. Do not attempt to retain yesterday’s manna – it just turns into worms. Let them go. Bless them as they go. Mourn the loss if you must, but let them go. You must strengthen yourself in the faith for today’s battles, not mope over yesterday. God has people for you to meet, people with whom you can fellowship, people who can strengthen you and add to you, not just take from you. People to whom you must witness, and people you must disciple. Pruning is not pleasant, but it is necessary if we are to be fruitful. The separating is beginning. Judgment begins at the house of God. Pray without ceasing, because if our world is rocked, what will it be like when the judgment hits the world with full force, like the earthquake hit Japan. It is a time for consecrating, for setting apart, and for prayer.