22:8. Thou hast despised Mine holy things, and hast profaned My sabbaths.-They have despised the holy teachings of God's Word, respecting the seventh thousandyear Day of rest, and have attempted justification by works instead of in the rest of faith.

22:9. In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood: and in thee they eat upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they commit lewdness.-In the churches are gossipers, evil speakers, assassins of reputation. In them are some that feast at the tables of devils (1 Tim. 4:1; 1 Cor. 10:21), like lords or rulers at the heads of the nations; they long for unhallowed church-state union.

22:10, 11. In thee have they discovered their fathers' nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.-They have not only made state-churches in every possible direction, but have been in vast numbers guilty of sexual immorality.

22:12. In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood; thou hast taken usury and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion, and hast forgotten Me, saith the Lord God.-They have used the gifts of God for evil purposes, even to slay God's holy martyrs; they have even practised extortion upon those close to them. This they have done because they have forgotten the Lord. 22:13. Behold, therefore I have smitten Mine hand at thy dishonest gain which thou hast made, and at thy blood which hath been in the midst of thee.-God has shown plain signs of anger against ecclesiasticism's hypocrisy and her spirit of murder.

22:14. Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it. Her heart must fail her, and her powers weaken, before an abused conscience, in the days when God will deal with her iniquities.

22:15. And I will scatter thee among the heatrien, and disperse thee in the countries, and will consume thy filthi ness out of thee.-He will scatter the ecclesiastics and by fiery trials consume the uncleanness out of ecclesiasticism. 22:16. And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself In the sight of the heathen, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. She shall be profaned, desecrated and destroyed in the sight of earth's nations.

22:17, 18. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, the house of Israel is to Me become dross; all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst

of the furnace; they are even the dross of aliver-Ecclesiasticism, clergy and laity alike, are to the just and holy God become as the refuse of the baser metals in a fiery furnace of affliction; they are the dross of the Great Company (silver). (Jer. 6:30.) The baser metals type degrees of earthly natures; brass (human perfection), tin (tares, begotten of error), iron (savage worldly power), and lead (sin, iniquity).

22:19. Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you Into the midst of Jerusalem. God will gather the corrupt peoples and the nations of Christendom.

22:20. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in Mine anger and In My fury, and I will leave you there, and melt youThis great conglomeration of persons of all shades of baseness shall be gathered as into a blast furnace, where God will permit indescribable troubles to afflict them; and there He will leave them,

22:21 Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of My wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. They are to be melted in heart and spirit in the fiery afflictions of His wrath.

22:22. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out My fury upon youAs the Great Company of God's spirit-begotten children have suffered by the millions, so shall it be with the clergy and laity, who profess Christianity without its spirit.

22:23, 24. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto her, Thou art the land that Is not cleansed, nor rained upon in the day of Indignation. -Christendom in this Time of Trouble is without the cleansing, refreshing showers of the water of God's Word.

22:25. There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof. Among the clergy there is a conspiracy against the Truth. The "Federation of the [so-called] Churches of Christ in America," like a very devil (roaring lion), will yet tear to pieces the Present Truth people, will put many to death, and cause some weaker ones to lose their spiritual lives. They will take and destroy the liter ature containing the precious Bible truth. Literally the preachers by preaching the men into war have made widows by the millions.

22:26. Her priests have violated My law; and have profaned Mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed difference between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from My sabbaths, and I am profaned among them. The Roman Catholic priests-and the Protestant clergy- have violated the Law of Divine Love; have polluted God's truths with pagan teachings, have shown no difference between those cleansed by the blood of Christ and those stiH in their sins, have denied the Bible teaching of the Millennium (Rev. 20:2-7), have hidden the Sabbath rest of justification by faith, and have promoted a money-grabbing system of penances and masses for sin and of collections, which discredits and profanes God's name.

22:27. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain.-The ecclesiastics, "wolves in sheeps' clothing" (Matt. 7:15), tear their prey, the Body members of Christ, shed blood in persecution, and destroy spiritual life-all to acquire money to perpetuate their infamous, paganized religion.-Micah 2:9-11.

22:28. And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken. The preachers of Protestantism have whitewashed the whole crowd of ecclesiastics, imagining empty doctrines of Evolution and Higher Criticism, and lying to the people by giving their own theories as God's Word.

