Birth of a Reformation; Or, The Life and Labors of Daniel S. Warner

by A. L. Byers

The prophet Ezekiel gives us a very interesting chain of concurring prophesy. Who with his spiritual eyes open can fail to see the application of the 34th chapter of Ezekiel to the ministry, in general, of this age? They "eat up the good pasture"—fare sumptuously on fat salaries. 'Ye tread down the residue of your pastures' and 'foul the waters with your feet.' They are the real cause of spiritual famine instead of the means of refreshing the flock. "Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool." Make a lucrative merchandise of your Christless sermons, instead of administering the free gospel of salvation. "Ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock." When any find their way to the true Shepherd and receive food, life, and holy fire in their souls, they annoy the dead and sleeping, who proceed at once to kill them. This is no idle fancy. It is an undeniable fact that in most of our present-day churches a real convert can scarcely maintain spiritual life. The few that are not killed are usually driven or thrown out. O ye shepherds, a crisis from the Almighty is coming upon you. As the Lord liveth, the fires from heaven shall sweep away your craft. "Howl, ye shepherds, and cry; and wallow yourselves in the ashes, ye principal of the flock: for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished" (Jer. 25:34). Their time of feasting upon and dispersing the Lord's flock will come to an end.

"I will deliver my flock from their mouth," and "they shall no more be a prey" (Ezek. 34:10,22). "I will seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places [sectarian divisions] where they have been scattered [into several hundred parties] in the cloudy and dark day" (v. 12). We talk of the dark age as in the past; but the seer of God declares that we are yet under its lingering fogs, and shall be until holy fire from heaven shall sweep away every partition-wall, human creed, and party name, and purge out that infamous god, the sectarian spirit; the vile "image of jealousy" which sits in all the thresholds of Babylon.

"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" (v. 13). Yea, "I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be" (v. 14). "And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David [Christ—David was already dead four hundred years]; he shall feed them, and shall be their shepherd" (v. 23).

The perfect reign of the Messiah, and his love in the soul, is to succeed the dark day of party confusion. The two are not compatible with each other. "And I will make with them a covenant of peace" (v. 25). Their own land, and this covenant-union with God, is simply entire sanctification. See Jer. 23....

In Ezekiel 35 we have the judgment of mount Seir. Seir—rough, shaggy—we presume is used [in the typical sense] to denote the Catholic power.

It was inhabited by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who were therefore brothers with Israel, the descendants of Jacob; but the Edomites had a deep-rooted and perpetual enmity against Israel, they harassed and distressed them by all possible means, (See A. Clark.) "Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate ... because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end." (vs. 3-5). Does not this look like the record of the "beast that sits upon the seven hills"? Martyrdom, it appears, is confined to such times when God's people have reached an "end of sin."

As the spirit of prophesy uses mount Seir to represent Catholicism in chapter 35, and the Caucasian mountains [Gog and Magog, see Bible dictionary] to represent sectism in chapters 38 and 39, so in chapter 36:1 the "mountains of Israel" are used to represent the true conscientious Christians. The Lord says, "Set thy face against mount Seir," "against Gog," and "prophesy against him;" but in reference to the mountains of Israel, the order is changed to "prophesy unto," showing that the former were rejected, but the latter accepted of the Lord; to these very precious promises are made. In the latter part of the chapter we have associated together salvation "from all uncleanness," the gift of the Holy Spirit, and "bringing into the land," i. e., the land of perfect holiness....

The spirit of prophesy now takes up another figure to set forth the holiness crisis and the glorious effect in those "that abide the day" of the Refiner's coming. "Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel, his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand" (Ezek. 37:16-19).

Who does not know that this never was really fulfilled in the alienated sects of Jacob's literal seed? While it may apply to the formation of the church in the beginning of the reign of Christ, it was specially designed to typify the return of the church to God and the mount of holy union after the "falling away" or "cloudy and dark day." The figure does not properly suggest the formation of a new church state, but the gathering again of a divided and starved-out church under the pastorate of corrupt and self-aggrandizing shepherds. "I ... will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land ... I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them, so shall they be my people and I will be their God. And David [Christ, "the root and offspring of David">[ my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd" (vs. 21-24). Nothing but entire sanctification can unite the saints under the direct control, and headship of Christ, through the Comforter.

"And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers [in the day of the church's purity] have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children forever: and my servant David shall be their prince [even Christ, for him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Savior] forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; ... and the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore" (vs. 25-28). Here is the solution of the whole matter. The reception of the Spirit, uniting into one, placing in the land, cleansing, and the "covenant of peace" under the glorious reign of the "Prince of peace," is all summed up and consummated in the sanctification of the church through the indwelling of the Holy Trinity.