Chapter Seven – Remembering Another Duty—the Ezekiel Warning!
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This book has continually referenced two elements of God’s Work: ANNOUNCING the kingdom of God to the world and WARNING the modern nations descended from ancient Israel.
The second aspect of responsibility has been largely forgotten—another victim of “amnesia.” Only rarely does one any longer hear people talk about addressing and warning the descendants of ancient Israel of impending war, famine, disease and captivity—if national repentance does not occur.
This volume would be incomplete without a chapter carefully re-explaining this special warning as an ongoing and vital part of finishing God’s Work.
Mr. Armstrong was on fire with and absolutely consumed by the duty—the truly GRAVEST OF RESPONSIBILITIES!—to warn certain nations, and he continually reminded the Church that this was an ongoing obligation until the end of the age. His book The United States and Britain in Prophecy detailed what is at stake for the still prosperous great Israelite nations of the West if they did not change their ways. This electrifying longer book was the Church’s most often-requested piece of literature. Its message should have become a driving reality in the life of every single member of the Worldwide Church of God. I remember how in 1966 just the early smaller edition hit me like a thunderbolt and changed my life forever. Most of you would likely say the same.
Will you anoint your eyes and experience this feeling again?
In addition, Mr. Armstrong continually reminded God’s people of Ezekiel 33:1-9. Speaking of the HOUSE OF ISRAELin modern times, this passage, and actually the entire chapter, speaks of a “watchman” who “sees the sword come” and chooses to either “blow the trumpet” or “blow not the trumpet.” The context also includes a very specific and stern warning directly to the watchman of “blood” that will be on his head if he does not warn of what he sees is coming. I personally tremble at this warning. Do you? (And can you grasp that no one of Laodicea—the BLIND!—could fulfill this role? They cannot see their own deplorable spiritual condition. How could they WATCH—SEE!—on behalf of others?)
Ezekiel 33 ALL
In addition, Mr. Armstrong continually reminded God’s people of Ezekiel 33:1-9. Speaking of the HOUSE OF ISRAELin modern times, this passage, and actually the entire chapter, speaks of a “watchman” who “sees the sword come” and chooses to either “blow the trumpet” or “blow not the trumpet.” The context also includes a very specific and stern warning directly to the watchman of “blood” that will be on his head if he does not warn of what he sees is coming. I personally tremble at this warning. Do you? (And can you grasp that no one of Laodicea—the BLIND!—could fulfill this role? They cannot see their own deplorable spiritual condition. How could they WATCH—SEE!—on behalf of others?)
Will You Remember?
Allow Mr. Armstrong to explain again to all who will hear what the Ezekiel Warning is, as well as its profound importance to the overall Work of God. May God help you grasp what is written here. Read most carefully (all emphasis is his):
“About this time God impressed on our mind His real meaning of the prophecies in Ezekiel 33:1-19 and 3:17-21. The true significance of the entire Book of Ezekiel had been revealed for some time. But now, suddenly, it took on immediate and specific and personal significance.
“I had seen that Ezekiel was a prophet with a message for the FUTURE. He himself was in the captivity of the House of JUDAH … But he was not sent a prophet with a message to these people.”
“His message was a warning of invasion and total destruction of the nation’s CITIES. That invasion was for the future. That prophecy came more than 120 years after Israel [the House of Israel] already had been invaded and conquered.”
“So now I saw Ezekiel was set a WATCHMAN—to watch international conditions as well as God’s prophecies—andwhen this invasion is preparing, and near, shortly prior to Christ’s coming to RULE THE WORLD, he is to WARN the people who had migrated, in Ezekiel’s day, to northwestern Europe and the British Isles! But Ezekiel never carried that warning! It was not for HIS TIME! He was used merely to write it! It now became plain to me that God was to use a modern 20th-century ‘Ezekiel’ to shout this WARNING.”