22:29. The people of the land have used oppression, and exercised robbery, and have vexed the poor and needy; yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully-The laity of both Romanism and Protestantism have oppressed the poor in spirit, have robbed those needing God's help of what comfort they had, and have wrongfully oppressed the "pilgrims and strangers" (Heb. 11:13) among them.

22:30. And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge, and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found none.-God promised not to destroy Sodom if there should be ten righteous men in it; He will seek for even one who is righteous in Christ's righteousness, in ecclesiasticism, to make up the wall of her goat-fold, and stand in the gap, that He should not destroy her; but He will find not one!

22:31. Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath; their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God.-Therefore ecclesiasticism is doomed to extinction.

EZEKIEL 23

TWO APOSTATE CHURCH SYSTEMS

23:1, 2. The Word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother.-Chapter 23 describes the church-state unions of the Roman Catholic church, pictured as an unchaste woman, Aholah, and of the Protestant church, her unchaste sister, Aholibah, and the destruction of both in the Time of Trouble by the nations with which they have made unions.-Jer. 3:6-10.

23:3. And they committed whoredoms in Egypt; they committed whoredoms in their youth: there were their breasts pressed, and there they bruised the teats of their virginity-Both of these churches have always catered to worldly ideas and people, and even in their youth were guilty of unions of church with state.

23:4. And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and they were Mine, and they bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.-Their names are significant. Aholah means "her own tent." God is not in Romanist ecclesiasticism at all; it has its own tabernacle, called (Acts 7:43) "the tabernacle of Moloch." Satan himself dwells in and actuates the Papal system. Aholibah means "My tent is in her." God's Tabernacle, the true Church, has been among the Protestants chiefly. In this picture, an unchase Protestant ecclesiasticism is desig. nated "Jerusalem." They both have sons-prominent ones -and daughters-sectarian churches.

23:5. And Aholah played the harlot when she was Mine; and she doted on her lovers, on the Assyrians her neighbors.-The Romish church dates back to apostolic days, when she was God's Church [Mine]; but she fell in love with her neighbors, the rulers of that brutal age, and sought temporal power.

23:6. Which were clothed with blue, captains and rulers, all of them desirable young men, horsemen riding upon horses. The leaders and rulers in worldly affairs were apparently faithful (clothed in blue, typical of faithfulness), and seemed desirable and attractive to be associated with. They were men of thought and men of action, riding hobbies of vain philosophies.

23:7. Thus she committed her whoredoms with them, with all them that were the chosen men of Assyria, and with all on whom she doted: with all their idols she defiled herself.-The Church associated with them for gain of worldly power, set her affections on them, instead of on things Above, and defiled herself with their pagan ideas. 23:8. Neither left she her whoredoms brought from Egypt: for in her youth they lay with her, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and poured their whoredom upon her. Nor did she give up her worldliness when she took up oriental asceticism.

23:9, 10. Wherefore I have delivered her into the hand of her lovers, into the hand of the Assyrians, upon whom she doted. These discovered her nakedness: they took her sons and her daughters, and slew her with the sword: and she became famous among women; for they had executed judgment upon her. The rulers discovered the naked, unprotected condition of Romanism; and by hundreds of thousands poured in from the East, literal Tartars, Vandals, Huns and Turks, and the pagan ideas from the same sources, and slew the sons and daughters of Romanism with the literal sword, as well as her children spiritually. Among the Pagan religions (women) Romanist "Christianity" became a name and a byword; for the invaders had executed the judgment of God upon her.

PROTESTANTISM'S POLLUTION

23:11. And when her sister Aholibah saw this, she was more corrupt in her inordinate love than she, and in her whoredoms more than her sister in her whoredoms.Protestantism began in comparative purity, but later on developed an inordinate love for temporal power. Even more than Papacy she tried in every nation to "run things." 23:12. She doted upon the Assyrians her neighbours, captains and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon horses, all of them desirable young men.-She, too, set her affections on popularity with earth's rulers, great and small, conservative, radical and revolutionary.

23:13-17. Then I saw that she was defiled, that they took both one way. And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men portrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans portrayed with vermilion, girded with girdles upon their loins, exceeding in dyed attire upon their heads, all of them princes to look to, after the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea, the land of their nativity: and as soon as she saw them with her eyes, she doted upon them, and sent messengers unto them