Chapter XIX: Front Matter (19)

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 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 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.” (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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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), 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 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. 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.