The Heavenly Bridegroom
That He is mine and I am His, Oh! wondrous thought.
I am so poor, so weak, so lowly, can there aught
Of worthiness in me be found, that He should love
And seek me for His Bride? I hear His voice, “My Dove,
Thou art all fair, My Spouse, there is no spot in thee;
Thy speech is comely, better is thy love to Me
Than wine! Thine eyes as Heshbon's fish-pools, and like flocks
Upon Mount Gilead are thy spiced and flower-decked locks.
The winter's past, My Dove, come, come with Me away,
Far spent the night, make ready for thy nuptial day!”
My heart responds, “Throughout the many-centuried night
I've longed for Thee. I've waited for the dawning light;
And I have laid Thee like sweet myrrh upon my breast,
Thine arm beneath my weary head hath brought me rest.
Thou whom my soul doth love, Thy countenance is fair
To see within the secret places of the stair;
Thy head is like fine gold, how beautiful Thy feet!
Thine eyes as doves' eyes, and Thy lips with honey sweet.
I rise, my Lord, I leave my father's house, behold
My Robe of Righteousness, my raiment of wrought gold!
Oh! wealth of love divine, that claims me for Thine own.
Oh! miracle of grace, to seat me on Thy Throne.
Oh! glorious future hopes, Oh! bliss beyond compare,
Through all eternity Thy love and work to share!”
—G.W.S.
June 25, 1917.
The Book Of The Prophet Ezekiel
Ezekiel 1—God's Character And Plan
1:1. Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, at I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.—Christ promised that at His Second Advent He would raise up a “faithful and wise servant,” or “steward,” who should watch and give forth in due season meat for the Household of Faith. This one should be given charge of all the Storehouse, the Word of God, to bring out of it things new and old. (Matt. 24:44-47; Luke 12:42-44.) The Prophet Ezekiel types this servant. As Ezekiel was among the Lord's people, the Hebrews, in captivity in literal Babylon, this servant was among those in captivity in Mystic Babylon, beside the great river Chebar (“Joining”), the stream of commerce which joins the nations, on which Christendom is founded, and from which she draws her support, as did in a literal sense Babylon from her great river, Euphrates. In the early seventies Charles Taze Russell found himself engaged in commerce, but earnestly studying the Word of God, and striving to teach what he found therein. In fulfilment of the Divine promise the Heavenly things were opened to him (Matt. 3:16), and he saw the significance of the visions, prophecies, given in olden times by the Almighty. He was given a crystal-clear understanding of the character of Jehovah.
Ezekiel's Vision By The River Of Chebar
1:2, 3. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, the Word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the Lord was there upon him.—Men do not raise themselves up to become great and honored agents in God's outworking of the Divine Plan of the Ages (Luke 18:14; Eph. 3:11); but now and then throughout the centuries Jehovah Himself (1 Cor. 12:18) has raised up Christian men to carry forward one step or another of His purposes. God made special use of St Paul, St John, Arius, Peter Waldo, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther and Charles T. Russell. The significance of the word Ezekiel is “God is [pg 368] strong,” and epitomizes the faith and the message of Pastor Russell. He shows the power of Jehovah to save His people now (Acts 15:14), and later to save all the willing and obedient of mankind. (Acts 15:17.) As Ezekiel was the son of Buzi, “Contemned of God,” Pastor Russell was born the child of a nominal religious system which is unfaithful to Jehovah. Pastor Russell, by the faithful carrying out of his vow of consecration to Divine service, was accepted as a true priest of the Almighty. He sacrificed himself and all that he had until, in October, 1916, he died penniless, but rich in the things of God. Chosen expressly by God to declare the message of Present Truth to the last, or Laodicean age, of the Church, the hand, power, of Jehovah was upon him.
1:4. And I looked and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it; and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.—As a young man Charles T. Russell was looking intently to see what might be discerned in the Word of God. “Watch,” said the Master. Pastor Russell took for his motto, “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what He will say unto me.” (Hab. 2:1) He called his semi-monthly publication, “The Watch Tower”; and, firm in the belief that the Second Advent took place in 1874, he included as a sub-title, “And Herald of Christ's Presence.” The north symbolizes the spiritual phase of the Kingdom of God. (Isa. 14:13; D. 653.) Pastor Russell beheld coming, permitted by God, a great Time of Trouble, a whirlwind of warfare, revolution and anarchy. (Jer. 25:32; Psa. 58:9, 10; D. 528.) It was the cloud accompanying the approach to human affairs of Him for whose Kingdom many have so long prayed. “Clouds and darkness are round about Him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His Throne, a fire goeth before Him and burneth up His enemies round about.” (Psa. 97:2) A conflagration, beginning with world war, is upon the earth, developing into revolution and anarchy. Fire symbolises the last of these misfortunes. (Dan. 7:11) The situation is complicated, infolding, perplexing. None of the national leaders understand the situation. To the poor world, in gross darkness, and lying “in the wicked one,” the cloud is full of darkness (Isa. 60:2), of gloominess (Joel 2:2; Zeph. 1:15); but to those who are taken out of the world and into Christ, it is full of brightness and hope—a white cloud, with a silver lining. In the bright light of the dawning Day of Christ the faces of the Lord's people light up with joy as they see these things coming to pass; for [pg 369] their “deliverance draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28)—the deliverance, too, of the whole world from the kingdom of Satan, the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), into the glorious Kingdom of God, the other side of the trouble. With the understanding of God, His work, plan and purpose, there shone forth the amber, golden glow of the Divine presence, and of the true character, nature and glory of the Almighty God of Love. The Father Himself is supervising the troublous commotion, bruising to heal (Hos. 6:1), and “shortening the days.”—Matt. 24:22.
One Of The Living Creatures
1:5. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.—Out of the contemplation of the cloud of trouble, the worldwide commotion, the destructive anarchy, and of the golden amber glow of God's presence, came a wonderful understanding of something long misunderstood and misrepresented—the character of God. As the vision showed “four living creatures,” so the Divine character was seen by the Laodicean steward to consist of four active principles (Rev. 3:14); Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom. The four have the likeness of a perfect man.
1:6. And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.—Each of the four attributes has four characteristics or attributes; and each has the Word of God (wings—Rev. 12:14), in the Old and New Testament, in two different ways of operation (two pairs).
1:7. And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf's foot: and they sparkled like the colour of burnished brass.—The feet members of Christ, embodying the Divine attributes on earth, are righteous (straight) in Christ's righteousness, pure, unblemished in God's sight, holy, acceptable, living sacrifices (the calf is a type of unblemished sacrifice); and they shine with the imputed perfection of the Man Christ Jesus.
1:8. And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides: and they four had their faces and their wings.—The hand is symbolic of power and of execution of purpose. Overshadowed by the Word of God is the Divine power (hand) to execute the thing purposed, operating through human channels, through the power of men. He shows the qualities of the Divine mind through man. Shielded, protected, sustained by the Word (wings)—(Psa. 61:4), the work of the Almighty goes on through “the foolishness of preaching.” (1 Cor. 1:21.) Men and women are “coworkers with God.” (2 Cor. 6:1.) The hands (powers) of man are instruments for the operation of infinite Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom.
1:9. Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went everyone straight forward.—The wings (Psa. 91:4; Rev. 12:14) are perfectly joined together in unity of purpose and action. Straight on to the end ordained of God goes His Word, upholding and strengthening.—Isa. 46:10, 11.
1:10. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.—The character of Jehovah possesses four fundamental attributes, each composed of all the others. The four faces or features of the living creatures represent the four attributes of God, each inseparable from the others, and in each operate each and all of the four. Divine Justice operates in the fulness of Power, Love and Wisdom. In the fall of man into sin, unbending Justice enforced death for disobedience. Love delayed the execution of the sentence upon Adam 930 years (Gen. 5:5), that Wisdom might impress upon the erring human son an indelible lesson of the exceeding sinfulness of sin (Rom. 7:13) and the extent of the penalty, death, that man, by said experience, might “know evil.” (Gen. 3:5.) Divine power will raise man from the dead, that he may learn to “know good” and experience the fulness of the Father's Love and Wisdom. All who are willing and obedient, who consecrate fully to God's will, shall enjoy “pleasures forevermore” (Psa. 16:11) in the sunshine of Divine favor. The unwilling and disobedient shall suffer the full penalty of Justice in the Second Death (Rev. 21:8), “utter destruction” (2 Thes. 1:9), final and eternal obliteration. (Psa. 37:10.) The face of a man symbolizes the quality of Love, in the character image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27), the God of love. (1 John 4:8.) The ox represents Power (Rev. 4:7); for no animal is stronger, or more patient in the exercise of strength. The majestic lion is God's Justice, roaring its message of death, and executing all that oppose its voice. (Psa. 89:14.) No other creature is so far-sighted, or soars so high as the eagle. The eagle symbolizes Wisdom, far-seeing, ordering all the affairs of the Almighty along the lines of Justice, Power and Love.
1:11. Thus were their faces: and their wings were stretched upward; two wings of every one were joined one to another, and two covered their bodies.—Each pair of wings (Rev. 12:14) symbolizes a separate function of God's Word; one pair to fly with, to carry forward the Plan in the spirit realm, the powers of the air (Eph. 2:2), the other to uphold “all things by the Word” (Heb. 1:3) and to cover and protect.—Psa. 91:4.
1:12. And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.—Not with wavering, as darkened minds imagine, proceeds the Divine Word, but “without variableness or shadow of turning.” (Jas. 1:17.) Wheresoever the mind, or Spirit, of Jehovah sends forth His Word, thither straight onward go perfect Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom.
1:13. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.—God's Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom glow with the light of wisdom. The understanding of God's attributes makes every quality of the Almighty to glow with a wondrous illumination to anyone given to see the “visions of God” first perceived clearly by the Laodicean Servant. “Thy Word is a lamp” (Psa. 119:105), shedding light in the darkness, effecting a personal local illumination. The Word is a lamp to the “feet” members of Christ. (Eph. 1:23.) Up and down, everywhere, throughout all the Divine qualities, wherever manifested, spreads the illumination now shining through the Lamp, the Word.
1:14. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.—In the operation of Divine Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom are sudden gleams of Heavenly wisdom upon great problems, such as now light up the dark clouds of the Time of Trouble.
1:15. Now as I beheld the living creatures, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces.—The word “cycle,” or “wheel,” is familiar in bicycle, motorcycle, and in cycle as applied to epochs. The Divine attributes operate upon human society, the symbolic earth, in cycles, or ages (Eph. 3:11), and in the mechanisms of ages by which God's Plan is carried forward, His character, or face, is seen.
1:16. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the colour of a beryl: and they four had one likeness; and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel.—Pliny says of the beryl or chrysolithos, “It is a transparent stone with a refulgence like that of gold.” Says Smith's Bible Dictionary, “The ancient chrysolithos, or modern topaz, appears to have a better claim than any other stone to represent the tarshish of the Hebrew Bible.” Gold is symbolic of things Divine. These golden cycles are the Divinely appointed ages in connection with the four attributes of [pg 374] Deity. The Divine operations are not in one simple age, cycle, or manner of operation, but cycle within cycle, age within age, many operations working together “manifold” (Eph. 3:10), like a vast and complicated machine.
1:17. When they went, they went upon their four sides; and they turned not when they went.—Divine Justice conflicts not with Divine Love, nor with Wisdom nor Power, but all qualities are in simultaneous operation. They proceed along lines planned ages ago.—Jas. 1:17.
1:18. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four.—“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways (plans) higher than your ways.” (Isa. 55:9.) The Plan of the Ages reveals the lengths, breadths, heights and depths of the purposes of God, and fills the reverent soul with awe. The Plan of God is full of the infinite Wisdom (eyes—Psa. 32:8) of its Author.—B. 305.
1:19. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.—Whenever God's attributes operate they are in accordance with the Divine Plan; sometimes the Divine qualities are exercised towards celestial things and sometimes towards things terrestrial.—1 Cor. 15:40.
1:20. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.—The Spirit, or Power of God, is in all His attributes and in all their operations.
1:21. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.—In whatever direction the Divine Spirit is to act, whether in earthly things or among spirit beings, thither the operations of the Spirit go in the cooperative action of all God's attributes. When an age is finished and one attribute ceases its action, they all cease.
1:22. And the likeness of the firmament upon the heads of the living creature was as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above.—The firmament in the air or atmosphere (Gen. 1:20), and symbolizes the powers of spiritual control. Above the attributes of God and controlling their operations is the Divine will. The expression of God's will during the time indicated by the vision is the Christ, Head and Body. “All power in Heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18) is given unto Christ, and will [pg 375] be shared by His Bride and Joint-heir. (Rev. 20:4.) “The terrible crystal”—literally “the reverential ice”—suggests the reverence due to the ruling Christ Head and Body, and their own reverential attitude towards the Father. The color is that of ice, clear as crystal, pure, unmixed “truth in the inward parts” (Psa. 51:6), characterizing the new ruling powers in the spiritual phase of the Kingdom of God.
1:23. And under the firmament were their wings straight, the one toward the other: every one had two, which covered on this side, and every one had two, which covered on that side, their bodies.—Beneath, subject to the direction of the Christ, Head and Church triumphant, are the wings (Word of God—Rev. 12:14). Whenever Divine Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom are in action, the Word of God points straight up to the Father as the Source of every good thing.
1:24. And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of a host: when they stood, they let down their wings.—The sound of the Father's Word is as the voice of great waters (Rev. 1:15), mighty truths, in “the voice of speech,” for the benefit of His children. It is the voice of God, too, when spoken by His people. When Divine Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom operate upon human society, then the Word of God is in full harmony therewith.
1:25. And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings.—It is through the reigning Christ, Zion, that the voice of Jehovah shall sound forth. “The Lord will roar from Zion.” (Amos 1:2.) “Out of Zion shall go forth the Law.” (Isa. 2:3.) Through The Christ sounds forth the Word of God bespeaking to the world infinite Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom.
1:26. And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a Man above upon it.—“THE HEAD OF CHRIST IS GOD.” (1 Cor. 11:3.) Above the triumphant Christ, Head and Body, is the Throne of Almighty God. “The Son [is] subject to Him that put all things under Him.” (1 Cor. 15:28.) The Throne represents the dominion of God. As the blue sapphire (symbolic of faithfulness), so is the rulership of the Almighty. “God is faithful.” (1 Cor. 1:9.) In the contemplation of the watchers, the faithfulness, unchangeableness of God, is seen shining through the Christ, the firmament, like the [pg 376] soft blue of the sapphire stone. Man is in the image and likeness of God. Reigning over all is One whom men can understand, a Deity whose perfect Justice, Power, Love and Wisdom elicit complete consecration. God is seen to be not a ferocious demon, belying His own command of love, but a just, reasonable, loving God, able to save all the willing and obedient. Jesus, the friend of sinners, was and is the perfect image of the Father.
1:27. And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of His loins even upward, and from the appearance of His loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.—“God dwelleth in light whereto no man can approach.” (1 Tim. 6:16.) Radiant is the Almighty with the golden glow of the Divine nature. “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29); only the perfect can stand in His presence; for all dross, not refinable (Mal. 3:2, 3), is consumed by Justice. The essence of the Divine Revelation is Love, the golden light radiating in every direction from Our Father. “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light” (1 John 2:10), in the Divine love-light that surrounds the Throne and pervades the entire spirit realm. This love is the light of the world, to light men unto God.
1:28. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.—The Throne and He that sat thereon were surrounded by all the colors of the rainbow. (Rev. 4:3.) The love spirit finds fruitage in character fruits. So the light of our Father is divisible into the warm red of love, the glowing blue of faithfulness, the brilliant green of immortality, the royal purple of kingship, for those on any plane who are worthy of that honor, etc.—the manifestation of every good character fruit and every good purpose for the blessing of all His creatures. (John 15:8; Gal. 5:22.) The glory of God is not a display of blinding light to terrify men; but it is to do good, to manifest to the uttermost His character of love. When the watchman of the Laodicean age discerned the Divine character and Plan he fell upon his face (Rev. 1:17), in reverential worship and in complete consecration to do the will of his Father in Heaven. There sounded forth and through him, from the pages of God's Word (Isa. 30:21), the voice of the Sublime One who has been speaking to Christendom during this dawn of the Golden Age.
Ezekiel 2—The Rebellious House And The Book
2:1. And He said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee.—It is a mark of favor to stand before a king. (Prov. 22:29.) Those who stand before rulers receive commissions, are invested with authority and power.
2:2. And the spirit entered into me when He spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard Him that spake unto me.—“The words which I speak, they are spirit.” (John 6:63.) When the full import of the Word was discerned, Pastor Russell took a firm stand. The spirit, power, influence of God entered into him, never to leave. He stood firmly, before God, before his friends, and before all the hostile hosts of Mystic Babylon the Great.
2:3. And He said unto me, Son of man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that hath rebelled against Me; they and their fathers have transgressed against Me, even unto this very day.—Pastor Russell's work was largely among professing Christians—not slum work, Christian work among the professedly non-Christians, or a revivalistic work calling to repentance and conversion. This was not the work appropriate to the Harvest of the Christian Age. John the Baptist announced the First Presence of Messiah, and began the harvesting of Jewry, and was not sent to the heathen, but to the Lord's people, the Jews, to acquaint them with the First Advent, expose those withholding the keys of knowledge (Luke 11:52), and warn of the impending destruction of Jerusalem and Judea in A. D. 70 and 73. (Matt. 3:7; 24:2.) A like work was to be accomplished in Spiritual Israel, Christendom, after the Lord's Second Advent in 1874. The man raised up, “set upon his feet,” and given wisdom, grace and power for the task, was Pastor Russell.
2:4. For they are impudent children and stiff-hearted. I do send thee unto them; and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God.—Few things are more trying than a family of impudent children. Forwardness in evil-doing and evil-speaking was one of the characteristics of the Hebrew people. They violated the Word of God and justified the violation. (Matt. 15:5.) By impudent—hard faced—tradition they made void the Word of God. The [pg 378] effrontery of the “Christian” era has been unsurpassed. Possessing greatest light, they have sinned most grievously. The Word said, “He that is begotten of God sinneth not” (1 John 3:9); yet John Tetzel was, and in some countries Roman Catholic priests still are, selling indulgences to commit sin. Professing “Christians” keep Christianity out of their affairs with the phrase, “Business is business.”
2:5. And they, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear, (for they are a rebellious house,) yet shall know that there hath been a Prophet among them.—The work of Ezekiel among the Hebrews in captivity proved a thankless task. He was rejected by both those in captivity and those remaining at Jerusalem under Zedekiah. His following was almost nothing. But he witnessed faithfully, and no Hebrew could say that he had not been cautioned of danger and warned of impending catastrophe. Whether the clergy and people of Christendom wished to heed Pastor Russell or not, they certainly heard his words. (Z. '03-436.) His work was peculiarly prospered. Against difficulties it grew and extended beyond the wildest dreams, until it compassed the civilized world. In the face of the united opposition of Protestant and Romanist clergy, the steward of Almighty God accomplished the most gigantic preaching work ever done by one man. “I cannot open the morning paper without Pastor Russell staring me in the face,” said a prominent minister. In the newspapers, in the theatres, on the bill-boards, in billions of tract pages distributed gratis, in millions of home libraries, in the questions of inquiring church members, it was evident everywhere that a great preacher was faithfully sounding forth a trumpet message. With a voice of many waters, reverberating like thunder throughout the world, spoke Pastor Russell; and ere long “they shall know that there hath been a Prophet [preacher] among them.”
2:6, 7. And thou, son of man, be not afraid of them, neither be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns be with thee, and thou dost dwell among scorpions; be not afraid of their words, nor be dismayed at their looks though they be a rebellious house. And thou shalt speak My words, unto them, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear; for they are most rebellious.—Fearlessness characterized Ezekiel and Pastor Russell, both outcasts among the “best” people. Pastor Russell was thrust by the church people into a wilderness condition, amid the briers of opposition and reproach. Though the thorns of persecution crowned his head, he was never afraid of words nor of angry looks. (Jer. 1:8-10.) “I would rather see him stoned to death,” said a Wilkes-Barre, Pa. [pg 379] preacher, in answer to a kindly invitation to come and hear Pastor Russell preach. “He ought to be skinned alive, and his hide stretched on a door,” remarked a Chicago “divine” to another “divine,” coming out from one of Pastor Russell's addresses. A scorpion has a great swelling, formidable looking head, but it stings with its tail. (Rev. 9:5, 10.) Ecclesiasticism is made up of organizations whose heads utter boastful, swelling words, but which do injury through their followers. The sting of a scorpion—of the followers of synods and popes—is through poisoned words. Every great reformer has had some turn on him who were very close to him. Not from outside did Pastor Russell suffer most. A few from among his own household, whom he had befriended, helped, pushed, advanced, struck at him to ruin him and destroy his influence and his work. It is characteristic of the scorpion to sting and poison in the dark corners of a man's own home. “Be not afraid, though thou dost dwell among scorpions.”
2:8. But thou, son of man, hear what I say unto thee; Be not thou rebellious like that rebellious house; open thy mouth, and eat that I give thee.—The attitude of the rebellious Christian was not that of God's chosen servant. Never did he rebel against the Divine leading, nor seek to pervert the Word of God. “My flesh is meat (food) indeed.” (Jno. 6:55.) “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4.) Whatever the word or message that came from the Father's lips through the inspired pages of the Bible, the Laodicean steward was to appropriate, assimilate.—Rev. 10:9.
2:9. And when I looked, behold, a hand was sent unto me; and lo, a roll of a book was therein.—The Divine hand sent from God is the Divine power, support, upholding and advancing the interests of whatever is in the hand. “The book therein” is the Divine Plan of the Ages, Present Truth, especially as relating to the impending downfall of Christendom in the end of this Age. Ancient books were written on a continuous sheet, rolled up. The sheet was often written on both sides. The writing outside could be plainly read until covered by the rolling, but that inside was entirely hidden from view. Present Truth, the Divine Plan of the Ages, contains features which are plain to any one who looks at them; such as those relating to the earthly features of God's Plan—the evil in the earth, the clashing interests of rich and poor, and various other elements of the present order of things, the great war, and the approach of a better order of things after [pg 380] the present troubles are over. Present Truth, “the roll of the book,” also contains hidden, deep truths, discernible only to those who have the Holy Spirit. It possesses features impossible for natural men, not anointed with the Spirit, to perceive. “The natural man perceiveth not the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them; for they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor. 2:14.) Many thousands of consecrated Christians are upheld, comforted and rejoiced by the deep things of God, made clear for the first time in centuries by the “roll of the book.”
2:10. And He spread it before me; and it was written within and without; and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe.—What an honor to be the person before whom the Almighty would clearly spread out His purposes,—the honor which came to Pastor Russell, and with it a witness work of vast extent and responsibility! The purpose of Present Truth is to inform the Lord's people and the people of the world, as far as they may listen, concerning the significance of the times. All classes profit more or less from the warning of Pastor Russell, as the message goes broadcast throughout the world. It comes with a different significance to Church and to world. To the Church it is a trumpet call of truth (Rev. 10:2-7), to get ready quickly for deliverance, resurrection glory, honor and immortality. To the world, the worldly-minded, the Present Truth is something to be dreaded. (Isa. 28:19.) This world, age, state of affairs, is in process of destruction. The destroying agencies, as portrayed in the Scriptures (1 Kings 19:11, 12; Z. '04-249; Z. '98-207, 208) are world-wide war, then revolutions on an unprecedented scale, and finally universal anarchy—savagery. The significance of anarchy is appreciated by but few. It means an utter absence of government, first the paralysis, and ultimately the ceasing, of the governmental functions which now afford protection, peace and safety to property and life. As matters progress to the climax, as disaster after disaster overtakes human effort, and disintegration descends into the dissolution of law and order, the whole earth will be “filled with violence”. (Gen. 6:11; Micah 6:12); and men's hearts will utterly fail. (Luke 21:26.) Picture the worst revolutions ever known; this trouble will outdo them all. Paint the darkest picture, and none will be as black as the sable pall of this dreadful night, this reign of terror already settling down upon mankind. Truly, “mourning, lamentation and woe” were the burden of God's Prophet Ezekiel, as he foresaw the destruction of his beloved city, Jerusalem—and of Pastor Russell, as he foreknew the desolation of a world!
Ezekiel 3—Pastor Russell's Divine Ordination
3:1. Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel.—The Prophet was to find something. As Ezekiel ate the book in the hand of God, so the “faithful and wise servant” of this day absorbed, assimilated, the Plan of the Ages which was in the power (hand) of the Almighty. Pastor Russell searched diligently to find all that he could of the purposes of God. As he understood, he was to go speak to “the House of Sons” (Heb. 3:6), all the children, sons of God—to nominal Spiritual Israelites.
3:2. So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that roll.—“I never knew any one so willing to do the will of God,” said the private secretary and traveling companion of Pastor Russell. He was eager to learn all he could about the Heavenly Father's will. It was not of himself that he learned and taught the Divine Plan; but God Himself caused him to learn, believe and teach.
3:3. And He said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness.—No mere casual scanning of Present Truth would suffice. The man of God was to be filled with the great Message. (Rev. 10:9, 10.) “The sweetest story ever told” (Psa. 19:10; 119:103) brought inexpressible peace. It sweetened the experiences of a life of sacrifice. Whoever eats, assimilates Present Truth, finds every heart question answered, every doubt silenced. He learns “the peace of God that passeth understanding” (Phil. 4:7), and a sweetness as of honey in the promises, plans, and purposes of the Father of Love.
3:4. And He said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with My words unto them.—From apostolic days to today all to whom the Spirit gives utterance begin to speak (Acts 2:1-18) because constrained to do so, because they “love to tell the story.” To Ezekiel, and to the greatest preacher of modern times, came a readiness of speech, when Jehovah Himself gave them His Spirit, and commanded to “get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with My words unto them.”
3:5. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of a hard language, but to the house of Israel.—Present Truth was not to go to the heathen, the drunkards, unbelievers, but to the Christian people of the world, the spiritual House of Israel.
3:6. Not to many people of a strange speech and of a hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee.—If the Message of Present Truth had been sent to the heathen with its glad tidings for all, they would have turned from devil worship, to worship the true God. (Matt. 11:21, 23.) On two occasions the trumpet sound was heard by “people of a strange speech and of a hard language.” Pastor Russell passed through Japan and India on a round-the-world tour. In Japan the people requested that he stay. It was the message they had longed for. In India the natives heard him gladly. In eastern and southern Africa a believer in Present Truth found his way from Nyassa to the Cape, and many thousands of natives embraced the Truth and were baptised.
3:7. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me; for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted.—Christendom has never hearkened unto God. They hear and do not. (Jas. 1:22.) They are forgetful hearers of the Word. (Jas. 1:25.) They know their Master's will and do it not. (Luke 12:47.) Because they hear not God, they heed not the Word of God when brought to them by His servants.
3:8. Behold, I have made thy face strong against their faces, and thy forehead strong against their foreheads.—Whatever situation Pastor Russell faced, God made him more than equal to it. This last and most illustrious of the reformers never asked for money; yet he had enough entrusted to him to carry on the work. Champions of Christendom met him on the debating platform; each encounter widened and strengthened the witness for Present Truth. He faced the modern enemies of Reformation with books by tens of millions, and they were unable to combat their power. “To read the Studies in the Scriptures,” admonished a Southern preacher to his flock, “is to believe them.” No argument could be devised to stem the flood of Truth, only a ban on the reading of the books. In innumerable places priestcraft caused the public burning of the books. Practically every home in America, England, Germany, Sweden, Australia, and other Protestant countries was reached by a deluge of free tracts. Such a tracting of the world with billions of pages, was never known. The enemies of Truth were wholly unable to [pg 383] check the spread of knowledge. A further situation faced was the production of the free Photo-Drama of Creation, seen and heard by twelve millions. No answer could be put forth by clerical foes of truth, but baseless, cruel libels on the private life of one of God's noblemen. Audiences by the thousands listened to Bible lectures by Pastor Russell and by hundreds of public speakers, and their voice is still heard all over the world. Stinging assaults of slander were ignored by a man of destiny, who had too much of God's work to do to pay attention to the yelpings of little men—of the D. D.'s of Christendom (Isa. 56:10), who love slumber, but who snarl and bite when disturbed in their dreams of “peace, peace” (Jer. 6:14), social and civic gospels, church unity, and evangelistic raids on the pockets of the masses. Not a situation or a person but was faced victoriously.—Isa. 54:17.
Pastor Russell in the Critics' Den
3:9. As an adamant harder than flint have I made thy forehead; fear them not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house.—The forehead is symbolic of wisdom. A man of high forehead, as was Pastor Russell, is of a high type of intellect. Pastor Russell's mind was made strong against opponents of the Reform which is ushering in the everlasting Kingdom of Messiah. It is impossible for error to withstand truth. (Luke 21:15.) As in apostolic days, believers in Present Truth call themselves “in the Truth” (2 Pet. 1:12), the teachings of the Word of God are termed “the Truth” (1 John 3:19), and those who believe them are known as “Truth people.” (3 John 4.) The mind of Pastor Russell was filled with Truth. Crystal clear, with hard, irresistible logic, the Present Truth, which constituted his wisdom and understanding, was the hardest proposition ecclesiasticism ever encountered. (Isa. 50:7.) The mind of God's steward was as adamant. Adamant is literally, in Hebrew, “a diamond point.” With diamond hardness (Rev. 4:3), the Present Truth cuts its way through all opposition, though the opposing thought be hard as flint. The diamond is the most crystal clear of stones, and represents the truth in irresistible form. It is futile to oppose the mind of any Present Truth believer, for truth is irrefutable. To those who have it, it imparts the mind of an intellectual giant—the mind of Christ, of God. (1 Cor. 2:16.) Their foreheads are made as diamond. In the light of the sun the diamond sparkles with indescribable beauty. It breaks the sunlight up into its component parts and reflects and refracts in prismatic flashes of rainbow colors. The sun is the Gospel of Divine Love and its embodiment, Jesus Christ. The component parts of Christian love are the [pg 384] character fruits. “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” (Galatians 5:22-3.) The minds, wisdom, characters of God's true people are full of manifestations of the shining upon them of the glorious Gospel of the Son of Righteousness—full of the beauty of righteousness. The minds of God's saints are made as the diamond in its excelling hardness and sunlit radiance.
3:10. Moreover He said unto me, Son of man, all My words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart and hear with thine ears.—Like Ezekiel, Pastor Russell was to hold back, pervert, or wrest nothing.
3:11. And go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God; whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear.—It was to be a message for the Lord's people in captivity to the king of this world. Satan, bound in Mystic Babylon the Great, the governmental-ecclesiastical-commercial system of Christendom.
3:12. Then the Spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing, saying, Blessed be the glory of the Lord from His place.—Through the begetting of the Holy Spirit we are raised up to walk in newness of life (Rom. 6:4), to sit with Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), in the Spirit-begotten condition. The Spirit raised Pastor Russell up to an understanding and appreciation of Heavenly things. (Matt. 3:16.) At Pentecost the place where the Apostles were sitting was filled with a rushing sound as of a mighty wind, and they received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:2.) The mighty rushing sound represented Pastor Russell's receiving a rich endowment of the Spirit of God, to whose leadings he was fully consecrated and to whose influence and guidance he wholly devoted his life. The words of Christ and of God are contained in the Bible, written thousands of years ago, behind in the stream of time. It was in the Word of God, behind him in time (Isa. 30:21), that Pastor Russell perceived the rushing sound, the utterances of the Holy Spirit. The message of the Bible has been perverted by Catholic and Protestant misunderstandings into anything but a glorious and blessed Gospel. It is a thing to be dreaded, if the glory of God is to eternally torment the vast majority of humans. But the Message of Truth sounded forth by Pastor Russell declares the grace of the Gospel which is to reach every man, woman and child (1 Tim. 2:6) with its blessed influence, power, wisdom and love, so that all creation in due time may join in a mighty paeon of praise. “Blessed be the glory of Jehovah from His place.”—Psa. 106:48.
The Clergy Would Censor The Bible
3:13. I heard also the noise of the wings of the living creatures that touched one another, and the noise of the wheels over against them, and a noise of a great rushing.—Many Christian ministers have had glimpses of the Word of God, knowledge of some details of the Plan, some measure of the Holy Spirit; but to Pastor Russell, God's messenger to the last stage of the Church, was given a superabundance of gifts, to set the things of God in order (Isa. 44:7), to proclaim an harmonious understanding of all the Divine purposes for mankind and of some for the angels. (Eph. 3:10.) He heard the full harmony of “the song of Moses and the Lamb.” (Rev. 15:3.) To him the wings (Rev. 12:14), the Word of God, Old Testament and New, sounded their Glad Tidings, a message whose parts “touched one another,” were in complete touch, full harmony. He heard for the first time since Apostolic days the Plan of God, “the noise of the wheels [cycles, ages].” He heard the manifestations of the operation of the Holy Spirit, the “noise of a great rushing,” and was filled with the Spirit in a measure beyond the portion of most Christian men. His patience with the stupid and erring was godlike and his love-lit face was an inspiration.
3:14. So the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away; and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the Lord was strong upon me.—“God hath taken you out of the world” (John 17:16); raised “to sit with Christ in Heavenly places.” (Eph. 2:6.) The Spirit took Pastor Russell away from earthly aims and raised him up to the plane of sacrificing priesthood. He turned from commercial pursuits to devote his life to the Heavenly Message. He tasted the bitter herbs of persecution, of suffering with Christ; and amid ostracism and persecution he lived the life of Christian service. He carried on his work in fervency of spirit; for the power of God was upon him, strengthening him with might in the inner man (Eph. 3:16), and with wisdom to deliver, in the face of the determined opposition of priestcraft, the trumpet message announcing the Presence of Christ—the sound of the Seventh Trumpet, the trump of God.—Rev. 10:7.
3:15. Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel-abib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat and remained there astonished among them seven days.—Future historians will record, as most remarkable, the mental, moral and spiritual bondage in which professing Christians were held during the Gospel Age, through the machinations of priestcraft, under the king of the age, Satan himself. Pastor Russell came with his message, in a day of supposed enlightenment, to a people [pg 386] bound hand and foot. Tel-abib in Hebrew is “Hill of Grass” (from “Tel,” hill, and “Abib,” sprouting, budding). Abib was another name for Nisan, the first month of the Hebrew sacred year, corresponding to April. In type or symbol a place represents a condition, or a stage in historic development. The “hill of budding,” the beginning of the sacred year, symbolizes the dawn of the Times of Restitution, the “Millennial Dawn.” The Millennium (Rev. 20:3, 4, 7) began in 1874, with the Return of Christ. It was at about that time that Pastor Russell came to his fellow-Christians with the beginning of a better understanding of the Bible, “the vision of God.” It was, as it were, the budding-time of the good promises of God for the blessing of all peoples. The Christian people lived on and by the stream of commercial, social and economic intercourse that feeds and supports Christendom, Babylon.
3:16. And it came to pass at the end of seven days, that the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying.—In a time prophecy a day in the prophecy usually signifies a year in fulfillment. For seven years after Christ's Return in 1874—until 1881—Pastor Russell, although he knew much of God's Plan, was in some degree in the same condition as other Christians in imperfect understanding of God's Word. In 1881 a former associate, Mr. Barbour, of Rochester, N. Y., who had been a faithful fellow-watcher, developed into the “Evil servant” of Matt. 24:48-61 and Zechariah 11:17, and produced a work on the Hebrew Tabernacle types in opposition to the fundamentals of true Christianity. Pastor Russell desired the truth on the subject. He gave himself up to prayer and study of this matter alone. For days he struggled with the problem and wrestled with God in supplication. At length the matter cleared up. He then wrote “Tabernacle Shadows of the Better Sacrifices.” of which 1,500,000 copies have since aided Christians to understand the deeper things of the Word and to make complete consecration unto death. This was in 1881, at which time he also published “Food for Thinking Christians,” a work embodying much afterwards expanded into the six volumes of “Studies in the Scriptures.” The same year, 1881, is prophetically marked at the time for the final withdrawal of favor from the churches, a favor which had begun to be withdrawn in 1878—the year in which the clergy were cast off as representatives of the Divine Word, and when Pastor Russell began his work by the publication of 50,000 copies of “Object and Manner of the Lord's Return.” In 1873 the stewardship of the things of God, the teaching of Bible truths, was taken from the clergy, unfaithful to their age-long [pg 387] stewardship, and given to Pastor Russell. In the interim, until 1881, the new steward was setting the things in order, getting the truths of the Bible in logical and Scriptural form for presentation, until the last great item of the Hebrew Tabernacle types, was ready. Then, in 1881, he became God's watchman for all Christendom, and began his gigantic work of witness.
