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.