Part 19

It was inhabited by the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who were therefore brothers with Israel, the descendants of Jacob; but the Edomites had a deep-rooted and perpetual enmity against Israel, they harassed and distressed them by all possible means, (See A. Clark.) "Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate ... because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end." (vs. 3-5). Does not this look like the record of the "beast that sits upon the seven hills"? Martyrdom, it appears, is confined to such times when God's people have reached an "end of sin."

As the spirit of prophesy uses mount Seir to represent Catholicism in chapter 35, and the Caucasian mountains [Gog and Magog, see Bible dictionary] to represent sectism in chapters 38 and 39, so in chapter 36:1 the "mountains of Israel" are used to represent the true conscientious Christians. The Lord says, "Set thy face against mount Seir," "against Gog," and "prophesy against him;" but in reference to the mountains of Israel, the order is changed to "prophesy unto," showing that the former were rejected, but the latter accepted of the Lord; to these very precious promises are made. In the latter part of the chapter we have associated together salvation "from all uncleanness," the gift of the Holy Spirit, and "bringing into the land," i. e., the land of perfect holiness....

The spirit of prophesy now takes up another figure to set forth the holiness crisis and the glorious effect in those "that abide the day" of the Refiner's coming. "Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel, his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand" (Ezek. 37:16-19).

Who does not know that this never was really fulfilled in the alienated sects of Jacob's literal seed? While it may apply to the formation of the church in the beginning of the reign of Christ, it was specially designed to typify the return of the church to God and the mount of holy union after the "falling away" or "cloudy and dark day." The figure does not properly suggest the formation of a new church state, but the gathering again of a divided and starved-out church under the pastorate of corrupt and self-aggrandizing shepherds. "I ... will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land ... I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them, so shall they be my people and I will be their God. And David [Christ, "the root and offspring of David"] my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd" (vs. 21-24). Nothing but entire sanctification can unite the saints under the direct control, and headship of Christ, through the Comforter.

"And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers [in the day of the church's purity] have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children forever: and my servant David shall be their prince [even Christ, for him hath God exalted to be a Prince and a Savior] forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; ... and the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore" (vs. 25-28). Here is the solution of the whole matter. The reception of the Spirit, uniting into one, placing in the land, cleansing, and the "covenant of peace" under the glorious reign of the "Prince of peace," is all summed up and consummated in the sanctification of the church through the indwelling of the Holy Trinity.

Instead of exterminating the idols and "Canaanites in the house of the Lord of hosts," the "shepherds of Israel" have catered to their unholy lusts. They have so long truckled to the world in the church, so long fawned and pampered sin under the cloak of religion, that a terrible conflict ensues whenever it is attacked by the sword of the Spirit. This crisis is described in the two following chapters, namely, Ezekiel 38, 39.

"Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog" (38:2,3). The Bible dictionary applies Gog and Magog to the Caucasian mountains, a chain that extends from the Black Sea to the Caspian. The Scythians of those regions were a fierce and warlike people. For many years they had made their name a terror to the whole Eastern world. They were finally conquered and driven out, B. C. 596, a few years before the time of Ezekiel's prophesy. These events being fresh in the mind of the ancient seer, the prophetic spirit employs Gog and Magog to represent the acrid and intolerable spirit of sectarianism and its final overthrow.

Meshech and Tubal, allies of Gog, are noticed in history as "the remotest and rudest nations of the world." David, it is probable, spoke prophetically of the same contentious, unsanctified zeal: "Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech.... My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are for war" (Psa. 120:5-7).

In applying the army of Gog and Magog to the false, deceived, and sectarian forces, the enemies of the Lord's true and holy church, I am clearly sustained in Revelation 20:8-10, where they are declared to have been deceived by the devil, therefore have a spurious religion--are professors. "They compass the saints on the breadth of the earth;" hence are diffused throughout all nations and everywhere arrayed against the holy; but shall be finally destroyed by fire from heaven. This vast army Ezekiel represents as 'coming from their place out of the north parts' (38:6,15; 39:2), indicative of a cold and heartless religion. The attack upon the "land" by Gog, shall be in the "latter years," "the latter days," (38:8,11). This language all through the prophets points to the last, or present, dispensation.

"In the latter years thou shall come into the land [the sanctified] that is brought back from the sword [saved from the carnal, sectarian "strife of tongues"], and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste;" i. e., more or less destitute of the apostolic faith and power.

God sets the testimony of his anointed against the worldly churches. Gog in return makes war upon them. But being dead to sin, and having a resurrected life, they are an invulnerable army. "They shall dwell safely all of them" (v. 8).

