FM540

vs1, vs3, vs4, vs5, vs6, vs7, vs8, vs9, vs10, vs11, vs12, vs13, vs14, vs15

Ezekiel 35:1, 2. Moreover the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it. – Mount Seir and Edom are practically synonymous; for the Edomites inhabited the mountain range region along the east side of the valley, extending from the Dead Sea to the Elamitic or Persian Gulf. What Edom types Pastor Russell makes clear in .volume IV of Scripture Studies, pp. 14,20 One of the features of the Time of Trouble will be upon the fleshly-minded Christians, tares, who after the fall of ecclesiasticism, will repudiate Christianity, and take their stand as worldings, Edomites – the "people of Mount Seir," mere tares. These, having assisted in the downfall of ecclesiasticism, will seek to take the place and power of defunct Christendom in an utterly Christless arrangement of things.

Ezekiel 35:3. And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out Mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. – The godless nations that will succeed fallen Christendom will also find God against them, and that His power is stretched out against them and will make them, too, most desolate.

Ezekiel 35:4. I will lay the cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. – God will, through anarchy, lay waste the Socialistic, labor-union, social-democratic and other governments which will emerge as the outcome of the revolutions of Christendom.

Ezekiel 35:5. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end. – These economic-political movements – Socialism, labor-unionism, syndicalism, nihilism, and others, but not including anarchy, which will swallow them up – have had a long standing hatred against ecclesiasticism, have spoken and worked against it, and against the social order characteristic of the past age. In the overthrow of ecclesiasticism, the fleshly-minded tares, "Edomites" and the classes mentioned, will turn on the FM541 clergy and laity of the churches, as well as upon the Lord's spirit-begotten children – upon any remaining to profess Christianity, whether through adherence to the church systems or through consecration to God – and will slaughter them by thousands.

Ezekiel 35:6. Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee; since thou hast not hated blood, even blood shall pursue thee. – In gatherings of Socialists, there is no end to the differences of opinion as to what Socialism is and how it is to be worked out in practice. This factional division contains the seeds of the destruction of the shortlived governmental system of Socialism, under whatever name, for a bloody end. They courted revolution and shall receive of the same.

Ezekiel 35:7. Thus will I make mount Seir meet desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. – Thus will God cause the brief Socialistic phase of the Time of Trouble to become "most desolate." Not one person connected with it shall escape the universal anarchy, the last and worst phase of the tribulation.

Ezekiel 35:8. And I will fill his mountains with his slain men; in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fail that are slain with the sword. – The Socialistic, labor-ridden nations (mountains), shall be filled with the slain; among the upper classes of socialism, and among the more insignificant people (valleys) and in connection with all their channels of Socialistic truth (rivers), the people of that order of things shall be slain. In a sense the Sword of the Spirit, will slay them; it foretells their destruction.

Ezekiel 35:9. Will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return; and ye shall know that I am the Lord. – The Socialistic state shall be utterly destroyed, and its various forms of government (cities) go to oblivion.

Ezekiel 35:10. Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the Lord was there. – The then non-religious Socialists, laborites, etc., will say: "These two systems, (nations), Catholic and Protestant, and the condition of things characteristic of them, shall come under the sway of Socialism, and we Socialists, etc., shall rule over and control them", whereas they will overlook the all-important fact that God has been among these people, and they were called God's people. – "The Lord was there."

Ezekiel 35:11. Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy, which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make Myself known among them, when I have judged thee. – Therefore as the Socialists, etc., will turn FM542 upon ecclesiasticism and Christianity in anger and fury and with hateful envy, so God will do to the Socialistic, laborite order of things. As they aid in smiting down Christianity, so will the anarchists smite them down.

Ezekiel 35:12. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies, which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume. – The laborites, etc., will learn that God rules in the affairs of men, and that the Almighty will pay attention to their utterances against the nations (mountains) of Christendom (Israel), when, after ecclesiasticism's fall, the laborites shall say, "The nations have been desolated, and are given to us working people to divide up for ourselves."

Ezekiel 35:13. Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against Me, and have multiplied your words against Me: I have heard them. – The Socialistic and kindred movements, while speaking savagely against capitalism, and covertly against Christianity, have in reality been speaking against an order permitted by God, and in which God was – in the indwelling of His Holy Spirit, in such true Christians as were in the systems. In expressing the determination to lead the world out of the darkness of evil economic, social and political conditions, they unwittingly boast against God by presuming to perform what God previously planned to be done by His faithful Church, and which by any lesser agency is absolutely impossible of accomplishment, God will not pass by unnoticed the words of Socialists, syndicalists, laborites, etc. He will hear them, and remember them for just recompense.

Ezekiel 35:14. Thus saith the Lord God; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. – When the Times of Restitution of all things come, one of the things not to be restored is the Socialist, laborite movement. When all society rejoices in the new order of things ordained of God, the Socialistic state will have been utterly and forever desolated.

Ezekiel 35:15. As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee; thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the Lord. – As the fleshly-minded apostates from Christianity, siding with the radicals and revolutionaries, will rejoice at the inheritance of desolation that will be Christendom's after 1918, so will God do to the successful revolutionary movement; it shall be utterly desolated, "even all of it." Not one vestige of it shall survive the ravages of worldwide all-embracing anarchy, in the fall of 1920. (Rev. 11:7-13.)