20:34. And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.-But even this tribulation will be done in a Father's love and for the good of His erring children, to cleanse them. Through this trouble God will search out all professed Christians, make them manifestly separate from the openly worldly.-Z.'94-76.

20:35. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face.-God will bring them into a wilderness condition of separateness from the world and of ostracism and persecution by the revolutionary and anarchistic masses, and face to face He will plead with the nominal church to forsake evil and idolatry.

20:36. Like as I pleaded with your fathers In the wilder ness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God.-As He did with the Hebrews in their trial time in the Wilderness of Sinai.

20:37. And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.-God will cause His people, all those not utterly devoid of the Holy Spirit "the Great Company" in the churches-to pass under the rod of correction and to resume their fidelity to their vow of consecration.

20:38. And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against Me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. He will permit conditions of persecution by Socialists, revolutionists, syndicalists, nihilists and anarchists, against persons professing Christianity ("the religion that got the world into trouble"), such that every person not possessing the Holy Spirit will renounce all pretense of being Christian and will get out of the deplorable condition (country) wherein the true Christians will be. This outcast class, being entirely "of the earth, earthy," shall not enter the spiritual phase of the Kingdom.

20:39. As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto Me: but pollute ye My holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols. -Let who will then serve their idols; but they shall no longer associate themselves with God's children, nor falsely bear the name of Christ, nor pollute God's holy name nor His Church with their presence or their practices. "If the Lord be God, follow Him; if Baal, follow him."

20:40. For in Mine holy mountain, in the mountain of the height of Israel, saith the Lord God, there shall all the house of Israel, all of them in the land, serve Me: there will I accept them, and there will I require your offerings, and the first fruits of your oblations, with all your holy things.-God wounds to heal. In the real "high places," the Kingdom of God now at hand, planned for man's blessed restitution, all who are truly God's shall serve Him, some in the spiritual phase of the Kingdom, some in the earthly phase. (Mal. 3:3, 4.) There God will accept all comers, "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come and whosover will, let him take of the Water of Life freely" (Rev. 22:17.) There God will accept their offerings of themselves in heartfelt consecration, and the first and best of their offerings and all their possessions, then hallowed by the influences of the Kingdom of Love.

20:41. I will accept you with your sweet savour, when I bring you out from the people, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered, and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen.-God will accept their heart's best endeavors (incense), when He gathers His children-His spirit children and His earth childrenout from the prison-house of death, and out from the dark shadows of a world-wide heathenism. Then God will be seen to be holy, sanctified, in His children, in the sight of all the Satan-blinded idolaters of earth.

20:42. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up Mine hand to give it to your fathers. God's children, who have not known Him as He is, will know Him then as the God of infinite Justice, Wisdom, Love and Power, when they shall be established in the Kingdom, in whatever phase they are fitted forthe Kingdom whose earthly phase God promised to give to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the Ancient Worthies (Psa. 45:16), and whose Heavenly phase He covenanted to give to the spirit class of the Gospel Age.-Heb. 11:40.

20:43. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. Then those who have not loved the God of Love as they should shall remember their former ways and loathe themselves for the evil done against such Love Divine.

20:44. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for My name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord God.-They will hum.

bly, thankfully and with fervent gratitude and love know that Jehovah, who is Love (1 John 4:8), dealt with them, for the carrying out of His all holy purposes, and not as Justice might have called for in connection with their ways.

20:45, 46. Moreover the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the south, and drop thy word toward the south, and prophesy against the forest of the south field.-The words of Ezekiel return to the impending destruction of Jerusalem-of Christendom. Pastor Russell was to speak, as from the Divine viewpoint (the North) against the multitudes (trees in the forest) in the earthly phase (the south) of the Kingdom of God, already established invisibly by God in 1878-1914. Jerusalem (ecclesiasticism) was in a southerly direction (belonging to the earth, earthy), from the Prophet's point of view.

20:47. And say to the forest of the south, Hear the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord God; Behold I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every dry tree: the flaming flame shall not be quenched, and all faces from the south to the north shall be burned therein:-God per mitted in 1914 the kindling of the present unquenchable conflagration of war, and of revolution and anarchy to come. Righteous (green tree) and wicked (dry tree) alike are to suffer in the fiery trials of the trouble time. All who are of the earth, earthy (of the south, earthly phase of the Kingdom), but who pretend or claim to be of the spiritual phase, to have the Holy Spirit (look toward the north, the spiritual), are to be burned, as the tares are burned after the gathering of the wheat into the Heavenly garner.-Matt. 13:30.

