The Seat of the Image of Jealously

“And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.”* (Ezekiel 8:3)

Behind all outward sins are the inner causes—the sins behind the sins. Just as a mighty river starts from little beginnings, so an apostasy stems from hidden beginnings. These beginnings are buried back in history, both ancient history and recent, but the eye of God sees them from their smallest beginning, for “all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”* (Hebrews 4:13) This fact is both overwhelming and comforting. We cannot get away with anything, for He sees all; but there is nothing that He cannot heal and fix, for His comprehension of our need is absolutely complete. He saw when the Jews went astray; He knew what needed to be acknowledged, confessed, and forsaken. We need to understand that God throughly understands why things are not working correctly today, and He knows how to fix it, too.

“And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall: and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door.”* (Ezekiel 8:7-8)

There is a hole in the wall, a little hole, that is available (through the mercy of God) to every thoughtful soul. Even that little hole, that little insight, is only found because God brings it to our attention. Is it not a little hole? It does not seem very significant. A brother’s testimony was mentioned in a previous article.* He was in a place where he had been raised, in a church that professed to be the Lord’s, but he kept thinking, “There has got to be more to this.” The inconsistencies and barrenness in that place did not seem enormous or overwhelming at that time to him. It certainly didn’t appear to him as it does now, since he fled the ruin. It was just a hole in the wall. “Behold a hole in the wall.” It was just enough for him to make a choice, and that choice, at that time, was not to stay or flee. It was a choice of whether or not to dig.

We can say with great certainty that God is always bringing to the attention of people the holes that lead to the underlying causes of sin; and we can say with equal certainty that most people choose not to look further. They don’t say, “Don’t look at the hole!” Of course not. Just to say that suggests a certain dishonesty—a desire not to look too closely lest I be obligated to act upon what I see.

God is very faithful to mankind, and all of His dealings with us are true and righteous altogether, but the overall picture of men’s dealings with God is a sad contrast. If God has changed your heart so that your one great desire is to please Him and do what is right, then you will attempt to understand what God is trying to show you. But most people do not really have a heart to please Him (even if they think they do). As the Bible tells us, when many were invited to the great supper He had prepared, “They all with one consent began to make excuse.”* (Lk. 14:18)

At this point, many will attempt to avoid inquiry by stating, “That’s just your interpretation.” (But does not God have an interpretation? Are not the scriptures of no private interpretation? [2 Peter 1:20]) That “your interpretation” excuse is an excellent tool for avoiding inquiry. It is a long way from “I must know what truth is.” It is a long way from “Buy the truth, and sell it not.”* (Proverbs 23:23)

Another sophistry of the devil is, “Thou shalt not judge.” This anti-digging tool is a twisted scripture. It ignores the words of Jesus, “Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”* (John 7:24) It ignores the pronouncement of Isaiah, “Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness.”* (Isaiah 1:27) It would have us believe that any judgment shows a lack of love. It creates an atmosphere where no line is drawn between right and wrong; where a warm and fuzzy feeling is counted virtuous; where sensitivity to the feelings of others and “meaning well” are the only esteemed virtues. Furthermore, it would insinuate that God’s judgments are unknown, except in the more gross and distasteful immoralities, and that we should not meddle with them, as we are too weak, childlike, and fleshly to properly understand them or employ them. Strangely, this lack-of-judgment is very judgmental against people being judgmental. One young woman declared, “I will not worship with people who are judgmental.” It is one of the more judgmental declarations I have ever heard.

All of these hellish devices are ploys to keep people from digging. (Yes, I know that each can be taken to extremes, and this is just as wrong.) More people are hindered from a rigorous and effective inquiry of what is right and what is wrong by these attitudes than is imagined.

Now in our text, God takes Ezekiel on a fact-finding mission to see what went wrong with the Jewish nation to the extent that the temple is destroyed, the city of David is demolished, and the people are captives in the land of Babylon. And when God points out the little hole in the wall, He tells Ezekiel, “Son of man, dig now in the wall.” That is why we know the hole was little—digging was needed. We will never discover what God wants us to know unless we dig. You will just keep passing by that little hole. You will keep on saying things like, “That little thing? That’s not important! Besides, we shouldn’t judge!” Or maybe you will say, “Well, that’s your interpretation that the hole means something! A lot of others, including me, feel differently about it. A little hole like that? That’s not important! How could that amount to much?” But Brother Ezekiel had a different mindset, didn’t he? He dug. And he found, hidden in the dirt with just a little hole leading to it, a door.

There are diggers who never get to the door. We might say, “Well, at least, they dug!” And it is certainly better to do what God tells us to do. “Son of man, dig.” But we must go far enough. Well, how far is far enough? Until we see what God meant for us to see.

A brother and sister visited a congregation. This visited congregation was vilified and condemned among the people where the brother and sister came from. But the two had been stirred by recent developments in their church to do some digging. Perhaps the Lord was blessing over there in that congregation, they thought. So they visited. Now their expectations were shaped by the people among whom they made their home, and they honestly perceived no need for adjustment in themselves. They felt they were honest and up-to-date in their light, and I believe they were. However, they did not realize how much God would require them to change to take a stand against the errors that were bothering them among their people. In short, they vastly underestimated the amount of digging that would be necessary to uncover what would turn out to be a door—a door that God wanted to show them.