“I had no illusions that I was chosen to be the ‘modern Ezekiel’ to proclaim this message. But I did know that no one was sounding this alarm. I did plainly see this sword of destruction and punishment coming. I knew the time was near. Perhaps, with World War II well under way, it was even then upon us. We could not, then, foresee that God would grant another recess period in the series of world wars before the final round to end at ‘Armageddon.’
“And I did see plainly, that God said: ‘IF the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned’ that God would require the blood of the people—and now whole peoples—at the watchman’s hand!
“That was a stern warning to me.”
The Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong, Volume II, Chapter 42, pp. 36-38
“In those early days I was especially interested in the book of Ezekiel.”
“The message in fact is for today—and contained a WARNING of things to happen to Britain, America and the Western European nations NOW in OUR DAY.
“I saw clearly, back in those early days, that Ezekiel’s prophecy was a message to be taken by some MODERNTWENTIETH CENTURY servant of God—a ‘modern Ezekiel’ to America, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
“I dwelt in hundreds of broadcasts on this book of Ezekiel and its WARNING of things IMMINENTLY NOW to HAPPENto Britain, the United States and Western Europe.”
“And so it was that Christ, the Head of this Work, caused me during the first 20 or 25 years of this Work to put special emphasis on Ezekiel’s warning TO OUR PEOPLE, IN OUR DAY.”
“How I Came to be Going to Kings and Heads of Government,” PT, Feb. 1977
“This is the most seriously-in-earnest article I have ever written for The Plain Truth. Our beloved country—yours and mine—now faces TOTAL DESTRUCTION!”
“A third of our people—white English-speaking people and minorities with us—will die in a disease epidemic such as the world never experienced—resulting from imminent FAMINE! I do not know whether in two or three years—or in another decade or more—but sooner than people think!”
“Why do not theologians, doctors of divinity and of theology, evangelists, religious leaders shout this warning to you? THEY SIMPLY DO NOT UNDERSTAND God’s prophecies! They do not preach what God’s Word says—they take a piece of a sentence or a paragraph here or there out of context—yet leave about 98 percent of the Bible unread and unpreached!
“WAKE UP! Readers of The Plain Truth! If they have not the courage to tell you, I HAVE!”
“The lamentations and woes of the message to be carried to Israel never occurred in Ezekiel’s time or later. They are to strike America and Britain in our time.”
“America the Beautiful. America the Condemned,” PT, June-July 1980
“In OUR TIME, God showed me in the New Testament where He sent His disciples FIRST to the same ‘lost sheep of the House of Israel’ (Matt. 15:24). And so it was that Christ, the Head of this Work, caused me during the first 20 or 25 years of this Work, to put SPECIAL emphasis on Ezekiel’s warning to OUR PEOPLE, IN OUR DAY.”
“The Apostle John in his vision is told to take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel, and eat it up.
“HOW LIKE EZEKIEL’S PROPHECY!
“It was sweet as honey in his mouth but BITTER in his stomach.
“The message of the little book seems to be what the angel next said, ‘Thou must prophesy [proclaim-preach-foretell] again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues and KINGS!’
“Now WHEN?
“The message of the little book written on both sides of a roll, to be eaten and swallowed, takes us directly back to Ezekiel’s prophecy. Ezekiel himself, as I have shown, NEVER WENT TO ISRAEL, NEVER DELIVERED THAT MESSAGE. It was not a prophecy for the Israel of his day—but for OUR DAY, NOW. Ezekiel’s prophecy was NOT a message to MANY NATIONS, speaking different languages, and to their KINGS. It was to the REBELLIOUS PEOPLE of the House of Israel and it was emphasized to Ezekiel they were NOT of strange speech—NOT foreign Gentile nations.”
“Could it be possible, after proclaiming the Gospel of THE KINGDOM OF GOD, as well as Ezekiel’s warning to the people of Israel, that, beginning January, 1972, when my PRESENT CAMPAIGN of walking through the doors God said He would open (Rev. 3:8) to KINGS, and many NATIONS of DIFFERENT LANGUAGES commenced, that it is the FULFILLMENT OF THIS PROPHECY OF REVELATION 10?”
Co-Worker Letter, November 19, 1976
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