Source: kj 125 THE “ROD” FOR DIVINE USE ON THAT DAY 34 Back in Ezekiel’s day Jehovah had his executional forces ready, and He foretold who they would be, namely, the military forces of the Third World Power of Bible history, namely, Babylon, of whom the mighty Nebuchadnezzar was then king. Correspondingly, Jehovah has his visible executional forces ready now, poised to strike Christendom, the present-day counterpart of the land of Judah and Jerusalem. Jehovah refers to these in his next words: 35 “Look! The day! Look! It is coming. The garland has gone forth. The rod has blossomed. Presumptuousness has sprouted. Violence itself has risen up into a rod of wickedness. It is not from them, nor is it from their wealth; and it is not from their own selves, nor is there any eminency in them. The time must come, the day must arrive. As regards the buyer, let him not rejoice; and as regards the seller, let him not go into mourning, for there is hot feeling against all its crowd. For to what was sold the seller himself will not return, while their life is yet among the living ones; for the vision is for all its crowd. No one will return, and they will not possess themselves each one of his own life by his own error.”—Ezekiel 7:10-13. 36 Let the hypocritical religionists who claim to be in a relationship with the Sovereign Lord God by a covenant through his mediator not forget that this extraordinary day is coming. It must be a terrible day; otherwise, Jehovah would not so repeatedly call attention to it. From the description that he gives of it by Ezekiel, it does prove to be a most tragic day! On that day the “garland” is to be put as a circlet upon the head of the doomed people, to crown them with calamity. The symbolic “rod” for the applying of punishment is at hand, for Jehovah’s use, for it has blossomed. In Ezekiel’s day it was King Nebuchadnezzar together with his then invincible Babylonian military forces. Babylon, as represented by her king and his armies, was going to do the presumptuous thing against Jehovah’s chosen people and his temple. 37 On this account Jehovah addresses Babylon as Presumptuousness personified, saying: “‘Look! I am against you, O Presumptuousness,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord, Jehovah of armies, ‘for your day must come, the time that I must give you attention. And Presumptuousness will certainly stumble and fall, and it will have no one to cause it to rise up.’” (Jeremiah 50:31, 32) Since Babylonish PRESUMPTUOUSNESS had “sprouted,” it was in position to exert itself and was ready to do so. 38 The violence that marked the Jerusalem and Judah of Ezekiel’s day reminds us that, since the year 1914 C.E., we too have entered into an “age of violence,” especially so in Christendom. Has such violence “risen up into a rod of wickedness”? Most assuredly, Yes! A violent “wind” is what the violent religionists keep sowing, and “a stormwind is what they will reap.” (Hosea 8:7) Violence brings on its own punishment as by a “rod” for its own wickedness. In the case of these violent religionists the truth of Proverbs 13:21 must be demonstrated: “Sinners are the ones whom calamity pursues, but the righteous are the ones whom good rewards.” From the “rod” of punishment the violent religionists do not deserve to be shielded. There is no “eminency” to be found in them, no worthiness of being spared from the execution of Jehovah’s judicial decisions. There is no excusableness that proceeds from them, nor from their wealth, nor from their very own selves. they deserve to feel the “rod” for their wickedness. 39 Learn, now, the long-range effects of the coming of that day of deserved punishment. There is no reason for a buyer to rejoice because he has bought the hereditary land-property of a fellow Israelite and thus expects to reap the produce from that land down till the Jubilee year. Let not the indebted Israelite who is economically forced to sell his hereditary property mourn because of his loss till the next Jubilee year in the land of Judah. Why not? Because the feeling of Jehovah is hot against “all its crowd,” buyers and sellers alike. When the calamitous day arrives, either they will be killed off or else they will be taken off the land into distant exile. Even if the sellers were to survive until the next Jubilee year, even though “their life is yet among the living ones” when that year of liberation falls due, no seller will return to the hereditary possession that he sold to pay off his debt. Why is that to be so? 40 Because the exile of the violent religionist would extend beyond the time of the next Jubilee year. The exile would be longer than the Jubilee cycle of fifty years. (Leviticus 25:8-54) Jehovah would enforce his decree that the land of Judah should lie desolate, without man or domestic animal, for seventy years. (Jeremiah 25:11, 12; 29:10) Furthermore, after the long-desolated land would begin to be occupied again, the Jubilee system would not be put in operation again in the land of Judah. Each hereditary possession that was sold before that calamitous day would be gone for good. So why should the seller of it mourn? He would have to part with it anyhow when that day of recompense came. And so, too, would the buyer of it, for which reason he had no cause to rejoice at his purchase. The “vision” of coming catastrophe is meant “for all its crowd,” without distinction. They are not to expect that by the committing of some planned “error” they can or “will possess themselves each one of his own life.” 41 From such an outcome of things we can draw one conclusion for today: Any adherent of Christendom who suffers material loss by her destruction in the coming calamitous day will never recover his loss. According to the ancient prophetic model in Ezekiel’s day, Christendom is to be besieged by her desolators. It will be a time of great fear on the part of her members. They will be afraid to come to her defense or to do battle with those bent on her destruction. Let the military trumpet be blown to summon her defenders to their defensive posts. The response thereto will be like that foretold by Jehovah in further describing the events of that “day” to Ezekiel, saying: 42 “They have blown the trumpet and there has been a preparing of everybody, but there is no one going to the battle, because my hot feeling is against all its crowd. The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine are inside. Whoever is in the field, by the sword he will die, and whoever are in the city, famine and pestilence themselves will devour them. And their escapees will certainly make their escape and become on the mountains like the doves of the valleys, all of which are moaning, each one in his own error. As for all the hands, they keep dropping down; and as for all knees, they keep dripping with water. And they have girded on sackcloth, and shuddering has covered them; and on all faces there is shame and on all their heads there is baldness.”—Ezekiel 7:14-18. 43 The refusal of Jehovah to fight for them against their besiegers will dishearten the religionists who are under attack. Those who manage to keep alive will have their hands drop from sheer faintness, as if paralyzed. Out of fear their limbs will perspire so heavily that their knees will drip from perspiration. It will be no day of glory for false religionists, but one of shame for them. At the overthrow of their cherished religious system they will, as it were, shave their heads bald in mourning.
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 00:13:37 +0000
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