The sister came to meeting with a burden to speak. She felt the Lord had given her things to say, and she expected that the Holy Spirit would make room for her. And that room was given to her in precisely the same way that it was extended to every other child of God. No special announcement was made that opened the way for her to speak. No inward or outward attitude was raised in opposition to her speaking. In fact, we were all there to hear whatever the Lord would lay upon anyone. The burden of proof that one was in order lay upon anyone who felt compelled to exercise himself or herself. We rather hoped that this sister would have something to say.

She did not say anything. She left the meeting without saying anything. She visited with others for the better part of a day without saying anything. She did not say anything for the better part of five years. Then she decided to talk. She went to a sister that resided at that congregation and told her that she felt she could not say what God had given her to say that night in service without coming under a spirit of domination. She could not offer any evidence of a spirit of domination, even after all that time. She simply stated that there was. After this assertion, things began to come out. She was asked if she had talked to anyone else about the matter, and at first she denied it. She really thought she hadn’t talked to anyone, that she had been impartial and not influenced, but she had forgotten some things. Then God reminded her of whom she had talked to, and she was honest enough to call and confess what she had forgotten. We knew the ones she had talked to. We had been in situations where we had tried their spirit. A picture began to emerge. “I’m still digging. I’m still a digger.” But they do not find the door. We were afraid for her. She had not found the door.

“Well, maybe there is no door to find.” Whenever wrong is going on, there is a door. “Is there not a cause?”* (1 Samuel 17:29) There is a cause. Sin has roots. God knows where those roots are, how to expose them, and how to get them out. But we must have a heart to do our part. Our part is to dig where He points. He will show us the hole. Then we are tested on just how much we want to know and how far we want to go with God. We can leave Him there pointing at the hole and (1) stop digging, (2) dig in other places, (3) dig so halfheartedly that nothing is accomplished. In any of these ways, the door will not be discovered.

What was behind that door that Ezekiel dug up? Behind the door, well hidden, was “the seat of the image of jealousy.” At this point, the question is, are you willing to look behind the door? Will you go all the way with God and look at “the hidden things of dishonesty”* (2 Corinthians 4:2)? If you want to abhor them as God abhors them, if you want to see what depths deliverance must reach to do the job of establishing holiness acceptable unto God, then you must “go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.”* (Ezekiel 8:9)

We pause to consider the effect on us of this insight. You will not be the same. You will not sit and listen to the preaching as you once did. You will see things that will burden you and tear at your soul. You will see why there is not more power and glory. You will see why healings are hindered and so many are spiritually weak and cannot do anything much or stand very much for the Lord. The reasons are behind that door. They lie in the sins behind the sins. You will find yourself in the position of a man of God who made this statement in his last message to his congregation: “If I had known the hardness of men’s hearts, I would have conducted my ministry differently over the years.” This was a faithful brother who saw many things behind many doors, but something in his temperament did not care for the “adamant flint” (Ezekiel 3:9) necessary to penetrate to the depth of need, and God had allowed it to come out in this way at the end of his life and ministry. (Well, how could he be right, then? In the same way that Brother Peter was still saved and sanctified after sitting with the Jewish brethren and separating himself from the Gentile brethren [Galatians 2:11-14].)

We see plainly that the roots—the real needs—of mankind are buried. There are two barriers. There is a lot of earth that masks the hidden motives and thoughts of the heart, but God has a way of access for us. God is willing and desirous of showing you your own heart. He has written His Word in such a way as to reflect a perfect picture of you—just how you stand before Him, His standard of holiness, and His standard of deliverance and victory made for you (James 1:23-25). To get a hold of God’s standard, you must dig through the dirt. You must wade through your fleshly conditioning. How your relatives think. The prevailing values of your family. Your own temperament. Your own prejudices. Your fears. What the devil suggests to you in the fleshly reasoning of your own mind. Behind all this dirt is the door—the will. In the Jews to whom Ezekiel preached, this door was firmly closed to God. God was not in their heart. Other things had been taken through that door. Then the whole thing had been covered over with earth.

This is the classic pattern. Hardly anyone says, “The reason I am in such great trouble is because I shut my heart against God and His ways and piled earthly reasoning over my decision to justify myself.” A child of God will readily say this and testify with great thankfulness to the process of digging and uncovering, forsaking and cleaning out, opening to God and His salvation that followed. But most people are not children of God. They serve sin and the devil.

There was a professing preacher who secretly used chewing tobacco. His son was convinced that he secretly drank alcoholic beverages, too. “He always had a ‘milky’ condition in his eyes,” the son said. “But when he reached his old age and could no longer get around, that milky condition cleared up.” The son suspected that he secretly purchased and consumed alcohol thoughout his life until he couldn’t do it anymore. This same son was the one who caught him using tobacco. He said, “I think Dad thought that he was one of those people who needed tobacco. [There are no such people.] He had convinced himself that he needed it just as other people need to eat food or vitamins.” In this way, he justified his secret sins. In this way, he piled up the earth before the door of his heart. Behind the door, what he had allowed in, flourished.