3:17. Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore hear the word at My mouth, and give them warning from Me.—The function of watchmanship was not given until 1881. (Jer. 6:17; Isa. 21:6-12.) Faithfulness in individual watching during a trial period of seven years was rewarded by the bestowal of the office of the greatest servant whom the Church of God has had since the Apostle Paul. “Whosoever will be chief among you let him be your servant.” (Matt. 20:27.) Pastor Russell at all times served the Church in great things and small. No request was too insignificant to get his careful attention. Rich and poor alike were faithfully served in every possible way. This work prior to 1881 was a great work for any ordinary man, but insignificant compared with what was to follow. By 1884 the watchman's work had grown to such proportions as to cause the founding of The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society. This is the agency through which God's appointed watchman has delivered his message to Christendom. Pastor Russell paid no attention to the words or opinions of man, however learned or pious, whether men of modern days or the “early fathers” of post-apostolic times. He listened to the word direct from the mouth of God, spoken by holy men of old as moved by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21.) Ezekiel was raised up shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem to warn the Hebrews of the impending calamity. Pastor Russell's warning to Christendom, coming direct from God, has been of the imminent collapse of the present “Christian” civilization in a welter of war, revolution and anarchy, to be succeeded by the early establishment of the Kingdom of God. In all his warnings he claimed no originality. He said that he could never have written his books himself. It all came from God, through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
3:18. When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.—Pastor Russell saw and revived the teaching of the Word of God that death is death. “All have sinned.” (Rom. 3:23.) “Death passed upon all.” [pg 388] (Romans 5:12.) “The wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23.) “There is none righteous.” (Rom. 3:10.) “The dead sleep in the dust.” (Isa. 26:19.) “Their thoughts perish.” (Psa. 146:4.) He taught clearly the Word of God first enunciated to Adam, “Thou shalt surely die.” (Gen. 2:17.) Man is not inherently immortal. At death he is dead, unconscious, asleep until the resurrection, not “more alive than ever,” as taught by a blinded and apostate priestcraft. Man, soul and body, is not a being whom God cannot destroy. “Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body.” (Matt. 10:28.) To all erring mankind Pastor Russell was directed by God to reiterate the Divine penalty for sin, as death, and not eternal torment. This was a fundamental part of the message both of Ezekiel and of Pastor Russell.
3:19. Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.—Pastor Russell faithfully warned the wicked. He published a complete exposition of the Bible statements regarding the Adamic death—3,000,000 copies of a pamphlet, “What Say the Scriptures About Hell,” quoting all Bible passages mentioning Sheol and Hades, the death state. He scarcely ever spoke in public without dwelling on this cardinal tenet, that the dead are dead. To the very best of his ability he taught Christendom the truth. By faithful testimony he delivered himself from liability.
3:20, 21. Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because thou hast not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also thou hast delivered thy soul.—Another cardinal teaching of God's Word, clearly taught by Pastor Russell, is the nature of the eternal punishment to be visited upon the incorrigible backslider. Clergy, bishops and popes have taught for centuries on this subject an irrational combination of extreme symbolism with gross literalism, as suited their ambition to exercise worldly power and hold the masses in subjection—minds, bodies and pocketbooks. They have interpreted one symbolism symbolically and the next literally. They have said that the “Lake of Fire” and the “torment” are literal, but that the “beast” and the “false prophet” are symbolic (Rev. 19:20), even though it involved the absurdity of a symbolic beast going into a literal lake of fire! Blind and deaf to [pg 389] those who have pointed out the unreasonableness of such foolishness, they have turned savagely upon those that have the Truth. In eighteen centuries they have killed fifty million adherents of Christ, and persecuted innumerable others. It is impossible to compute the number that they will do to death in this, the close of the Gospel-Age Harvest, when governmental protection shall be withdrawn from lovers of truth, except that, this time, they will get all such!
An important feature of Pastor Russell's teaching is that the Scriptural punishment of the incorrigibly wicked is not life in torment but oblivion, annihilation, the “second death” (Rev. 21:8); that every one is, either in this life or after the resurrection, to be brought to a full knowledge of the Truth (1 Tim. 2:4); to receive some measure of the Holy Spirit; that those who incur the extreme penalty for sin will be only those who backslide beyond recovery. In full conformity with Ezekiel's prophecy Pastor Russell taught that “when a righteous man doth commit iniquity, he shall die”—the Second Death.
3:22. And the hand of the Lord was there upon me; and He said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee.—Ezekiel was impelled by the Holy Spirit to depart from the river Chebar with its teeming activities. Pastor Russell's consecration led him to separate himself from commercial activities and to give his life to the service of God. The hand of the Lord was upon him to do this. The Lord's people, the Hebrews, mingled with the Chaldeans, living in the plain—literally “vale” or “valley.” Pastor Russell turned from ordinary avocations to all the people dwelling in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Psa. 23:4); and in that condition God communed with His true Watchman. Pastor Russell has been known to pass entire nights in prayer, and go about his work the next day as though nothing unusual had taken place.—Rev. 3:14.
3:23. Then I arose, and went forth into the plain; and, behold, the glory of the Lord stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face.—Continually the vision was before Pastor Russell of the character, plan and work of the Almighty. Daily he renewed his covenant of consecration and daily sought to carry it out.
3:24. Then the Spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house.—A thought possesses propulsive power, and must result in action unless hindered by an opposing thought. The Spirit, thoughts, words of [pg 390] God were continually entering, from the Bible, into Pastor Russell's mind and setting him into action. All who have set themselves apart to do the will of God and have received the Holy Spirit, are members of Christ, in the House of Sons (Heb. 3:6), the Royal Priesthood. In the consecration of the typical priesthood, the priest shut himself in the Tabernacle for seven days. (Lev. 8:33.) (Seven symbolizes completeness.) So Christ and those in Him abide continually in the antitypical Holy, the spirit-begotten condition. Pastor Russell lived in the Spirit from his consecration to his death.
3:25. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them.—Each forward step in any branch of knowledge renders institutions based on past partial knowledge functionless; and consequently the adherents and beneficiaries of such institutions oppose the march of events. The clergy, trying to stem the tide of Truth, to uphold an effete ecclesiasticism tottering to its fall, put every restraint upon the influence of Pastor Russell; but the bands upon him served also to bind the tares more tightly into the organization bundles. (Matt. 13:30.) In fulfillment of the prophetic parable the bundles are to be destroyed in the anarchy about to ensue. Church members have been urged to get rid of every scrap of paper bearing the Message of Present Truth; the Truth has been preached against in practically every church in the English, German and Swedish speaking world; people have been warned against reading the Truth; Truth people have been discharged or refused employment; in Europe they have been imprisoned at hard labor; some have been done to death by firing squads; they have been forbidden to hold meetings. Neither Pastor Russell nor his fellow-believers were permitted to utter the Bible Truth before the congregations of ecclesiasticism. It was not to go out among “them,” and his greatest work was the deepening of the spirit of consecration among those of the “House of Sons.”
3:26. And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover; for they are a rebellious house.—It is impossible to witness spiritual things to the carnally-minded (1 Cor. 3:1; John 16:12). But Pastor Russell never refrained from speaking or publishing the Word of God. The Bible teaches that the service of God must be of a willing heart. It is a privilege which may be accepted or rejected, as the hearer desires. Yet to the worldly, Pastor Russell was as “dumb”, for they would not hear.
Ezekiel 4—The Papal And Protestant Sieges
4:1. Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem.—In Ezekiel's days, in Chaldea, a book was a collection of inscribed tiles. The Laodicean servant was to be a writer of books. In many articles and chapters on the kingdoms of this world and their judgment and fall, and that of their ecclesiastical, political and business systems, Pastor Russell portrays Christendom, typically spoken of as Jerusalem. It bore the Lord's name, but was defiled by the evil practices of its inhabitants. (C. 295.) As a type, Jerusalem represents particularly the ecclesiastical phase of Christendom.
4:2. And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it, set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.—Ecclesiasticism was to experience prolonged siege by a class symbolized by Ezekiel. The siege was to be conducted by Truth, encompassing the stronghold of the nominal city of God. Beleaguered ecclesiasticism was to go through experiences like that of a besieged city shut off from its province, shorn of its actual dominion, while nominally retaining it, cut off from the supplies that had flowed from the tributary peoples. In addition to the slow weakening of a close besiegement, it was to withstand occasional assaults, make sorties and go through a period of warfare, with only one possible end, the utter destruction of the city. The besieged city was surrounded on every side with a line of military works, trenches, palisades and forts, collectively called a fort; from which, especially from the principal center of offense, it was continually harassed by wearing-down activities and assaulted by surprise attacks. So ecclesiasticism was to be surrounded and placed on the defensive, by strongly entrenched and fortified enemies. “God is our fortress.” (2 Sam. 22:2.) It was to be done by a class of progressive and liberty-loving Christians in revolt against and attack upon the intolerance, superstition, and tyranny of priestcraft.
Ancient cities were surrounded by high walls, with frequent towers for watchmen, spearmen, bowmen and slingmen. The walls, in emergencies, were lined with such [pg 392] fighters and with throwers of boulders and firebrands. The attack was made upon a weak point in the wall; and an earthen mound or mounds was cast up to furnish an elevation from which to equalize for the besiegers the advantages of the defenders. The walls of ecclesiasticism are its defense of creeds and of formalism and, not least of all, of the civil powers and the men who stand as a bulwark against attack. A “mount” symbolizes a government. (Dan. 2:44, 45.) The nation (mount) was organized, militant Protestantism. The camp is the temporary abiding place of those who are fighting on the Lord's side. (Heb. 13:13.) A battering ram was a device for battering down the wall of a city to make a breach for the attack of the soldiery. Ecclesiasticism has surrounded itself with walls of living stones, soldiers, police and other officers of the civil powers who protect the churches and church people (Isa. 59:10), educators to build up belief in ecclesiasticism, writers to write articles and books, and a host of other adherents and supporters. In the siege of ecclesiasticism the Lord's yeomen have attacked aggressively with books, newspapers, missionaries, lectures and education; seeking to loosen and dislodge some of the living stones surrounding organized error.—Jer. 6:6.
4:3. Moreover take thou unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city; and set thy face against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.—An iron pan, literally a “thin plate,” was between besieging Protestantism and beleaguered ecclesiasticism. “They were holpen with a little help” (Dan. 11:34). The civil powers were to stand as a wall of iron protecting the Lord's people from the persecuting power of ruling priestcraft. No breaches could be made in the wall. It was a “wall of iron.” “No evil shall befall thee.” (Psa. 91:10.) “Greater is He that is for thee than all these that be against thee.” (2 Kings 6:16.) Iron, as in the iron claws and teeth of the beast of Daniel, symbolizes the agencies of an irresistible power. Turning the face toward or against anything was a mark of favor or of disfavor. (Psa. 104:29.) The Lord's people were resolutely to disfavor established ecclesiasticism and to besiege it from the Reformation to the close of the Harvest. When Ezekiel sees another doing something it usually signifies another than Pastor Russell doing it, but may signify Pastor Russell seeing himself, or the Ezekiel class. The Ezekiel prophecy types and symbolizes Pastor Russell or the Reformer class seeing Pastor Russell or the Reformer class or some member of that class doing the thing typed or [pg 393] symbolized. Here, the Protestant class from the Protestant Reformation down through the Harvest period, is seen systematically and effectually besieging established ecclesiasticism. The house of Israel ordinarily meant the Hebrew nation, the nominal fleshly house of Israel. The Hebrews were divided into the ten tribes (Israel), thoroughly infected with Pagan beliefs and practices, and the two tribes (Judah), holding more closely to Jehovah. In antitype, when both Israel and Judah are mentioned, and the prophecy is intended for an antitypical fulfillment, Israel signifies the Papacy and Judah signifies established Protestantism. Here the sign was to be the whole nominal house of Israel—all professing Christians, Catholics and Protestants.—Z. '05-179.
4:4. Lie thou also upon thy left side, and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it: according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon it thou shalt bear their iniquity.—In verses 4 to 6 Israel and Judah are included in the same picture, and signify Papacy and established, corrupted Protestantism. The left side was a sign of less favor. Romanism kept on in sin and kept adding, multiplying evil deeds, until iniquity should come to the full (Gen. 15:16). A day in prophecy signifies a year in fulfillment. (Num. 14:34.) Ezekiel here represents the reformer class which had to endure the iniquities of Papacy, both by persecution and by the shame of seeing professed Christians believing grossest error. The iniquity of Papacy, the house of Israel, lay in the fact that the Reformers had shown them insistent proofs of their wrong course, and yet they continued in their own way, heedless of the Divine warnings. Hence less favor has been felt by Jehovah toward them than toward Protestantism.
4:5. For I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days; so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.—Upon the reform element was laid the burden of seeing the dupes of Papal priestcraft continually learning and living error. This was a burden upon conscience, and was repugnant to the enlightened mind of the reform element, known for centuries, in name at least, as Protestant. Priestcraft of the larger division of Christendom was to be under attack for 390 years, during which time the besieging element, the reformers, were to be protected from Papacy by the “iron wall” of the civil powers. This began in 1528 and ends in 1918. The year 1528 is one of the turning points of history. Protestantism in England and in Germany was in the balance. The sudden rise of Charles V of Germany to great power had [pg 394] emboldened Pope Clement to side with Charles. He induced the Emperor to support a measure designed to limit the spread of Protestantism, to be followed by its utter destruction. Under the proposed law no Protestant was to convert a Romanist to the reformed faith, nor would it be allowable for Protestantism to spread to other countries. It meant for all Protestants an end such as the Huguenots came to in France, the suppression of the Renaissance with its “increase of knowledge” (Dan. 12:4), and the end of the prosperous and comparatively enlightened civilization of modern times. The future of the whole world, and of the Divine Plan, was at stake! A general war was barely avoided to destroy Lutheranism. Philip Landgrave of Saxony discovered the plot, took arms, and in 1528 forced indemnity from a Catholic bishop. Other princes of Germany stood with Philip.
To quote from Dr. Peter Bayne, LL. D., the historian (“Martin Luther”), page 486: “These (the princes of the reformed faith) were inflexibly determined that the decree of the majority should not be assented to. Philip of Hesse, John of Saxony, Markgraf George the Pious of Brandenburg-Anspach, the Dukes of Lunenburg and Brunswick, the Prince of Anhalt, and the representatives of Strasburg, Nurnberg and twelve other free cities, entered a solemn protest against the prospective revolution. They were called Protestants! All, to this hour, who claim that Truth shall be unveiled, and that no Pope, or Kaiser, shall congeal the ever-advancing stream of progress and improvement, may take an honorable pride in tracing their spiritual descent to the intrepid Philip and the magnanimous and simple-hearted John.” (p. 481): “How thoroughly is the whole pageant of that war, 1528, erased from the memory of the present generation! And yet the effect of those events is not yet exhausted; nor would it be possible for any one without forming some comprehension of them, to understand how link added itself to link in the evolutionary chain of modern history.”
Thus Germany set up the iron wall of civic defense between the besieging Protestants and beleaguered Papacy. In England, too, the other great empire which has stood as an iron wall between the reform element and Papacy, the break with Rome began to take form in 1528. This was the year when Pope Clement appointed his legates, Correggio and Wolsey, to conduct the divorce trial of Queen Katherine of Aragon, at the behest of Henry VIII. (Rev. 8:8, 9.) As God raised up a willful, stubborn Pharaoh when He purposed to deliver the Hebrews from Egypt, so He raised up the lustful Henry VIII as the agent [pg 395] through whom the break should come between England and Rome. “The natural result” [of Henry's divorce proceedings], says A. F. Pollard, the historian, in his “Henry VIII,” “was the separation of England from Rome.” Thus did Divine wisdom use “the wrath of man to praise Him” and cause the “iron wall” of the civil, military and naval powers of the British Empire, Germany, and of the United States, to stand an impregnable barrier against the persecuting power of Great Babylon. Safe behind the iron wall, the reform element was able to live and grow in its camp and to keep up its siege of Roman Catholic priestcraft.
4:6. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.—The right side signifies less disfavor than to Papacy. The house of Judah represents Protestantism, the Protestant churches. Until 1878, when cast off by the returned and present Messiah, Protestantism enjoyed Divine favor, just as the two tribes, collectively called Judah, did as compared with the idolatrous ten tribes of Israel. After 1874 the Present Truth took the form of a general overhauling of creeds and the announcement of Christ's Second Presence. This was unanimously rejected by the Protestant churches; and organized Protestant ecclesiasticism from 1878 on for forty years became the Judah of this type, besieged on every side by the reform element, under the leadership of the steward of Divine Truth, Pastor Russell. Until 1918, Hebrew reckoning, beginning in the fall of 1917, the civil powers continue as a “wall of iron,” protecting the Lord's people in their witness against error.—Rev. 3:14; B. 66, 91.
4:7. Therefore thou shalt set thy face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and thine arm shall be uncovered, and thou shalt prophesy against it.—The Ezekiel class, the true Protestant reform class, during the 390 and the 40 years set themselves to the attack upon priestcraft. Pastor Russell seldom spoke without some words of objection to or warning about ecclesiasticism. The arm symbolizes power (E. 50, 47) and the uncovering of the arm is as when a man takes off his coat in attacking a task. The siege was to be carried on with energy. The reform element was to preach continually, not condoning or excusing priestcraft, but directly and pointedly attacking it.
4:8. And, behold, I will lay bands upon thee, and thou shalt not turn thee from one side to another, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.—God bound His true people to this work. The reform element were not to change their attitude, but continually to keep at the attack upon [pg 396] ecclesiastical corruption until the siege should end in 1918. The Hebrew year 1918, begins in October, 1917.
4:9. Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side; three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.—These grains represent different grades of spiritual food, each kind of food to be eaten by the kind of Christian represented by the food. Wheat represents the true Gospel of the Kingdom, as in the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1-30), and is the food of the Little Flock. Barley among the Hebrews was little esteemed, for it was the price of an adulteress. (Hos. 3:2.) It signifies the spiritual food of a class guilty of spiritual adultery, unhallowed alliance with the world in the bringing forth of “strange” children. (Hos. 5:7.) Beans, lentiles, millet and fitches represent grades of food inferior to wheat (which contains every element to support life) and inferior even to barley. Their continued use as foods, causes physical deficiencies, weaknesses and disease. Lentiles are usually cultivated for fodder. Millet is still inferior. Symbolically it represents Christians who “have no depth of earth.” (Matt. 13:5.) Vetches, sometimes called “tares” or “prickly spelt,” are a very poor food. Their prickly nature suggests a type of hard-to-get-along-with Christians, and the kind of mental, moral and spiritual food that produces them. In with some of the true wheat, in established churchianity, as shown by verse 16, were to be gathered Christians of various degrees of development, each eating the kind of food corresponding to his Christian development, the wheat class assimilating the best of the Divine Word, and so on down to those who absorbed the poorest grade of spiritual provender, some of it food usually regarded as fit only for animals. This was the food the various classes should subsist on, each according to his capacity, from 1528 to 1918, and from 1878 to 1918.
4:10, 11. And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time shalt thou drink.—A shekel was half an ounce; twenty shekels were ten ounces. A hin was a gallon and a half. The sixth part of a hin was one quart. This was the daily ration, a starvation allowance. They were not to feed on it continuously, but on Sundays, or two or three times a week—“from time to time.” The people would, as a class, have a scanty spiritual subsistence during the siege period.
4:12. And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight.—Cakes, made of this mixture, were used by the very poor in times of scarcity, depicting the scarcity of spiritual food among the followers of ecclesiasticism. The poor, not having stones or ovens, baked their bread or cakes on heated stones or in the fire, or roasted them by placing them between layers of dung, which burns slowly. Only the dung of animals was used ordinarily. No insult or defilement was greater than to turn a man's house into a receptacle for human excrement. (Deut. 23:12-14.) Our Lord associated human dung with “that which defileth a man.” (Matt. 15:11.) Luther spoke of the “dunghill of Roman decretals.” The human dung signifies human traditions, clerical additions to the Word of God.
4:13. And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them.—The spiritual food, poor as the mixture was, was to be thoroughly defiled.
4:14. Then said I, Ah Lord God! behold, my soul hath not been polluted: for from my youth up even till now have I not eaten of that which dieth of itself, or is torn in pieces; neither came there abominable flesh into my mouth.—This typifies the heart desire of the reformer class to keep clear of defiling errors.
4:15. Then he said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith.—The spiritual food would be unsavory enough.
4:16. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem; and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care; and they shall drink water by measure; and with astonishment.—The type enacted by Ezekiel was intended to depict spiritual conditions in ecclesiasticism, Romish after 1528 A. D. and Protestant after 1878 A. D., in Jerusalem (churchianity), the besieged city, where there would be a famine of the Word of God. As prophecies often have a literal as well as a symbolic fulfillment, this refers also to the straitness of the siege of literal Jerusalem and to the literal scarcity of food in the Time of Trouble upon Christendom, with its high cost of living, food dictators and food tickets.—Lev. 26:26.
4:17. That they may want bread and water, and be astonied one with another, and consume away for their iniquity.—Like as people on poor food in starvation quantities weaken and die, so Christians weaken and die spiritually on the diet provided by priests and clergy.
Ezekiel 5—The Severed Hair Calamities
5:1. And thou, son of man, take thee a sharp knife, take thee a barber's razor, and cause it to pass upon thine head and upon thy beard: then take thee balances to weigh, and divide the hair.—This is located “after the days of the siege” of Jerusalem, or in antitype after Romanism's and Protestantism's siege is ended in 1918. It had a literal fulfillment in 606 B. C. and is to have a literal and a symbolic fulfillment in and after 1918. It depicts the several kinds of troubles upon Christendom, and the causes provoking them. The shaving of the head represents the affliction of Christendom. (Isaiah 3:17, 20, 24; Jer. 7:29.) The shaving of the beard was part of the ceremonial treatment of a leper (Lev. 14:8, 9), and signifies that after 1918 Christendom will be treated by outraged Justice at a moral leper, unclean with incurable iniquity, the perverseness, which, in the face of continual preaching of the Gospel, led up to the recent wars.
Ezek. 5:2, 12, 16, 17, relate to features of the destruction of literal Jerusalem in 606 B. C. and 70-73 A. D. and of Christendom in 1914 to 1918 A. D. Since in verse 12 a third part of the persons were to suffer death or affliction, the hair in verses 1, 2 and 3 signifies the people in Jerusalem—Christendom. In Samson's case the hair represented his strength; and here the hair cut off signifies that the people who are the strength of Christendom shall be cut off in the brief but terribly eventful period beginning in 1918 A. D. A third part are “burned with fire in the midst of the city.” Fire symbolises destruction. One large part of the adherents of ecclesiasticism win die from pestilence and famine. (Deut. 32:24.) In 5:16, 17 the shafts of hunger are represented as the evil arrows of famine. The staff is that upon which one leans; the staff of bread is the food supply of Christendom. In 1916 there was already a 25 per cent. crop shortage throughout the world, presaging worse conditions to come. In verse 18 the evil beasts sent upon Christendom are the savage “Christian” governments of the world (Deut. 32:24), which, by unheard-of barbarity in war, are bereaving the people by millions and causing bloodshed unparalleled in history.
5:2. Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled: and thou shalt take a third part, and smite about it with a knife: and a third part thou shalt scatter in the wind; and I will draw out a sword after them.—A third part of the hair was to be smitten with a knife. See 5:12. This represents people not definitely in or under ecclesiasticism, but associated with it, favoring it, and benefiting from it These are to be smitten with the sword drawn for destruction of life in the Time of Trouble. A considerable portion of the people will be separated by the winds of warfare and commotion from all connection with churchianity. These have been connected with, sympathizers with, or beneficiaries from churchianity. This class also will be involved in the bloodshed of the “great tribulation.”—Matt. 24:21; Rev. 7:14.
5:3, 4. Thou shalt also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in thy skirts. Then take of them again, and cast them into the midst of the fire, and burn them in the fire; for thereof shall a fire come forth into all the house of Israel.—To bind in the skirts is a symbol of close affiliation. A few adherents of churchianity will affiliate themselves with those believing Present Truth, but so searching will be the circumstances of the trouble period that none not at heart “in Present Truth” (2 Pet. 1:12) will be able to remain in the protection overshadowing the Lord's people. These few will be separated, and finally become involved in the destruction upon all supporters of, sympathizers with and beneficiaries of churchianity. Not one shall escape; it will be upon “all the house of Israel.” Babylon's conflagration will be hastened by the adherents here described. After 1918 the people supporting churchianity will cease to be its supporters, be destroyed as adherents, by the spiritual pestilence of errors abroad, and by the famine of the Word of God among them. The Sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17), which is the Word of God, will be wielded in the hands of “Present Truth” believers in such a manner as to cause conscientious supporters of ecclesiasticism to cease to be supporters.
5:5. Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.—God, through the increase of knowledge, the Renaissance, and the dynamic power of belief in the Word of God, has set up Christendom on a pinnacle of power in the midst of the heathen nations or the world.
5:6. And she hath changed my judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and my statutes more than the countries that are round about her: for they have [pg 400]refused my judgments and my statutes, they have not walked in them.—God taught Christendom the principles of Justice and gave her His law of Divine, self-sacrificing love—“A new law, that ye love one another.” (John 13:34.) Relatively to the light of Christendom and heathendom, Christendom is far the more wicked; for, having the instructions, exhortations and examples of the Bible, she has both refused them and not walked in them.
5:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye multiplied more than the nations that are round about you, and have not walked in My statutes, neither have kept My judgments, neither have done according to the judgments of the nations that are round about you.—Christendom under the blessing of God has multiplied in material things and in knowledge more than heathendom, and yet has not only not walked in God's Law of Love, but has not lived up to the standards of righteousness and justice of the heathen. Chinese are more reliable in business engagements than are Christians. Some tribes in Africa are more moral sexually than are whites, and explorers have noted the natural kindness of the negroes of Nyassa and Soudan.
5:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.—Because of Christendom's wickedness against light, God is against this system calling itself by Christ's holy name, and will execute upon it judgment of such unprecedented awfulness as to constitute a lasting lesson to “uncivilized” peoples.
5:9. And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.—The punishments come because of churchianity's illicit union of church and state, termed spiritual “fornication” (Rev. 17:2); her licensing of liquor, vice and crime; her doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1), such as eternal torment, inherent immortality and Trinity; her desolating abomination in the Romish mass (Matt. 24:15); and her Phariseeism in the face of wilful butchery of millions.
5:10, 11. Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds. Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord God; Surely, because thou hast defiled My Sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall Mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.—The Hebrew sanctuary or temple typed the Christian Sanctuary class, the Church of living stones (1 Pet. 2:5), [pg 401] the Temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:16, 17.) True Christianity, pure in apostolic days, was defiled (2 Chr. 36:14) with practices and doctrines detestable and abominable to God, until now it is termed “the great whore,” (apostate church of Romanism) and the daughters “harlots” (Protestant churches). (Rev. 17:5.) Divine Justice will not spare nor pity, until upon Christendom has been visited all the righteous blood of hundreds of millions of victims of her long centuries of unchristian wars and persecutions.
5:12, 13. A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them. Thus shall Mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause My fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the Lord have spoken it in My zeal, when I have accomplished My fury in them.—Job hoped for the time when God's wrath should be past. (Job 14:13.) The wrath of God will be over forever when this trouble time is past. (Isa. 10:25.) Divine Justice will be comforted, will rest, having accomplished its sentence of death, with the accompaniments of sickness, sorrow, tears and degradation, mental, moral and physical, upon the human race.
5:14-17. Moreover I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations that are round about thee, in the sight of all that pass by. So it shall be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment unto the nations that are round about thee, when I shall execute judgments in thee in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes. I the Lord have spoken it. When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for their destruction, and which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread: So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it.—Christendom is to be laid waste by war, revolution, anarchy, famine (Luke 21:26), and pestilence, from end to end. Her vaunted and envied eminence will pass, through self-destruction, due to false ideals of honor, into a desolation causing the taunts and reproaches of the heathen, and being to the heathen nations a cause of astonishment and source of instruction. The fury of God's anger against her appears in the expression “in anger and in fury and in furious rebukes.”
Ezekiel 6—Sword—Famine—Pestilence
6:1-4. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.—This chapter relates to the Divine wrath, after 1918 A. D., upon the governments, symbolically called “mountains and hills,” and the rivers, the denominations.
6:5-7. And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—All state churches are to be destroyed, literally by the sword, and by the truth about them in the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit. (2 Ki. 23:13-22.) At the tops of the hills and mountains, the governments, are the altars, the centers of the nation's worship. Great sacrifices are made by the masses to maintain these altars.
6:8. Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.—Heathendom will be the safest place on earth in the time of Zion's travail! (Jer. 44:28.)
6:9. And they that escape of you shall remember Me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from Me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the [pg 403]evils which they have committed in all their abominations.—God has completely broken relations with the churches, which with heart and eye have “departed from Me.”
6:10. And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.—After the trouble is over, the survivors will have a thousand years in which to recognize the hand of God.
6:11. Thus saith the Lord God; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel: for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.—The attitude of the Lord's true people, “the mourners in Zion” (Isa. 61:3), is that of righteous indignation against the abominations of Christendom.
6:12. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish My fury upon them.—In spite of the manifest judgments of God, the devotees of Mystic Babylon, “Christians,” will not turn to God but, while doing reverence and rendering service to their altars and idols, will be overtaken by literal sword, famine and pestilence (Jer. 15:2) and by the spiritual Sword of the Spirit, by starvation from the lack of God's Word, and by pestilential doctrines.—Psa. 91:6, 7.
6:13. Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.—In the Roman and Greek churches the idols, images and ikons are literal. There are other idols in all the churches—power, prestige, social position, clerical honor, gold, worldly education, etc. As in the Tabernacle types, zealous, obedient sacrifice caused a “sweet savor” to rise to God, so the same service raises a sweet savor to the idols of Christendom. The “green trees” and “thick oaks” were favorite objects of idolatry (Jer. 2:20; Hos. 4:13), and typed the worship of prominent preachers and other men.—Psalm 37:35.
6:14. So will I stretch out My hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—Christendom is to be made more desolate than the wilderness surrounding Palestine, wiped off the face of the earth, to make way for the New Order of things, “the world to come” (Heb. 2:5), “wherein dwelleth righteousness.”—2 Pet. 3:13.
Ezekiel 7—Dawn Of The Evil Day
7:1-6. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send Mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And Mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity; but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come; it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.—Chapter 7 includes what Ezekiel saw in type and what the Ezekiel class now sees in antitype—the destruction of the symbolic earth (the social order), and the causes therefor; the escape of the remnant who will pass alive through the trouble into the better order of things; the defilement and destruction of God's “ornament,” Christendom; and the binding and destruction of the rule of wicked might. Pastor Russell's mission, in large part, was to advise Christendom of its impending end, in the time of world-wide trouble. It is the Divine judgment upon the nations. They reap as they have sown. In times past God winked at the iniquity of men (Acts 17:30); but now evil shall receive its just recompense in the wrath of long-insulted Justice. It will be a period of unmixed evil upon Christendom, the purpose of which will be to demonstrate to men's certain knowledge that “thy God reigneth.” (Isa. 52:7.) There will be no chance of escaping from destruction, though the nations—as in cases of Germany, the Allies and the United States—earnestly seek in vain for some way of securing peace. The trouble is due to the dawning of the Day of Christ, the Millennium. It is the Day of Vengeance, which began in the world war of 1914 and which will break like a furious morning storm in 1918.—Lam. 4:18.
7:7-9. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains. [pg 405]Now will I shortly pour out My fury upon thee, and accomplish Mine anger upon thee; and I will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense thee for all thine abominations. And Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; I will recompense thee according to thy ways and thine abominations that are in the midst of thee; and ye shall know that I am the Lord that smiteth.—The chiefest sufferers will be those setting affections on earthly things, earth dwellers and earth lovers. Steep mountain valleys are full of echoing sounds, falling trees, dislodged rocks, avalanches, landslides, waterfalls, or the thunders of local storms. Earth's nations have been resounding for centuries with local wars, seditions, revolutions, famine and pestilence. (A. 318.) These passed away; but the present commotion and impending revolution and anarchy will not cease, but will spread and increase until this order of things is destroyed.
7:10. Behold the Day, behold it is come: the Morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.—“Pride goeth before destruction.” (Prov. 16:18.) Human pride [among kaisers, clergy, labor leaders, and capitalists], has budded, blossomed forth into acts that will bring destruction. The rod is a symbol of authority. Organized authority is perverted from its Divinely appointed function of restraint and punishment of crime into a ruthless rule of might and bloodshed.
7:11. Violence is risen up into a rod of wickedness; none of them shall remain, nor of their multitude, nor of any of theirs; neither shall there be wailing for them.—Those who rule by violence shall be utterly rooted out of the earth in the Time of Trouble, unhonored and unwept (Jer. 16:4-6), accursed for the evil they have wrought. The clergy, for whom many would even have died in the past, but who have preached the people into this war and into the world's ruin, will become objects of popular hatred.
7:12. The time is come, the Day draweth near; let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.—The year 1918, with its fearful revolutions and succeeding anarchy, is at the door.
7:13. For the seller shall not return to that which is sold, although they were yet alive: for the vision is touching the whole multitude thereof, which shall not return; neither shall any strengthen himself in the iniquity of his life.—This indicates the languishing and eventual decline and cessation of business. (Isa. 33:8.) Symbolically, it represents the ceasing of the clergy from “selling” religion and the people from buying. “Success consists in knowing how to be discreetly dishonest” is now a common [pg 406] rule of practice; but the time is at hand when iniquitous practices and precepts will no longer profit any.
7:14. They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the Battle; for My wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.—There are other trumpets than the trumpet of Truth. Established error has its trumpet message. Ecclesiasticism, capitalism, and governments together have blown the trumpet of the Divine right of kings, magnates, and clergy, of the civic-betterment gospel and of “preparedness.” Labor leaders have rallied the people to fight for their unions. Trumpet messages will summon the people of the world to yet other strife. But so furious and heart-breaking will be the trouble that none will have the spirit to respond. There is a hint here that conscription will meet with opposition.
7:15. The sword is without, and the pestilence and the famine within: he that is in the field shall die with the sword; and he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.—Worldly people in Christendom, not professors of Christianity, will be pressed into the active fighting of the Time of Trouble and will perish. (Deut. 32:25; Jer. 14:18.) Those in the city refer to the professors of Christianity—church members.
7:16. But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.—There will be survivors of the Time of Trouble who will live on into the Millennium proper. Those of dove-like character will be most likely to survive. The dove has a mournful note. This class will appreciate their iniquity, repent of it and pray for forgiveness and deliverance.—E. 231, 212.
7:17. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water.—The hands symbolize power. The people of Christendom will realize their helplessness. The extremity of the situation will weaken the strongest.—Zeph. 1:14; A. 315.
7:18. They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be upon all faces, and baldness upon all their heads.—In mourning for their dead, men's minds and hearts will revolt at the horrors of the calamity. All will realize with shame that by drunkenness with Babylon's mixed teachings (Rev. 17:2) they have brought the trouble on themselves. In grief the Hebrews shaved the head.—Isa. 3:24.
7:19. They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their sliver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord; they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill [pg 407]their bowels; because it is the stumbling-block of their iniquity.—With the demonetization of silver, gold has become as a thing unclean (is losing its purchasing power). All forms of money, bonds, stocks and valuables will be worthless when governments are gone and whole nations are starving. (D. 45.) There was a literal fulfillment of this Scripture in 1898 when in Italy a miller who had publicly thanked the Virgin for dear bread, literally threw gold and silver to a crowd in the streets in a vain endeavor to pacify them. They demanded his life and took it.—Z. '98-331.
7:20. As for the beauty of His ornament, He set it in majesty; but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein; therefore have I set it far from them.—“Jerusalem is a crown of glory and a royal diadem”. (Isa. 62:3.) Christianity, the embryonic Kingdom of God, was originally “His ornament,” in the apostolic age of the Church. Literal images were set up by the Hebrews in secret places, and to this day are worshipped by Romanists literally. Romanists and Protestants alike worship the images of world-power, wealth, state-church affiliation, clergy lordship, eternal torment, human immortality and trinity, all alike detestable to a jealous God. The actual ornament of God, His jewel, His diadem, is the true Church, composed mostly of the poor, rich in faith (Jas. 2:5)—of the reform element who since 1878 have been withdrawing from ecclesiasticism and coming to God.
7:21. And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it.—The nominal jewel, churchianity, has become the prey of clerical and social anarchists.—D. 550.
7:22. My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute My secret place; for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.—The secret place is the condition of consecration, which an apostate clergy pollute by misrepresentations, such as that bravery in battle, suffering in the trenches, devotion to a falling order of things (Hab. 2:13), win a place in Heaven—won only by loyal devotion to God's Word, and by the spirit-begotten alone. “I am the Door. He that entereth in by another way is a robber.”—John 10:1.
