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.