(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 stum blingblock 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 car dinal 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 spiritbegotten 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 fellowbelievers 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. (C295.) 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 govern ment. (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 ecclesi asticism, 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 educa tion; 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 Biege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel. -An iron pan, literally a "thin plate," was between be sieging 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 priest craft. 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 Rus sell 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