7:23. Make a chain: for the land is full of bloody crimes, and the city is full of violence.—Bind, unite them together, let the Divinely (!) appointed clergy and the governments for which they stand sponsor, make common cause. (D. 550.) Christendom is full of the beastly crimes of the most barbarous warfare ever known. A city symbolizes a government.
7:24. Wherefore I will bring the worst of the heathen, and they shall possess their houses: I will also make the pomp of the strong to cease; and their holy places shall be defiled.—Macaulay, the English historian, spoke of America as destined to be destroyed by its own Huns and Vandals, the unassimilated, uncivilized elements, especially of the cities. The anarchistic masses will literally live in the houses of the erstwhile rulers and prominent people. The display of power and magnificence of the strong one, Satan, the alleged eternal-torment God, and the devil-worshipers of Christendom shall cease. Literally, the churches, Y. M. C. A.'s, monasteries and convents, supposedly holy, will be defiled by the impious.
7:25. Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none.—There shall be no peace with God, or peace among the conflicting elements of society.
7:26. Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients.—Literally “accident upon accident” will befall the affairs of Christendom. (Jer. 4:29.) The people, wild with perplexity, will seek to the clergy for an understanding of the world-holocaust; but the true Law, the Word of God, has departed from a clergy more learned in church politics and money-raising schemes than in the Bible. The ancients, the “reverends,” college professors and savants do not know what counsel to give to meet the crisis.—Isa. 29:9-14.
7:27. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—Satan shall mourn the downfall of his power, as will the heads of the savage, beastly governments under his control. (Matt. 4:8, 9.) “The exalted one” or prince, Satan's chief representative among men, is the pope; and he, with his princes, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests and clergy, shall see the desolation due to their work.
“O thou of little faith, who dost thou fear?
The tempest hath no power when I am near;
Will not the angry waves be still at My command?
Step out, I'll hold thy hand,
Then, wherefore dost thou fear?”
Ezekiel 8—Molech, The Torment Deity
8:1. And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God fell there upon me.—Chapters 8 to 24 continue the recital of the sins of Jerusalem, Christendom, and the Divine punishment to be inflicted on her. Chapter 8 refers literally to the temple, and its defilement by the seating of an idol of Baal at the door near the Brazen Altar, by the desecration of its interior with symbols of Egyptian heathenism and by the practicing of heathen worship within the temple. This types the condition of the spiritual Temple of God, “which Temple ye are”, the Church of God, originally pure and holy, but defiled by the clergy with pagan practices. The type refers back to 2 Chronicles 33:1-9, where King Manasseh established heathen worship throughout Palestine, set up a carved image in Solomon's temple and “made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err and to do worse than the heathens whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.” This resulted in Manasseh's overthrow at the hands of the Assyrians. The name Manasseh means “causing forgetfulness.” He typed Satan, the god of this world, who, by his lying deceptions has made professing Christians forget God. Satan's chief “angel of light” is the pope of Rome, ably seconded in keeping the people in the dark by the cardinals, bishops, priests, monks and sisters of apostate Rome and by the bishops and ministers of an apostate Protestantism. These keep “their people” from real Bible study, and encourage them in their forgetfulness of God and their individual obligations to God, the Word of God, to fellow-Christians and to the world. The house is the House of the Sons of God, the consecrated. The elders, chosen by the people, represented all the people. The Protestant clergy continually sat before the Lord's steward, could not pick up a paper that they did not see his sermons in it; but they would not hear his words, and they rejected him and the truths which he so plainly and so kindly stated.
8:2, 3. Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber. And He put forth the form of a hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.—Through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Ezekiel class is now taken up mentally into the powers of spiritual control, to discern the significance of the evil done by Satan and the clergy. They are brought to Jerusalem the anti-typical, to consider established priestcraft. They are brought to the door of the inner gate, the gate of the altar between the people's court and priest's court—(the same as the Tabernacle court.) They are brought to the antitypical Temple, to the Chord of God, to the Lord's people—“Ye are the Temple of God”. (1 Cor. 3:16.) “I am the Door” (John 10:9.) The Door represents Christ, through whom all that enter must come. The North symbolizes the seat of Divine government, the spiritual phase of the Kingdom. (Isa. 14:13.) The Door, Christ, looks toward, tends toward spiritual things. Those that enter through Christ are expected to look forward from the condition of belief to that of full consecration, the spirit-begotten condition. In the Door, in the very place of Christ, Manasseh, type of the devil, and an apostate clergy set up an idol, an image of the Devil himself. Those who thereafter entered the court had to worship the image, typing that under clergy rule all entering the church, the condition of belief, had to do honor to Satan, whose seat of chief power is at Rome, and whose influence spreads wherever the clergy class is found.
The word “Baal” means “Lord.” The clergy have set themselves as lords over God's heritage (1 Pet. 5:3), the Church. By perversion of the plain meaning of literal Bible statements, they have set up in the place of God the deity of the Devil. This God of Romanism and Protestantism is not one, but three; he inflicts tortures eternal; his favor can be bought for money; he dwells in earthly buildings (Acts 7:48), which are consecrated to him; he teaches the direct opposite of the Word of God—that the dead are alive; he favors spiritual adultery—the union of the church with the governments of this world; he fosters lordship of the clergy class. The clergy's God is plainly not Jehovah, but the ancient deity, hoary with the iniquities of ages—Baal—the Devil himself. God pity the clergy, who have so [pg 411] long deceived themselves and the people with their “carved image, the work of their own hands!” “I am jealous for Zion with a great jealousy.” (Zech. 1:14.) “I, Jehovah, thy God, am a jealous God.” (Ex. 20:5.) There is little wonder that the literal typical Baal of the Jews and the anti-typical eternal-torment God of the clergy should provoke Jehovah to jealousy.
8:4. And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.—The usual place of the Shekinah Light was in the Most Holy between the cherubim above the golden Mercy Seat. It was from this glory that fire came out at times like lightning to consume and destroy iniquitous offenders. (Lev. 10:2.) It bodes ill for the devotees of the eternal-torment god that the glory of Jehovah has come out against them.
8:5, 6. Then said He unto me, Son of man, lift up thine eyes now the way toward the North. So I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the North, and behold northward at the gate of the altar this image of jealousy in the entry. He said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here, that I should go far off from My sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.—It is needless to look for abominations far off when such an abomination has been set up by “impudent children” at the very door of the Church.
8:7. And He brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall.—In Solomon's temple the court of the priests was surrounded not by a simple wall, but by a row of rooms or chambers where the priests and Levites stayed. The hole in the wall was an opening or window into one of the chambers.
8:8. Then said He unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall, and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.—The wall was the wall of secrecy, misrepresentation and deception, by reason of which the pagan practices and beliefs of various classes of professed Christians were hidden from publicity and consequent popular judgment. A little was known about them, represented by the little hole in the wall. It is the work of the Ezekiel class to dig through the wall and throw the light on these hidden things. The time has come for judgment, and for everything that is done in a chamber to be proclaimed from the housetops. (Luke 12:3.) Once the wall of secrecy is dug through, the door is open to see whatever transpires.
8:9. And He said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.—The court typifies the condition of faith—tentative justification. The chambers [pg 412] surrounded the court. They symbolize the condition of those who profess faith and justification, but whose lives and beliefs contradict their professions.
8:10. So I went in and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon the wall round about.—To the Egyptians, artistic portrayals of creatures had a religious significance. All kinds of living creatures were worshipped. Chief of these was the bull Apis, which symbolized life and especially the power of procreation. The devotees of the antitype are never so happy as when giving life to new spiritual offspring. The children thus begotten are mostly tares. But few of them have the life that comes from consecration to the Word of God. The revivalist and the clergy care little for any begotten of the Word of God and do little to help them grow up in Christ. They grow, if at all, like starved, neglected children. As the service of this worship could be conducted only by the regular priests of Egypt, so the antitypical work can be done only by the man-made clergy class of the world (Egypt) and those “ordained” by them. Among the creeping things, objects of worship, was the fly—the evangelist. (Rev. 16:2.) The prince of the flies was Beelzebub. Flies breed in and feed upon the “dung hill of Popish decretals” and other “traditions of men.” They never get far above earthly things, but circulate in the lower strata of the air—ecclesiasticism. They bite and annoy both worldly people and the Lord's people, as did the plague of flies in Egypt, and are specially persistent in the humid condition of a rain—a downpour of Truth. These, like all clergy-approved workers, are looked up to, worshipped by the people of Christendom. Other creeping things that fly signify degrading of forbidden beliefs and practices, attractive, garbed in the cloak of religion, under church auspices, as typed by their flying in the air, ecclesiastical powers; but they are displeasing to God and tending toward death.
8:11. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.—Worshipping the pictured images were the elders, or ancients, appointed by and representing all the people of Jerusalem. Jaazaniah was a Levite, typical of a believer in Christ. The word Shaphan means “sly”, and suggests the slyness of the adherents of wrong beliefs. Jaazaniah means “God is listening,” and signifies the fact that whatever “Christian” sinners may say, God is actually paying attention. The censer was used to carry the fire in which [pg 413] incense was burned. (Rev. 8:3.) It types the bearing of the fiery trials signified by the fire. The devotees of error suffer in its behalf, as Truth people suffer for the Truth. Incense types the heart's best endeavors, here wrongly directed by many professing Christians in the service of Satan, as were Saul's in persecuting Christians. (Acts 22:3, 4.) Tares are often more devoted to their errors than are the Lord's people to the Truth. “The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” (Luke 16:8.) It was unlawful for a Hebrew to burn incense, except as in the regular temple service. It is an abomination for a professing Christian to put forth his heart's best endeavors except in the service of God.
8:12. Then said He unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The Lord seeth us not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.—These departures from true Christian belief are carried on “in the dark.” (John 3:19.) Every tare, imitation Christian, has his own peculiar beliefs and practices in “the chamber of his imagery,” his mind. Because God knows how to defer retribution until the Day of Judgment (2 Pet. 2:9), these unwise ones delude themselves that the All-Seeing One does not see. Those not familiar with the Divine Plan of the Ages, seeing the conditions of savage war trending into worse things, apparently have the delusion that the Lord has forsaken the earth.
8:13, 14. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then He brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.—Tammuz means “perfect (tam) by burning” (muz). He was a heathen god whose death was lamented annually by women idolaters. He was the god of fire worship, the same as Molech, to whom children were burned alive. He types the eternal-torment-purgatory God, who perfects (supposedly) by the fires of purgatory. The women weeping for him typify the once-virgin churches, who honor the alleged hell-fire god and lament the ones in the fire. There is a unity of heathen religions with apostate “Christianity” which stamps them all as pagan. The original heathen god was Nimrod, “the mighty hunter” of Gen. 10:8-14, where is related the origin of Babylon and Ninevah. Nimrod led men and women from the true religion of devout Noah into gross sensuality and neglect of the worship of Jehovah. He was beloved by fallen women. For his iniquitous influence, Nimrod was condemned to death by the council of judges; and his dead body was [pg 414] cut into pieces, which were sent to all parts of the inhabited world, with the threat of death to any who practiced his evil ways. Nimrod married his own mother, Semiramis, so that, in a sense, he was his own father and his own son. Here was the origin of the Trinity doctrine.
| Nation | Father-Husband | Son | The Woman |
| Asia | Decius | Cybele | |
| Assyria | Winged bull | ||
| Babylonia | Lord of Heaven | ||
| Babylonia | Ninus | Tammuz | Queen of Heaven |
| Chaldea | Bal | Ishtar | |
| Chaldea | Cahna-Bel (Cannibal) | The Seed | |
| Chaldea | Molech | Ashtaroth | |
| Chaldea | Zoroaster | The Seed of the Fire | |
| China | Child | Madonna | |
| Egypt | Apis bull | Cow of Athor | |
| Egypt | Osiris | Horus | Isis |
| English | The Devil | ||
| Greece | Bacchus | Rhea | |
| Greece | Capricornus | Astarte | |
| Greece | Kissos | Mother of gods | |
| Greece | Kronos | Aphrodite | |
| Greece | Orion | Babe | Ceres |
| Greece | Saturn | Venus | |
| Greece | Plutus | Irene | |
| India | Vishnu | Christina | |
| India | Tsi | Eswara | |
| Italy | Pope | Virgin Mary | |
| Japan | Child | Madonna | |
| Nineveh | Nimrod | Nimrod | Semiramis |
| Palestine | Baal | ||
| Persia | Sun | Moon | |
| Persia | Sun God | ||
| Persia | Child | Madonna | |
| Philistia | Dagon | ||
| Rome | Jupiter | Jupiter Puer | Fortuna |
| Scandinavia | Woden | Thor | Frieda |
| Thibet | Child | Madonna |
The practices of Nimrod were continued in secret by Semiramis; and as every caution had to be taken, the things done were veiled in mystery. Each act and person was represented only in symbols known to the initiated. Here originated the various secret societies, with their blood-curdling oaths of secrecy—Masonry, Oddfellowship, Jesuitism, Knights of Malta, and so on. These are lineal descendants of the “mysteries” of pagan sensuality, all of them abominations to God. Semiramis, to further her schemes, pretended that Nimrod, the father-son, had been raised from the dead in the form of the sun, which thus became an object of worship. She represented herself as the moon, which was also adored. This was the original Trinity—Nimrod the father, Nimrod, or Tammuz, the son and Semiramis the mother, the power, or spirit, back of all. As the people multiplied and scattered they took with them this heathen Trinity which appears in various nations in the partial list shown on the preceding page.
These under inspiration of the Devil, put the false seed of the woman—Nimrod, Tammuz, etc.,—in the stead of the true Seed, pushed Jehovah aside, then into the background, and then out altogether. The Devil, through the Pope of Rome, substituted forms of paganism for the simplicity of true Christianity. “Such things are,” says Cardinal Newman, “the very instruments and appendages of demon worship,” but “sanctified by adoption into the church.” Roman Catholicism is a heathen religion. Protestantism also worships Molech, the fire god, Tammuz, the deity of torture, whom popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, clergy, ministers, and laymen unite in honoring and worshipping under the delusion that they are worshipping Jehovah, God of Abraham, the true God of the Bible. However, ignorantly, “they worship devils.”—1 Cor. 10:20.
8:15, 16. Then said He unto me, Hast thou seen this, O Son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And He brought me into the inner court of the Lord's house, and behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.—In the court itself (1 Ki. 6:36), in the very presence of the blood-bought sacrifice, these men were gathered. Only priests and Levites might be in this court. They typified the believers and spirit-begotten ones of the Christian Church. They were divided into about twenty-five courses or sections and served in rotation. These typed the divisions of Christians into about twenty-five principal denominations. [pg 416] In the United States these are Adventists, Baptists, Brethren (Dunkards), Catholics (Greek), Christian, Churches of Christ Scientist, Churches of God, Congregationalists, Disciples of Christ, Evangelical, Friends, German Evangelical Protestant, German Evangelical Synod, Latter Day Saints, Lutherans, Scandinavian Evangelical, Menonites, Moravians, Methodists, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Protestant Episcopals, Reformed, Salvation Army, and United Brethren. With their backs toward the Temple of the Lord (Jer. 2:27), these treat with contempt and scorn the little company of God's true saints, rich in faith, “the Temple.” To turn the back is a gross insult. Their faces are toward the east. (Jer. 8:2.) All these denominations worship the fire-god, the sun, the heathen god whose identity with paganism appears foregoing.
8:17. Then He said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O Son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke Me to anger; and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.—So lightly do modern Babylonians, apostate religionists, regard their abominable beliefs, that they will not even give consideration to the presentation of the truth about Jehovah and His Divine Plan of the Ages. It is the church—clergy and members—who brought on the barbarous world-war. They could have stood like a rock for peace; but the clergy, with devilish exhortations, urged their fellow-savages to bloodshed. The Divine judgment has gone against them and soon will swallow them up in the earthquake (revolution) and fire (anarchy) of the Time of Trouble. The last clause should read. “They send a stench to My nostrils.”
Destructive Criticism Of The Bible
8:18. Therefore will I also deal in fury; Mine eyes shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in Mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.—The fury of “Christians” in this savage war will be visited upon them in the succeeding revolution and anarchy. When the real Time of Trouble is on, after the war, Christendom will realize the terrible truth that it is the punishment of Divine Justice—and will pray mightily to God. Their prayers cannot be favorably answered (Prov. 1:28) until “the great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14) has finished its work of “bruising to heal.”—Hos. 6:1.
“In the world despised, neglected,
Deemed its refuse and its dross,
She whose Lord the earth rejected
Shares His sorrow, bears His loss.”
Ezekiel 9—The Man With The Inkhorn
9:1. He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.—Chapter 9 depicts the slaughter of the idolaters of Jerusalem. It types the literal slaughter of the spiritual idolaters of Christendom in the Time of Trouble, and also their destruction as tares (Matt. 13:40) by the Word of Truth, which will manifest their true condition and cause them to cease the pretense of being Christians. The picture corresponds to the harvesting of wheat and tares by the sickle of Truth (Rev. 14:15), and the burning of the tares. There is a two-fold significance here—those having material charge of Christendom, and those having spiritual charge (D. 527.) The first class comprises the rulers of the great nations; the second class, the feet members of the Little Flock (Luke 12:32)—“All things are yours.” (1 Cor. 3:21); “Inheritors of the Kingdom” (Gal. 5:21); “Given charge of all His goods” (Luke 12:44), the Bible truths. The first class has as weapons the armies and navies. The second has the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
Seats Free And No Collection Was Never Babylon's Slogan
9:2. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the North, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen, with a writer's inkhorn by his side: and they went in, and stood beside the brazen altar.—The six with earthly weapons are the rulers of the six great nations—Russia, Germany, Austria, France, England and Italy. The six with the Sword of the Spirit symbolize all the Elijah class, the six, with one other, making up the seven, the complete number. These have their commission from “the north,” from the seat of Divine Dominion, from God Himself. Practically all Bible translators and commentators agree that the one with a writer's inkhorn by his side was not one of the six, but a seventh, garbed as a priest, or as a clerk or officer in an army of the East. The linen signifies the imputed righteousness of Christ, (Rev. 19:8.) The writer's inkhorn symbolizes that the seventh man's function was to write. God identified him thus: When The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society was at Allegheny, Pa., an open Bible was to be [pg 418] painted on one of the large front window of the office. A sign painter, not in the Truth, painted the open Bible; and without instruction from any one, of his own volition, he painted the Bible as open at Ezekiel, Chapter 9. The man in linen was the Laodicean servant, the Lord's faithful and wise steward, Pastor Russell. When Pastor Russell saw this, he turned pale. Ezekiel seeing the man in linen, types Pastor Russell thereafter seeing himself to be the antitype of that man—one of the most prolific writers of the Age, and the only one to write and publish widely the glad tidings of the actual Second Presence of Christ. The seven men stood beside the brazen altar—there, in connection with God's Plan, based upon the Ransom sacrifice to receive their Divinely appointed commission.
9:3. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub, whereupon He was, to the threshold of the house. And He called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side.—One of the four living creatures is here designated a “cherub.” This one was Justice, about to operate upon the iniquities of ecclesiasticism. The threshold of the house refers to the door of the Holy, the condition of the spirit-begotten. “The spirit of glory and of God is upon thee.” (1 Pet. 4:14) The message was to sound forth from the Lord's consecrated people during the Harvest of the Gospel Age, from 1878 to 1918.
9:4. And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.—The center of Christendom is the nations of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Scandinavia. Hither and thither, traveling and preaching for nearly forty years Pastor Russell obeyed this command; and through the printed page of books, tracts and newspapers he went into every corner of the world. “Set a mark”, literally “set a ‘tav’ upon the foreheads.” The “Tav” was the twenty-second letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and in its earlier form had the shape of a cross (†). The forehead signifies the intellect (Rev. 7:3; 14:1). Pastor Russell's great work was to imprint indelibly in the minds of certain ones the truth about the Cross, the sacrifice of the Christ, Head and Body, and the part of the Church therein. It was the duty of the clerk or officer of an oriental army to mark the people, either for slaughter or to be left untouched. The “mourners in Zion” (Isa. 61:3) are those faithful ones in Christendom that appreciate that conditions are evil in churchianity, perhaps without [pg 419] understanding just how. All these are to be marked in their minds with the knowledge of the Present Truth.
9:5. And to the others He said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity.—After Pastor Russell's writings have reached an individual, the other members of the Elijah class, the “Truth people,” approach him with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. This is to each individual a “savor of life to life, or of death to death.” (2 Cor. 2:14-16.) Those not believing Present Truth will become only the more confirmed in error. (2 Thes. 2:11.) They will be smitten by the Sword of the Spirit, which in them will operate at this time to destroy any pretense of being Christians, and cause them to take their proper stand as worldings—to be destroyed as tares. In this, God's “strange work” (Isa. 28:21), the Word of God will operate seemingly without pity, to separate the people into two classes, in Present Truth or out of it. In a literal sense the rulers of this evil Age will pitilessly carry the Sword throughout the lengths and breadths of Christendom.
9:6. Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at My Sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.—Here are depicted the savagery of the revolutions and the anarchy succeeding the great war. Though they are to be literally martyred, the consecrated in Present Truth cannot be hurt of either slaughter weapon; their hopes and their treasures are in Heaven (Matt. 6:20), and no earthly calamity can in any wise work them ill. Symbolically the Sword of the Spirit will do no harm to mature Christians—“men,”—but many young or undeveloped believers, not having the Holy Spirit, regardless of sex, will fall as tares, as will all of the idol worshipers of Christendom. The literal trouble will begin with a revolutionary outburst of anarchy against the churches and the clergy (1 Pet. 4:17), as responsible for the trouble because of having preached the people into the war, in the face of innumerable Scriptures against fighting with carnal weapons (Matt. 5:39, 44; John 18:11; 2 Cor. 10:4) and of those teaching Christians to love one another and to forgive trespasses (Luke 6:27-38), personal or national. (Rom. 12:17-21.) The Sword of the Spirit will begin its work with the sanctuary class, the professing Christians (1 Pet. 4:17). It will begin with “the ancient men”, the representatives of the people—the clergy, doctors of divinity, priests, bishops and other ecclesiastics.
9:7. And He said unto them, Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain: go ye forth. And they went forth, and slew in the city.—Typically the house of God was defiled by a dead body. The Temple, the Body of Christ, the true Church, is defiled by the presence in it of any one who has become spiritually dead. The priests and Levites alone might enter the priests' court; and this types that many professing to be consecrated Christians will lose all claim to being followers of Christ—be slain religiously. So many will thus lose belief that Christendom will be filled with them. Literally the sanctuaries and the streets of Christendom will be filled with the slain of the Time of Trouble.
9:8. And it came to pass, while they were slaying them, and I was left, that I fell upon my face, and cried, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt Thou destroy all the residue of Israel in Thy pouring out of Thy fury upon Jerusalem?—It will almost seem that none in Christendom will escape alive; and, indeed, “Except those days be shortened, no flesh should be saved.”—Matt. 24:22.
9:9, 10. Then said He unto me, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great, and the land is full of blood, and the city full of perverseness: for they say, The Lord hath forsaken the earth, and the Lord seeth not. And as for Me also, Mine eyes shall not spare, neither will I have any pity, but I will recompense their way upon their head.—On account of the light of the Gospel of Love they possess, both Romanism and Protestantism are guilty to an extraordinary degree before God. Christendom, through its savage wars, is drenched with blood. Churchianity is full of wilful sin. God will seem to have left the social order to its own destruction.
9:11. And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by His side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as Thou hast commanded me.—Pastor Russell was faithful to his great task of writing and publishing the Truth and imprinting the “tav” of Present Truth in the minds of the spirit-begotten. In October, 1916, he died, and beyond the veil has, ere this, undoubtedly, reported in the presence of Christ that he has done the work he was given to do.
“Faithful when with tears thine eyes were dim,
Faithful when joys' cup o'erflowed its brim;
Faithful when God seemed to veil His face,
Faithful when He crowned thy work with grace,
Faithful till was fled life's fleeting breath,
Eager hands were folded still in death.”
Ezekiel 10—Scattering Coals Of Fire
10:1. Then I looked, and, behold, in the firmament that was above the head of the cherubim there appeared over them as it were a sapphire stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne.—Verses 1, 8-11, 12, 14-22 are explained in Chapter 1. The repetition of the symbols of the Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power of God, of the wings (Word of God), of the wheels, and the wondrous light, are assurances that in the anarchous destruction of Christendom, our Father is acting wisely, justly, lovingly and in accordance with His Word and Plan for the good of mankind.—T. 125.
10:2. And He spake unto the man clothed with linen, and said, Go in between the wheels, even under the cherub, and fill thine hand with coals of fire from between the cherubim, and scatter them over the city. And he went in in my sight.—Ezekiel, typing Pastor Russell, sees himself as acting in the manner here described. He was to go in between the wheels, to do his work in accordance with the Divine Plan, to act under the dictates of the Divine Justice, “the cherub.” The coals of fire are symbolic of the fiery trials, distress, “great tribulation,” with which Christendom will be overwhelmed in the last period of the Time of Trouble, and the prophecies of these events. (Rev. 8:5.) These Divinely permitted troubles have the approval of Divine Wisdom, Justice, Love and Power, as necessary from every viewpoint, and the inevitable retribution of a long-forbearing God. Pastor Russell was to do this work,—“fill his hand,” with all his might, to devote himself wholly to this task. Over the whole world was scattered the warning of impending trouble.—D. 57.
10:3. Now the cherubim stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court.—The cherubim stood by the nominal Temple class—to inquire and visit the offences of Christendom. The house was on their left, the place of disfavor. When no priests were in the Holy, it was filled with a cloud. In 1 Kings 8:10 and in 2 Chron. 5:11-14 the cloud filled the Holy, and the priests were unable to serve there because [pg 422] of it. When the cloud filled the Court, no one could see to serve in it. This types that in the Harvest period, from 1878 to 1918, while Pastor Russell was dispensing as part of the “food in due season” the impending downfall of Christendom, those who had been serving in the believing Court condition—clergy and other church workers—were no longer permitted to do so. It corresponds to the passing of the stewardship from the clergy to Pastor Russell in 1878. This applies also to verse 4, where the presence of the cloud also types the presence of Jehovah to visit punishment for wickedness.—B. 138.
10:4. Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub, and stood over the threshold of the house; and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was full of the brightness of the Lord's glory.—Pastor Russell saw more clearly than any one in this end of the Age the glorious Gospel of God in the Ransom for all (Court and altar).
10:5. And the sound of the cherubim's wings was heard even to the outer court, as the voice of the Almighty God when he speaketh.—Here is indicated the sounding forth of the Word of God through Pastor Russell's proclamation of Present Truth. The inner Court typed the condition of faith and justification, and the outer Court typed the condition of those not fully believing, nor directly serving God. The preaching and writings of Pastor Russell were heard by all classes of believers and unbelievers. It was the voice of Jehovah, represented as almighty to save, that was heard throughout the world.
10:6. And it came to pass that when He had commanded the man clothed with linen, saying, Take fire from between the wheels, from between the cherubim; then he went in, and stood beside the wheels.—In the Divine Plan of the Ages Pastor Russell was to find clearly indicated the great tribulation then close at hand.
10:7. And one cherub stretched forth his hand from between the cherubim unto the fire that was between the cherubim, and took thereof and put it into the hands of him clothed with linen; who took it, and went out.—Justice gave to Pastor Russell the knowledge of impending troubles, to go out and publish to Christendom.
10:8. And there appeared in the cherubim the form of a man's hand under their wings.—The work of witness here depicted is carried out by human beings, under the power and protection of the Word of God.
10:9-11. And when I looked, behold the four wheels by the cherubim, one wheel by one cherub, and another wheel by another cherub: and the appearance of the wheels was [pg 423]as the colour of a beryl stone. And as for their appearance, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides; they turned not as they went, but to the place whither the head looked they followed it; they turned not as they went.—See Chapter 1 for explanation. The leading face in the head was the man's face, typical of Divine Love. This is the dominating attribute of God's character, directing the course of the other three.
10:12. And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels they four had.—Every part of the Divine character, as well as every operation of the Divine attributes and of the human beings through which God acts is full of Wisdom.—B. 305.
10:13. As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, O wheel.—Very emphatic was the Divine directing of the attention toward the wheels—the Divine Plan of the Ages. Pastor Russell always directed the Bible student's mind toward the great Plan.
10:14-22. And every one had four faces; the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle. And the cherubim were lifted up. This is the living creature that I saw by the river of Chebar. And when the cherubim went, the wheels went by them: and the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the same wheels also turned not from beside them. When they stood, these stood; and when they were lifted up, these lifted up themselves also; for the spirit of the living creature was in them. Then the glory of the Lord departed from off the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings, and mounted up from the earth in my sight: when they went out, the wheels also were beside them, and every one stood at the door of the east gate of the Lord's house, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. This is the living creature that I saw under the God of Israel by the river of Chebar; and I knew that they were the cherubim. Every one had four faces apiece, and every one had four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings. And the likeness of their faces was the same faces which I saw by the river of Chebar, their appearance and themselves: they went every one straight forward.—See explanation of these verses in Chapter 1. (Hos. 9:12) “Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them.”
Ezekiel 11—The Wicked Counsel
11:1. Moreover the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the Lord's house, which looketh eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah, the son of Azur, and Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.—The east gate types Christ, the entrance to true Christianity. (John 10:9.) At the door of the gate were the leading sects, Jaazaniah, the son of Azur (helper) types the idea that by self-help man can please God. Pelatiah (Jah delivers), the son of Benaiah (Jah is intelligent), types the belief that earthly wisdom will deliver the world from its difficulties. (1 Cor. 1:21.) These were “princes among the people”—very popular ideas.
11:2. Then said He unto me, Son of man, these are the men that devise mischief, and give wicked counsel in this city.—These teachings have actuated many of the erroneous beliefs and wicked acts of nominal Christians.
11:3. Which say, It is not near; let us build houses: this city is the caldron, and we be the flesh.—Ecclesiasticism's thought is that the Time of Trouble is not near, and the destruction of Christendom is not to be thought of. (1 Thes. 5:3.) “Let us build houses” is an expression implying confidence in the permanence of things as they are. (2 Pet. 3:4.) “This city is the caldron, and we be the flesh” (Jer. 1:13) is a proverb, here applied to the iron sides of the caldron keeping away the fire, or in antitype civil and military powers, protecting from actual anarchy (fire), however hot things may become.
11:4, 5. Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man. And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and said unto me, Speak: Thus saith the Lord; Thus have ye said, O house of Israel: for I know the things that come unto your mind, every one of them.—The false teachings of the clergy are nothing new. Every one of them is the old worship of Nimrod and Baal.
11:6. Ye have multiplied your slain in this city, and ye have filled the streets thereof with the slain.—There never was a war that a clergy did not preach “their people” into it, and multiply the slain. Furthermore, the number is legion of those who would have liked to gain spiritual life, but the clergy have discouraged (John 7:48), and in millions of cases caused their actual death.
11:7. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Your slain whom ye have laid in the midst of it, they are the flesh, and this city the caldron: but I will bring you forth out of the midst of it.—Another sense in which the Jerusalem Jews used this proverb was that the Jews taken captive into Babylon were worthless, and they in Jerusalem were the valuable flesh remaining. (Mi. 3:3.) God here tells that the only ones to remain in Christendom will be the literally dead, or those who are dead to the claims of Mystic Babylon. These have the best chance of surviving the trouble. The walls, defences, military and police, will be broken down by war and revolution; and nothing can save the adherents of ecclesiasticism from their fate.
11:8. Ye have feared the sword; and I will bring a Sword upon you, saith the Lord.—The devotees of established priestcraft fear both the literal sword and the Sword of the Spirit. The armies of the nations will be in open revolt against the established powers, religious, political and economic. Also the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, will cut through all pretense and bring about the death of religion in all not begotten of the Holy Spirit.
11:9. And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.—Christendom win fall literally into the hands of revolutionists and anarchists, Industrial Workers of the World, Syndicalists, Socialists, unfriendly to established systems, and spiritually into the power of the Word of God in the hands of His “strangers.” (1 Pet. 1:1; 2:11,) a “just recompense of reward.” (Heb. 2:2.)
11:10, 11. Ye shall fall by the sword; I will judge you in the border of Israel, and ye shall know that I am the Lord. This city shall not be your caldron, neither shall ye be the flesh in the midst thereof; but I will judge you in the border of Israel.—The Jews taken captive out of Jerusalem were tried and slain at Riblah (a bare place) outside of Palestine, typifying that the destroying judgments on Christendom will come upon her after her institutions have gone to pieces, and she is desolated.
11:12. And ye shall know that I am the Lord: for ye have not walked in My statutes, neither executed My judgments, but have done after the manner of the heathen [pg 426]that are round about you.—The people of Christendom will finally appreciate that their distress is a punishment from God, because of not having followed the plain injunctions of the Bible, having mistaught the Word of God, and having lived no better than unbelievers.
11:13. And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah, the son of Benaiah, died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah Lord God! wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?—While Pastor Russell's reasonable and Divinely appointed teachings are doing their good work throughout Christendom the idea that human wisdom, Prussian culture, etc., can save the old order of things, will be seen lifeless.
11:14. Again the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying.—Verses 14 to 25 are the message of comfort and hope to those who are now out of harmony with ecclesiasticism.
11:15. Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land given in possession.—The Jews in captivity were despised by those remaining in the “holy” city, Jerusalem. They type the people of Christendom who honestly own themselves to be of the world and are despised by the “best people,” the educated, religious “holy” Churchianity. “Get you far from the Lord” is the attitude of the tares toward those who do not pretend as much, but who are often much better in God's sight. The “best people” not merely own most of the earth now, but expect to own Heaven too—with the now worldly people forever consigned to a devil-imagined hell of eternal torment.
11:16. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little Sanctuary in the countries where they shall come.—God especially favors the honest-hearted, humble-minded, however far they may now be from Him in outward appearance. Christ avoided the Scribes and the Pharisees, but freely associated with the publicans and sinners.
11:17. Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord God; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.—In the coming Kingdom God will gather first the outcasts from their condition of disfavor, even from the dead, and will give them possession of the earth before the proud-minded ecclesiastics are permitted [pg 427] to return from the dead. This is to have also a literal fulfillment on Fleshly Israel.—Z. '94-76.
11:18. And they shall come thither, and they shall take away all the detestable things thereof and all the abominations thereof from thence.—The common people, free from the perverse influence of priestcraft, in Christ's Millennial Kingdom will abolish all the clergy-fostered ideas and practices now so abominable to God.
11:19. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh.—They will be single-hearted to serve God and do His will alone. (Jer. 32:39.) From having the spirit or mind of natural men they will be given the Holy Spirit, when God “pours out His Spirit upon all flesh.” (A. 333; Z. '03-171.) From being hard-hearted they will become tender-hearted, forgiving one another even as God, for Christ's sake will forgive them.—Eph. 4:32.
11:20. That they may walk in My statutes, and keep Mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.—They will keep God's Law of Divine love. The “best people,” who now regard themselves as God's people, in the Age to come will learn that God opposes the proud and favors the humble.
11:21. But as for them whose heart walketh after the heart of their detestable things and their abominations, I will recompense their way upon their own heads, saith the Lord God.—Those who at heart love established ecclesiasticism are counted as having the heart, mind or will of the author of priestcraft, the Devil. “Ye generation of serpents (devils), how scarcely shall ye escape the condemnation of Gehenna (Second Death).”—Matt. 23:33.
11:22, 23. Then did the cherubim lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the God of Israel was over them above. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain which is on the east side of the city.—God, and Divine favor, has ceased to be in or with Christendom (D. 527), but is upon and with the true Kingdom (mountain) of God (A. 318), toward the east (Zech. 14:4), the antitypical Mount of Olives.—D. 653.
11:24, 25. Afterwards the spirit took me up, and brought me in a vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea, to them of the captivity. So the vision that I had seen went up from me. Then I spake unto them of the captivity all the things that the Lord had shewed me.—These things seen in the Scriptures are now preached and published to the captives in Mystic Babylon.
Ezekiel 12—Christendom's Blind Flight
12:1, 2. The word of the Lord also came unto me saying, Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not; for they are a rebellious house.—In Chapter 12:1-16 is depicted the blind flight of Christendom into revolution and anarchy. Pastor Russell and his co-workers once dwelt in the midst of the rebellious nominal house, or church, of God, with eyes blinded and ears made deaf by their spiritual defection.—Matt. 13:13.
12:3. Therefore, thou son of man, prepare thee stuff for removing, and remove by day in their sight; and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight: It may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house.—He found in the Bible the Truth of God, which exhorts to “come out of her, O My people” (Rev. 18:4); and in obedience, he came out of his church home into a condition of separateness, by every means of publicity (in their sight) drawing the attention to his removal, in the hope that those left behind might turn truly back to God.
