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.
[pg 397]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.
[pg 399]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.
[pg 408]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.