20:48. And all flesh shall see that I the Lord have kindled it: it shall not be quenched.-All mankind will understand, before the Time of Trouble is over, that "the strange work" is of Jehovah.

20:49. Then said I, Ah Lord God! they say of me, Doth he not speak parables?—The people of ecclesiasticism, mis led by the clergy, are unable to understand Pastor Russell's teachings regarding the trouble, or to get the Divine viewpoint.

"There are great truths that pitch their shining tents Outside our walls, and though but dimly seen

Jn the gray dawn, they will be manifest

When the light widens into perfect day."

21:1, 2. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward Jerusalem, and drop thy word toward the holy places, and prophesy against the land of Israel, The Lord has drawn the sword against Jeru salem and sharpened and pointed it in fury. (21:1-17.) The king of Babylon (Satan) uses divination as to the route by which to bring the sword against Jerusalem; the Jews deride such a method (21:18-24), but the Hebrew crown is to be overturned. (21:25-57.) The Ammonites (aggressive worldly believers), too, are to be given to the sword.-21:28-32.

21:3. And say to the land of Israel, Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I am against thee, and will draw forth My sword out of its sheath, and will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked.-Jehovah is against Christendom, has drawn against it both the literal weapons of war, in warfare and revolution, and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. (Eph. 6:17.) He will cause both righteous and wicked to die in the Time of Trouble; and by His Word He will bring about conditions such that all wicked professing Christians will abandon all pretense of Christianity, and the righteous will "come out of her" (Rev. 18:4) and be gathered as wheat into the Divine garnerHeaven.

21:4. Seeing then that I will cut off from thee the righteous and the wicked, therefore shall My sword go forth out of his sheath against all flesh from the south to the north.-Cannon, rifle, shot, shell, bomb and torpedo shall be unleashed and turned against all flesh, from those of the earthly (of the south) to those having the Holy Spirit (of the north). The Word of God will be taken out of its sheath of mystery and plainly show the meaning of this trouble, and that it is to be upon all.

21:5. That all flesh may know that I the Lord have drawn forth My sword out of its sheath: it shall not re turn any more.-All the people shall know that the trouble has come from Jehovah, and that its consummation is a certainty.

21:6. Sigh therefore, thou son of man, with the breaking of thy loins; and with bitterness sigh before their eyes

Pastor Russell and the Truth people have carried a heavy heart burden in this message of the ills coming upon Christendom.

21:7. And it shall be, when they say unto thee, Wherefore sighed thou? that thou shalt answer, For the tidings, because it cometh. And every heart shall melt, and all hands shall be feeble, and every spirit shall faint, and all knees shall be weak as water: behold, it cometh, and shall be brought to pass, saith the Lord God.-For the days are near when even the strongest shall falter.

21:8, 9. Again the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy, and say, Thus saith the Lord; Say, A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished.-Modern weapons of destruction are brought to a hitherto unknown efficiency, as is the Sword of the Spirit in the hands of the "feet" members of Christ.-Isa. 52:7.

21:10. It is sharpened to make a sore slaughter; it is furbished that it may glitter: should We then make mirth? It contemneth the rod of My Son, as every tree.-The weapons of war will make a frightful slaughter among men; and the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, will cause millions to cast off Christianity. It glitters with flashes of enlightenment reflected from the risen Sun of Righteousness, which to its idolatrous enemies are gleamings of trouble and distress. Who could rejoice over the trouble? Not the Lord's people; for it presages the destruction of the power (rod) of all professing to be of the Son of God, together with all their institutions.

21:11. And he hath given it to be furbished, that it may be handled: this sword is sharpened, and it is furbished, to give it into the hand of the slayer. It is given, bright and sharp, to be swung in the hand of skillful slayers.

21:12, 13. Cry and howl, son of man; for it shall be upon My people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: terrors by reason of the sword shall be upon My people: smite therefore upon thy thigh. Because it is a trial, and what if the sword contemn even the rod? it shall be no more, saith the Lord God.-The destruction by the weapons of war and by the Word of God shall be upon "My [professed] people," upon all the clergy (princes). Fear shall take hold of churchianity.

TWICE THREE TIMES AND THE POINT

21:14. Thou therefore, son of man, prophesy, and smite thine hands together, and let the sword be doubled the third time, the sword of the slain: it is the sword of the great men that are slain, which entereth into their privy chambers.-Pastor Russell was to give expression to the final wrath of Jehovah. The destruction will be of double