"And it shall come to pass at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face. For in my jealousy and in the fire of my wrath have I spoken. Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel" (vs. 18, 19). When the sword of the Almighty is unsheathed against self-righteous orthodox sinners, there is soon war in the camp, and a general commotion in the heavens and the earth. The two-edged sword of definite testimony is now wielded in every church, which has never been the case in any of the past holiness reforms.... Amen! Let the battle rage, though the heavens and the earth be moved. Send down the fire, O Lord, send fire from heaven, and burn every Gog-schism out of the church! Yea, saith the Lord, "I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles: and they shall know that I am the Lord."

The burning of the weapons and burying of Gog is described as the cleansing of the land--the church. Therefore it is the special work of sanctification, and the heavens and the earth are now shaken by the tread of God's holy army, who are 'severed out to continual employment, passing through the land to cleanse it.'

Let us now begin with 1 Pet. 4:17,18. "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" Here is a trying ordeal, a judgmental shaking of the church parallel with that described in Hebrews. It is the execution of Christ's verdict of death to sin in the flesh. "The time is come." Scriptures thus introduced almost invariably refer to some previous prediction. In the prophecies of Isaiah we find what is doubtless the antecedent of Peter's words: "I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: ... afterwards thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness" (Isa. 1:25-27).

The judgment of Zion, the house of God, is her full redemption. It is the hand of the Almighty 'purely purging away the dross and all the tin' from his church, that it might be called the "city of righteousness." This experience is not for the sinner, nor is it confined to the aged and dying; but the "converts" in Zion, saith the Lord, shall be redeemed from sin, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning. This purging is parallel with the removing of those things that are shaken.

"In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious [i. e., 'sanctified and cleansed, a glorious church' (Eph. 5:26,27)], and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel [have 'escaped the corruption that is in the world']. And it shall come to pass, that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even every one that is written among the living in Jerusalem: when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning" (Isa. 4:2-4). This explains the words of Peter very clearly; the judgment of the house of God is a divine washing and purging. The church, having passed through the spirit of judgment and of burning, all that are left therein "shall be called holy." Therefore, we understand the words of Peter as having reference to the sin-consuming flames of the Sanctifier, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which corresponds with the shaking of the church, of which Paul speaks in Hebrews; for he concludes by saying, "Our God is a consuming fire."

If ever there was a time when Peter's words were pertinent, it is now. The hand of the Almighty is upon his church, and he will smite and humble it with his judgments; shake it with his voice from heaven, and consume it with the flames of his Spirit until every foul spirit is driven out and all the "works of the devil" destroyed; that nothing may remain but the pure, unalloyed elements of the divine "kingdom, which can not be shaken." No wonder the churches so often fear and dread the coming of God's holy bands; yea, "a fire burns before them," which quite frequently closes all meeting-houses and every other place where the sects can defeat their access. It is because they know that they are but a collection of ecclesiastical stubble, which can not abide the fire which accompanies the Lord's army of definite witnesses. Here we also see that the charge that insisting upon the definite experience of entire sanctification destroys the churches is true only so far as they are composed of "wood, hay, and stubble." Fire never destroys gold and silver....

In Joel we have the declaration: "The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem [the holy church]; and the heavens and the earth shall shake" (3:16). A church that has no voice to shake sinners and professors, no voice that "turns the world upside down," that makes not the wicked flee, the devil howl, and persecution rage--that church may have "gods many," but has not the true God dwelling in her; for, following the foregoing the prophet says: "So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more" (v. 17). The Lord wants his church so holy that no stranger to God will pass through her, much less dwell and carry on business in her....

Let us now trace the heaven- and earth-shaking hosts of the Almighty in the prophet Isaiah. "Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee" (Isa. 12:6). Here is the power that does the shaking. A church that has the great and Holy One in her midst always produces a commotion in the world....

But who are required to do these things? Thus saith the Lord, "I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness" (chap. 13:3). The sanctified soul rejoices only in the exaltation and glory of God; there is no principle left in the heart that seeks self-aggrandizement. They even glory in being abased, if God is thereby honored. Glory to his name!

Now observe the effect of lifting high the banner of holiness: "The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the Lord of Hosts mustereth the host of the battle" (v. 4). A commotion soon follows the definite testimony and "lifting up of holy hands in the sanctuary" of the Lord: an army springs into existence; God himself mustereth the host. Halleluiah!

"Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt.... Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it." (vs. 6, 7, 9). This conflagration from the Almighty sweeps, with a besom of destruction, all sinners from the land--out of the church. If, therefore, the holiness movement lays waste some churches in its course, it is simply because they are composed, in general, of sinners. This fact also proves that it is the very crisis we are here tracing in the Bible. It does not destroy true Christians nor spiritual churches; but, saith the Lord, "I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible" (v. 11)....

SEPARATION OF THE WHEAT AND CHAFF

The great war for the extermination of sin out of the heart, or sinners out of the church is destined to sweep over all the nations of the earth. "The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth were afraid, drew near, and came" (Isa. 41:5).