12:4. Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight, as stuff for removing: and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight, as they that go forth into captivity.—In their estimation, he did this as one taken by the Evil One.
12:5. Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby.—He dug through the creeds walls and thus “came out of her.”
12:6. In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders, and carry it forth in the twilight: thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground: for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.—To them he was one not knowing whither he went, with eyes blinded; whereas his action and his publishing of the Truth was but God's way of beseeching Christendom and warning her of her own fate.
12:7. And I did so as I was commanded: I brought forth my stuff by day, as stuff for captivity, and in the even I digged through the wall with mine hand; I brought it forth [pg 429]in the twilight, and I bare it upon my shoulder in their sight.—Pastor Russell and the Truth people did this with their limited power (hand), and laboriously (upon shoulder) made their way with their goods, the precious Truths, “out of her.”
12:8-9. And in the morning came the word of the Lord unto me, saying, Son of man, hath not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said unto thee, What doest thou?—The nominal church (home) of Spiritual Israel have often inquired of Pastor Russell and of the Truth people, “What doest thou?”
12:10. Say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel that are among them.—The import of the answer concerns the exalted class (prince, exalted one), the lords in Christendom, the clergy, and all professing Christians that are with them.
12:11. Say, I am your sign, like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them: they shall remove and go into captivity.—What has been, is a lesson for them; as the Royal Priesthood has done, so shall it be done unto them; they shall move down from their exalted place and go into captivity to the laborite and revolutionary elements. The Jews were literally to go into captivity into ancient Babylon, which they did.
12:12. And the prince that is among them shell bear upon his shoulder in the twilight, and shall go forth: they shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby; he shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes.—As to the Jews, their ruler Zedekiah was by night to try to escape from Jerusalem, but he should not see the way. Regarding Christendom's clergy, they shall at the close of their day, abandon Christendom in the time of revolution, to save what they can for themselves, and “get out of her.” They shall find a still more worldly way out of their creed walls and shall be self-blinded to the real condition of society (the earth).
12:13. My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in My snare: and I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there.—Like a snare shall revolution, in the guise of freedom for all, come upon them; and, utterly blind to the significance of world events, they shall be forced into revolution and anarchy, and there shall this lordly class come to its end. (Hos. 7:12.) The literal application upon King Zedekiah is of course understood; for he went to Babylon, but never saw it, because his eyes were put out.
12:14. And I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him, and all his bands; and I will draw out the sword after them.—God will scatter in war, tumult and confusion and in error; all that adhere to the clergy class, and all their congregations (bands); and against them shall He direct weapons of war and the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit.
12:15. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall scatter them among the nations, and disperse them in the countries.—And they shall appreciate that Jehovah is God, when this has come.
12:16. But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence; that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen whither they come: and they shall know that I am the Lord.—From among them God will leave a few manly believers, who shall escape the sword, the famine, literal and of the Word, and from the pestilential errors; that they, as then faithful members of the Great Company, may explain to the revolutionists and anarchists the Truth about the Divinely forbidden doctrines and deeds of the clergy, and their following.
12:17, 18. Moreover the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness.—The Lord's people were to eat, drink and live with great economy.
12:19. And say unto the people of the land, Thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the land of Israel; They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment, that her land may be desolate from all that is therein, because of the violence of all them that dwell therein.—They were to say to the people of Christendom: “God says to the clergy and people of nominal Spiritual Israel, the churches: You shall eat your food by measure, and with economy—on the food-ticket plan—and drink your Truth with amazement at the famine; for Christendom is to be desolated of its people, because of the violent wars, and the revolutions and anarchy of the people.”
12:20. And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste, and the land shall be desolate; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—The governments (cities) shall be destroyed and the social order desolated in anarchy; and they shall feel the outworkings of Jehovah's purposes upon them.
12:21, 22. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in [pg 431]the land of Israel, saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth?—Nominal clergy and Christians say concerning the Bible, that this Age will last for thousands of years and that Bible prophecies fail of fulfillment—2 Pet. 3:4.
12:23. Tell them therefore, Thus saith the Lord God; I will make this proverb to cease, and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel; but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision.—God says that He will make their saying to cease; for close at hand is the Time of Trouble and of the Kingdom of God, and the fulfillment of prophecy.
12:24. For there shall be no more any vain vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel.—There shall be no more, in the churches, delusive theories of the everlasting welfare of Christendom or of evolution, or immortality, or flattering prediction of peace, peace.—Lam. 2:14.
12:25. For I am the Lord; I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass; It shall be no more prolonged: for in your days, O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God.—Jehovah's Word shall come to pass promptly, in the present day.—Isa. 55:11.
12:26, 27. Again the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.—The clergy say that Pastor Russell's predictions of early trouble and the setting up of the Kingdom are for hundreds or thousands of years to come, and about things that are far off.—Amos. 6:3.
12:28. Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, There shall none of My words be prolonged any more, but the Word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord God.—Jehovah says that none of the words spoken through His servant Pastor Russell, shall wait any longer for fulfillment, but the things shall come as spoken.
“Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have set,
The things which our weak judgment here has spurned—
The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet—
Will flash before us out of life's dark night,
As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God's plans were right,
And how what seemed unkind was love most true.”
Ezekiel 13—The Gaps In The Wall
13:1, 2. And the Word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the Word of the Lord.—God's Word is to write and speak against the preachers of Christendom that say things originating in their own imaginations; let them listen now to the Words of Jehovah.
13:3. Thus saith the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.—Woe to the foolish preachers, who as blind leaders have seen nothing respecting today's crisis in the Word of God, or in the signs of the times!
13:4. O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.—O Christendom, thy preachers will be like cunning foxes, finding profit in the desolation of their country!
13:5. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the Day of the Lord.—They have not preached God's Truth to fill up the breaches among Christendom's defenders, or to build up the broken-down forsakers of Christendom's moral and spiritual defenses, to enable Christendom to have strength to stand before God in the Time of Trouble.
13:6. They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith: and the Lord hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the Word.—They have taken and taught fallacious and delusive theories of evolution, destructive criticism of the Bible, the Divine right of kings and of clergy, and preached their people into savage warfare, saying it was the Word of God, when God has not said it; and they have made others believe their lies.
13:7. Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The Lord saith it; albeit I have not spoken.—They have misrepresented Jehovah.
13:8. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am [pg 433]against you, saith the Lord God.—Wherefore God is against them.
13:9. And Mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies; they shall not be in the assembly of My people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord God.—God will stretch out His hand against these preachers. They shall not be in the Church triumphant (Heb. 12:23), nor shall they be written as members of the spirit-born Great Company; nor shall they enter the Heavenly phase of the Kingdom.
13:10. Because, even because they have seduced My people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar.—Because the clergy have deceived and ruined Christendom (Micah 3:5-7) proclaiming peace when there was no peace (Jer. 6:14); and when one of them would build up a slight wall of workers of earthly, civic, social betterment, the others would bind it together with the binder of self-interest, not with truth (water) or love.
13:11. Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall; there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.—It shall fall; there shall be an overflowing downpour of the water of Truth; and hard truths, great hard facts shall fall upon the wall; and gigantic wars and world wide commotion shall tear to pieces the preachers' earthly-civic-social defense.
13:12. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye daubed it?—Behold, when Christendom's slight defense against the forces of evil, is fallen, it shall be inquired of the clergy, “Where is that worthless, loveless, selfish binder wherewith you inefficiently cemented together its members?”
13:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in My fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in Mine anger, and great hailstones in My fury to consume it.—Therefore God says: I will destroy your defense with a furious storm of war and revolution, with a flood of Truth and great hard facts.
13:14. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—So will I break down your flimsy defenses of selfishness; they shall fall and you shall be buried in their fall.
13:15. Thus will I accomplish My wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered mortar, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it.—The defense of Christendom exists no more, neither they that plastered it with showy self-interest.
13:16. To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her when there is no peace.—Namely, the preachers of Christendom who preach peace when there is no peace.
13:17. Likewise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own heart; and prophesy thou against them.—God directs true Christians to set their faces against the man-made churches, which preach things of their own imagining.
13:18. And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of My people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?—Woe to the churches (women) that practice superstition (sew amulets about their elbows—an oriental method of incantation), and wear veils of mystery to ensnare men.
13:19. And will ye pollute Me among My people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to My people that hear your lies?—Shall they continue to profane and prostitute My name among My people, for the price of the spiritual fornication of church-state union (barley was the customary offering for an adulteress) and for the weekly collections offering, to discourage, persecute and kill the godly?
13:20. Wherefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.—God will strip the churches of the power of their superstitions, and will let the people go out of the bondage.
13:21. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver My people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—Their veil of mystery will He tear away, and deliver His people, the Great Company, out of bondage.
13:22. Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life.—Wherefore the churches shall no more hold forth delusive hopes.
Ezekiel 14—Insincere Inquirers
14:1. Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.—There will come certain of the clergy of Christendom to the Truth people to listen and inquire.
14:2, 3. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?—God's Word for them will be that these men have insincerely set up in their hearts their idols of gold, power, etc., and with a pretended face-to-face sincerity, have retained their iniquitous stumbling block of love of sin. Should God be inquired of at all by such men?
14:4. Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the Lord will answer him that cometh, according to the multitude of his idols:—Every man in the nominal church that insincerely clings to his idols and to his love of iniquity, and yet comes to one of God's people, Jehovah will answer not with words, but with the retribution deserved for his idolatry.
14:5. That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from Me through their idols.—God will treat the nominal Christian church in a manner like their own insincere hearts, because by the idols they serve they are all estranged from their love for Him.—2 Thes. 2:11, 12.
14:6. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.—Say first to them: Repent of your evil deeds, turn away from your idols, O Christendom, and resolutely turn your faces unto Him, and from superstition, error, and from practices which are abominable to His standards.
14:7. For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from Me, and setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, [pg 436]and cometh to a prophet to inquire of him concerning Me; I the Lord will answer him by Myself.—Every church member and every one associated with him, who ceases to love God supremely, sets his heart upon other subjects of love or worship, clings to iniquitous practices, and then comes to the Truth people to find what God says, verily Jehovah Himself will answer him—with deeds, not with words merely.
14:8. And I will set My face against that man, and will make him a sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—God will thoroughly disfavor that man, and make him an example and a by-word; He will cut him off from a place among His people.
14:9. And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out My hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of My people Israel.—And if any preacher—even one of the Truth people—shall get so wrong in heart that he is deceived in what he says (Jer. 20:7), Jehovah will “send him a strong delusion that he should believe a lie,” and will be against him and will destroy him from the midst of His people.
14:10. And they shall bear the punishment of their iniquity: the punishment of the prophet shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him.—Both shall bear the same punishment for their iniquity—the preachers and the man that listens to him.
14:11. That the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be My people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord God.—Professed Christian people shall stray no longer from Him, nor become unclean spiritually through their wrongdoing, but may truly be God's people, and He their God.
14:12, 13. The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against Me by trespassing grievously then will I stretch out Mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it.—When a whole country sins against God with grievous, willful sin, then will He exercise His power against it, and cut off the necessary supply of material (Lev. 26:26) and spiritual food—send a famine of food and of the Word of God upon it, and cut off all life from it.
14:14. Though these three men, Noah, Daniel and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord God.—Though in that country were the three most upright men of history, Noah, Daniel and Job—typing here the Little Flock, the Great Company, and the Household of Faith—they should by their righteousness save but their own lives.
14:15. If I cause noisome beasts to pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it be desolate, that no man may pass through because of the beasts.—God has caused savage governments to overrun Christendom with military and naval forces, and to ruin and desolate it, so that no manly independent man can exist there.
14:16. Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be desolate.—Though these three classes be in Christendom, they shall deliver no one but themselves; they only shall be delivered, but Christendom shall be desolated.
14:17. Or if I bring a sword upon that land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it:—God has brought upon Christendom destroying weapons (Lev. 26:25), and the Sword of the Spirit is to go through Christendom and cut off all that can be cut off, and no one shall save aught but himself.
14:18, 19. Though these three men were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves. Or if I send a pestilence into that land, and pour out My fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast.—God will permit a pestilence, both of literal disease and of pestilential errors in Christendom, in wrath to take away life.
14:20, 21. Though Noah, Daniel and Job were in it, as I live saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughters; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness. For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when I send My four sore judgments upon Jerusalem—the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence—to cut off from it man and beast.—Christendom is so corrupt that God is sending upon her His four dreadful punishments—the sword, the famine, the savage government and the pestilence—as His destroyers!
14:22. Yet behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way and their doings: and ye shall be comforted [pg 438]concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it.—There shall be left from the anarchy a few who shall be brought through into the Kingdom as samples of Christendom's pollution. They will live among those who have suffered in Christendom's trouble, and amid the blessed Kingdom influences by contrast the others shall see their continued evil ways and doings. And they will cause everyone to feel satisfied, content, over the trouble God is bringing upon Christendom.
14:23. And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God.—When the others see their evil ways and doings, they will be content as to the need of the Time of Trouble, for they shall realize that not without good cause shall God have done all that He will do to Christendom.
Ezekiel 15—Fit For Fuel Only
15:1-8. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, What is the vine tree more than any tree, or than a branch which is among the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon? Behold, it is cast into the fire for fuel; the fire devoureth both the ends of it, and the midst of it is burned. Is it meet for any work? Behold, when it was whole, it was meet for no work: how much less shall it be meet yet for any work, when the fire hath devoured it, and it is burned? Therefore thus saith the Lord God, As the vine tree among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so will I give the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will set My face against them; they shall go out from one fire, and another fire shall devour them; and ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I set My face against them. And I will make the land desolate, because they have committed a trespass, saith the Lord God.—Ecclesiasticism, which imagines itself to be the true vine (John 15:1) with the sects as branches, is a wild vine (Rev. 14:18), unable to support itself and clinging like a parasite upon others for support. It brings forth no character fruitage, is unfit for any Divine purpose, is slender, half-charred by the assaults of Higher Criticism, and fit only to be destroyed.—Psa. 80:8-16.
Ezekiel 16—Unfaithfulness Of God's People
16:1-5. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, and say, Thus saith the Lord God unto Jerusalem; Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite. And as for thy nativity, in the day thou was born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou wast not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee, to have compassion upon thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born.—Chapter 16 is an amplification of the symbolic description of Babylon the Great (Jerusalem), ecclesiasticism (Rev. 17), as a once virgin but now apostate woman (church). The peoples of whom the church was composed were originally heathen (16:3), in and of the world (field).
16:6-8. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live. I have caused thee to multiply as the bud of the field, and thou hast increased and waxen great, and thou art come to excellent ornaments: thy breasts are fashioned, and thine hair is grown, whereas thou wast naked and bare. Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread My skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest Mine.—God through Christ loved these people and espoused them, He caused the church to grow beautiful.
16:9-12. Then washed I thee with water; yea, I thoroughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badger's skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and a chain on thy neck. And I put a jewel on thy forehead, and earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head.—He anointed them with the Holy Spirit (16:9, oil), clothed them with the robe of Christ's [pg 440] righteousness (Matt. 22:11) with the embroidery of character fruits (Psa. 45:14), and gave them precious ornament of Divine (golden) promises, put a jewel (pure, diamond-sparkling Truth—1 Cor. 3:12) on their forehead (minds—Rev. 7:3), golden earrings in their ears (ears to hear Divine things—Gen. 24:22), and a beautiful crown on their head (tentative kingship).—Rev. 2:10.
16:13. Thus was thou decked with gold and silver; and thy raiment was of fine linen, and silk, and broidered work; thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil; and thou wast exceedingly beautiful, and thou didst prosper into a kingdom.—He gave them the purest and best food from the Word of God (Psa. 147:14); and they became beautiful in the beauty of holiness (Psa. 110:3), and prospered even unto inheritance of the Kingdom of Heaven.—Col. 1:13.
16:14. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty; for it was perfect through My comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God.—They became renowned for their holy, kindly characters; obtainable through sacrificial suffering.—Heb. 2:10.
16:15. But thou didst trust in thine own beauty, and playedst the harlot because of thy renown, and pouredst out thy fornications on every one that passed by; his it was.—The spirit of fornication in a church is the desire to form a union with any world-government (Rev. 18:3); this spirit was manifested to every government.—Isa. 1:21.
16:16. And of thy garments thou didst take, and deckedst thy high places with divers colours, and playedst the harlot thereupon; the like things shall not come, neither shall it be so.—The high places are the tops of mountains, the rulers of governments; there the church displayed her greatest attractions, and induced the spiritual fornication of governments, to an extent never to be witnessed again.
16:17. Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of My gold and of My silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them.—She took the Divine treasures of Truth, and shaped and distorted them into the form of traditions of men.
16:18, 19. And tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them; and thou hast set Mine oil and Mine incense before them. My meat also, which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savour; and thus it was, saith the Lord God.—The spiritual food of the Word of God was spiced with human errors; such as Divine right of kings and clergy, immortality, Trinity and eternal torment, preached in a way to please the ruling powers and serve their unholy purposes.—Hos. 2:8.
16:20, 21. Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto Me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured. Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter? That thou hast slain My children, and delivered them to cause them to pass through the fire for them?—The Church gave the children of God, begotten of the Word, to endure doctrines of hell fire (Jer. 7:31) and fiery trials in the warfares of governments.
16:22. And in all thine abominations and thy whoredoms thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, when thou wast naked and bare, and wast polluted in thy blood.—In her pride of place, the church forgot the heathendom from which her members had been raised.
16:23-25. And it came to pass after all thy wickedness, (woe, woe unto thee! saith the Lord God.) That thou hast also built unto thee an eminent place, and hast made thee a high place in every street. Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way, and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred, and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by, and multiplied thy whoredoms.—Woe, woe, distress, trouble and destruction to such an apostate, who in every conspicuous way (Isa. 57:7) served the interests of the god of this world, made her “virtues” detestable to thoughtful men, and offered herself for state-church union to every government (street), state, city and town!
16:26. Thou hast also committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbors, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke Me to anger.—She united herself with the most worldly people, great in earthly things.
16:27. Behold, therefore I have stretched out My hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food, and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee, the daughters of the Philistines, which are ashamed of thy lewd way.—God has now, since 1878, brought the powers of judgment against the apostate church and caused a famine of the Word of God within church doors. He has given her over to the encroachments of church daughters of aggressive worldliness and doctrines of devils (Philistines)—Christian Science, Theosophy, New Thought, Higher Criticism and Spiritism. Even these churches, founded on doctrines of devils, are ashamed of the worldly, self-debasing ways of the professedly orthodox Church of Christ.
16:28, 29. Thou hast played the whore also with the Assyrians, because thou wast unsatiable; yea, thou hast played the harlot with them, and yet couldest not be satisfied. Thou hast moreover multiplied thy fornication in the land of Canaan unto Chaldea; and yet thou wast not satisfied herewith.—The Church has even sought union [pg 442] with the forces (Assyrians) destined to overthrow Christendom—Socialism, Communism, Industrial Workers of the World, Trade Unions, Syndicalists, revolutionists, anarchists,—insatiable in her desire for power.
16:30-34. How weak is thine heart, saith the Lord God, seeing thou doest all these things, the work of an imperious whorish woman, in that thou buildest thine eminent place in the head of every way, and makest thine high place in every street; and hast not been as a harlot, in that thou scornest hire, but as a wife that committeth adultery, which taketh strangers instead of her husband! They give gifts to all whores; but thou givest thy gifts to all thy lovers, and hirest them, that they may come unto thee on every side for thy whoredom. And the contrary is in thee from other women in thy whoredoms, whereas none followeth thee to commit whoredoms; and in that thou givest a reward, and no reward is given unto thee, therefore thou are contrary.—How despicable is the attitude of the professed church! ... lower even than an harlot! For a harlot has some self-respect and gives herself only for gifts in return; but the “Christian” church has offered inducements to every possible kind and grade of governmental power to enter into Divinely condemned union of church and state.—Hos. 8:9.
16:35-37. Wherefore, O harlot, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God; Because thy filthiness was poured out, and thy nakedness discovered through thy whoredoms with thy lovers, and with all the idols of thy abominations, and by the blood of thy children, which thou didst give unto them. Behold, therefore I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness.—Therefore God will cause the governments, with which the apostate church has made alliance, to hate and burn her with fire.—Rev. 17:16.
16:38-40. And I will judge thee, as women that break wedlock and shed blood are judged; and I will give thee blood in fury and jealousy. And I will also give thee into their hand, and they shall throw down thine eminent place, and shall break down thy high places: they shall strip thee also of thy clothes, and shall take thy fair jewels, and leave thee naked and bare. They shall also bring up a company against thee, and they shall stone thee with stones, and thrust thee through with their swords.—By Moses' Law women that broke wedlock were stoned to death; in earlier days they were burned alive; and the [pg 443] guilty men also were killed. (Lev. 20:10, 14, 27.) Ecclesiasticism will be smitten down with the stones of hard facts, and be destroyed in the fires of anarchy, “with the fire of God's Jealousy.” (Zeph. 3:8.) She shall be stripped of her tinsel and gilt (imitation immortality), her purple (imperial) and scarlet (bloody) colors, and of her real and imitation jewels of Truth. The masses, incensed by vain sacrifices and privations of a world-war, will despatch her.
16:41. And they shall burn thine houses with fire, and execute judgments upon thee in the sight of many women; and I will cause thee to cease from playing the harlot, and thou also shalt give no hire any more.—Her houses (denominations) will be wiped out in the anarchy. She will receive her terrible judgments in the wondering sight of many heathen religions (women).
16:42, 43. So will I make My fury toward thee to rest, and My jealousy shall depart from thee, and I will be quiet and will be no more angry. Because thou hast not remembered the days of thy youth, but hast fretted Me in all these things; behold, therefore I also will recompense thy way upon thine head, saith the Lord God: and thou shalt not commit this lewdness above all thine abominations.—Not till ecclesiasticism has perished from the face of the earth will God's fury and jealousy cease its retributions.
16:44, 45. Behold, every one that useth proverbs shall use this proverb against thee, saying, As is the mother, so is her daughter. Thou art thy mother's daughter, that loatheth her husband and her children; and thou art the sister of thy sisters, which loathed their husbands and their children: your mother was a Hittite, and your father an Amorite.—The Hittites, Amorites, Samaritans and Sodomites were all worshipers of Baal and Astarte, under one name or another, and were adepts in the heathen and immoral beliefs and practices of that religion, typical not of fleshly but of spiritual uncleanness, as explained in foregoing pages. The true Church's father was our Father, her mother the Sarah Covenant of Grace, and her espoused husband, Christ. Ecclesiasticism's parentage, as becometh the “dwellers in the summits,” the proud “best” people, was the proud, self-sufficient one, the Devil (John 8:44.) Romanism and Protestantism are begotten, not by the Word of God, but by the words of pride, of selfishness, of earthly ambition. Her mother was of the Hittites, a commercial people, descendants of Ham, under Divine disapproval; her spiritual mother was the false promises of human tradition, which would barter a Divine promise for an earthly meal; she loves compromise, and knows not principle. “Like mother, like daughter.”
16:46. And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand; and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.—Samaria and Sodom were worshipers of Baal. With like parentage, ecclesiasticism is a sister religion with the heathen religions, even acknowledging in many volumes the unity of all religions, herself included. Samaria, the ten apostate tribes, mingled the religion of Jehovah with that of Baal—a fit religious sister of the “nominal church,” which reads the Bible and serves the god of selfishness. Samaria elsewhere types not merely ecclesiasticism's sister, but churchianity herself. Sodom, here named Jerusalem's (ecclesiasticism's) sister religion, is directly identified as churchianity in Rev. 11:8—“The great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.” It types professed Christianity in its lowest phase.
16:47. Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou was corrupted more than they in all thy ways.—As though the ill-fame of Sodom were not enough, (apostate) Christianity has excelled her in corruption; Sodom's literal depravity was “a very little thing” to ecclesiasticism's ways.
16:48-50. At I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before Me; therefore I took them away as I saw good.—Sodom's greatest depravity (A. 111, 112) was a result of depraved sexuality in connection with the religion of Baal. “This dreadful ‘consecration’ spread over Phoenicia, Syria, Phrygia, Assyria and Babylonia. Ashtaroth, the Greek Astarte, was its chief object.” Its antitype in the churches was, for national, state or municipal rulers, under guise of advancing religion, to cause their tributary governments to become “Christianized.” Whole nations were thus “Christianized” and baptized—the peoples of savage governments. Through a letting down of the bars of immorality, spiritual and fleshly, this ministered to the beastly propensities of rulers and of others. The clergy, from Pope to class leader, prostituted religion for the pleasure and profit of association with the rich and powerful. Rulers were assured of the “Divine right of kings,” and received homage, as God's representatives. The people were led [pg 445] to believe that death for rulers was entrance to Heaven, and thousands died in the exhilaration—mistaken for religious uplift—of self-sacrifice in their behalf. Ministers of Satan masquerading as angels of light, preached these falsities and millions believed them, and for their own good, and the good of the world which they have corrupted, God is about to take them away.—Z. '95-56.
16:51, 52. Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done. Thou also, which hast judged thy sisters, bear thine own shame for thy sins that thou hast committed more abominable than they; they are more righteous than thou; yea, be thou confounded also, and bear thy shame, in that thou hast justified thy sisters.—As Jerusalem's moral corruption justified Sodom and Samaria, so ecclesiasticism's moral and spiritual depravity have justified those elements in Christendom typed by Samaria and Sodom. The clergy, and their churches, because of pride of being the “best people”, have been more abominable than those of baser sort.—Psa. 119:113; Prov. 6:17; 8:13; 16:18.
16:53-55. When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them. That thou mayest bear thine own shame, and mayest be confounded in all that thou hast done, in that thou art a comfort unto them. When thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.—In the resurrection of the dead, “just and unjust” (Acts 24:15), Jerusalem, in shame, will face Sodom and Samaria, confounded and abased by the fact that her evil practices justified, excused and “comforted” Sodom and Samaria. Likewise ecclesiasticism, the clergy and their following of “best people”, will be in shame over the fact that their iniquity was an incentive to the evil doing of the baser elements of Christendom.
16:56-59. For thy sister Sodom was not mentioned by thy mouth in the day of thy pride. Before thy wickedness was discovered, as at the time of thy reproach of the daughters of Syria, and all that are round about her, the daughters of the Philistines, which despise thee round about. Thou hast borne thy lewdness and thine abominations, saith the Lord. For thus saith the Lord God; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised [pg 446]the oath in breaking the covenant.—Among a proud and corrupt “best” people it was a tabooed subject even to mention the depravities of the “worser kind”; but in the last two score years of merciless “muckraking” and publicity of “Christian” criminality in choir lofts, Sunday School rooms, church “studies”, belfries, orphan asylums and convents, “the wickedness was discovered” of clergy and church people, and so widely published that the heathen religions (daughters of Syria and of the Philistines) have come to know about it and to despise so-called “Christianity.” Christendom has despised its vow of consecration to God and the Covenant of Grace, by which “We, as Isaac was, are the children of the Promise.” (Gal. 4:28), and under which she was betrothed to Christ. God will deal with Christendom in like manner as Christendom has dealt with God.
16:60. Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.—Nevertheless, “God is faithful”, (1 Cor. 1:9); and as He made a covenant with the church in the pure and faithful days of her youth, He will remember that covenant, and in the Times of Restitution will make with all people, through the Jews, the New Covenant, everlasting, under which there will be showers of blessing.—Ezek. 34:26.
16:61. Then thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed, when thou shalt receive thy sisters, thine elder and thy younger: and I will give them unto thee for daughters, but not by thy covenant.—When the people of Christendom, come back from the dead to life on the earth they will remember their evil, faithless ways, and experience deepest shame when people of the baser sort are given to them as daughters, to love and cherish in the Lord.—D. 633.
16:62. And I will establish My covenant with thee: and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.—The coming blessings are not for any faithfulness of Christendom, but because God is faithful.
16:63. That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame, when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.—Then the once apostate people, at last returned to “the Bishop and Shepherd of their souls” (1 Pet. 2:25), will realize the fullness of God's eternal goodness and love, and come into the peace of God (Phil. 4:7)—a peace that will be eternal.—A. 111; Z. '94-46.
Ezekiel 17—Parable Of The Eagles
17:1, 2. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable, unto the house of Israel.—Chapter 17 pictures ecclesiasticism as a king, his partial captivity to the forces destined to destroy him, his turning for support to the forces of worldly wisdom and power, the failure of the attempted alliance, and his final downfall.
17:3. And say, Thus saith the Lord God, A great eagle with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon and took the highest branch of the cedar.—The Assyrians (a great eagle) with great wings, long-winged, full of feathers (strong of wing, powerful), which had divers colors (many varieties and phases of appearance) came to Lebanon (the Hebrew kingdom) and took the highest branch of the cedar (carried King Jehoiachim captive). In antitype this signifies: The power destined to destroy Christendom (anarchy, Nihilism, Socialism, and their wisdom expressed in schools of thought tending to destroy respect for Christendom) like an eagle (wise one) with great wings (impressive words) long-winged (far-reaching), full of feathers (full of argument), has quietly made its way into Christendom since 1878 and taken captive the highest ones, many of the leading class of Christendom (the Cedar) with doctrines of Evolution, Socialism, and Higher Criticism, all destructive of the existing order of things.
17:4. He cropped off the top of his twigs, and carried it into a land of traffick; he set it in a city of merchants.—These were taken captive by these systems of thought into a condition where the Heavenly ideals of the church were abandoned for mere trafficking for position and power, and in human, earthly theories and philosophies.
17:5. He took also of the seed of the land, and planted it in a fruitful field; he placed it by great waters, and set it as a willow tree.—The remaining people of ecclesiasticism, more lowly, the seed from whom had once sprung the ruling classes, will be planted in rich, deep soil, well saturated with waters of the great truths of fraternity, equality and liberty.
17:6. And it grew, and became a spreading vine of low stature, whose branches turned toward him, and the roots thereof were under him: so it became a vine, and brought forth branches, and shot forth sprigs.—The new ecclesiasticism, fostered by revivalists, evangelists, social and civic workers and other earthly reformers, will grow and flourish into a form of ecclesiasticism, low, never far above earthly things, whose numbers (branches) tended toward anarchous systems of thought, and whose roots, fundamental philosophy, will be under the sway of the same.
17:7, 8. There was also another great eagle with great wings and many feathers: and, behold, this vine did bend her roots toward him, and shot forth her branches toward him, that he might water it by the furrows of her plantation. It was planted in a good soil by great waters, that it might bring forth branches, and that it might bear fruit, that it might be a goodly vine.—But the new, low-born ecclesiasticism, alarmed at the anarchous trend of thought, shall turn toward another great system of wisdom (an eagle) equally of demoniacal origin; i. e., conservative, worldly wisdom tending to uphold the present unholy state of affairs.
17:9. Say thou, Thus saith the Lord God: Shall it prosper? shall he not pull up the roots thereof, cut off the fruit thereof, that it wither? It shall wither in all the leaves of her spring, even without great power or many people to pluck it up by the roots thereof.—The time of God's Kingdom having come, God purposes to uproot the new ecclesiasticism. Its character fruitage, being of the spirit of this world, must be cut off and withered in the fiery trials of this tribulation time. Its promise (leaves) shall wither away, even as it has withered wherever the great war has touched.
17:10. Yea, behold, being planted, shall it prosper? shall it not utterly wither, when the east wind toucheth it? It shall wither in the furrows where it grew.—From the east, the direction of the rising Sun of Righteousness comes a wind, a teaching, Present Truth, that shall touch the new ecclesiasticism and wither it in a time when there is “perplexity and distress of nations, men's hearts failing them for fear of the things coming on the earth” (Luke 21:24, 25)—the social order—ecclesiasticism—“the vine.”—Rev. 14:18.
17:11, 12. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Say now to the rebellious house, Know ye not what these things mean? tell them, Behold, the King of Babylon is come to Jerusalem, and hath taken the king thereof, and the princes thereof, and led them with him [pg 449]to Babylon.—The king of Babylon, Satan, has already come to ecclesiasticism and taken captive the ruling class, the prominent clergy.
17:13. And hath taken of the king's seed, and made a covenant with him, and hath taken an oath of him; he hath also taken the mighty of the land.—He holds the chief ones captive by reason of their agreement with his modern, false, religious, social and economic teachings.
17:14. That the kingdom might be base, that it might not lift itself up, but that by keeping of his covenant it might stand.—As a result ecclesiasticism will not be able to rise above earthly things nor lift itself up to combat anarchous systems of thought. If it could do so, it might not be overthrown immediately, but might continue to stand for yet a little while.
17:15. But he rebelled against him in sending his ambassadors into Egypt that they might give him horses and much people. Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the covenant, and be delivered?—Ecclesiasticism has rebelled by crying out to the established wisdom of this world (Egypt), relying upon strong, conservative worldly doctrines (horses) and many supporters of the reactionary ideas, to save it from complete overthrow.
17:16. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely in the place where the king dwelleth that made him king, whose oath he despised, and whose covenant he brake, even with him in the midst of Babylon he shall die.—As God lives! In the condition of lawlessness, wherein Satan, the king of anarchy, liveth, who elevated ecclesiasticism to its place of power, there, in anarchy, in the midst of lawless hosts, shall ecclesiasticism perish.
17:17. Neither shall Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company make for him in the war, by casting up mounts, and building forts, to cut off many persons.—Neither shall worldly wisdom, with its mighty following, accomplish anything for ecclesiasticism in its death struggle with anarchy, not even by raising up governmental support (mounts) nor by the united efforts of the strongest elements of this world's might.
17:18, 19. Seeing he despised the oath by breaking the covenant, when, lo, he had given his hand, and hath done all these things, he shall not escape. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; As I live, surely Mine oath that he hath despised, and My covenant that he hath broken, even it will I recompense upon his own head.—Ecclesiasticism has been faithless to Jehovah and will be faithless to its newly acquired philosophy.
17:20. And I will spread My net upon him, and he shall be taken in My snare, and I will bring him to Babylon and will plead with him there for his trespass that he hath trespassed against Me.—Like a snare, a net, shall the Time of Trouble come upon ecclesiasticism; and it shall not escape destruction at the hands of anarchy.
17:21. And all his fugitives with all his bands shall fall by the sword, and they that remain shall be scattered toward all winds: and ye shall know that I the Lord have spoken it.—Millions that abandon churches and clergy in the trouble shall fall physically by violence, and be slain spiritually by the Sword of the Spirit; and those that escape death shall be scattered in the world-wide commotion (winds) far from the systems they once supported. They shall know that God has spoken truly, when the day of anarchy shall come.
17:22. Thus saith the Lord God: I will also take of the highest branch of the high cedar, and will set it; I will crop off from the top of his young twigs a tender one, and will plant it upon a high mountain and eminent.—Thus says the Lord God: One of the highest branches of ecclesiasticism is Judaism. I will establish Judaism. I will take, in Judaism, one of its young and tender aspirations—Zionism—and will plant it, establish it at the very pinnacle of the coming Kingdom of God—the Jews ruling, through the resurrected Ancient Worthies—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc.—over the earthly phase of that Kingdom.—Psa. 45:16; Heb. 11:10.
17:23. In the mountains of the height of Israel will I plant it; and it shall bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a goodly cedar; and under it shall dwell all fowl of every wing; in the shadow of the branches thereof shall they dwell.—It shall branch above all nations (boughs) and bear character fruit unto life eternal. (John 4:36.) It shall be the desire of all nations (Hag. 2:7) (a goodly cedar). Under it shall dwell in peace all the truly wise ones of earth.
17:24. And all the trees of the field shall knew that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish: I the Lord have spoken and have done it.—All the people (trees) of the world (field) shall know that the Lord has brought down nominal ecclesiasticism and exalted the Ancient Worthies, has dried up “Christianity” and given vitality to Zionism and Judaism.
Ezekiel 18—“The Soul That Sinneth”
18:1, 2. The Word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge?—The Word of God came to be clearly understood by Pastor Russell as to the equity of Jehovah's dealings with man in condemning all to death. Both Jews and Christians have asked, “How is it just to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations?” “Why have the children's teeth been set on edge by the fathers' eating the sour grape of sin?”—H. 59; E. 334, 309.
18:3. As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel.—The doubters queried, “Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father?” (18:19.) They complained, “The way of the Lord is not equal” nor just. (18:25.) Pastor Russell, expounding the Word of God, demonstrated clearly that God's way is just (18:25); that man's ways are unequal, unjust (18:29); and that God takes no “pleasure at all that the wicked should die, but rather that he should turn from his ways and live.” (18:23-32.) The time will soon be when the scornful proverb shall no longer possess any force.—H. 46.
18:4. Behold, all souls are Mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is Mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die.—In the earthly phase of the thousand-year probationary Kingdom of God the equal justice of God will be manifest, father and son will be treated alike, no one dying for a parent's sin; but each soul that sinneth shall die for his own sin.—E. 354, 331; A. 128.
18:5-9. But if a man be just, and do that which is lawful and right, And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour's wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman, and hath not oppressed any, but hath restored to the debtor his pledge, hath spoiled none by violence, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment; he that hath not given forth upon usury, neither hath taken any increase, that hath withdrawn his hand from iniquity, [pg 452]hath executed true judgment between man and man, hath walked in My statutes, and hath kept My judgments, to deal truly; he is just, he shall surely live, saith the Lord God.—The Father of equal love will beseech each sinner to repent and turn from his transgression, that iniquity, wilful sin, be not his ruin. “Wherefore turn yourselves and live ye.” (Ezek. 18:30, 32.) The days of death from Adamic and parental imperfection will be over; each one will be solely responsible for his own life or death. To clearly explain the changed situation the several cases are presented. If a righteous man continue in a righteous course he shall live eternally.
18:10-13. If he beget a son that is a robber, a shedder of blood, and that doeth the like to any one of these things, And that doeth not any of those duties, but even hath eaten upon the mountains, and defiled his neighbour's wife, hath oppressed the poor and needy, hath spoiled by violence, hath not restored the pledge, and hath lifted up his eyes to the idols, hath committed abomination, hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.—If a man's son is a wilful sinner, “he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.”
18:14-18. Now, lo, if he beget a son, that seeth all his father's sins which he hath done, and considereth, and doeth not such like, that hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, hath not defiled his neighbour's wife, neither hath oppressed any, hath not withholden the pledge, neither hath spoiled by violence, but hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath covered the naked with a garment, that hath taken off his hand from the poor, that hath not received usury nor increase, hath executed My Judgments, hath walked in My statutes; he shall not die for the iniquity of his father, he shall surely live. As for his father, because he cruelly oppressed, spoiled his brother by violence, and did that which is not good among his people, lo, even he shall die in his iniquity.—If the wicked man have a good, upright son, the good son shall live; but the father shall die.
18:19-23. Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all My statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon [pg 453]him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him. But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all My statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not be mentioned unto him: in his righteousness that he hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God: and not that he should return from his ways, and live?—The wicked man who turns to righteousness shall not have his former sins held against him; but he shall live.
18:24-30. But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? All his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned: in his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, in them shall he die. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel; is not My way equal? are not your ways unequal? When a righteous man turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, and dieth in them; for his iniquity that he hath done shall he die. Again, when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. Because he considereth, and turneth away from all his transgressions that he hath committed, he shall surely live, he shall not die. Yet saith the house of Israel, The way of the Lord is not equal. O house of Israel, are not My ways equal? are not your ways unequal? Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.—The righteous man who turns to iniquity shall die.
18:31, 32. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.—This will be true of individuals as soon as the last member of the spirit-begotten Body of Christ has died. And it is true now—and has been true since 1878—of the institutions of “this present evil age,” which have been in Divine judgment since 1878. If ecclesiasticism, “the house of Israel,” would cast away all their transgressions, and gain a new heart and a new spirit, they would abide forever; but they will never change their evil ways; their destruction will be their own wilful act—“Why will ye die?”
Ezekiel 19—The Lion's Whelps
19:1. Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel.—Chapter 19 has the form of a dirge. It represents in antitype the downfall, in the Time of Trouble, of ecclesiasticism pictured first, as two roaring lions which are taken captive; and secondly, as a vine destroyed by fire of internal origin. The princes of Israel are the clergy.
19:2. And say, What is thy mother? A lioness: she lay down among lions, she nourished her whelps among young lions.—As the father and the mother of Isaac were Abraham and Sarah, and the spiritual father and mother of the true Church are Jehovah and His Covenant of Grace (Gal. 4:22-28), so the spiritual father and mother of ecclesiasticism, priestcraft, are the Devil and his covenant with death. (Gen. 3:4; Isa. 28:18.) “The Devil goeth about like a roaring lion.” (1 Pet. 5:8.) Their nourishment has been “doctrines of devils.”
19:3. And she brought up one of her whelps; it became a young lion, and it learned to catch the prey; it devoured men.—Ecclesiasticism divided into two classes; one higher, richer, more educated than the other—“one of her whelps.” They learned to devour men, make them their prey.
19:4. The nations also heard of him; he was taken in their pit, and they brought him with chains unto the land of Egypt.—The unbelieving peoples heard them; they, the clergy, were taken in the pit of corrupt doctrine; they were captivated, taken captive, into worldliness, the wisdom of this world, of “Egypt.”
19:5. Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion.—Another class of ecclesiasticism was developed, under the same false covenant with death, into a full-fledged lion, an embodiment and child of the eternal torment, trinity, inherent-immortality teachings.
19:6. And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men.—This was the popular evangelist well trained in catching men and shekels.
19:7. And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities; and the land was desolate, and the fulness thereof, by the noise of his roaring.—The revivalists caught men by thousands, and “the fulness thereof,” great contributions for a few weeks of noisy evangelism.
19:8. Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces, and spread their net over him; he was taken in their pit.—Then the “unconvertible” people, anarchists, Socialists, etc., spread the net of their teachings. The people, indignant at their sufferings from wars and high cost of living, declined further support.
19:9. And they put in ward in chains, and brought him to the king of Babylon: they brought him into holds, that his voice should no more be heard upon the mountains of Israel.—Revolution and anarchy will place a complete restraint upon the revivalists, and bring them to their end.
19:10. Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters: she was fruitful and full of branches by reason of many waters.—The false covenant-mother of ecclesiasticism is a system of thought, in the very blood; it is part and parcel of the existence of ecclesiasticism. It is “the vine of the earth,” of Rev. 14:19. This system of error was once fruitful in gaining adherents.
19:11. And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches.—The vine had seeming strong authority for the rulership “of them that bare rule,” the clergy, “lords over God's heritage.” (1 Pet. 5:3.) To a mighty and lofty height did the vine of the earth grow.
19:12. But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them.—But in the fury of the world-wide war she will be “cast down to the ground.” The truths arising from the presence of the dawning Sun of Righteousness will dry up the support of her fruit (church members). Her authority—rod—will be broken, withered, and destroyed in anarchy.
19:13. And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.—In a world of hostile doctrines of Socialism and anarchy, in a world-wide drought of the water of the Word of God, the old system of sophistries will soon be in the wilderness condition, in a state of complete ostracism.
19:14. And fire is gone out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation.—The savage application in the world-wide war of the rod of the Divine authority of rulers will cause revolt, revolution and anarchy to spring up, like a fire, which will bring to an utter end the denominational clusters, the fruit of the vine of the earth.
Ezekiel 20—The Hypocritical Ecclesiastics
20:1. And it came to pass in the seventh year, in the fifth month, the tenth day of the month, that certain of the elders of Israel came to inquire of the Lord, and sat before me.—The elders of Israel came to confer with Ezekiel, but he would not be interviewed by them, because of their idolatrous tendencies. The Hebrews had always had such propensities. God had refrained from destroying them in order to preserve His own good name among the heathen peoples; but now He was about to punish them, until the appointed time should come when He would regather them. The destruction of Judaism is here pictured as a fire in a forest. This chapter introduces another group of prophecies against Christendom, ending with Chapter 24. Some of the prominent ecclesiastics will read up or consult Pastor Russell and his writings, and the “Truth people,” ostensibly to learn what they can.
20:2, 3. Then came the Word of the Lord unto me, saying, Son of man, speak unto the elders of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Are ye come to inquire of Me? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you.—Present Truth will refuse any favorable answer to ecclesiasticism.
20:4. Wilt thou judge them, son of man, wilt thou judge them? cause them to know the abominations of their fathers.—Instead, it will pronounce judgment upon them. It will cause them to realize the abominations in doctrine and in life of professed Christians, as a result of the teachings of the Dark Ages.
20:5. And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: in the day when I chose Israel, and lifted up Mine hand unto the seed of the house of Jacob, and made Myself known unto them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up Mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord your God.—First viewed as God's people “in the world,” Egypt, God chose them, made Himself known to them, and lifted up for them the hand of His power.—Z. '94-357.
20:6. In the day that I lifted up Mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands.—He promised to bring them in [pg 457] the resurrection, if faithful, into the “mansion” prepared for them—Heaven itself, the most glorious condition in God's Universe.
20:7. Then said I unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes, and defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.—God had told them to cast away all filthiness of the flesh and the spirit (2 Cor. 7:1), to do away with the desire of things seen with the fleshly eyes (1 John 2:16), and no longer to defile themselves spiritually with cravings for earthly power. But while professing Christ's name, they rebelled in their heart against God, and would not listen to Him.
20:8. But they rebelled against Me, and would not hearken unto Me: they did not every man cast away the abominations of their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt: then I said, I will pour out My fury upon them, to accomplish My anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.—Over and over, throughout the Gospel Age, God was indignant enough to bring destruction upon them; but He did not, in order that His name and reputation might not come into disrespect among the worldly people, who were taught by professing Christians that God was with them.
20:9, 10. But I wrought for My name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, among whom they were, in whose sight I made Myself known unto them, in bringing them forth out of the land of Egypt. Wherefore I caused them to go forth out of the land of Egypt, and brought them into the wilderness.—God's Word views professing Christians also as in the wilderness condition of separateness from and ostracism by the worldly—as “brought forth out of the land of Egypt.”
20:12. Moreover also I gave them My sabbaths, to be a sign between Me and them, that they might know that I am the Lord that sanctifieth them.—He gave them the privilege of entering in advance of the world into His sabbath (Millennial) rest—the rest of peace with God by faith, of justification freely given through the blood of the [pg 458] Son of God. The Lord Himself set them apart for His holy service.
20:13. But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness: they walked not in My statutes, and they despised My judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and My sabbaths they greatly polluted: then I said, I would pour out My fury upon them in the wilderness, to consume them.—As a class, professed Christians have rebelled against being in the wilderness condition of separateness from and ostracism by the worldly. They have lived not according to the Law of Divine Love, but have despised the opportunities of the trial period. They have despised the Scriptural doctrine of the Millennium, and have made a common thing of the rest of faith by introducing all kinds of penances, masses, alms, and other deeds whereby to earn the peace with God, freely offered through faith in Jesus' atoning Sacrifice. Often was God indignant enough to destroy them.
20:14. But I wrought for My name's sake, that it should not be polluted before the heathen, in whose sight I brought them out.—But for His own name's sake, not theirs, God refrained from permitting the Time of Trouble to come before the appointed time, that the people of this world might not belittle Him and His protecting power.
20:15, 16. Yet also I lifted up My hand unto them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands; because they despised My judgments, and walked not in My statutes, but polluted My sabbaths: for their heart went after their idols.—Yet the Word of God has made it plain that those in the wilderness condition who have not given their whole heart to God shall not be changed to the spirit nature and brought to the Heavenly plane of being.
20:17-21. Nevertheless Mine eye spared them from destroying them, neither did I make an end of them in the wilderness. But I said unto their children in the wilderness, Walk ye not in the statutes of your fathers, neither observe their judgments, nor defile yourselves with their idols: I am the Lord your God; walk in My statutes, and keep My judgments, and do them; and hallow My sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between Me and you, that ye may know that I am the Lord your God. Notwithstanding, the children rebelled against Me; they walked not in My statutes, neither kept My judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted My sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out My fury upon them to accomplish My anger against them in the wilderness.—God [pg 459] did not at once destroy those in the wilderness condition, but gave the same fatherly admonition to those who succeeded them, all in vain.
20:22-24. Nevertheless I withdrew Mine hand, and wrought for My name's sake, that it should not be polluted in the sight of the heathen, in whose sight I brought them forth. I lifted up Mine hand unto them also in the wilderness, that I would scatter them among the heathen, and disperse them through the countries; because they had not executed My judgments, but had despised My statutes, and had polluted My sabbaths, and their eyes, were after their fathers' idols.—God repeated His forbearance, in not scattering them back into the world, nor destroying them.
20:25. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.—At last God gave them up “to their own heart's desires” (Psa. 81:12), to “worship the hosts of heaven,” their own pulpit stars (Acts 7:42), who “changed the truth of God into a lie,” into “human traditions,” and “worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25)—following evil statutes, “customs,” and enduring worldly trials and temptations, bringing them, not life, but death.
20:26. And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord.—God gave them up to doctrinal pollutions, in that they believed in and worshipped the eternal torment god, Moloch, the Devil, and singed, scorched spiritually, with the fear of “the hot place,” all their children, those young in nominal Christianity. (Jer. 32:35.) This caused them to be desolate, deserted, abandoned by the true God, like the heathen without God—though not that God might ultimately destroy them; for in the Times of Restitution they will by contrast appreciate the true God.
20:27-28. Therefore, son of man, speak unto the house of Israel, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Yet in this your fathers have blasphemed Me, in that they have committed a trespass against Me. For when I had brought them into the land, for the which I lifted up Mine hand to give it to them, then they saw every high hill, and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering: there also they made their sweet savour, and poured out there their drink offerings.—The Christian's course was typed by the experience of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan (Isa. 57:5), in the blessedness of Divine favor and [pg 460] in the abundance of God's gifts. When brought into this condition of favor, instead of being thankful and giving their whole hearts to God in devoted consecration, the great mass of professing Christians committed the same abominations that the heathen were guilty of—union of church with worldly power, making the high ones the heads of the church, as the King of England and the Czar of Russia; doing homage to all of earth's great ones (the thick trees); rendering service and obedience (sweet savor) to traditions of men; and preaching (pouring out) strong doctrines, intoxicating wine of their mixed teachings (drink offerings).
20:29. Then I said unto them, What is the high place whereunto ye go? And the name thereof is called Bamah unto this day.—In verse 29 Ezekiel speaks with contempt of the Hebrew apostasy. He uses a play upon words, not apparent in the English translation. He asks them, “Mah ba” (Where go?), and answers, “Ba-mah” (the high places) is the name to this day. Pastor Russell frequently spoke with contempt—deserved, from the Divine viewpoint—of the “high-place,” nominal church, her clergy and her laity, always going to the “high ones.”
20:30. Wherefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Are ye polluted after the manner of your fathers? and commit ye whoredom after their abominations?—Again, in the phase of captivity in “Babylon,” the Lord's people were guilty of doctrinal and moral pollution and of illicit union of church and earthly power.
20:31. For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be inquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be inquired of by you.—God will not even listen to the prayers of such professed Christians.
20:32. And that which cometh into your mind shall not be all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone.—Their heart's real desire to become good-fellows in the world's fellowship (Jer. 44:17) shall fail.
20:33. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you.—God began at the appointed time, 1914, to punish the accumulated sins of Christendom “with a mighty hand (power) and with a stretched out arm” (Christ present the Second time, Isa. 53:1), and with fury poured out “a great Time of Trouble such as never was” (Dan. 12:1), and which the Lord declared would never require a repetition.
20:34. And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.—But even this tribulation will be done in a Father's love and for the good of His erring children, to cleanse them. Through this trouble God will search out all professed Christians, make them manifestly separate from the openly worldly.—Z. '94-76.
20:35. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.—God will bring them into a wilderness condition of separateness from the world and of ostracism and persecution by the revolutionary and anarchistic masses, and face to face He will plead with the nominal church to forsake evil and idolatry.
20:36. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God.—As He did with the Hebrews in their trial time in the Wilderness of Sinai.
20:37. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.—God will cause His people, all those not utterly devoid of the Holy Spirit—“the Great Company” in the churches—to pass under the rod of correction and to resume their fidelity to their vow of consecration.
20:38. And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—He will permit conditions of persecution by Socialists, revolutionists, syndicalists, nihilists and anarchists, against persons professing Christianity (“the religion that got the world into trouble”), such that every person not possessing the Holy Spirit will renounce all pretense of being Christian and will get out of the deplorable condition (country) wherein the true Christians will be. This outcast class, being entirely “of the earth, earthy,” shall not enter the spiritual phase of the Kingdom.
20:39. As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto Me: but pollute ye My holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols.—Let who will then serve their idols; but they shall no longer associate themselves with God's children, nor falsely bear the name of Christ, nor pollute God's holy name nor His Church with their presence or their practices. “If the Lord be God, follow Him; if Baal, follow him.”
20:40. For in Mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first fruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.—God wounds to heal. In the real “high places,” the Kingdom of God now at hand, planned for man's blessed restitution, all who are truly God's shall serve Him, some in the spiritual phase of the Kingdom, some in the earthly phase. (Mal. 3:3, 4.) There God will accept all comers, “The Spirit and the Bride say, Come ... and whosoever will, let him take of the Water of Life freely” (Rev. 22:17.) There God will accept their offerings of themselves in heartfelt consecration, and the first and best of their offerings and all their possessions, then hallowed by the influences of the Kingdom of Love.
20:41. I will accept you with your sweet savour, when I bring you out from the people, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered, and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen.—God will accept their heart's best endeavors (incense), when He gathers His children—His spirit children and His earth children—out from the prison-house of death, and out from the dark shadows of a world-wide heathenism. Then God win be seen to be holy, sanctified, in His children, in the sight of all the Satan-blinded idolaters of earth.
20:42. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up Mine hand to give it to your fathers.—God's children, who have not known Him as He is, will know Him then as the God of infinite Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power,—when they shall be established in the Kingdom, in whatever phase they are fitted for—the Kingdom whose earthly phase God promised to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the Ancient Worthies (Psa. 45:16), and whose Heavenly phase He covenanted to give to the spirit class of the Gospel Age.—Heb. 11:40.
20:43. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed.—Then those who have not loved the God of Love as they should shall remember their former ways and loathe themselves for the evil done against such Love Divine.
20:44. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.—They will humbly, [pg 463] thankfully and with fervent gratitude and love know that Jehovah, who is Love (1 John 4:8), dealt with them, for the carrying out of His all holy purposes, and not as Justice might have called for in connection with their ways.
20:45, 46. Moreover the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field.—The words of Ezekiel return to the impending destruction of Jerusalem—of Christendom. Pastor Russell was to speak, as from the Divine viewpoint (the North) against the multitudes (trees in the forest) in the earthly phase (the south) of the Kingdom of God, already established invisibly by God in 1878-1914. Jerusalem (ecclesiasticism) was in a southerly direction (belonging to the earth, earthy), from the Prophet's point of view.
20:47. And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord God; Behold I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein.—God permitted in 1914 the kindling of the present unquenchable conflagration of war, and of revolution and anarchy to come. Righteous (green tree) and wicked (dry tree) alike are to suffer in the fiery trials of the trouble time. All who are of the earth, earthy (of the south, earthly phase of the Kingdom), but who pretend or claim to be of the spiritual phase, to have the Holy Spirit (look toward the north, the spiritual), are to be burned, as the tares are burned after the gathering of the wheat into the Heavenly garner.—Matt. 13:30.
20:48. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it: it shall not be quenched.—All mankind will understand, before the Time of Trouble is over, that “the strange work” is of Jehovah.
20:49. Then said I, Ah Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?—The people of ecclesiasticism, misled by the clergy, are unable to understand Pastor Russell's teachings regarding the trouble, or to get the Divine viewpoint.
“There are great truths that pitch their shining tents
Outside our walls, and though but dimly seen
In the gray dawn, they will be manifest
When the light widens into perfect day.”
Ezekiel 21—The Thrice-Doubled Sword
21:1, 2. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel.—The Lord has drawn the sword against Jerusalem and sharpened and pointed it in fury. (21:1-17.) The king of Babylon (Satan) uses divination as to the route by which to bring the sword against Jerusalem; the Jews deride such a method (21:18-24), but the Hebrew crown is to be overturned. (21:25-57.) The Ammonites (aggressive worldly believers), too, are to be given to the sword.—21:28-32.
21:3. And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth My sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.—Jehovah is against Christendom, has drawn against it both the literal weapons of war, in warfare and revolution, and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. (Eph. 6:17.) He will cause both righteous and wicked to die in the Time of Trouble; and by His Word He will bring about conditions such that all wicked professing Christians will abandon all pretense of Christianity, and the righteous will “come out of her” (Rev. 18:4) and be gathered as wheat into the Divine garner—Heaven.
21:4. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall My sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north.—Cannon, rifle, shot, shell, bomb and torpedo shall be unleashed and turned against all flesh, from those of the earthly (of the south) to those having the Holy Spirit (of the north). The Word of God will be taken out of its sheath of mystery and plainly show the meaning of this trouble, and that it is to be upon all.
21:5. That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn forth My sword out of its sheath: it shall not return any more.—All the people shall know that the trouble has come from Jehovah, and that its consummation is a certainty.
21:6. Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes.—Pastor [pg 465] Russell and the Truth people have carried a heavy heart burden in this message of the ills coming upon Christendom.
21:7. And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighed thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings, because it cometh. And every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord God.—For the days are near when even the strongest shall falter.
21:8, 9. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished.—Modern weapons of destruction are brought to a hitherto unknown efficiency, as is the Sword of the Spirit in the hands of the “feet” members of Christ.—Isa. 52:7.
21:10. It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should We then make mirth? it contemneth the rod of My Son, as every tree.—The weapons of war will make a frightful slaughter among men; and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, will cause millions to cast off Christianity. It glitters with flashes of enlightenment reflected from the risen Sun of Righteousness, which to its idolatrous enemies are gleamings of trouble and distress. Who could rejoice over the trouble? Not the Lord's people; for it presages the destruction of the power (rod) of all professing to be of the Son of God, together with all their institutions.
21:11. And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer.—It is given, bright and sharp, to be swung in the hand of skillful slayers.
21:12, 13. Cry and howl, son of man; for it shall be upon My people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon My people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord God.—The destruction by the weapons of war and by the Word of God shall be upon “My [professed] people,” upon all the clergy (princes). Fear shall take hold of churchianity.
21:14. Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers.—Pastor Russell was to give expression to the final wrath of Jehovah. The destruction will be of double [pg 466] severity three times—in war, revolution and anarchy. The Sword of the Spirit was to be wielded by Pastor Russell twice three times, in his six volumes of Studies in the Scriptures. The weapons of destruction will pursue all the great ones of earth, penetrating into all their most secret places. The Sword of the Spirit will search out all the lords of God's heritage (1 Pet. 5:3), the clergy, exposing their inmost ideas contrary to Jehovah and His Plan.
21:15. I have set the point of the sword against all their gates, that their heart may faint, and their ruins be multiplied: ah! it is made bright, it is wrapped up for the slaughter.—The point of the sword against ecclesiasticism, revealing its true nature and imminent fall, is the present exposition of the prophecies of Revelation and Ezekiel. The Hebrew says that it is made “lightning brightness.” It is an illumination of the whole Babylonish system, for ages wrapped in the mystery of types and symbolisms. How gladly the clergy would have destroyed these two books of the Bible, had they known what they taught!
21:16. Go thee one way or the other, either on the right hand, or on the left, whithersoever thy face is set.—Wheresoever Pastor Russell and the Truth people set their face to go, it is authorized for them by the Lord.
21:17. I will also smite Mine hands together, and I will cause My fury to rest: I the Lord have said it.—God will manifest His anger and cause His fury to rest upon ecclesiasticism.
21:18, 19. And the Word of the Lord came unto me again, saying, Also, thou son of man, appoint thee two ways, that the sword of the king of Babylon may come: both twain shall come forth out of one land: and choose thou a place, choose it at the head of the way to the city.—There were two ways that the weapons of war, revolution and anarchy might strike; in either way the blow would come from Satan, the king of anarchy. It was to come from Riblah, the fork of the roads. Riblah means “desolate.” Since 1878 the worldly churches, and since 1914 the worldly governments, have been “left desolate” (Matt. 23:38) and subject, the one to desolation by the Sword of the Spirit, the other to desolation by carnal weapons.
21:20. Appoint a way, that the sword may come to Rabbath of the Ammonites, and to Judah in Jerusalem the defenced.—The sword might go east of Jordan against the Ammonites (Amos 1:14; Jer. 49:2), or west of Jordan, directly at Jerusalem, first of all. It might strike the Great (Rabbath) Company (Rev. 7:9) of “fellow companions” (Psa. 45:14) (Ammonites), or directly and first strike against churchianity (Judah) and ecclesiasticism proper—“the [pg 467] fenced off,” exclusive, superior, “best” people, hitherto so thoroughly defended from harm.
21:21. For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination: he made his arrows bright, he consulted with images, he looked in the liver.—The forces that will overthrow Christendom are thoroughly under the influence and guidance of evil spirits—as is suggested by the shuffling of arrows named for the two cities, by the consulting of idols (theories), and by the looking in the liver (spiritism), by interpretation. The Devil chooses bitter words (arrows) (Psa. 64:3), consults evil spirits (images), and is guided even in his opposition to Jehovah by his own interpretations of Scripture.—Matt. 4:6; 2 Cor. 11:14.
21:22. At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.—The proof from the Scriptures shows that the evil spirits directed that the revolutionary and anarchistic movement should proceed first to the destruction of Christendom. The ex-Czar of Russia was a spiritualist, and maintained mediums for consultation. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, for years prior to the great war, followed the guidance of a demon which spoke to him clairaudiently, urging him to his present course. A surprising number of prominent men consult spirit mediums. The voice of the spirits was for war by every conceivable means, nation against nation, but destined to effect the desolation of ecclesiasticism as well.
21:23. And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight, to them that have sworn oaths: but He will call to remembrance the iniquity, that they may be taken.—In the sight of those that have sworn allegiance to ecclesiasticism's god, the father of lies, this true prediction of the downfall of the nations will seem an erroneous expectation—as it has appeared to all the great ones of Christendom. They have thought that this war would be as other wars. But the end of the Age (world) has come; and ecclesiasticism's iniquities shall no longer go unpunished.
21:24. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye have made your iniquity to be remembered, in that your transgressions are discovered, so that in all your doings your sins do appear; because, I say, that ye are come to [pg 468]remembrance, ye shall be taken with the hand.—Universal muck-raking by Socialists, Anarchists, magazine writers, social surveyors and reformers has caused Christendom's forgotten iniquities to be freshly remembered, and her transgressions uncovered, so that there is no department—commercial, financial, political or religious—in which her sinful practices do not appear. These things God has permitted to be made manifest that she may be taken red-handed.
21:25. And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end.—The profane and wicked prince of the Jews was Zedekiah, their last king. (A. 248; Z. '04-343.) The antitype is churchianity's lordly class, the clergy, profaning the holy Temple of God, the Church, the Body of Christ, with doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1), as wicked in the sight of God as were their prototypes, the scribes, doctors and Pharisees, with their hypocritical pretense of holiness. Their time has come—1918—when iniquity in the House of the Sons of God shall have an end.
21:26. Thus saith the Lord God; Remove the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high.—Thus says Almighty God: Remove the mitre (mistranslated “diadem”). The mitre was a band of linen about the forehead, typing the righteousness of Christ, supposed to be in the minds of the clergy, but no more actually in them as a class than in whited sepulchres. (Matt. 23:27.) The king wore a golden crown on his head, held there by a white linen mitre. (A. 248; B. 76, 79; Z. '98-359.) The clergy, the lords of God's heritage, have crowned themselves with the rulership of earth, in the person of the pope and in the general desire of clergymen to rule in the affairs of men, a lordship based upon their supposed righteousness (mitre). This great crisis will not be like the temporary setbacks of ecclesiasticism in past centuries. The lowly, revolutionary, anarchistic masses will exalt themselves to power in the Time of Trouble, and the lofty clergy shall be utterly abased.—Matt. 23:12.
21:27. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.—In warfare, revolution and anarchy Jehovah will triply overthrow Christendom until Christ in great power will take the crown and rule the affairs of earth.—E. 147, 133; A. 248; B. 76, 79; Z. '05-253; H. 61.
21:28. And thou, son of man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God concerning the Ammonites, and concerning their reproach; even say thou, The sword, the [pg 469]sword is drawn: for the slaughter it is furbished, to consume because of the glittering.—Nor will the openly worldly, professing Christian escape, for war, revolution and anarchy are abroad—“the sword is drawn”—to consume the worldly, too.
21:29. While they see vanity unto thee, while they divine a lie unto thee, to bring thee upon the necks of them that are slain, of the wicked, whose day is come, when their iniquity shall have an end.—Destruction will come even when the worldly-wise are mistakenly asserting that it will not come nigh them.
21:30. Shall I cause it to return into his sheath? I will judge thee in the place where thou wast created, in the land of thy nativity.—The tribulation shall not be quieted—the sword shall not “return unto his sheath;” for God will condemn the worldly Christian also, in the condition of unbelief wherein they have been.
21:31. And I will pour out Mine indignation upon thee; I will blow against thee in the fire of My wrath, and deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, and skilful to destroy.—God will pour out His wrath upon the worldly professing Christians. He will blow upon them fiery blasts of war, revolution and anarchy. They shall be delivered into the hands of a revolted soldiery, brutal, destructive, pitiless, skilled in the arts of slaughter, taught by Teutons and Allies to know the utmost efficiency in war. The Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, too, will be in the hands of consecrated ones, seemingly but not actually cruel, skilled through Divine power to use it with telling effect.
21:32. Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered: for I the Lord have spoken it.—Institutions Divinely condemned shall be as fuel for the fires of bloody anarchy and pass into oblivion. The war is the melting-pot of ecclesiasticism.
“Beautiful hands are they that do
The work of the noble, good and true,
Busy for them the long day through;
Beautiful faces—they that wear
The light of a pleasing spirit there,
It matters little if dark or fair;
And truly beautiful in God's sight,
Are the precious souls who love the right.”
Ezekiel 22—The Melting Pot Of War
22:1-4. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations, then say thou, Thus saith the Lord God; the city sheddeth blood in the midst of it, that her time may come, and maketh idols against herself to defile herself. Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen, and a mocking to all countries.—In Chapter 22 the various iniquities of Jerusalem are related. (22:1-12.) Their punishment is described under the figure of a melting-pot. (22:13-22.) Christendom, and especially ecclesiasticism, is guilty of bloodshed and of defiling paganism. This, by a natural process, has brought about a situation which could not continue. The present outbreak of evil and trouble, in view of the lofty pretenses of the past, has made paganized Christendom a byword among acknowledgedly pagan peoples.—D. 72.
22:5. Those that be near, and those that be far from thee, shall mock thee, which art infamous and much vexed.—The unbelievers, both in and out of “Christian” countries, scoff at “Christendom”—now defiled of name and “full of tumult.”
22:6. Behold, the princes of Israel, every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.—In Christendom all the rulers, in the mania for war, have used every power to promote bloodshed. The spiritual rulers have, by false teachings, destroyed the spiritual hopes of millions.—Luke 11:52.
22:7. In thee have they set light by father and mother: in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger: in thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.—They have dealt unjustly by the classes needing help. Spiritually they have despised our Father and His Covenant of Grace, and oppressed those who are His pilgrims and strangers in the world.—1 Pet. 1:1.
22:8. Thou hast despised Mine holy things, and hast profaned My sabbaths.—They have despised the holy teachings of God's Word, respecting the seventh thousand-year Day of rest, and have attempted justification by works instead of in the rest of faith.
22:9. In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.—In the churches are gossipers, evil speakers, assassins of reputation. In them are some that feast at the tables of devils (1 Tim. 4:1; 1 Cor. 10:21), like lords or rulers at the heads of the nations; they long for unhallowed church-state union.
22:10, 11. In thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.—They have not only made state-churches in every possible direction, but have been in vast numbers guilty of sexual immorality.
22:12. In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten Me, saith the Lord God.—They have used the gifts of God for evil purposes, even to slay God's holy martyrs; they have even practised extortion upon those close to them. This they have done because they have forgotten the Lord.
22:13. Behold, therefore I have smitten Mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.—God has shown plain signs of anger against ecclesiasticism's hypocrisy and her spirit of murder.
22:14. Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it.—Her heart must fail her, and her powers weaken, before an abused conscience, in the days when God will deal with her iniquities.
22:15. And I will scatter thee among the heathen, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthiness out of thee.—He will scatter the ecclesiastics and by fiery trials consume the uncleanness out of ecclesiasticism.
22:16. And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself in the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.—She shall be profaned, desecrated and destroyed in the sight of earth's nations.
22:17, 18. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, the house of Israel is to Me become dross; all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst [pg 472]of the furnace; they are even the dross of silver.—Ecclesiasticism, clergy and laity alike, are to the just and holy God become as the refuse of the baser metals in a fiery furnace of affliction; they are the dross of the Great Company (silver). (Jer. 6:30.) The baser metals type degrees of earthly natures; brass (human perfection), tin (tares, begotten of error), iron (savage worldly power), and lead (sin, iniquity).
22:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.—God will gather the corrupt peoples and the nations of Christendom.
22:20. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in Mine anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you.—This great conglomeration of persons of all shades of baseness shall be gathered as into a blast furnace, where God will permit indescribable troubles to afflict them; and there He will leave them.
22:21. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of My wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof.—They are to be melted in heart and spirit in the fiery afflictions of His wrath.
22:22. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out My fury upon you.—As the Great Company of God's spirit-begotten children have suffered by the millions, so shall it be with the clergy and laity, who profess Christianity without its spirit.
22:23, 24. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of indignation.—Christendom in this Time of Trouble is without the cleansing, refreshing showers of the water of God's Word.
22:25. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.—Among the clergy there is a conspiracy against the Truth. The “Federation of the [so-called] Churches of Christ in America,” like a very devil (roaring lion), will yet tear to pieces the Present Truth people, will put many to death, and cause some weaker ones to lose their spiritual lives. They will take and destroy the literature containing the precious Bible truth. Literally the preachers by preaching the men into war have made widows by the millions.
22:26. Her priests have violated My law, and have profaned Mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them.—The Roman Catholic priests—and the Protestant clergy—have violated the Law of Divine Love; have polluted God's truths with pagan teachings, have shown no difference between those cleansed by the blood of Christ and those still in their sins, have denied the Bible teaching of the Millennium (Rev. 20:2-7), have hidden the Sabbath rest of justification by faith, and have promoted a money-grabbing system of penances and masses for sin and of collections, which discredits and profanes God's name.
22:27. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.—The ecclesiastics, “wolves in sheeps' clothing” (Matt. 7:15), tear their prey, the Body members of Christ, shed blood in persecution, and destroy spiritual life—all to acquire money to perpetuate their infamous, paganized religion.—Micah 2:9-11.
22:28. And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken.—The preachers of Protestantism have whitewashed the whole crowd of ecclesiastics, imagining empty doctrines of Evolution and Higher Criticism, and lying to the people by giving their own theories as God's Word.
22:29. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy; yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.—The laity of both Romanism and Protestantism have oppressed the poor in spirit, have robbed those needing God's help of what comfort they had, and have wrongfully oppressed the “pilgrims and strangers” (Heb. 11:13) among them.
22:30. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.—God promised not to destroy Sodom if there should be ten righteous men in it; He will seek for even one who is righteous in Christ's righteousness, in ecclesiasticism, to make up the wall of her goat-fold, and stand in the gap, that He should not destroy her; but He will find not one!
22:31. Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God.—Therefore ecclesiasticism is doomed to extinction.
Ezekiel 23—Two Apostate Church Systems
23:1, 2. The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother.—Chapter 23 describes the church-state unions of the Roman Catholic church, pictured as an unchaste woman, Aholah, and of the Protestant church, her unchaste sister, Aholibah, and the destruction of both in the Time of Trouble by the nations with which they have made unions.—Jer. 3:6-10.
23:3. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity.—Both of these churches have always catered to worldly ideas and people, and even in their youth were guilty of unions of church with state.
23:4. And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were Mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.—Their names are significant. Aholah means “her own tent.” God is not in Romanist ecclesiasticism at all; it has its own tabernacle, called (Acts 7:43) “the tabernacle of Moloch.” Satan himself dwells in and actuates the Papal system. Aholibah means “My tent is in her.” God's Tabernacle, the true Church, has been among the Protestants chiefly. In this picture, an unchaste Protestant ecclesiasticism is designated “Jerusalem.” They both have sons—prominent ones—and daughters—sectarian churches.
23:5. And Aholah played the harlot when she was Mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors.—The Romish church dates back to apostolic days, when she was God's Church [Mine]; but she fell in love with her neighbors, the rulers of that brutal age, and sought temporal power.
23:6. Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses.—The leaders and rulers in worldly affairs were apparently faithful (clothed in blue, typical of faithfulness), and seemed desirable and attractive to be associated with. They were men of thought and men of action, riding hobbies of vain philosophies.
23:7. Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.—The Church associated with them for gain of worldly power, set her affections on them, instead of on things Above, and defiled herself with their pagan ideas.
23:8. Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her.—Nor did she give up her worldliness when she took up oriental asceticism.