Thus saith the Lord: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:14). When sin and self are all destroyed there is barely enough left of Jacob to constitute a small worm. But by thus reducing her to "naught," God has prepared the church to exhibit his power in shaking the heavens and the earth and bringing "to naught the things that are"--the great things of the world.

"Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing-instrument having teeth: thou shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shall make the hills as chaff. Thou shall fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:15,16). The characteristic of God's church here portrayed is nearly lost sight of at present. People think it is the business of the church to stand like a beggar at the door of the devil's kingdom and politely coax his subjects over; saying much about the duty and advantage of belonging to church and little about their sin and the duty of repentance, as though God were dependent, and the devil proprietor of the universe. Satan, having thus stolen the spikes out of the church--her power of execution--has distinguished himself in helping to run the empty machinery. But he that sitteth in the heavens will arise and bring to naught Satan's devices.

"The time is soon coming, by the prophets foretold, When Zion in purity the world shall behold; When Jesus' pure testimony will gain the day-- Denomination selfishness vanish away."

Already the Lord has begun to make Jacob new again; a sharp instrument, reset with the spikes of its primitive power, the "weapons of his indignation."

A church or ministry that is destitute of these teeth will hurt no flesh, awake no persecution, thresh out no wheat, please the devil, and give no glory to God. But spikes are not the only essential to a first-class thresher. Anciently grain was threshed with flails or trodden out by cattle and horses. Then a great improvement was secured by the invention of what is called the "old open machine." But, oh, the heaps of chaff that piled up, and filled the entire floor! Then came the dreadful task of cleaning up--of separating and removing the worthless heap.

Such have been the crafty open machines that have for years imposed heaps of trash upon the Lord's threshing-floor. They have not taken "forth the precious from the vile" (Jer 15:19). "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 showed difference between the unclean and the clean" (Ezek. 22:26). "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words ... when ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them" (Mal. 2:17).

Is not this perfectly fulfilled at present by preachers who invite sinners into their folds without requiring a particle of saving grace, and who even flatter them that they are already pretty good, and need but to come and join the church? And how many of their poor, deluded victims remain in the church for years and never hear the gospel preached straight enough to convict them of their unregenerated hearts! The policy of these teachers has been to "gather of all kinds," but the next thing in order--to separate and "cast the bad away"--has been wholly omitted. But as the Lord liveth, he is going to clear away this ecclesiastical rubbish.

"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12). Who would accept as a gift a few bushels of wheat scattered through a great heap of chaff and dirt? And think you that God will accept the church in her present condition? No, indeed; the gold must first be separated from the dross. The bride must dissolve her unholy friendship with the world, in which she is guilty of spiritual adultery in the sight of God (Jas. 4:4). She must put away all her rival gods, and adorn herself in robes of spotless white, before prepared as a bride for her husband. The Bible most assuredly teaches that God will separate the chaff from the wheat before he comes to garner home his church. To accomplish this he is converting Jacob from an open machine to a separator....

When the "rushing mighty wind" from heaven strikes the gathered heaps of stubble and chaff and begins to "scatter them," people think the church is being ruined; but this fan is in the hand of the Lord Jesus, and it will not carry a grain of wheat off his floor, and why fret about that which is not meet for the Master's use? "What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord." Let the wind from heaven drive it, and the fire consume it, "and thou [even in this scatterment] shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel."

In the prophet Micah, chapter 4, and verses 1, 2, we have the mountain of the house of the Lord (the church) established, and the law going "forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." In the 10th verse we have recorded the captivity, or "falling away" of the church--"Thou shalt go even to Babylon." And, in order to restore her purity, the Lord commands the following severe measures in verse thirteen: "Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth."

Threshing and separating, purging and consuming is the order of God, in the day of the Refiner. Many think we must so temper the gospel as to preserve peace in the church, notwithstanding her sin and idols. But, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth [peace with sin]? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." So answers the Lord. His "fan is in his hand," and he would rather blow the church to atoms and secure a little clean wheat by itself than see it prosper in peace and multitudes and under mortgage to Satan, and bearing his brand mark, i. e., spots of sin. For this purpose, says Jesus, "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straightened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:49,50). Jesus intimates that the work of refining the church with the Holy Ghost fire could not begin until he himself had passed through the ordeal of suffering and death.

"For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many" (Isa. 66:15,16). Here is the fire, sword, and division that Christ came to send on earth. Its shaking and purifying power was first manifest on the day of Pentecost. This light makes Israel see her condition and cry out, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" "Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." "When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as a shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done" (Isa. 24:15,13). "And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit" (v. 18). There is no escape from the sweeping fire of holiness but into the pit of sin; and all that can not "abide his coming" are "like chaff, which the wind driveth away."