23:9, 10. Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her.—The rulers discovered the naked, unprotected condition of Romanism; and by hundreds of thousands poured in from the East, literal Tartars, Vandals, Huns and Turks, and the pagan ideas from the same sources, and slew the sons and daughters of Romanism with the literal sword, as well as her children spiritually. Among the Pagan religions (women) Romanist “Christianity” became a name and a byword; for the invaders had executed the judgment of God upon her.
23:11. And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.—Protestantism began in comparative purity, but later on developed an inordinate love for temporal power. Even more than Papacy she tried in every nation to “run things.”
23:12. She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.—She, too, set her affections on popularity with earth's rulers, great and small, conservative, radical and revolutionary.
23:13-17. Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way. And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity: and as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them [pg 476]into Chaldea. And the Babylonians came to her into the bed of love, and they defiled her with their whoredom, and she was polluted with them, and her mind was alienated from them.—God saw that both churches, Romish and Protestant, were of like tendency to church-state union, especially Protestantism; for she never saw or heard of a great worldly man, even down to the local leaders of the smallest rural communities, that she did not desire their influence and help—particularly their money—and systematically invited them to connect themselves with a church, quite regardless of whether or not they remained worldly. So much did the prominent people in every place crowd into the Protestant churches and try to “boss” things, that the rank and file even of ecclesiastics and of the less prominent supporters of ecclesiasticism grew sick of them.
23:18. So she discovered her whoredoms, and discovered her nakedness: then My mind was alienated from her, like as My mind was alienated from her sister.—The newspaper writers, Socialists, anarchists and muck-rakers, exposed the worldliness of the Protestant churches; and God Himself, from 1878 on, has been alienated from them.
23:19-21. Yet she multiplied her whoredoms, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted upon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.—Protestant ecclesiasticism multiplied her worldly alliances; and the prominent and wealthy, “of the earth, earthy,” filled the churches with tares, worldlings, desirous of profiting by association with prominent people.
23:22. Therefore, O Aholibah, thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will raise up thy lovers against thee, from whom thy mind is alienated, and I will bring them against thee on every side.—Therefore, O Protestantism, thus saith the Lord Jehovah: I will raise up, in warfare and revolution, the worldly people in you, of whom you are already sick, and bring them against you on every side.
23:23. The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them; all of them desirable young men, captains and rulers, great lords and renowned, all of them riding upon horses.—The worldly, the worldly-wise (Chaldeans), the officers (Pekod), princes (Shoa), and rulers (Koa), and all the discontented and anarchistic with them shall come against you, riding hobbies destructive to you.
23:24. And they shall come against thee with chariots, wagons, and wheels, and with an assembly of people, which shall set against thee buckler and shield and helmet round about: and I will set judgment before them, and they shall judge thee according to their judgments.—They shall war against thy welfare with organizations of their own (chariots), with leaders (riders, mistranslated wagons), with a systematic plan of operation (wheels), and with a great following of revolutionists; and they shall condemn thee by their own perverted ideas of justice.
23:25. And I will set My jealousy against thee, and they shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears; and thy remnant shall fall by the sword; they shall take thy sons and thy daughters; and thy residue shall be devoured by the fire.—Unknown to Protestantism, God's jealousy has been excited by her worldliness; and He will permit the masses to deal with her in fury; they will destroy her spirituality, taking away her ability to discern spiritual things (nose), and to hear (ear) the Word of God. They will force Protestantism's sons and daughters into service in war and revolution; and the remnant will be destroyed in the ensuing anarchy.
23:26. They shall also strip thee out of thy clothes, and take away thy fair jewels.—Protestantism shall be stripped of her robes of self-righteousness and of her imitation jewels—those not truly Christianized; for they will cast off all pretense of religion.
23:27. Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease from thee, and thy whoredom brought from the land of Egypt: so that thou shalt not lift up thine eyes unto them, nor remember Egypt any more.—Being no longer attractive or useful to the ruling powers, she will perforce cease her advances toward the grasping of worldly power.
23:28. For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will deliver thee into the hand of them whom thou hatest, into the hand of them from whom thy mind is alienated.—All law-abiding people, and especially Protestant ecclesiasticism, hate and fear the lawless forces destructive of society; but into the cruel hands of such shall they be delivered.
23:29. And they shall deal with thee hatefully, and shall take away all thy labour, and shall leave thee naked and bare; and the nakedness of thy whoredoms shall be discovered, both thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.—These evil forces shall deal hatefully with Protestantism, take away all the results of her work, and strip her completely, because of the ultimate evils wrought by union of church and state.
23:30. I will do these things unto thee, because thou hast gone a whoring after the heathen, and because thou art polluted with their idols.—God will do this because Protestantism has sought and made church-state unions, and has been polluted with worldly ideas and practices.
23:31. Thou hast walked in the way of thy sister; therefore, will I give her cup into thine hand.—She has walked in the way of Papacy; therefore will God give to her also Papacy's cup of tribulation.—Jer. 25:15.
23:32. Thus saith the Lord God: Thou shalt drink of thy sister's cup deep and large; thou shalt be laughed to scorn and had in derision; it containeth much.—Protestantism shall drink deep and large the measure of Romanism's cup of trouble; it contains much. As a result of wars and devastation brought on by worldliness, in the face of boasted godliness, Protestantism shall be scorned and derided by the whole world.—Rev. 9.
23:33. Thou shalt be filled with drunkenness and sorrow, with the cup of astonishment and desolation, with the cup of thy sister Samaria.—Protestantism shall be intoxicated with the war spirit (Jer. 13:13), and later stupefied with amazement at the ruinous results of her own course, ending in the same cup of trouble, utter ruin, as confronts her sister-church, Catholicism.
23:34. Thou Shalt even drink it and suck it out, and thou shalt break the sherds thereof, and pluck off thine own breasts: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.—Protestantism shall drain the cup of desolation and sorrow and shall suck out the very dregs. (Isa. 30:14.) It shall be broken up in anarchy, and shall lose all the features that made it attractive to this world's governments for purposes of union of church and state.
23:35. Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten Me, and cast Me behind thy back, therefore bear thou also thy lewdness and thy whoredoms.—Because she has forgotten the Lord and cast Him out of her mind, Protestantism shall endure unaided by Him the results of her own evil course.
23:36. The Lord said moreover unto me: Son of man, wilt thou judge Aholah and Ahollbah? yes, declare unto them their abominations.—In Verses 36 to 49 Romanism and Protestantism are together jointly condemned.
23:37. That they have committed adultery, and blood is in their hands, and with their Idols have they committed adultery, and have also caused their sons, whom they bare unto me, to pass for them through the fire, to devour them.—They have both effected church-state unions. They have blood guilt, for wars, and for causing the spiritual [pg 479] death of multitudes. They have given their hearts to idol doctrines. They have caused God's children to endure fiery troubles, and have scorched, scarred and burned their religious lives with the eternal torment theory.
23:38. Moreover this they have done unto Me; they have defiled My Sanctuary In the same day, and have profaned My sabbaths.—They have defiled God's Sanctuary, the Church, with soul-destroying doctrines in the same Day, the Gospel Age. They have derided the Millennium, and have substituted works for the rest of faith, as the basis of justification before God.
23:39. For when they had slain their children to their idols, then they came the same day Into My Sanctuary to profane it; and lo, thus have they done in the midst of Mine house.—They would slay their people in war and the same day go to worship God, even in the midst of God's Sanctuary, the Little Flock of the true Church.
23:40. And furthermore, that ye have sent for men to come from far, unto whom a messenger was sent; and, lo, they came; for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments.—They sought for union with and sent preachers to prominent men, at heart in a condition far from God; for them they “whitewashed” themselves, made their wisdom (eyes) attractive with worldly philosophies, and adorned themselves with the imitation jewels of courtesy, tact and politeness.
23:41. And satest upon a stately bed, and a table prepared before it, whereupon thou hast set Mine Incense and Mine oil.—They took their seat upon a stately creed-bed, adapted to worldly, regal purposes, with a table of religious food, teachings, philosophies, not of God, where they gave their hearts' best endeavor and prostituted what measure of the Holy Spirit they had to worldly ends.
23:42. And a voice of a multitude being at ease was with her; and with the men of the common sort were brought Sabeans from the wilderness, which put bracelets upon their hands, and beautiful crowns upon their heads.—With the ecclesiasticism of Papacy and Protestantism was the voice of a multitude of worldly church members, thoroughly at ease in apostate Zion. (Amos 6:1.) Among the church members were men of the blackest character (Sabeans, descendants of Ham, disfavored of God), who belonged outside the pale of religion, who adorned themselves with seeming character jewels and crowns of inherent immortality, not of God, but of Plato.
23:43. Then said I unto her that was old in adulteries, Will they now commit whoredoms with her, and she with them?—It seemed impossible that the churches should unite with such evil men, to gain influence and power.
23:44. Yet they went in unto her, as they go in unto a woman that playeth the harlot: so went they in unto Aholah and unto Aholibah, the lewd women.—Nevertheless, both Romish and Protestant ecclesiasticism did so.
23:45. And the righteous men, they shall judge them after the manner of adulteresses, and after the manner of women that shed blood; because they are adulteresses, and blood is in their hands.—But men with a sense of decency, justice and the fitness of things will condemn both churches, Romish and Protestant, as adulteresses were judged among the Hebrews—stone them to death with hard facts, and by the ravages of revolution and anarchy.
23:46. For thus saith the Lord God, I will bring up a company upon them, and will give them to be removed and spoiled.—God will bring up against them a great rabble of people with a keen sense of outraged justice—Socialists, trades-union men, laborites, social democrats, nihilists and anarchists. Also a multitude of God's children, begotten of the Holy Spirit, will rise up against these apostacies.
23:47. And the company shall stone them with stones, and dispatch them with their swords; they shall slay their sons and their daughters, and burn up their houses with fire.—This multitude will down ecclesiasticism with hard facts, and destroy her with material weapons and with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. The anarchists will literally slay church members by millions; and the sons of God will by His Holy Word cause them to cease their pretense of being Christians.
23:48. Thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land, that all women may be taught not to do after your lewdness.—Thus will the Lord cause the desire for the union of churches with worldly power to cease out of human society, that all religious bodies may learn forever to avoid this abominable practice.
23:49. And they shall recompense your lewdness upon you, and ye shall bear the sins of your idols: and ye shall know that I am the Lord God.—Thus shall ecclesiasticism's faithless apostasy be recompensed upon her when she suffers the results of the sinfulness of loving other mighty ones than Jehovah, and thus shall she learn the supremacy of God in the affairs of men.
Ezekiel 24—The Boiling Caldron
24:1, 2. Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.—It was in the fall of 1916—a year and seven months before the city was to be smitten in the spring of 1918—that the forces of laborism, revolution and anarchy, began to assert themselves against the established order of things in Christendom—the siege of the city began.
24:3. And utter a parable unto the rebellious house, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Set on a pot, set it on, and also pour water into it.—Jerusalem is likened to a boiling caldron from which meat is taken; then it is set empty on the fire and the rust burned out. Ezekiel's wife dies; but he suppresses his feelings, and, after the ordinance for a priest, makes no mourning for the dead—a picture of the dumb sorrow of the Hebrews on the destruction of Jerusalem. The prophecy of this chapter was uttered on the same day that the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, “came, he and all his host, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about; and the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of king Zedekiah.” (2 Kings 25:1, 2.) Its antitype is that on or about November 1, 1916, the date of Pastor Russell's death, ecclesiasticism began to enter upon its life-and-death struggle, materially, with the forces of laborism and anarchy, and religiously with the consecrated children of God, whose work from then on was increasingly to bear witness to the apostasy and imminent destruction of churchianity. Ecclesiasticism, rebellious against her God, is as an organization, like a caldron of brass (copper), typing that many of its members believe the Word of God. It is set amid the fiery troubles of revolution and anarchy. There is water in it, symbolic of what Truth there is in ecclesiasticism.—Jer. 1:13.
24:4. Gather the pieces thereof into it, even every good piece, the thigh, and the shoulders: fill it with the choice bones.—In it are gathered the great and prominent (good pieces), and also the strong ones (bones) of her flock.
24:5. Take the choice of the flock, and burn also the bones under it, and make it boil well, and let them seethe the bones of it therein.—The social elements will grow hot in the Time of Trouble until the truths in ecclesiasticism make it exceedingly warm for her members. Then the heated, excited, troublous condition will be transmitted, and as the truths warm up, will get all the church members into exceedingly hot water, even the strongest ones.
24:6. Wherefore thus saith the Lord God: Woe to the bloody city, to the plot whose scum is therein, and whose scum is not gone out of it! bring it out piece by piece; let no lot fall upon it.—Woe to Christendom, ecclesiasticism, bloody in the blood of soldiers, peasants, workingmen, martyrs and saints, by the millions, and blood guilty for the spiritual hopes of millions, extinguished by her false doctrines. Her rust (R. V.) is in her. Bring out her leading members, one by one, indiscriminately, into captivity to the forces of revolution.
24:7. For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; the poured it not upon the ground, to cover it with dust;—Her infamy of blood is in her very substance. She has not been able to conceal it, but it is exposed to full view in “the top of her rock,” in the kings and the kaisers, her heads in church-state union.
24:8. That it might cause fury to come up to take vengeance; I have set her blood upon the top of a rock, that it should not be covered.—The fury of a revolted soldiery and populace will rise up against the heads of the governments, who are also heads of the churches, to take vengeance upon ecclesiasticism's sins.
24:9. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.—Innumerable will be the opponents of churchianity, and blazing hot their wrath.
24:10. Heap on the wood, kindle the fire, consume the flesh, and spice it well, and let the bones be burned.—Heap up the fires of discontent and anarchy, consume the tares in Christendom, as tares. Thicken the broth (R. V.), boil it down until the very bones, the strong church members, cease to be such.
24:11. Then set it empty upon the coals thereof, that the brass of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.—Then ecclesiasticism, the clergy class, with emptied pews, shall sit amid the fiery trouble and be consumed, that their corruption may be done away.
24:12. She hath wearied herself with lies, and her great scum went not forth out of her: her scum shall be in the [pg 483]fire.—She has wearied even the preachers with the dishonesty of preaching things not believed in, and yet they did not cast out her doctrinal corruption, which shall be fuel for the fire of anarchy.
24:13. In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused My fury to rest upon thee.—Her corruption was in her desire to become prominent and powerful through the power of earth's great ones. God purged her of these things to some extent through godly preachers and reformers; but she was not purged in heart and quickly reverted to the things Divinely proscribed. Since 1878 God has made no further attempt to reform ecclesiasticism; and she shall not be purged, but the fury of God's jealousy shall rest upon her.
24:14. I the Lord have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent; according to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God.—God Himself has spoken this and will do it. He will not go back, neither spare, nor change His Plan; but in just recompense for her doings shall the Socialists and anarchists condemn her.
24:15, 16. Also the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, behold, I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a stroke: yet neither shalt thou mourn nor weep, neither shall thy tears run down.—God took away from Pastor Russell the desire of his eyes, her whom he loved, with a stroke, or “plague” of spiritual error, which completely separated them. By the Mosaic ordinance a priest on the death of father, mother, or wife, was to show no special sign of grief, but was to remain in the Tabernacle, or Temple, and attend as usual to the service of God. Pastor Russell, as a member of the great High Priest and as Christ's representative in the world, the sole steward of the “meat in due season,” suffered deeply, but shed no tears.
24:17. Forbear to cry, make no mourning for the dead, bind the tire of thine head upon thee, and put on thy shoes upon thy feet, and cover not thy lips, and eat not the bread of men.—Rather, he made no mourning for her that was to him as dead, but continued in the work of the sacrificing priesthood. He was sustained in his affliction, not by human aid, but by the consolations of his Father's Word.
24:18. So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.—He continued his addresses and writings to the Lord's people; his wife became to him as one dead: and he continued uninterruptedly in the work of the ministry.
24:19. And the people said unto me, Wilt thou not tell us what these things are to us, that thou doest so?—Why was Pastor Russell caused by his Father to endure the fiery trials and ecclesiastical falsehoods in connection with this incident of his life?
24:20, 21. Then I answered them, The word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Speak unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will profane My Sanctuary, the excellency of your strength, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pitieth; and your sons and your daughters whom ye have left shall fall by the sword.—God gives the reason. It was as a picture or parable of what is to happen to Christendom. Until 1878 the nominal church had been in a sense God's sanctuary or Temple; but He was from then on, culminating in 1918, to remove it with a stroke or plague of erroneous doctrines and deeds Divinely permitted. The Church was the strength of Christendom, that about which its life centered, and around which its institutions were built. It was the desire of the eyes of the people, that which all Christians loved. Nevertheless, God was to make manifest the profanation which ecclesiasticism had made of the Christian Church, and to cause the church organizations to become to Him as one dead, an unclean thing, not to be touched, or mourned. And the “children of the church” shall perish by the sword of war, revolution and anarchy, and by the Sword of the Spirit be made to see that they have lost their hope of life on the spirit plane—that “the door is shut.”
24:22. And ye shall do as I have done: ye shall not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.—So universal and dreadful will be the troubles that the dead will literally lie unburied and unwept. There can be no mourning for the dead in a period when the living are overwhelmed by troubles worse than death.
24:23. And your tires shall be upon your heads: and your shoes upon your feet: ye shall not mourn nor weep; but ye shall pine away for your iniquities, and mourn one toward another.—The mourning will be an inner sorrow of a people stupefied by terrible experiences, who pine [pg 485] away and without outward expression sink together into the fellowship of helpless grief.
24:24. Thus Ezekiel is unto you a sign: according to all that he hath done shall ye do: and when this cometh, ye shall know that I am the Lord God.—Thus the silent sorrow at Pastor Russell's heart was to be a sign to Christendom. The sorrowful experiences of Pastor Russell in this connection shall later on be those of all Christendom; “and when this cometh” they shall know that Jehovah God is supreme, and back of all the judgments of the trouble time.
24:25, 26. Also, thou son of man, shall it not be in the day when I take from them their strength, the joy of their glory, the desire of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds, their sons and their daughters. That he that escapeth in that day shall come unto thee, to cause thee to hear it with thine ears?—Also, in the year 1918, when God destroys the churches wholesale and the church members by millions, it shall be that any that escape shall come to the works of Pastor Russell to learn the meaning of the downfall of “Christianity.”
24:27. In that day shall thy mouth be opened to him which is escaped, and thou shalt speak, and be no more dumb: and thou shalt be a sign unto them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—Pastor Russell's voice has been stilled in death; and his voice is, comparatively speaking, dumb to what it will be. In the time of revolution and anarchy he shall speak, and be no more dumb to those that escape the destruction of that day. Pastor Russell shall “be a sign unto them,” shall tell them the truth about the Divine appointment of the trouble, as they consult his books, scattered to the number of ten million throughout Christendom. His words shall be a sign of hope unto them, enabling them to see the bright side of the cloud and to look forward with anticipation to the glorious Kingdom of God to be established. Then “they shall know the Lord.”
“Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.”
Ezekiel 25—Recompense Upon The Tares
25:1, 2. The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them.—Chapter 25 foretells that after the fall of apostate ecclesiasticism in revolution, in 1918, the end of the various discordant non-Christian elements of Christendom, hostile to true Christianity, which will seek to profit by her fall, will come. The Ammonites (25:1-7) and the Moabites (25:8-11), both children of Lot—who was himself a type of the Great Company class—are a type of a class brought into being by their father, the Great Company class (Lot), while he was in a state of drunken stupor from mixed doctrines, through Lot's daughters, type of the worldly churches of the Great Company. The Edomites, descendants of Esau, represent a class who sell their birthright to sonship of God for a mess of pottage, worldly advantage (25:12-14); and the Philistines, a people who migrated from Egypt, and aggressively preyed upon the Jews, type of a class of aggressive, middle-course, professing Christians who prey upon true Christians. The message begins with words against the Ammonites, types of those believing worldlings who were brought into the churches by the more or less faithless Great Company, and who in an aggressive and predatory fashion as Jesuits, persecuting Romish priests, and Protestant clergy and their kind persecuted the true Christians. The Ammonites are described as “fierce marauders, crafty, cruel, predatory.” The Ammonites worshipped Baal, under the name Chemosh, the god of fire and of fornication, type of the eternal-torment-purgatory god, the encourager of the spiritual adultery of church-state union.
25:3. And say unto the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God; Because thou saidst, Aha, against My Sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel, when it was desolate; and against the house of Judah, when they went into captivity.—When God's true Church shall be persecuted in the [pg 487] world-war and revolution, and true Christian faith shall be desolated, and the multitude of those that praise God (Judah, praise) shall go into captivity to the infidel revolutionists, the persecuting, world-loving church members (Ammonites) will he glad of it.
26:4. Behold, therefore I will deliver thee to the men of the east for a possession, and they shall set their palaces in thee, and make their dwellings in thee: they shall eat thy fruit, and they shall drink thy milk.—God will deliver this class unto the anarchists, to possess them, and make themselves at home with their property, and to make away with their doctrines (milk).
25:5. And I will make Rabbah a stable for camels, and the Ammonites a couching place for flocks: and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—And I will make the lordly clergy class (Rabbah, great) waste and abandoned.
25:6. For thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in heart with all thy despite against the land of Israel.—Because they shall rejoice greatly, in their despite against Christianity.
25:7. Behold, therefore I will stretch out Mine hand upon thee, and will deliver thee for a spoil to the heathen: and I will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee to perish out of the countries: I will destroy thee; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord.—Therefore God will stretch out His hand against them, and deliver them to be despoiled by the infidel anarchists in their midst. He will cut them off as a class, cause them to cease and destroy them, and they shall know that He is God.
25:8. Thus saith the Lord God: Because that Moab and Seir do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen.—The Moabites (“Seir” should be omitted) were the civilized part of the descendants of Lot, born of incest, of a drunken father, Lot, and worshippers of Baal, while acknowledging Jehovah. They typed a church membership begotten by the mixture of truth and error, by the Great Company class, through their world-loving churches (daughters of Lot), and worshipping the eternal-torment God, imagining him to be Jehovah, and practicing the spiritual harlotry of union of church and state. Moab was “a nation high spirited, wealthy, populous, civilized, and of wide reputation and popularity.” They type a like class.
25:9. Therefore, behold, I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on his frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth-jeshi-moth, Baal-meon, and Kiriathaim.—God will cause this class to be attacked in the anarchy (Beth-jeshimoth, place of desolation), on two [pg 488] grounds, their apostate clergy (Baalmeon, lord of the habitation) and church-state system (Kiriathaim, double city).
25:10. Unto the men of the east with the Ammonites, and will give them in possession, that the Ammonites may not be remembered among the nations.—The anarchists will also overcome the aggressive class (Ammonites).
25:11, 12. And I will execute judgments upon Moab; and they shall know that I am the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God; Because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them.—The professedly Christian “Edomites” (D. 14-19)—nominally believers in God (descendants of Abraham), but worshipping a variety of gods of power, wealth, and worldliness, especially the eternal-torment God—(Josephus says the Edomites worshipped Cese, the destroyer)—will help greatly in pulling down Christianity.
25:13. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I will also stretch out Mine hand upon Edom, and will cut off man and beast from it; and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of Dedan shall fall by the sword.—God will stretch His hand against this class (Edom-Idumea) and from end to end they shall fall by the weapons of destruction, and by the Sword of the Spirit.—Isa. 34:5, 6; Jer. 49:7-17.
25:14. And I will lay My vengeance upon Edom by the hand of My people Israel: and they shall do in Edom according to Mine anger and according to My fury; and they shall know My vengeance, saith the Lord God.—The Truth people shall declare what God will do to this class in His furious anger.—Isa. 15:1-9; Jer. 48:1-47.
25:15. Thus saith the Lord God; Because the Philistines have dealt by revenge, and have taken vengeance with a despiteful heart, to destroy it for the old hatred.—The worldly professing Christians (Philistines, emigrants from Egypt) persecute God's true people, and shall in the revolution despitefully aid in destroying Christianity.—Joel 3:4.
25:16, 17. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will stretch out Mine hand upon the Philistines, and I will cut off the Cherethim, and destroy the remnant of the sea coast. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay My vengeance upon them.—God will, through the anarchists, stretch out His hand against this class, and will cut off those that carry out persecution and death upon His people (Cherethim, executioners), and all worldly professing Christians as such, including those that border on anarchy (sea coast).
Ezekiel 26—Downfall Of Philosophy
26:1. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying.—Chapter 26 depicts ecclesiasticism in the guise of an elaborate system of philosophy. The name Tyrus signifies “Rock;” and human philosophy, particularly Greek Platonic philosophy, is the real rock foundation of ecclesiastical teachings. Any true ecclesiastic, when driven by the Word of God from his untenable errors, claims sanction for them by reference to the philosophy of Plato and the inherent immortality of man, etc.
26:2. Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people; she is turned unto me; I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste.—This system and its adherents will manifest their essentially non-Christian nature when Christendom (Jerusalem) falls at the hands of the revolutionists in 1918. Philosophy, Higher Criticism, will rejoice that ecclesiasticism, which claimed to be the gateway to God for the people, is broken. They will imagine that the adherents of a Christianity that has failed will turn to philosophy, and that the adherents of philosophy will be increased now that ecclesiasticism is desolated. Human philosophy will seem to be the sole refuge of the people of Christendom.
26:3. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.—Because Christendom has borne the name of Christ and had the oracles of God, therefore God is against philosophy and will cause the many nations of Christendom to come up against established philosophy, as a sea of anarchy, with the discontented masses attacking, wave after wave, endlessly.
26:4. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock.—The anarchists shall destroy the walls of defense, composed of the adherents to human philosophy, and shall break down the loftiest and strongest organizations, its towers of defense. [pg 490] God will remove the last vestiges of human adherence to Christendom's system of philosophy.
26:5. It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God: and it shall become a spoil to the nations.—In the anarchy, human philosophy shall be utterly abandoned—deprived of all its former supporters, by whole nations of anarchists.
26:6. And her daughters which are in the field shall be slain by the sword: and they shall know that I am the Lord.—The religious organizations (daughters) founded on philosophy, which are in the world (field), shall be wiped out; and in the Kingdom their former adherents shall come to know Jehovah as He is.
26:7. For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.—Jehovah God declares that against human philosophy (Tyrus) and its systems and adherents, He will array Satan—the king of this evil world, ruler of mystic Babylon, “the gateway to Bel,” to devil worship, king over the kings and other children of disobedience. He shall be permitted to come by God Himself (the North) (Jer. 1:14), with teachings (horses) of anarchy, with institutions based upon such teachings (chariots), with leaders and teachers riding these hobbies (horsemen), with an organised following (companies) and with many people following after anarchy in unorganized mobs (much people).
26:8. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee.—With weapons of destruction (swords) anarchy shall seek to destroy the philosophical churches and other religious organizations (daughters) in the world (field) and shall systematically besiege them.
26:9. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.—Anarchy shall make war against their defenders (walls), and with keen, strong, cutting arguments (axes), shall break down philosophy's strongholds (towers).
26:10. By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach.—Anarchistic teachings (horses) without limit shall fill the air with confusion (dust); philosophy's defenders (walls) shall fear and quake at the tumult (noise) of the leaders and teachers of [pg 491] anarchy (horsemen), and of their systematic plans (wheels) of destruction, and of the anarchistic organizations (chariots), when Anarchy shall pour its forces through the great ones (gates) of Philosophy, for the great ones will become channels (breaches) for the inpouring teachings of anarchy.
26:11. With the hoofs of his horses shall be tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground.—With the impact (hoofs) of doctrines (horses) of destruction, anarchy shall beat down all the orderly ways (streets) of philosophy. Anarchy shall destroy the adherents of philosophy with weapons of destruction, and the learned and mighty colleges and universities (garrisons) shall go down in failure and ruin.
26:12. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water.—And the anarchists shall spoil the ideals (riches), and stop the teaching (merchandise) of philosophy; they shall break down the defense of philosophy's adherents (walls), and destroy the pleasing philosophical organizations (pleasant houses). They shall engulf the believers (stones) and supporters (timbers) in the rising tide of anarchy.
26:13. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard.—And God will cause the noise of philosophy's siren songs, her falsely pleasant teachings (songs) to cease; and the utterance of her melodious books (harps) shall be no more heard forever.
26:14. And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be a place to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the Lord have spoken it, saith the Lord God.—Philosophy, falsely so-called, shall be utterly desolated, and shall be built up no more forever; for Jehovah God has spoken it.
26:15. Thus saith the Lord God to Tyrus; Shall not the isles shake at the sound of thy fall, when the wounded cry, when the slaughter is made in the midst of thee?—The world will be full of revolutionary republics (isles), devoid of Christian principles and following man-made ideas; these republics shall be shaken to their foundations, when anarchy begins its dread slaughter of men and of systems.
26:16. Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves [pg 492]with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee.—Then shall the rude rulers of the revolutionary, half-anarchistic republics lose their positions of power (thrones), and lay aside their honors (robes), and discard their works of revolution (broidered garments); they shall be filled with dread and with trembling, and shall marvel at the downfall of their socialistic and revolutionary philosophies.
26:17. And they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and say to thee, How art thou destroyed, that wast inhabited of seafaring men, the renowned city, which wast strong in the sea, she and her inhabitants, which cause their terror to be on all that haunt it!—They shall lament; for the great systems of human philosophy shall be destroyed, where abode polished cosmopolitan men of the world (seafaring men), the renowned system of thought which was strong among all peoples (in the sea), even in the midst of a world of restless, discontented masses.
26:18. Now shall the isles tremble in the day of thy fall; yea, the isles that are in the sea shall be troubled at thy departure.—Now shall the revolutionary republics (isles) tremble in the year of philosophy's downfall; the republics in the midst of the anarchistic peoples (sea) shall be in trouble with the failure of the system of man-made philosophy.
26:19. For thus saith the Lord God; When I shall make thee a desolate city, like the cities that are not inhabited; when I shall bring up the deep upon thee, and great waters shall cover thee.—For God will utterly desolate philosophical teachings; when He brings up the sea of anarchy upon them, and engulfs them in the tidal wave.
26:20. When I shall bring thee down with them that descend into the pit, with the people of old time, and shall set thee in the low parts of the earth, in places desolate of old, with them that go down to the pit, that thou be not inhabited; and I shall set glory in the land of the living.—God will bring human philosophy down to destruction, without an adherent and in disgrace and reproach (into the pit), in order that He may establish His glorious truth in the Kingdom of resurrection and of life.
26:21. I will make thee a terror, and thou shalt be no more: though thou be sought for, yet shalt thou never be found again, saith the Lord God.—God will make human philosophy a wasted, desolated thing (a terror); never shall it exist any more; though men and devils should seek to reestablish it, never shall it be found again, saith Jehovah God.
Ezekiel 27—Philosophy's Utter Ruin
27:1. The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying.—In Chapter 27 Christendom, regarded as an independent system of pagan philosophy, is represented as a gallant ship. Its component parts are represented symbolically (27:4-7), as are its mariners and pilots (27:8-9). In verses 9 to 25 the figure reverts to a mercantile city, and the sources of its articles of trade. It is again pictured as a ship, which is steered by its mariners into an angry sea, and wrecked.—Verses 26 to 36.
27:2. Now, thou son of man, take up a lamentation for Tyrus.—The man-made system of Pagan philosophy must fall.
27:3. And say unto Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which art a merchant of the people for many isles, Thus saith the Lord God: O Tyrus, thou hast said, I am of perfect beauty.—O Christendom, thou that hast the entree to the ears of the peoples (sea), which art a salesman (merchant) of philosophical doctrines for the people of many revolutionary republics, thus says the Lord God: O Christendom, ecclesiasticism, thou hast regarded thy pagan philosophies as perfect, faultless and beautiful.
27:4. Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.—Thou, as an independent pagan religious organization or system, belongest among the disobedient children (sea) of the world. Thy philosophers, doctors of divinity, professors and writers, have perfected thy seemingly beautiful philosophy.
27:5. They have made all thy ship boards of fir trees of Senir; they have taken cedars from Lebanon to make masts for thee.—They have made as thy fundamental supporters (boards) believers in everlasting human life (firs, evergreen trees), in high stations in society (Mount Senir, or Hermon, “pointed rock” was in Benjamin, one of the Hebrew tribes, and type of the Great Company). They have taken as the support (masts) of thy seeming righteousness (linen sails) earth's greatest men and the rulers, believers in inherent immortality (cedars), picturing them as from the loftiest, purest sources. (Lebanon, a great mountain range, means “white, snowy.”).
27:6. Of the oaks of Bashan have they made thine oars; the company of the Ashurites have made thy benches of ivory, brought out of the isles of Chittim.—The prominent tares, leaders (oaks), whom other tares follow and worship, and who are fruitful in producing more tares (Bashan means fruitful), are the mechanism (oars) for making thee move and progress among the people. The company of free-thinkers (Ashurite means freemen) have made thy white (supposedly righteous) seats (ivory signifies dreams—of immediate spirit life when they die) to be the seats (seats of the mighty), of the rowers who work the oars.
27:7. Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth to be thy sail; blue and purple from the isles of Elishah was that which covered thee.—Thy ensigns, banners, sails, over thee, to be driven by the winds of error, are false righteousness (linen), with innumerable works of self-righteousness (broidered work), and of worldliness (Egypt); thou wast covered with the faithfulness (blue) and royalty (purple) of the worst of earth's pagan peoples (Elishah, descended from Javan, European, the most cruel and ferocious people of earth, as shown by their history, including this furious world-war.)
27:8. The inhabitants of Zidon and Arvad were thy mariners; thy wise men, O Tyrus, that were in thee, were thy pilots.—The adherents of the belong-to-a-church or go-to-hell idea (Zidon meant “fortress,” and the idea is the fortress of ecclesiasticism), and the supporters of the falsely comforting refuge of Platonic immortality of the soul (Arvad means refuge, and Platonic heathen philosophy is the refuge of philosophic Christendom) were thy mariners, the ones who “worked” thy oars; thy philosophers (wise ones), from Plato to Nietsche, charted thy evil course, and were the real “sky-pilots” for the rowers to row by.
27:9. The ancients of Gebal and the wise men thereof were in thee thy calkers; all the ships of the sea with their mariners were in thee to occupy thy merchandise.—The doctors of divinity (ancients of Gebal) (Psa. 83:7) and the creed builders said enough on both sides of any question for theological authorities (calkers) to keep the people (sea) from getting on the inside, or having any real participation in thy affairs. In the middle of verse 9 the figure changes back to that of the prosperous mercantile city that Tyre was. All the independent religious and philosophical churches and other organizations (ships) of the sea (peoples and nations) with their sky-pilots (mariners) were in thee, O Christendom, thou aggregation [pg 495] of confused and contradictory philosophies, to receive, hold and disseminate thy teachings, doctrines, traditions, fables and philosophies (merchandise).
27:10. They of Persia and of Lud and of Phut were in thine army, thy men of war; they hanged the shield and helmet in thee; they set forth thy comeliness.—Believers in the hell-fire superstition (Persians were fire worshippers), and middle-course, conservative worldly men of sin (the people of Lud and Phut were dark-skinned men, living probably west of Egypt, type of worldly compromisers with sin) were in thine army, those that fight the bad fight of error for thee; in thee they hung the shield of credulity (faith) and the helmet of a false salvation; they extolled the loveliness of thy philosophy.
27:11. The men of Arvad with thine army were upon thy walls round about, and the Gammadim were in thy towers; they hanged their shields upon thy walls round about; they have made thy beauty perfect.—The believers in human immortality, thy philosophic refuge (Arvad means “refuge”) with thine army just mentioned were the wall of thy defense and thy watchmen, college professors, economists (the Gammadim are thought to mean watchmen or guards) were in thy watch towers; upon thy walls, in the minds of thy supporters (walls) they hanged their shields of credulity; they have made thy philosophies and sophistries seem perfectly beautiful.
27:12. Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs.—Thy preachers (merchants, trading in philosophy for gain) were a hard proposition (Tarshish means hard), with an abundant supply of teachings regarded worth while by the world; with worldly truth—silver—with strong earthly authority—iron—with actually worthless philosophies (tin was as the dross of silver) and with downright wicked doctrines (lead symbolized wickedness—Zech. 5:7-8) they taught and preached (traded) in thy preaching places (fairs).
27:13. Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market.—Believers in Greek philosophy (Javan represented the Greek race), and believers in the most far-fetched and uncouth ideas, such as monkey-born evolution (Tubal and Meshech were the remotest and rudest of nations), were thy preachers (merchants). They sold men into bondage to sin, and presented teachings of human perfection (brass) attainable otherwise than through Christ. Brass should be translated copper, and signifies perfect human nature.—T. 18.
27:14. They of the house of Togarmah traded in thy fairs with horses and horsemen and mules.—The representatives of the rudest and crudest ideas (Togarmah) preached in thy churches with doctrines (horses) and with followers of the doctrines and with mixed human and spirit nature ideas (mules).
27:15. The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand: they brought thee for a present, horns of ivory and ebony.—Men of low ideals (Dedan means low) were thy preachers; many revolutionary republics (islands) were thy preaching places; they presented thee with dreams, visions (ivory) of power (horns), good and bad (ebony).
27:16. Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and flat linen, and coral, and agate.—Believers in doctrines of lofty self-righteousness (Syria signifies high land) were thy preachers; they traded for gain in philosophies of eternal life (emeralds) without Christ's purchase, with teachings of self-kingship (purple), with works of self-mastery (broidered work), with self-righteousness (linen), with an imitation ransom (red coral), and imitation character jewels (agate).
27:17. Judah, and the land of Israel, they were thy merchants: they traded in thy market wheat of Minnith, and Pannag, and honey, and oil, and balm.—With thine errors were mingled God's Truth to make up thy mixed doctrines. Some of thy preachers were really believers in the Bible (of Judah and Israel), taught the wholesome spiritual Bible truths (wheat), good teachings for the natural man (Pannag means millet), and teachings about Christ's Second Coming (honey), the anointing oil of the Holy Spirit (Rev. 10:9, 10), and the balm of the comfort of the Word of God.—Rom. 15:4.
27:18. Damascus was thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, for the multitude of all riches; in the wine of Helbon, and white wool.—Thy preachers (merchants) were among the chiefest of the lofty, self-righteous, lordly ones (Damascus was capital of Syria, the high land), trading in all varieties of thy doctrines and philosophies, especially the mixed doctrines (wine) of earthly prosperity (Helbon, fruitfulness) and in natural human righteousness (white wool).
27:19. Dan also and Javan going to and fro occupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were in thy market.—Apostate Christians (Dan was the seat of idolatry and types a class once spirit-begotten but fallen away) [pg 497] and Grecian pagans (Javan represented the Greeks) preached in thy church gatherings; lordship, authority (iron), the claim of apostolic authority (cassia, deputyship), and a claimed knowledge of the Bible (calamus) were in thy churches (markets).
27:20. Dedan was thy merchant in precious clothes for chariots.—Preachers of low ideals (Dedan, low) preached that thy church organizations (chariots) should be made presentable by being robed in the embroidery of many works, church fairs and suppers, institutional work, and civic and social service (chariot clothes or robes).
27:21. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they occupied with thee in lambs, and rams, and goats: in these were they thy merchants.—Thy preachers, with claims of consecration, separateness (Arabia, wilderness), and all the powerful right reverends, fathers, and other lords (Kedar, powerful), they traded (exchanged from one church to another) their converts (lambs), old church members (rams), and out-and-out tares (goats).
27:22. The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.—The preachers in captivity (Sheba, captivity) to Satan, and those who tremble at Satan's word (Raamah, trembling) set forth a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit (principal spices, Exodus 30:23), all kinds and degrees of self-development of character (precious stones), and the alleged inherent spark of the Divine (!) in man (gold).
27:23. Haran, and Canneh, and Eden, the merchants of Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad, were thy merchants.—The preachers of New Thought, Theosophy, Christian Science and other phases of Spiritism, self-styled, strong and enlightened (Haran), set up and distinguished (Canneh), and believers in delightful delusions (Eden, delight), are in captivity (Sheba, captivity) to Satan, and really without hope of Kingdom honors (Chilmad, level, plain, without mountains).
27:24. These were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes, and broidered work, and in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords, and made of cedar, among thy merchandise.—These self-reliance preachers set forth the robes of a counterfeit faithfulness (blue), fruitless works of self-improvement (broidered work), and organizations (chests) offering an imitation righteousness (rich apparel), bound with cords of free-thought love and a delusive hope, and represented as having eternal life (cedar).
27:25. The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee in thy market: and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious [pg 498]in the midst of the seas.—The mighty independent religious sects (ships of Tarshish—Isa. 3:16) did preach of thy philosophies and thou wast richly supported (replenished) and made of great reputation (glorious) among the peoples and nations (seas).
27:26. Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.—The picture changes back to a gallant ship. Thy strong preachers (rowers) have steered thee into angry seas (anarchy); the doctrines (winds) from the presence of Christ the Sun of Righteousness (east wind) have broken thy power in the midst of a time of anarchy (seas).
27:27. Thy riches, and thy fairs, thy merchandise, thy mariners, and thy pilots, thy calkers, and the occupiers of thy merchandise, and all thy men of war, that are in thee, and in all thy company which is in the midst of thee, shall fall into the midst of the seas in the day of thy ruin.—Thy philosophies, thy churches, thy doctrines, thy preachers, thy philosophers, thy Doctors of Divinity (sky-pilots), thy church members, all thy church workers, and all the multitude that come to church, shall fall in the anarchy in the day of thy ruin.
27:28. The suburbs shall shake at the sound of the cry of thy pilots.—Those affiliated with thee shall quake at the shoutings and threatenings of thy sky-pilots.
27:29. And all that handle the oar, the mariners, and all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships, they shall stand upon the land.—All those that work, the influential church members, the preachers, and all the sky-pilots of the anarchistic masses (sea) (Rev. 18:17-18), shall abandon their independent organizations or their heathen religions, and shall try to find more solid ground to stand on than thou wast on.
27:30. And shall cause their voice to be heard against thee, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust upon their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes.—They shall speak against thee, and cry out with bitterness against thee, they shall show signs of grief.
27:31. And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter wailing.—It was a custom in ancient times for those who had suffered great calamities to shave their heads. The Lord promises such an occasion for weeping to Zion, His professed people.—Isa. 3:24.
27:32. And in their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for thee, and lament over thee, saying, What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?—In their bemoaning the downfall of so-called “Christian philosophy” they shall lament over thee, saying, What organization was ever like Christendom, like her who has been destroyed in anarchy?
27:33. When thy wares went forth out of the seas, thou filledst many people; thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise.—When thy philosophies were accepted by the masses, thou didst satisfy many people. Thou didst enrich materially and mentally the rulers and the clergy-lords of society with thy innumerable philosophies and thy doctrines.
27:34. In the time when thou shalt be broken by the seas in the depths of the waters, thy merchandise and all thy company in the midst of thee shall fall.—When thou shalt be broken and engulfed in the roaring waves of anarchy, thy doctrines shall cease and all thy supporters shall fall.
27:35. All the inhabitants of the isles shall be astonished at thee, and their kings shall be sore afraid, they shall be troubled in their countenance.—All the people of the revolutionary republics shall marvel at thy fall, and the rulers of that brief era shall be troubled and afraid of meeting thy fate in the anarchy.
27:36. The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee; thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt be any more.—The preachers (merchants) then taking their place among the unbelieving masses shall scoff at thee; thou shalt be a “worn-out and wasted thing” (literal) and never shalt thou exist any more.
O bliss of the purified! bliss of the free!
I plunge in the crimson tide opened for me;
O'er sin and uncleanness exulting I stand,
And point to the print of the nails in His hand.
O bliss of the purified! Jesus is mine;
No longer in dread condemnation I pine;
In conscious salvation, I sing of His grace,
Who lifteth upon me the light of His face.
O Jesus, the crucified! thee will I sing,
My blessed Redeemer, my God and my King;
My soul filled with rapture shall shout o'er the grave,
And triumph o'er death in the “Mighty to save.”
Ezekiel 28—Destruction Of The Devil
28:1. The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying.—Chapter 28:1-10 depicts the destruction of priestcraft by the sword of revolution and anarchy and by the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.
28:2. Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God.—To the exalted class, the clergy (prince) of Christendom, as a system of paganized philosophy: Because of thy pride of heart, thou hast said through thy chief representative, the Pope of Rome, I am as a god, I am the vice-gerent of Jehovah, my seat is “upon many waters” (Rev. 17:1), upon “peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues” (Rev. 17:15), yet thou art man-made, man-ordained, and not of God, not Divinely ordained, even though thou set thine heart to pose before the people as Divinely ordained.
28:3. Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee.—Behold, thou thinkest that thou art wiser than Daniel (Z. '05-280); that through supposed Divine inspiration, the confessional and the universal clergy-spy system, there is nothing in Heaven or earth which thou dost not know.
28:4. With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures.—With thy false philosophy and thy misunderstanding thou hast acquired riches, much gold and silver into thy treasury—many, too, of both Little Flock (gold) and Great Company (silver) into bondage.
28:5. By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick has thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches.—By scientific suppositions of infidel Evolution and Higher Criticism, and by good salesmanship of these worthless goods, thou hast heaped up wealth; and thou hast become proud, because of thy riches of materials, doctrines and membership.
28:6. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God.—Therefore Jehovah says, Because thou hast set thyself up in pride to be as God, claiming to represent Him on earth as God's vice-gerent.
28:7. Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.—I will bring upon thee paganized anarchists, strangers to thy theories, the terror of the nations—and also My pilgrims and strangers, the sons of God, those whom thy philosophy dreadest; and the anarchists shall turn their weapons of destruction against thee, and the sons of God shall smite with the Sword of the Spirit thy falsely beautiful philosophy, and shall expose the real pollution of thy wisdom.
28:8. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the sea.—They shall bring thee down to a dishonored oblivion, and materially and religiously thou shalt die the deaths of those slain in the roaring waves of anarchy.
28:9. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.—Though thou sayest to the anarchy that shall slay thee materially and to Him that shall destroy thee religiously, “I represent God!”—yet thou shalt be seen to be man-made and not ordained by God, in the power of the destroyer appointed by Jehovah.
28:10. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God.—Thou shalt die the deaths of the wicked by the hand of the anarchists, and be destroyed religiously as one of unclean conscience (uncircumcised) at the hand of the sons of God, My strangers and pilgrims in the earth (1 Pet. 1:1); for Jehovah hath spoken it.
28:11. Moreover the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying.—Verses 11 to 26 deal with the destruction of the Devil, pictured as the King of Tyrus.
28:12. Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the King of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.—Satan, the Devil, the father of lies and king over Christendom's system of pagan philosophy, is by nature the summation of perfection, the personification of Wisdom (Wisdom was one of the cherubs) and by nature perfect in the beauty of holiness.—Z. '03-135.
28:13. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, topaz, and [pg 502]the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.—Thou wast in the garden of Eden at the fall of man. Every good fruit of character wast thine adornment (Rev. 21:18-21); with this perfection of character endowment thou wast created.
28:14. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so; thou wast upon the Holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.—Before thy fall thou wast appointed the care-taker (coverer) of the innocent pair in Eden. Thou wast the embodiment of Wisdom (cherub), and endowed with the Holy Spirit (anointed); and I so made thee. Thou wast in high position in the holy heavenly Kingdom of God (Eph. 6:12); thou hast had thy course of life among God's holy angels (Isa. 14:13)—stars, fiery stones.
28:15, 16. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.—By their multitudinous trading in mixed doctrines (merchandise) “for revenue only” thy adherents, demons and clergy, have filled thy following with violence and warfare; and thou hast sinned unto death. Therefore I will cast thee as polluted out of the Kingdom of God (A. 318); and I will destroy thee from amongst My holy angels.
28:17. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.—Thou becamest proud because of thine endowment of beauteous character. Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy conceited teaching of counterfeit wisdom (brightness); I will humble thee to the dust, and expose thy real character.
28:18. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick: therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.—Thou hast defiled the churches of Christendom by thine iniquitous doctrines and the teaching of them. Therefore I will utterly destroy thee with annihilation, and thy following with anarchy, in the sight of all that behold thee, in Heaven and on earth.
28:19. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.—All shall marvel at thy destruction; thou shall become wasted, devastated (a terror), and never shalt thou exist any more.
28:20. Again the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying,—Verses 20 to 26 relate to the destruction of organized Churchianity.
28:21. Son of man, set thy face against Zidon, and prophesy against it.—Zidon meant “fortress”; and the fortress of churchianity since the third century A. D. has been the doctrine that, to be saved, men must belong to a church organization. The King of Zidon typed the Devil.
28:22. And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Zidon; and I will be glorified in the midst of thee; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall have executed judgments in her, and shall be sanctified in her.—God says, I am against thee, organized churchianity, and I will be glorified and made holy in thee, only when I have executed retribution and justice upon thee.
28:23. For I will send into her pestilence, and blood into her streets; and the wounded shall be judged in the midst of her by the sword upon her on every side; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—For I will afflict thee with literal and spiritual sickness and death (shed blood).
28:24. And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel, nor any grievous thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them; and they shall know that I am the Lord God.—The adherents to the church-organization idea have persecuted and dispersed both Jews and Christians, but they shall do so no more.
28:25, 26. Thus saith the Lord God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to My servant Jacob. And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God.—The Jews shall enjoy God's earthly blessings, and the true Christians His Heavenly blessings, when He has executed justly earned judgments upon the people that have adhered to or taught the belong-to-a-church-or-go-to-hell idea.—Z. '94-76.
Ezekiel 29—The Egyptians A Type
29:1. In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying.—Chapters 29 to 32 are directed against Egypt, its king and people, and against the surrounding peoples. Egypt was divided into Upper and Lower Egypt, and was known as Mizraim, which meant “Middle Country,” and typed organized, entrenched and enthroned middle-course worldliness. The word Egypt means “that binds or oppresses,” and signifies the bondage of the Lord's people to the oppressive, enslaving spirit of the world—the spirit that slew our Lord (Rev. 11:8), and has enslaved and slain millions of God's saints. Chapter 29:1-7 represents worldliness as a crocodile, the dragon of Revelation 12:3, etc.
29:2. Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt.—This message is against Satan, the Devil, the king of this present evil world, and against all worldliness.
29:3. Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said. My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.—Jehovah says, I am against thee, Satan (Pharaoh means the sun, the god of the sun worshipper, the Devil), the great wicked dragon, also called Pagan Rome (later Papal Rome), that dwells in the midst of the church denominations (rivers, channels of Truth), and says, The church system is mine own, and I (not God) made it for my own purposes.
29:4. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales.—God will bind thy utterances (jaws) with a chain (hook means chain or ring) (Rev. 20:1), and will cause thy active worldly church members and other adherents in thy churches (rivers) to adhere to thy protecting doctrines (scales) and will alienate thy churches from thee (corresponds to drying up Euphrates) and from all thy active supporters.
29:5. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven.—And I will cause thee to be forsaken (in the wilderness), thee and all thy adherents (fish). Thou shalt fall unprotected into the hands of a cold, cruel world (open fields), not to be established again in power, but to be destroyed by the evil revolutionary governments (beasts) of the world (field), in world-wide revolution, and by wicked criminals, jail birds (fowls) and anarchists.
29:6. And the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the Lord, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.—The worldly people who have been no real support to either Jews or true Christians (Isa. 36:6; Z. '95-144), shall realize that Jehovah is the Lord.
29:7. When they took hold of thee by thy hand, thou didst break, and rend all their shoulder: and when they leaned upon thee, thou brakest, and madest all their loins to be at a stand.—When they in their weakness sought some aid of thee, thou didst roughly abuse them; and didst try to destroy them in persecution.
29:8, 9. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the Lord: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it.—And worldliness shall be destroyed, and the people shall know Jehovah as He is; because Satan said, The churches are mine.
29:10. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.—I am against thee and thy churches, and will utterly destroy worldliness from end to end.
29:11, 12. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years. And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.—Christendom shall be uninhabited and desolate for forty years after its devastation.
29:13. Yet thus saith the Lord God; At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people whither they were scattered.—After forty years God will gather into the Kingdom the scattered worldly people.
29:14. And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.—And will bring them back from the dead into their own country, where they shall be insignificant.
29:15. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over the nations.—This has been literally fulfilled upon Egypt, which for many centuries has not enjoyed self-government.
29:16. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which bringeth their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord God.—Neither Jews nor Christians shall ever again look to the worldly people (Egypt), (Isa. 30:1-5) for help; for the sight of the worldly will make them remember Christendom's iniquity.
29:17, 18. And it came to pass in the seven and twentieth year, in the first month, in the first day of the month, the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it.—The forces of anarchy's king, the Devil, will perform a great service in the Divine Plan of the Ages, but there will be nothing in it for the anarchists.
29:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will give the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey; and it shall be the wages of his army.—Jehovah will give worldly Christendom to anarchy: and this shall be the material reward of the forces of anarchy.
29:20. I have given him the land of Egypt for his labour wherewith he served against it, because they wrought for Me, saith the Lord God.—God will give worldly Christendom to anarchy, for its labor in serving the interests of God's plans against pagan religion masquerading as Christendom, because in doing so anarchy will do its part.
29:21. In that day will I cause the horn of the house of Israel to bud forth, and I will give thee the opening of the mouth in the midst of them; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—During the Time of Trouble God will cause the power (T. 42) of the Jews to bud forth in Zionism, and make known the glad tidings of the Kingdom, taught in Studies in the Scriptures.—Isa. 19:1-25.
Ezekiel 30—Pharaoh's Two Arms Broken
30:1, 2. The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of Man, prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God, Howl ye, Woe worth the day.—Thus saith Jehovah: Weep, and cry! O woeful day!
30:3. For the day is near, even the day of the Lord is near, a cloudy day; it shall be the time of the heathen.—The day is near, the day of Jehovah, a gloomy day—the time of infidel anarchy!—Joel 1:15; Zeph. 1:7.
30:4. And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down.—The weapons of anarchy and the Sword of the Spirit shall come against worldly Christendom. Great distress shall be upon non-church members (Ethiopia, black) socialists, laborites and revolutionists, when Christendom's slain shall fall literally and spiritually, when her multitude shall abandon her, and when her foundations—social, economic, moral and religious—shall be broken down in war, revolution and anarchy.
30:5. Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fall with them by the sword.—The worst peoples, darker religiously and morally—the socialists, laborites and revolutionists, in touch with worldly Christendom—shall fall with Christendom by literal weapons and by the Word of God.
30:6. Thus saith the Lord; They also that uphold Egypt shall fall; and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God.—All supporters of worldly Christendom shall fall; her pride of power shall be humbled; from end to end of Christendom shall they fall.
30:7. And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.—Worldly Christendom shall be utterly desolated.
30:8. And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed.—They shall know that Jehovah permitted anarchy [pg 508] to start in Christendom, and will recognize Him, when they see that all their helpers are destroyed.
30:9. In that day shall messengers go forth from me in ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them, as in the day of Egypt: for, lo, it cometh.—At the time of Christendom's fall, the message from God shall be borne by independent religious organizations to the too-confident socialists, laborites, and revolutionists that shall make them afraid of anarchy, and great distress shall ensue upon them, as in Christendom's fall.
30:10. Thus saith the Lord God; I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.—God will make the multitude of adherents to worldly Christendom to cease adhering to her, by the power of revolution and anarchy and their instigator, the Devil.
30:11. He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land: and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.—Satan and his followers—devils and humans—the most terrible of all the nations—the anarchists—shall destroy Christendom's worldly order of things. They shall attack Christendom with their weapons and fill the land with their slain—as will the Sword of the Spirit with those slain spiritually.
30:12. And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the Lord have spoken it.—God will cause the denominations to become dry of members and of money, will give the order of things over into the power of the wicked anarchists, and will desolate Christendom's order of things and all belonging to it, literally by the power of anarchists, strangers to the existing order of things, and spiritually by the sons of God.
30:13. Thus saith the Lord God; I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause their images to cease out of Noph; and there shall be no more a prince of the land of Egypt: and I will put a fear in the land of Egypt.—God will destroy Christendom's idols of love of gold, power, etc (Jer. 43:12, 13), and will cause these gods to cease among the more prosperous people of Christendom (Noph was the Delta and richer part of Egypt); and there shall be no [pg 509] more an exalted class, a worldly clergy class, in Christendom; but God will put in her fear and failing of heart.
30:14. And I will make Pathros desolate, and will set fire in Zoan, and will execute judgments in No.—God will make the upper classes (Pathros, upper Egypt), desolate, will permit anarchy and destruction to start among them (Zoan, capital of Egypt), and will execute retributive judgments upon the leaders of the upper classes (No, capital of Upper Egypt).
30:15. And I will pour My fury upon Sin, the strength of Egypt; and I will cut off the multitude of No.—God will pour His fury upon Papacy, the strength of worldly Christendom, and will cut off the multitudes that support the upper classes.
30:16. And I will set fire in Egypt: Sin shall have great pain, and No shall be rent asunder, and Noph shall have distresses daily.—God will let anarchy start in Christendom. Papacy shall have great distress; the upper classes shall be rent asunder, and the lower classes shall suffer daily distress.
30:17. The young men of Aven and of Pi-beseth shall fall by the sword: and these cities shall go into captivity.—The young men who follow Christendom's vain show (Aven, vanity), and her honors (Pi-beseth, very exalted), shall fall by the sword of anarchy; for these things shall come to their end in anarchy.
30:18, 19. At Tehaphnehes also the day shall be darkened, when I shall break there the yokes of Egypt: and the pomp of her strength shall cease in her: as for her, a cloud shall cover her, and her daughters shall go into captivity. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord.—For the lower classes also (Tehaphnehes, in Lower Egypt), it shall be a dark day when God breaks the bondage imposed by worldly Christendom. Her pompous power shall cease. A cloud of trouble shall cover her, and her churches (daughters) shall be taken and lost in anarchy.
30:20, 21. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first month, in the seventh day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and, lo, it shall not be bound up to be healed, to put a roller to bind it, to make it strong to hold the sword.—Ecclesiasticism, Satan's right arm shall be broken, never to be healed. The Lord's time for their punishment has come.
30:22. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and will break his arms, the strong, and that which was broken; and I will cause the sword to fall out of his hand.—God is against Satan, the mighty king of worldliness, and will break also the civil powers, and make him powerless to use his sword.
30:23. And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.—God will scatter the worldly people among the anarchists.
30:24. And I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and put My Sword in his hand: but I will break Pharaoh's arms, and he shall groan before him with the groanings of a deadly wounded man.—God will strengthen the civil and philosophic (infidel, anarchistic religions) powers of Anarchy; and anarchy shall both use the Bible (God's Sword) and shall wield the sword of earthly weapons, as His own sword; and this evil order of things, with powers broken down, shall utter its dying groans of distress.
30:25. But I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and the arms of Pharaoh shall fall down; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall put My sword into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall stretch it out upon the land of Egypt.—But this order of things, with powers broken, and the anarchistic state of affairs with strengthened power, shall realize that it is of Jehovah's might, when anarchy grows in power and attacks the existing order of things.
30:26. And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—And the worldly peoples scattered everywhere, shall by the fulfillment of this prophecy know that Jehovah rules in the affairs of men.
“Mine eyes can see the glory of the presence of the Lord;
He is trampling out the winepress where his grapes of wrath are stored;
I see the flaming tempest of His swift descending Sword:
Our King is marching on.
“I can see His coming judgments, as they circle all the earth,
The signs and groanings promised, to precede a second birth;
I read His righteous sentence, in the crumbling thrones of earth:
Our King is marching on.”
Ezekiel 31—Christendom Not To Endure
31:1, 2. And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month, in the first day of the month, that the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?—Chapter 31 represents Christendom as a cedar tree which is cut down. It opens with a message respecting Satan (Pharaoh, the sungod) king of worldly Christendom (Egypt) and her multitudes. What comparison could be made of her greatness!
31:3. Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.—Behold, Satan and his counterfeit Christian system (tree; “Assyrian” should probably read “teashur,” a box-tree), thought of as never to end (cedar, type of man with eternal life), and as a righteous kingdom (Lebanon, a mountain, white, snowy), having as members (branches, like the branches of Christendom) the great, the evil and the good, worldly people, with protecting power (shadowing shroud) and very prominent, with the greatest people at the very top.
31:4. The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants, and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.—The peoples and the secular truth (waters) made Satan's system great; the great nations and the apparently profound truths of liberty, fraternity and equality, made it prominent, with its roots (plantings) nourished by nations and sects (rivers) and sending out national and denominational influences throughout all the systems of the world.
31:5. Therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.—Therefore Christendom's prominence was exalted above everything like it in the world; and its mighty members were increased in number and made of far reaching influence, because of the multitude of their people and of their teachings.
31:6. All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shadow dwelt [pg 512]all great nations.—All the jail-birds (fowls) of the powers of spiritual control, made their church organizations (nests) among its members; and under the power of its membership (branches) did all of the governments (beasts) of this world (field) bring forth their progeny; and under its defense (shadow) dwelt all nations.
31:7. Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters.—Thus was it magnificent in its greatness, and in the extent of its ramifications; for it was rooted in great peoples and in great secular truths.
31:8. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the chestnut trees were not like his branches; not any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.—In Christendom's egotism there was nothing equal to her in this age or the next.
31:9. I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches; so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.—Christendom felt itself the envy of everything, present and to come.
31:10. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height.—Because of Christendom's self-exaltation and pride.
31:11. I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.—God will deliver Christendom into the power of the god (el, mighty one) of the heathen, the Devil himself; He shall surely deal vengeance to her; He will drive her out of existence.
31:12. And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow, and have left him.—The anarchists, the terror of the nations, will lay her low; upon the kingdoms (mountains), and among the people (valleys) her members (branches) will fall, and be broken off by her seceding denominations; all the people of this order of things will leave her protection, and abandon her.
31:13. Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches.—The jail-birds of ecclesiasticism, and all the revolutionary governments of this state of affairs, shall profit by her ruin and through her members (branches).
31:14. To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their height, all that drink water; for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.—No other earthly system may follow her proud example; for all of them are delivered, as systems, into death, to a dishonored place among the lowest in society.
31:15. Thus saith the Lord God; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed; and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.—In the year 1918, when Christendom shall go down as a system to oblivion, (Sheol) to be succeeded by revolutionary republics, God will cause mourning. He will restrain and defer for a brief period the threatening waves of anarchy. He will cause the nations to mourn for Christendom, and all the man-made systems (trees) of the world (field) to become weak on account of her fall.—E. 392, 372.
31:16. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell (Sheol) with them that descend to the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.—God will cause the nations to shake with gigantic revolutions, when He shall cast worldly Christendom, as an organized system, down to oblivion (as He did the Jews in the Dives parable).
31:17. They also went down into hell (Sheol) with him, unto them that be slain with the sword; and they that were in his arm, that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.—But they also shall go down to oblivion (Sheol) (E. 392, 372), with Christendom, as well as those that were her power, that dwelt under her defense among the people.
31:18. To whom art thou thus like in glory in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet thou shalt be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth; thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.—Though worldly Christendom is unsurpassed in glory and in greatness among other systems, yet shall she be brought down to be one of the most disesteemed grades of the social order; she shalt be counted as one of the ungodly. The Egyptians practiced circumcision, typical of worldly Christendom's counterfeit ease of conscience through belief in error. This is said of Satan, the god of Christendom and all his multitude.
Ezekiel 32—Christendom's Utter Downfall
32:1, 2. And it came to pass in the twelfth year, in the twelfth month, in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for Pharaoh king of Egypt, and say unto him, Thou art like a young lion of the nations, and thou art as a whale in the seas: and thou camest forth with thy rivers, and troubledst the waters with thy feet, and fouledst their rivers.—In Chapter 32 Christendom's destruction is depicted in several ways: as the catching of a sea monster (32:1-6); as the putting out of her light (32:7-8); also, in addition the downfall of her systems (32:9-10) as a worldly system destroyed by anarchy (32:11-16); as the going down of worldly Christendom to oblivion (32:17-21); as the fall into oblivion of the anarchists (32:22-23); of the Eastern mysticism in Christendom (32:24-25); of her worst classes (32:26-28); of the worldly religious people (32:29); of the church organization of ecclesiasticism (32:30), and of Christendom's king, Satan, and all his multitudes. (32:31-32.) The message begins with a lamentation over Satan (Pharaoh), king of worldly Christendom (Egypt), and his visible representatives, the apostate clergy. Among the nations they are as a lion in power and ferocity (lion also symbolizes the Devil); and as a monstrous power (whale) among the peoples (seas); they came with their sects (rivers), and muddied the Truth (waters) with their earthly-minded members, the clergy (feet), and filled their churches (rivers) with worldliness.
32:3. Thus saith the Lord God; I will therefore spread out My net over thee with a company of many people; and they shall bring thee up in My net.—God will gradually bring the Time of Trouble upon Christendom like a snare, as a movement toward liberty for the people, through a multitude of progressives, radicals, revolutionists and anarchists; and these shall ensnare her unknowingly in the great tribulation, and bring her up out of favor with the people (out of the sea.)
32:4. Then will I leave thee upon the land, I will cast thee forth upon the open field, and will cause all the fowls of the heaven to remain upon thee, and I will fill the beasts of the whole earth with thee.—Then God will leave her [pg 515] defenseless against the whole world, and will cause the worst classes (birds) of an apostate Christianity (heavens) to feed upon her, and will cause the evil revolutionary governments (beasts) of the whole earth to fill themselves up with her former members.
32:5. And I will lay thy flesh upon the mountains, and fill the valleys with thy height.—And her prominent members shall die, and of her lesser people a great number.
32:6. I will also water with thy blood the land wherein thou swimmest, even to the mountains; and the rivers shall be full of thee.—The loss of life shall extend to her highest government officials and rulers (mountain); and the churches shall be full of her dead.
32:7, 8. And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God.—When God shall put out Christendom's light in 1918, He will blind the minds of ecclesiasticism (heaven) (A. 318), and deprive their pulpit stars of wisdom from the true apostolic stars, the Apostles. (D. 591). He will darken the understanding of the Gospel (sun) of Jesus Christ (D. 590) with the cloud of the Time of Trouble; and the light (truth) of the Mosaic Law shall not shine forth in her.
32:9. I will also vex the hearts of many people, when I shall bring thy destruction among the nations, into the countries which thou hast not known.—God will also trouble the hearts of many other peoples, when He shall visit the same Time of Trouble upon other nations, where the clergy had no sway.
32:10. Yea, I will make many people amazed at thee, and their kings shall be horribly afraid for thee, when I shall brandish My Sword before them; and they shall tremble at every moment, every man for his own life, in the day of thy fall.—Yea, He will make many nations to marvel at Christendom's fall; and their rulers shall fear and quake on account of her destruction, when they are threatened with destruction by anarchy. Every moment shall every man of them tremble for his life.
32:11. For thus saith the Lord God; The sword of the king of Babylon shall come upon thee.—The destructive weapons of the Devil, the King of Confusion (Babylon), of Anarchy, shall be turned against worldly Christendom.
32:12. By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude to fall, the terrible of the nations, all of them: and they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed.—By the weapons of a [pg 516] mighty, revolted soldiery will God cause their multitudes to fall, even all the terrible men of all Christendom; and the anarchists shall take as their spoil the pomp of the nations, and all the adherents of the nations of Christendom shall cease to support them.
32:13. I will destroy also all the beasts thereof from beside the great waters; neither shall the foot of man trouble them any more, nor the hoofs of beasts trouble them.—God will destroy all of the ferocious governments from beside the great nations (waters); neither shall worldly men trouble the people any more, nor the down-treading oppression of savage governments make them trouble.
32:14. Then will I make their waters deep, and cause their rivers to run like oil, saith the Lord God.—Then will God give the people peace (deep waters), and make their course to run with quiet smoothness. They shall know the deep things of God, and have the Holy Spirit.
32:15. When I shall make the land of Egypt desolate, and the country shall be destitute of that whereof it was full, when I shall smite all them that dwell therein, then shall they know that I am the Lord.—When God shall have made worldly Christianity desolate, and worldliness shall be destitute of its prosperous worldlings, when He shall have smitten with the great tribulation all that are at home in their worldliness, then, in the better days to come, shall they know Him as He is.
32:16. This is the lamentation wherewith they shall lament her: the daughters of the nations shall lament her: they shall lament for her, even for Egypt, and for all her multitude, saith the Lord God.—The heathen religions (daughters) shall lament worldly Christendom's downfall, and the downfall of her adherents.
32:17, 18. It came to pass also in the twelfth year, in the fifteenth day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, wail for the multitude of Egypt, and cast them down, even her, and the daughters of the famous nations, unto the nether parts of the earth, with them that go down into the pit.—These verses depict the mourning for the multitudes of worldly Christians, tares, when they and worldly Christendom and the churches (daughters) of the great powers (nations) are cast down to the disesteemed lower strata of the social order, with those that die a disreputable death (pit).
32:19. Whom dost thou pass in beauty? go down, and be thou laid with the uncircumcised.—Worldly Christendom has imagined herself of unsurpassable desirability, [pg 517] but she shall go down to oblivion, with those regarded as polluted (uncircumcised).
32:20. They shall fall in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.—Her populace shall fall by weapons of destruction, and by the Sword of the Spirit; she is delivered to destruction. They shall draw her as a system, and her adherents, as adherents, away for burial!
32:21. The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised, slain by the sword.—The one strong among Christendom's great men, no longer men of power, and those that helped her shall speak of her downfall, in their fallen condition (Sheol); they shall have fallen from high positions, and be as men outcast and polluted, reduced to lowliness by the might of anarchy, and by the Sword of the Spirit.—E. 392, 372.
32:22, 23. Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him: all of them slain, fallen by the sword: Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living.—The revolutionists (Asshur, Assyria, the revolutionary anarchists) in multitudes shall go down to oblivion, dead literally or dead to their order of things.
32:24. There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave; all of them slain, fallen by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.—There in oblivion shall be buried New Thought, Christian Science, and other forms of Oriental religion or Mysticism (Elam, Persia, home of Mysticism), and the multitude of their believers, ceased then to be mystics; all fallen by the literal sword or by the Sword of the Spirit.
32:25. They have set her a bed in the midst of the slain with all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword: though their terror was caused in the land of the living, yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit: he is put in the midst of them that be slain.—The anarchists shall put Mysticism to rest in destruction.
32:26. There is Meshech, Tubal, and all her multitude: her graves are round about him: all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword, though they caused their terror in the land of the living.—There shall be the worst classes of Christendom, the anarchists themselves, in oblivion, all in disrepute, destroyed in the destruction they wrought.
32:27. And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.—And they shall not be mentioned, not even with these great men who have gone down as evil but with some small degree of repute; and with them shall be the end of war (H. 16); but the very memory of the anarchists shall be as of iniquity personified.
32:28. Yea, thou shalt be broken in the midst of the uncircumcised, and shalt lie with them that are slain with the sword.—They shall be thought of as evil only, slain with the sword, and disesteemed by the Word of God.
32:29. There is Edom, her kings, and all her princes, which with their might are laid by them that were slain by the sword: they shall lie with the uncircumcised, and with them that go down to the pit.—In the general ruin shall be worldly apostate persecuting Christendom, slain by anarchy's weapons and by the Word of God. They shall be polluted, and come to a disreputable end.
32:30. There be the princes of the north, all of them, and all the Zidonians, which are gone down with the slain; with their terror they are ashamed of their might; and they lie uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword, and bear their shame with them that go down to the pit.—The great ecclesiastical lords (north) and all the adherents of the belong-to-a-church-or-go-to-hell doctrine (Zidonians, among whom was Jezebel) shall go to oblivion. Though a dreadful terror in their activities, they shall be ashamed; they shall go down, as polluted with iniquity.
32:31. Pharaoh shall see them, and shall be comforted over all his multitude, even Pharaoh and all his army slain by the sword, saith the Lord God.—Satan (Pharaoh), the god of worldly Christendom, then bound for a thousand years, shall see the fall of these his multitudes, slain by the literal sword, or by the Word of God.
32:32. For I have caused My terror in the land of the living: and he shall be laid in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain with the sword, even Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.—Satan and his multitude shall cease to trouble the earth, gone down finally to oblivion, as one polluted with iniquity.
From chapters 25 to 32 Ezekiel prophesied against seven foreign nations (Ammon, Moab, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon and Egypt), indicating ALL non-Christian elements.
Ezekiel 33—Why Ecclesiasticism Must Perish
33:1, 2. Again the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman.—A mutual responsibility exists between one of God's watchmen and His people, the one to speak and the other to listen. (33:1-19.) Ezekiel recites his warning of Jerusalem's fall. (33:20-29.) The people listen, but do not believe. (33:30-33.) This chapter repeats the statements of 3:17-21 and 18:5-29 regarding the watchman set to warn the people of Christendom, his message and responsibility, and the responsibility of the Christian people toward the watchman—Pastor Russell, and his message and warning from God. “A man of their coasts” refers to the clergy class appointed and ordained by the people, and set by them as their watchman.
33:3. If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people.—Who of the clergy class have blown the trumpet of Truth and warned “their” people of the impending doom of Christendom?
33:4. Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.—The people who have heard the warning have only themselves to blame.—Isa. 58:1.
33:6. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.—The clergy have an awful responsibility. Faithful watching on their part with their great influence among the people, would have saved tens of millions from physical death, and a host from the religious death that will overtake so many. The outraged people will turn on the clergy, as they did in the French Revolution, and in a frightful carnival will exact full toll for the lives lost in war. Responsibility for the Time of Trouble lies squarely at the door of ecclesiasticism; for [pg 520] had the clergy taken a united stand upon the Word of God against industrial, social, political, moral and religious evils, they could have reformed Christendom and prevented the world war and the ensuing revolution and anarchy. Our Lord said, prophetically, “Upon this generation shall come all the blood—to the blood of Zechariah, whom you will murder between the sanctuary and the altar.” (Matt. 23:35 Diaglott, foot-note.) Josephus says of this man that he boldly accused the clergy of Jerusalem with being the cause of the trouble upon the city. He was tried, accused of inciting anarchy, was found innocent, and was then slain by the clergy class. His fate represents experiences coming upon the Lord's true people shortly.
33:7-9. So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at My mouth, and warn them from Me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood shall I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.—Pastor Russell faithfully taught that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and not eternal torment. He also warned the wicked systems of earth, political, economic and religious, that they should surely perish from the earth, if they did not turn whole-heartedly to Jehovah, the God of infinite Love.
33:10. Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?—The nominal Christians of our day were typed by the Hebrews who went to Ezekiel with insincere objections. They have treated Pastor Russell with a seeming but insincere respect. When they inquired into his writing and predictions, based upon the Word of God, they had no sincerity either in their questions or their professions toward him or the Word set forth by him.
33:11-19. Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel? Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the [pg 521]wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth. When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousness shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it. Again, when I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him: he hath done that which is lawful and right; he shall surely live. Yet the children of thy people say, The way of the Lord is not equal: but as for them, their way is not equal. When the righteous turneth from his righteousness, and commiteth iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.—God has no pleasure in the destruction of Christendom. If it had turned from its spiritual idolatry and harlotry to obey God it would have been saved from its impending doom. Its destruction is traceable directly to a “small group of willful men,” leaders and guides of the masses; namely the pope, the cardinals, bishops, priests, ministers, revivalists and other religious leaders who have mistaught rulers and people, and by their combination of worldly and religious teachings brought the world into a condition where the social elements are working their mutual destruction. God pity the clergy for what is coming upon them; for the people will surely recognize the part they have signally failed to play in not, by concerted preaching of true godliness, checking the world's mad rush to anarchy and annihilation.
Literally the Scriptures foregoing are an affirmation that any one who kept the Mosaic Law perfectly should enjoy life indefinitely as long as he kept the law. Spiritually it teaches the Christian that if he has turned from sin to serve God, under the spirit of the Divine Law of Love, he shall have life everlasting. (Rom. 8:13, 14.) Symbolically it speaks to this evil state of affairs, or world, especially to that wicked one, ecclesiasticism, and enumerates its iniquities: it has sinned before God: it has broken God's Law of Love and every other Law, and excused the breach by sophistries. Romanism, with which Protestantism has linked hands, teaches the most iniquitous and wicked things.
“A culprit or a witness questioned by a judge, but in an illegal manner (of which the culprit, of course, is the judge) may swear that he knows nothing of the crime about which he is questioned, although he knows it well, meaning mentally, that he knows nothing in such manner as to answer.”—Alphonso Maria de Liguori, Popish theologian, bishop and founder of the order of Redemptorists, 1696-1787.
Again “Saint” Liguori: “He may swear that he knows nothing, when he knows that the person who committed the crime committed it without malice; or if he knows the crime, but secretly, and there has been no scandal. When a crime has been well concealed, the witness and even the criminal, may and even must, swear that the crime has never been committed. The accused may deny his crime under oath, understanding that he has not committed this crime in such a manner as to be obliged to confess it. He who has sworn to keep a secret is not obliged to keep his oath, if any consequential injury to him or to others is thereby caused. If any one has sworn before a judge to keep the truth, he is not obliged to say secret things. (A woman who has really committed adultery may deny it under oath, provided she has been to confess: for then the sin has been pardoned, and has really ceased to exist.) It is right to advise any one to commit a robbery, or a fornication in order to avoid a murder. We may be allowed to conceal the truth, or disguise it under ambiguous or equivocal words or signs, for a just cause, and where there is no necessity to confess the truth.” And Liguori is still a “saint” in the Roman ecclesiasticism, “where Satan's seat is,” and with whom Episcopalians, Church of England men, and Protestants generally, are trying to come together in a church union or federation, destined fortunately to an early decease.
“They are not to be called oaths, but rather perjury, which are in opposition to the welfare of the Romish church.”—The Lateran Council (“infallible”). “If any, either alone or before others, whether asked or of his own accord, or for the purpose of sport, or for any other object, swears that he has not done something else which he has done, or in a different way from that in which he has done it, or any other truth that is added, he does not really lie, nor is he perjured.”—Pope Innocent XI, another of the “saints.” 1611-1689. “A man may swear that he never did such a thing (though he actually did it), meaning within himself that he did not do so on a certain day, or before he was born, or understanding any other such [pg 523] circumstances, while the words which he employs have no such sense as would discover his meaning.” “Promises are not binding, when the person in making them had no intention to bind himself.”—“Saint” Antonio Escobar of Mendoza, a Spanish Casuist and Jesuit, 1589-1699 (“Papacy and Civil Power,” page 607). “I pronounce all Roman Catholic priests, bishops, popes, monks, friars and nuns to be the most deliberate and willful set of liars that ever infested this or any other country, or disgraced the name of religion.”—William Hogan, a prominent southern lawyer, formerly a priest, on page 172 of his book, “Popery.”
Stealing is authorized by Popish ecclesiasticism: “A servant has the right to rob his master, a child his father, and a poor man the rich. The poor man who has concealed the goods and effects of which he has need, may swear that he has nothing.” In Romish theology it is ordinarily a mortal sin to steal two pieces of gold; but, “If any one steal small sums at different times, either from the same or from different persons, not having the intention of stealing large sums, nor of causing a great damage, his sin is not mortal. If several persons steal from the same master, in small quantities, each in such a manner as not to commit a mortal sin, though each knows that all of these little thefts together cause a considerable damage to their master, yet no one of them commits a mortal sin, even when they steal at the same time. A son does not commit a mortal sin when he steals only twenty or thirty pieces of gold from a father who has an income of 150 pieces of gold.”—“Saint” Liguori.
Ecclesiasticism, the dominant power of the Gospel Age, authorizes murder: “A man who has been excommunicated by the Pope may be killed anywhere, because the Pope has an indirect jurisdiction over the whole world, even in temporal things.”—Dens, a Roman Catholic theological authority in his “Theologica Morales.” Pope Gregory VII (alias “Saint” Hildebrand), 1020-1085, pronounced that it was no murder to kill an excommunicated person. “This rule has been for 700 years and continues to be, part of the ecclesiastical law. One of the later popes has declared that the murder of a Protestant is so good a deed that it atones and more than atones for the murder of a Catholic.”—Lord Acton in the London Times, July 26, 1872. Says Dr. Isaac J. Lansing in “Romanism and the Republic;” “Every person who had anything to do with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was a Roman Catholic. John Wilkes Booth was a Roman Catholic; Payne and Atseroth, also Dr. Nudd, who dressed Booth's leg; Garrett, in whose premises he was killed; also Harold was [pg 524] a Roman Catholic; Mrs. Suratt and her son were Roman Catholics; their house was the headquarters for Roman Catholics and for the Jesuit priests. All this was brought out before the military tribunal which condemned some of them to death. When John Suratt fled from Washington he was taken charge of by Jesuits, and under a Jesuit convoy was carried to France.”—Page 272.
“Catholics who shall assume the cross for the extermination of heretics, shall enjoy the same indulgences and be protected by the same privileges as are granted to those who go to the help of the Holy Land. We decree, further that all who may have dealings with heretics, shall be excommunicated.”—The Lateran Council (composed of candidates for Roman Catholic “saintship.”).
Papacy, the mother of harlots, also permits her clergy to become criminals: “Were even the lives of her ministers debased by crime, they are still within her pale, and therefore lose none of the powers with which her ministry invests them.”—Catechism of the Council of Trent. “A mortal sin is that which kills the soul and deserves hell,” says Archbishop John Hughes, of New York. Papal ecclesiasticism controls the education of the nations under threat of mortal sin: “Catholic electors (voters) in this country, who do not use their electoral (voting) power in behalf of separate (religious public) schools, are guilty of mortal sin. Likewise parents not making the sacrifices necessary to secure such schools, or sending their children to mixed schools. Moreover, the confessor (priest) who would give absolution to such parents, electors or legislators as support mixed schools, to the prejudice of separate schools, would be guilty of a mortal sin.”—Right Reverend Charbonnel, Bishop of Toronto, Canada.
The chastity of an attractive and obedient young nun may hang by the following slender thread: “When a nun receives a precept from her prelate, superior, or confessor, she should immediately execute it, not only to please them, but principally to please God, whose will is known by their command. If then, you receive a command from one who holds the place of God (a man-made priest!) you should observe it as if it came from God Himself. There is more certainty of doing the will of God by obedience to our superiors than by obedience to Jesus Christ should He appear in person and give His command. The nun shall be most certain of not having to render an account of the actions performed through obedience; for these the superior only, who commands them, shall be accountable.”—Liguori, “Saint,” in Popish constellation of fallen stars. According to Cardinal Manning, a bright star in the Roman [pg 525] Catholic heavens (page 89 of his “True Story of the Vatican Council”) the pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals: and the canonizing of “saints” comes under this head. Cardinal Newman on page 84 of his “Via Media,” 1887 edition, asserts concerning the canonizing of “Saints:”
“The infallibility of the church must certainly extend to this solemn and public act, canonization; and that because so serious a matter, affecting the worship of the faithful, the church, that is, the Pope, must be infallible.” One of the persons duly authorized by infallible Romish canonization is “Saint” Bridget, who lived in 1360. This “saint” says: “The Pope is a murderer of souls. He destroys the flock of Christ and fleeces it. More savage is he than Judas, and more unjust than Pilate, and worse and more wicked than Lucifer. He has exchanged all the ten commandments of God for this single one of his own, ‘Give me money, money, money.’ The Pope with his clergy are the forerunners of Antichrist, rather than the servants of Christ. The Pope's court on earth plunders the Heavenly court of Christ. The clergy never read the Book of God; but they are ever studying the book of this world. I once loved priests more than men and even angels. The kiss of those fornicating priests is the kiss of Judas when he betrayed our Lord!”—Montagu, pages 305-6.
An essential factor in the power of this evil one, and an important part of the iniquity of ecclesiasticism is the Romish confessional, which many Episcopal and Protestant ecclesiastics would, if they could, establish in the harlot daughters, the daughter churches, Protestantism. This feature is of Pagan origin. “Auricular confession was enjoined in the Elusinian mysteries, by Zoroaster in Persia, by Buddha in India, and was practiced by the ancient Babylonians and Egyptians, the Mexicans before Cortez, the Peruvians before Pizarro, by the Japanese, the Siamese, and others.” The confessional has made of every priest a spy upon the privacy of the home, the inner secrets of business and the confidential affairs of city, state, province, and nation. Theoretically the confessions are confidential, as Dr. Dens says: “It is not lawful to reveal anything that is told in confession, though it be to avoid the greatest evil that can happen; but actually the secrets of the confessional are revealed.” “De Sanctis,” page 122, says:
“While the penitent arraigns his faults with all the fatuity of a simpleton, what is the confessor doing? Laughing at the simplicity of the penitent: and afterwards in the priestly orgies that follow a morning of great confessions, in the hilarity that flows from wine, amid coarse explosions of laughter, they describe the stupid folly of their [pg 526] penitents; and each priest vies with his fellows in rendering his own penitents more ridiculous than the rest. This breach of faith extends to the highest of Rome's degraded ecclesiasticism.” History records that Pope Pius V, “saint” (1504-1572) “for the punishment of certain offences took advantage of the confessional, which ought to be an inviolable sanctuary.” Pope Sixtus V (1521-1590) told the under clergy that “they could make a report to the Pontiff, without any danger attached to revealing a confession, he giving them absolution for the whole.” Elliott, a former priest, in “Delineation of Roman Catholicism,” says, “All our conversation ran upon the stories he [another priest] heard in confession. It is the ordinary discourse of the priests, when they meet, to inform one another of what they have heard in confession. I was often present at such conferences, where the conversation was so indecent that even an honest pagan would have blushed.” “Every day they (the Dominican monks) came and talked most licentiously, relating things that had happened at the Holy office at Perugia, confessions they had heard, etc.”—Scipione Ricca, Bishop of Pistoria, and an Italian reformer, 1741-1810.
Bishop Hugh Latimer, of England (1485-1555), whom the Romish ecclesiasticism caused to be burned at the stake, said: “And so they came to know all the secrets that were in men's hearts, so that neither emperor nor king could say nor do, nor think anything in his heart, but they knew it, and so applied all the purposes and intents of princes to their own commodities. And this was the fruit of their auricular confession.” Finally, from De Sanctis, page 133, etc: “Confession in relation to society may be defined as an universal spydom, organized and complete. Confessors are not content to know the sins of those who confess; but they must learn the regulation and management of the family; and when an ingenuous youth or innocent maiden comes under the fangs of a knavish confessor (and which of them is not a knave?) they do not escape until they have first revealed the secrets of the family circle—without, however, being aware of it.”
“De Sanctis” continues: “Encouragement is given to theft, as to every other crime, by the facility of obtaining pardon, and absolutions are given to robbers, usurers, murderers, without their having made any restitution whatever. They repair to the confessor, present him with a goodly offering for a mass; or, if they are robbers of celebrity, men abounding in wealth, they found a chapelry, a benefice, or something of the kind. At Rome, for instance, every one knows that Pius VII (1742-1823) granted [pg 527] to all who hear confessions in the Holy house Ponterotto, the privilege of absolving from restitution all who have defrauded the Rev. Apostolic Chambers, or the government; and all defraud, and run there to receive absolution. But this is not enough. Leo X (1475-1521), in his bull beginning with ‘Postquam ad Apostulatus’ gives confessors the privilege not only of absolving robbers, but of permitting them to retain in all good conscience, the fruits of their usury, robberies, thefts, etc., on condition that part of the goods be given to the church!”
Ecclesiasticism is a greedy robber: “By confession many families are immersed in poverty; because the grasping confessor, taking advantage of the weak moments of a dying man, has had the will made to the profit of the clergy; and facts of the kind may be reckoned by the million. The grasping cupidity of ecclesiasticism's will-hunters, and the consequent ruin of innocent and helpless families, formed the subject of an indignant remonstrance of the German princes at the Diet of Nuremberg. To such a length was this execrable practice sometimes carried that the last sacraments were denied to the dying man until he consented to make a will in the priest's favor.”
Ecclesiasticism's apostasy, in teachings and in life, has sown the seeds of the fiery harvest of anarchy: “The horrible consequence for religion is that infidelity advances with huge strides, especially in Roman Catholic countries. The enlightenment of the age no longer permits men to believe in the priests blindly, as in the times of ignorance. Free discussion alone could show that the doctrines of the Roman church are not those of the Gospel; discussion, as it would prove their falsehood to a demonstration, would establish the truth. Discussion being prevented, it follows that, seeing clearly the falsehood and iniquity of the Roman doctrines, men believe them, because they are not discussed, to be the doctrines of the Christian religion, and abandon them, and live in indifference and infidelity.” Protestantism, ecclesiasticism, has been an apt follower of Papacy in suppression of discussion. Witness the systematic world-wide ban on any discussion of Present Truth as presented by God's watchman, Pastor Russell! Ecclesiasticism, priestcraft, had for ages supplanted the worship of God with paganism, and in the Gospel Age has insidiously transformed the Gospel of Christ, has tried to destroy liberty and progress and has built up a gigantic system of oppression and destruction of the friends of the Truth. The most ferocious of the popes are made the “saints” of Satan's church. And, says De Sanctis: “In canonizing such men, the Popes have canonized their doctrines; [pg 528] hence it cannot he said that despotism, obscuration [suppression of Truth], oppression of nations, and hatred for any kind of progress, exist through the mal-practice of any one of the popes; they exist by the very system of the Papacy. The corruption of religion ought not to be attributed to abuse of it by the individual, but to the system; therefore the Gospel ought to reign in its purity, and ought to be delivered from this great enemy; and Italy and Rome ought to confer upon the world this great benefit of despoiling the popes of their usurped power.” Why not reform, purge, cleanse ecclesiasticism? As well try to reform cancer. The sole safeguard is the destruction, excision of the germs. Any real reform would cause the prompt dropping out of the system-loving millions who would soon reorganize into another vicious system. The very constitution of ecclesiasticism forbids its ever being other than what the Wall Street Journal denominates, “that international nuisance, the church-state.” Here are some of the articles of Papacy's present, past and future constitution (infallible):
1. All human power is evil, and must therefore be under the Pope. 2. The temporal powers must act unconditionally, in accordance with the orders of the spiritual. 3. The Church is empowered to grant or take away any temporal possession. 4. The Pope has the right to give countries and nations which are non-Catholic to Catholic regents, who can reduce them to slavery. 5. The Pope can make slaves of those Christian subjects whose prince or ruling power is interdicted by the Pope. 6. The laws of the Church concerning the liberty of the Church and the Papal power are based upon Divine inspiration. 7. The Pope has the right to practice the unconditional censure of books. 8. The Pope has the right to annul state laws, treaties, constitutions, etc.; to absolve from obedience thereto, as soon as they seem detrimental to the rights of the Church, or those of the clergy. 9. The Pope possesses the right of admonishing, and if needs be of punishing, the temporal rulers, emperors and kings, as well as of drawing before the spiritual forum any case in which a mortal sin occurs. 10. Without the consent of the Pope no tax or rate of any kind can be levied upon a clergyman or upon any church whatsoever. 11. The Pope has the right to absolve from oaths, and obedience to the persons and the laws of the princes whom he excommunicates. (Note. All Protestants are excommunicated.) 12. The Pope can annul all legal relations of those in ban, especially their marriage. 13. The Pope can release from every obligation, oath, vow, either before or after being made. 14. The execution of Papal [pg 529] commands for the persecution of heretics causes remission of sins. 15. He who kills one that is excommunicated is no murderer in a legal sense.“—The Canon Law”, by Dr. G. F. von Schulte, Professor of Canonical Law at Prague.
Here the crafty and wicked Mother of Harlots, ecclesiasticism, asserts her infallible right to permit, directly or indirectly, any and every crime possible for depraved humanity to commit.
Protestantism longs for the old-time power of the clergy. It has the spirit, disposition, of spiritual fornication, goes to the limit in its efforts to control affairs through local, state, and national governmental agencies, and now is ready and willing to ally itself with liberty-destroying papal ecclesiasticism. It displays its true nature and its indifference to the good of the people in its willing eagerness to unite in any manner with the force which has for centuries throttled liberty, banished the Word of God, and stifled freedom in blood. Let not the people of Christendom overlook this when the Protestant clergy advocate church union, as they will. What can be done with such an organization as apostate ecclesiasticism? The truly Christian individual's answer must be to obey the Divine command, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers [partners in] of her sins [outlined foregoing, ad nauseam] and that ye receive not of her plagues.” (Rev. 18:4.) The Lord's people, all that really have the Holy Spirit, will and must “come out of her,” clean away from this unhallowed partnership and federation with iniquity. Ecclesiasticism, however, may rest assured that she will not suffer greatly in loss of members or of persons of wealth and power; for but few of the Lord's people are in her. Each ecclesiastic can be assured that “his people,” the tares, the worldly church members, the Babylonians, the spiritual idolaters and fornicators, the congregation of Molech, will stick by him until the heat of the fiery trials of the time of trouble drives even “the clergy's people” out into the open of worldliness.
Verse 13 shows that, in view of the enormity of ecclesiasticism's iniquity, both Roman and Protestant, their partnership in criminality, and their stubborn and willful persistence in evil, “For his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die.”
33:20. Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. O ye house of Israel, I will judge you every one after his ways.—O house of nominal churchianity, the time has [pg 530] come for God to Judge you, to recompense you double, according to your ways!—Rev. 18:6.
33:21. And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me, saying, The city is smitten.—In 24:25-27, after having cited the skepticism of the Jews as to Ezekiel's message, it was stated that from the time of Jerusalem's fall until the tidings of the fall should arrive, Ezekiel was to be dumb, having no new message to be heard by the people. The intervening prophecies, chapters 26 to 32 are not against the Hebrews, but against the heathen nations. The city fell in the eleventh year of Zedekiah's reign, the fourth month, the ninth day (2 Kings 25:2, 3), from which to the coming of the tidings of the city's fall, on the twelfth year, tenth month and fifth day, was one year, five months, twenty-six days. On that momentous day came the tidings, “The city is smitten!” Pastor Russell's voice was stilled in death on October 31, 1916. If an application of Ezekiel's period of dumbness is valid here as a time feature, the tidings, the realization that Christendom is smitten by the onslaughts of revolution, might be expected to flash throughout the world on or about April 27, 1918, a year, five months and twenty-six days after the death of God's great watchman. As in Ezekiel 24:27, this would be a sign, an indication to Christendom of the truth of Pastor Russell's commission from the Almighty.
33:22. Now the hand of the Lord was upon me in the evening, afore he that was escaped came; and had opened my mouth, until he came to me in the morning; and my mouth was opened, and I was no more dumb.—The Lord made good His promise while the news was approaching; and removed Ezekiel's dumbness half a day before, in the evening, before the morning when the tidings arrived. It was on the same day; for in the Hebrew system of time, the evening began the day. This signifies that perhaps half a year prior to the general realization of Christendom's downfall, Pastor Russell, though dead, shall again speak through this, the seventh volume of his Studies in the Scriptures—for this is but the completion of his great work of admonition and warning for the Church and for Christendom.
33:23, 24. Then the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, they that inhabit those wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying Abraham was one, and he [pg 531]inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.—After Jerusalem had been sacked and King Zedekiah captured, as related in 2 Kings 25, “the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen.” These (“those inhabiting those wastes of the land of Israel”) imagined that “the land is given to us for an inheritance.” They thought they would be left in undisturbed possession, but certain of them came into further conflict with the Assyrians. Then the land was made utterly desolate. This signifies, in fulfillment, that while the revolution overthrowing ecclesiasticism will make quite a clean sweep, there will still remain some of the more lowly adherents of ecclesiastical systems, who will imagine that they and their ideals are to prosper and spread even to the control of the revolutionary order of things.
33:25, 26. Wherefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Ye eat with the blood, and lift up your eyes toward your idols, and shed blood; and shall ye possess the land? Ye stand upon your sword, ye work abomination, and ye defile every one his neighbor's wife; and shall ye possess the land?—But God knows their hearts, and is against them, for their continuance in the evil ways of ecclesiasticism.
33:27. Say thou thus unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; As I live, surely they that are in the wastes shall fall by the sword, and him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence.—A sad awakening awaits them. As Jehovah lives, those tares then surviving the ravages of revolution shall be slain by the sword of anarchy, and shall have taken away all pretense of being Christians. Those that have the spirit of earthly ambition shall be given to be destroyed by the savagery of anarchy; and those in the strongholds and in the protected conditions of revolution shall die literally of pestilence and be destroyed religiously by the pestilential teachings of those evil days.
33:28. For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and, the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through.—God purposes to utterly desolate this evil order of things and to completely abase the last vestiges of its pride and pomp, and to cause the governments of this Age, even in their changed forms of revolution, to pass away.
33:29. Then shall they know that I am the Lord, when I have laid the land most desolate, because of all their abominations which they have committed.—Then at last [pg 532] the people that remain will realize that the war, revolution and anarchy, were the righteous judgments of the Almighty against the spiritual, political and economic abominations of Christendom.
33:30. Also, thou son of man, the children of thy people still are talking against thee by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another, every one to his brother, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the Word that cometh forth from the Lord.—Reverting to the present time, about contemporary with the realisation that Christendom is smitten, the hypocrisy of professed Christians is spoken against. The tares in their churches (houses) will talk of Pastor Russell and his works and words—they will read this book, and will urge one another to “hear what is the Word that cometh from the Lord.”
33:31. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as My people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them; for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.—They will come in numbers, apparently “as My people;” and like all tares, imitation Christians, they will listen respectfully to God's Words urging haste in consecration for the coming Kingdom; but they will not do the things they hear. They will manifest with their mouths great love for God, but will at heart be the self-seekers they always were!
33:32. And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.—To these people, in their insincerity and hypocrisy, Pastor Russell's works will be scarcely a grade higher than an entertainment, a beautiful song, “the song of Moses and the Lamb,” well played on the many-stringed harp, the Bible, but not heeded as of solemn import.
33:33. And when this cometh to pass (lo, it will come), then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.—But when the things predicted in the entire sens volumes of the Studies in the Scriptures come to pass, then shall the tares, too late, realize that a great and Divinely ordained preacher “hath been among them.”
“Master, speak! Thy servant heareth,
Longing for Thy gracious Word,
Longing for Thy voice that cheereth;
Master, let it now be heard.
I am listening, Lord, for Thee;
What hast Thou to say to me?”
Ezekiel 34—The Unfaithful Shepherds
34:1, 2. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?—God is against the clergy. Chapter 34 is a burning arraignment of ecclesiasticism. It is to be taken in a dual sense as concerning the clergy's treatment of God's true people, the true Church on the spiritual plane, and of the Jews on the earthly plane, both of whom the self-appointed shepherds, the clergy, have neglected, abused and scattered. (34:1-8, 17-21.) God will judge ecclesiasticism (34:9, 10, 16, 17, 20, 22), and will Himself, through His own agencies, regather and bless His true flock, Jewish and Christian. (34:10, 11-17, 22-31.) The words “shepherd” and “pastor” have the same meaning (D. 62; F. 287). Thus saith Jehovah God to the clergy, from Pope to preachers, Woe—in the revolution and anarchy, from 1918 on—woe to the clergy that selfishly look out for “No. 1,” that seek big salaries, live in tax-free and rent-free parsonages and rectories, that apply to themselves every promise of the Divine Word. Should not the clergy, the pastors, unselfishly feed the flock of God?
34:3. Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.—Ye live on the choicest offerings of the people. Ye “fleece” the sheep of their golden fleece. Them that are fed to fatness with the Word of God, ye kill spiritually if ye can. Ye have literally killed over fifty millions in bloody persecutions. Ye have preached millions into a dreadful death in the trenches. Ye do everything to the sheep but feed them. Did I not command you thrice, “Feed My sheep?”—John 21:17; 1 Pet. 5:2.
34:4. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.—Those weakened by spiritual disease—by the pestilence of false doctrines—ye have not strengthened [pg 534] with the pure Word of God, the Bread of Life. Rather ye have thrown them poisonous, death-dealing doctrines (1 Cor. 10:21) from the “table of devils.” Ye have not healed with the Divine Word of comfort (2 Cor. 1:3-7; Rom. 15:4) those spiritually sick with temporary ailment of the soul. Ye have not bound up, with the strong promises of God, the broken in spirit (Isa. 61:1.) Neither have ye brought back into renewed faithfulness those driven away by your treatment, nor sought to find and bring to renewed relation to God those sheep that have strayed from him in life and doctrine. Rather than feed them, serve and shepherd them, ye have ruled them, lorded over God's heritage (1 Pet. 5:3), as concerns both God's true Christian sheep and His sheep of the Hebrew race.
34:5. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered.—“My sheep know My voice [of love], and a stranger will they not follow.” (John 10:4, 5.) They were not kept together, cared for and cherished in the bonds of Christian love. There were not among you the true under-shepherds having My Spirit of Divine Love; and you, adulterous priests of Baal, and of Molech—the cruel, fiery-torment God—none having My Spirit could hear or follow. And when they were scattered, they, the inoffensive, unresisting ones, became the prey of every evil government and of every evil employer and corporation. Ye made them cannon-fodder by the thousands for the blood-guilty kaisers, czars, kings and generals of your evil order of things.
34:6. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, My flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.—My people wandered homeless and friendless throughout all the nations of this evil world. My flock of Apostles, martyrs, sacrificers, was scattered throughout all human society. Not one of the selfish, idolatrous clergy of either Romanism or Protestantism cared for them, or loved My beloved ones enough to seek after them; but rather ignored them, ostracized them, compelled their silence, drove them out from the churches, and stilled their voices in persecution and in death.
34:7. Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the Word of the Lord.—Ye have done this for centuries; and God permitted you to continue, because the time had not come. But now has come the hour of your judgment, ye popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, preachers, revivalists, and clergy of Baal, of every order and grade. Hear ye the Word of Jehovah.
34:8. As I live, saith the Lord God, surely because My flock became a prey, and My flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did My shepherds search for My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not My flock.—As I live, saith the Living God, surely because My true flock became a prey, and was exploited by every evil ruler and employer, because there was no true shepherd among you, and you clergy did not love and cherish and seek for My beloved flock, but you loved and fed yourselves, and starved My true people with a famine for the hearing of the Word of God.—Amos 8:11.
34:9. Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord.—Therefore, ye clergy, hear the Word of the true God, Jehovah.
34:10. Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require My flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.—Thus saith Jehovah God; Behold, I am against the clergy (H. 12), great and little, high and low; and I will exact from them an accounting for My beloved people; I will take My flock entirely from them. “Come out of her, O My people, and touch not the unclean thing.” (Rev. 18:4; 2 Cor. 6:17.) And I will cause the clergy to cease from feeding or attempting to preach to My flock, or any flock in My name; for in a Time of great Trouble I will deliver My people from the mouths of the clergy (Rev. 9:17-19), that My flock may not furnish them support any more, that My people may not ever again be preached by the clergy into slaughter.
34:11. For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search My sheep, and seek them out.—Jehovah will ignore the hireling, faithless clergy, and through an agency of His own lowly despised, caluminated, ostracised will patiently, persistently, lovingly search for all His “little ones,” those having His Spirit, and will seek them out.
34:12. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out My sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.—As an oriental shepherd, who knows and loves his sheep and is known and loved of them, seeks them out, when they are scattered (John 10:4-15), so will God seek [pg 536] out every one of His beloved ones, and will deliver them out of the condition of loneliness, distress, famine and persecution, where they have been scattered by the apostate clergy in the troublous and dark period of the Gospel Age.
34:13. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country.—God himself will bring them together from the various paganized “Christian” denominations, into the joy and peace and love of a condition at one with Himself and with others of like precious faith. Upon the height of the Heavenly Kingdom will He feed them, by rivers of crystal clear Truth, and amid the rejoicing throngs of the Heavenly courts. His chosen people, the Jews, will God bring by the agency of the resurrected Ancient Worthies to Palestine, where He will feed them upon the historic mountains of that hallowed land, in the then great cities of a realized Zionism.
34:14. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be: there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.—God will feed His Little Flock, first on Present Truth and then, at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb He will appoint their place as Kings and Priests of the Kingdom. He will make them abide forever in the place, the Divine spirit nature, which Christ went to Heaven to prepare. Upon the Word, fresh from the mind of God, shall they feast forever, in the spiritual phase of the Kingdom. To the Jews will be fulfilled these promises in the earthly phase of the Kingdom.
34:15. I will feed My flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.—God will feed His Flock with Present Truth, and will give them the rest of “the peace that passeth understanding.”—Phil. 4:7.
34:16. I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.—Not one true sheep shall be lost. God's unerring eye will seek every one, and bring all back, first into the Truth, and then into the Kingdom. He will bind up the broken in spirit and strengthen the spiritually sick. In the latter part of this verse the picture of the shepherds is dropped and a new parable begins, likening the clergy and their strong supporters and “laity” to different classes of sheep and goats (cattle). God purposes in the impending revolution and anarchy to destroy all the fat priests [pg 537] and clergy of all grades—as priests and clergy, at least—and those that, like the Pharisees of old, are sure they will securely stand in the presence of the Lord. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (1 Cor. 10:12.) He will feed them with famine and destruction, and with the judgments pronounced in His Word.
34:17. And as for you, O My flock, thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the goats.—The nominal flock is made up of clergy and laity of sheep and goats. In the flock God discerns the weaker sheep and the stronger rams and the goats—the clergy, class-leaders, etc.,—some of whom are real sheep and some goats, destined to the left side of disfavor. Many of these are even wolves in sheep's clothing.—Matt. 7:15.
34:18. Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?—The stronger ones have not helped the weak to feed and grow strong; but, as though it were a small matter, the clergy, have lived on the fat of the land, relatively to their poorer congregations. They have eaten up the good Word of God for themselves, particularly the Romish clergy; and what spiritual food they have given the laity, they have walked all over with muddy feet—mingled it with earthly doctrines, social and civic betterment and traditions of men. They have drunk of the water of Truth (C. 65) coming from the Bible, but have spoiled the waters by mingling it with Evolution and Higher Criticism.
34:19. And as for My flock, they eat that which ye have trodden down with your feet; and they drink that which yet have fouled with your feet.—And the laity, God's flock, whom God commissioned the shepherds to feed with the good Word of God, have eaten and drunk spiritual food polluted by the clergy with doctrines of devils.
34:20. Therefore thus saith the Lord God unto them; Behold I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.—Therefore God Himself is about to judge and make a manifest difference between the unfaithful, rich in learning and opportunity, and the poorer ones on whom they have imposed.
34:21. Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad.—Because the rich, learned and exclusive have shoved aside the weaker ones, and have, by their earthly power, pushed out of the churches all His flock, those not “at ease in Zion.”—Amos 6:1; Isa. 66:5.
34:22. Therefore will I save My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.—Therefore will God Himself save His own in these troublous times, by teaching them Present Truth; and they shall “come out of her” (Rev. 18:4), out of the churches altogether, so that the clergy and the “best” people can no longer exploit them.
34:23. And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David; He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd.—God has established Jesus (David) the Beloved (Jer. 23; 4, 5; John 10:11), and Pastor Russell as a faithful and wise under-shepherd, to bring forth from the Bible Storehouse truths new and old, to feed the sheep.
34:24. And I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it.—Jehovah (not the eternal-torment Molech God) will be their God, and His beloved Son and his under-shepherds shall occupy exalted places among them. In the Times of Restitution the Beloved Christ, Head and body, (David, beloved) will be the true Shepherd to the earthly flock, the Jews.
34:25. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.—With the truly Christian flock God will make a covenant of the peace that passeth understanding (Phil. 4:7); and with the Jews will make the New Covenant through its Mediator, The Christ. He will cause the roaring lion (Isa. 35:9), Satan, to cease from troubling (Job 3:17), and will forever restrain in oblivion the evil governments. His flock shall dwell securely, even in the wilderness condition, until their change come (Job. 14:14), and shall rest in the cooling shadows (Cant. 2:3), in the refreshing truths brought forth from the Storehouse by righteous, strong teachers and leaders among them.
34:26. And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.—The Lord will make the Truth people, His flock, and everything and every condition related to His Kingdom, a blessing to others (Mal. 3:10); they shall be the Seed of Abraham, to bless all the families of the earth. (Gal. 3:8.) God has caused showers of truth to descend upon His flock at their appointed times, down-pours of spiritual blessing in the “Studies in the Scriptures.” At the appointed time of the beginning of returning favor to the Jews, 1878, the latter rains began to fall in Palestine, making that fertile land a fit habitation again for the chosen nation.
34:27. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.—Thinking, manly men, gathered into Present Truth from the world, yield their fruitage of spirit fruits of character; and the blessed condition in which they are yields its increase of spiritual blessing and food; they are safe in their place, “seated with Christ in the Heavenlies” (Eph. 1:3, 20), where they assuredly know God with heart knowledge. God has broken the bands of the heavy yoke of ecclesiasticism, and delivered them out of the hand of a clergy that lived upon His flock, calling it “their people.” For Fleshly Israel and those who shall become Israelites there shall be the blessings of an earthly Eden, with an abundance of fruitage from trees and soil (A. 192).
34:28. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.—God's flock of spirit-begotten ones shall be no more preyed upon by paganized “Christians,” nor persecuted, devoured, destroyed, by the great “beast” of Christendom, the Papacy, with its “Holy Inquisition;” but they shall dwell safely in the hollow of His hand, His power, and none can make afraid those sealed in their foreheads with the Truth.
34:29. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.—God raised up, in 1878, in the First Resurrection of the dead, the Body members of His Son, “the Stem of David,” and previously in 1874, had sent again His Son to feed the flock, to serve them (Luke 12:37), and sup with them (Rev. 3:20) in a feast of fat things spiritual—the Present Truth. Those in the Truth shall never again suffer from famine of the Word of God; nor shall they, when raised up to sit with Christ in power and glory (Matt. 19:28), ever again bear reproach from a paganized “Christian” apostasy.
34:30. Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are My people, saith the Lord God.—This is the way that the Lord's Spiritual Flock and both Jews, and nominal Christians, shall come to know of a certainty that Jehovah is with them, that they are His people.
34:31. And ye My flock, the flock of My pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord God.—This prophecy, this type, this symbolism, refers to the people who constitute God's flock, Jewish and nominal.