It did not seem expedient to this man to reveal his secret sins. Expedient means fit or proper under the circumstances; conducive to self-interest; desirable; advisable; advantageous; sometimes contradistinguished from right or principled. The word’s synonyms include suitable, appropriate, and politic. The hypocrite reasons that his actions would be acceptable in a different moral atmosphere, although they are not acceptable now, so he hides what he does. He does not take into account that God is a revealer of secrets, yea, the secrets of men’s hearts, and that God is infinitely holy and hates all sin with an infinite hatred. God’s judgments reveal all sin and show the way to righteousness. He does not vary His standards as men do.

A minister had a daughter who loved to dance. But for her, there was a problem. The church of which he was the pastor forbade dancing. This heritage was the result of holy living by their predecessors. It was a valuable understanding. But the minister had something other than a love for truth and holy living in his heart. “Just wait awhile,” he counseled his daughter. “Things will change. Eventually, dancing will be allowed among us.” This account was written by the daughter when she was an older woman. She rejoiced in the fact that her daddy was correct. Things did change. She got to indulge her love for dancing with the approval of the church.

There are many things going on in secret today that are waiting for a chance to come out and appear respectable, at least to some. And there are others who are not willing to wait, but defiantly champion some sinful thing in open rebellion against the prevailing understanding of what is right and wrong among men. Until it is expedient to let it come out in the open, it is carefully hidden behind the closed door of the heart, with a small mountain of dirt over it. But God has left a hole in the fleshly reasoning of men against this expediency, this practice of politics. These inconsistencies, the causes of ill spiritual health. If you are not satisfied to accept things without seeking, searching, knocking, then you will began to dig; and eventually you will come to the door.

The dirt hides the door. The flesh is a veil to the decisions of the heart. The idols of the heart are veiled by the common attributes of humanity. “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”* (Hebrews 4:12) God’s Word, in the hands of His Spirit, will cut though all obstacles and reveal the thoughts and intents of the heart. God will show you what is really behind your door and the doors of others, if you will stay with Him and keep looking.

So we see Ezekiel, taken by the hand of God to the hole in the earth, digging, digging, digging, until behold, he finds a closed door (Ezekiel 8:8). “And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I went in and saw.”* (Ezekiel 8:9-10) We see then that a man directed by God, willing to dig as God wants him to dig, will find the door to the human heart. He will be directed and empowered to go in and see. Sometimes it may be his own heart that he is privileged to see (for it cannot be accurately seen without the help of God), and sometimes it may be the hearts of others; but the overall effect will be to understand the will of God (Ephesians 5:17) and to be enabled to cry to the Strong for help.

When Ezekiel saw the inward hearts of the Jews, the whole thing made a lot of sense. The judgment (even their captivity) was not too severe in any way. It was directly in proportion to the wickedness behind the closed door. God saw it all the time and had brought this judgment upon them. Now Ezekiel began to see it. And the children of the captivity needed to see it, too. Without this horrible perception, there is no deliverance from the sin. God does not enjoy rubbing the faces of mankind in their sins, but the in-your-face ordeal is absolutely necessary if we are to be saved (2 Corinthians 7:11). Without a true impression of the sinfulness of sin, there is no godly sorrow, consequently no heartfelt repentance, and no deliverance.

The stomach-turning tour of the inward thoughts and motives of the Jewish people began, and we read, “Behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about. And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, the LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.”* (Ezekiel 8:10-12) We see at a glance that we are looking at spiritual wickedness in high places. Those who should have been guardians of the truth had utterly betrayed it, even the ancients of the house of Israel. The depths of their unbelief and godless philosophy are revealed in the words, “the LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.” This pernicious skepticism had gone through the nation like leaven. Only a handful had not bowed the knee to Baal, so to speak.

This horrible betrayal of truth is just as real today and just as evil. The brethren who re-discovered the truth of God’s church, His body, in the Evening Light Reformation of 1880, taught a depth of deliverance from sectish principles and ideas that echoed the same teaching in the early days of the church of God as portrayed in the New Testament. They exposed the false reasoning that had captured and bound millions of God’s children in different churches since the Protestant Reformation of 1530. They insisted on the cleansing and purifying from the idols of party and groupism that defiled these Babylonish captives, and this sanctifying work of God enabled them to escape, one by one, to stand once more on the foundation that God kept from ever being corrupted.

But the current leaders of those who profess to have escaped Babylon have changed the focus of the message. It has been steadily slipping toward holding the “church” together instead of deliverance to a vision of God. The truth has more and more evolved among them to a doctrinal shadow, and when we dig into their attitudes and teachings, we find that they are more like sectism than not.

This is what has happened to a the vast majority of those who claim to be the church of God today. Only by their doctrine can they be distinguished from many other parts of Christendom. “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.”* (2 Timothy 3:5) They teach and appear to cherish the doctrines of separation and distinction from all other groups (2 Corinthians 6:17) and love to celebrate “having been raised in the truth,” but they know little to nothing of the perfect love and eye single that enabled men and women to break every yoke and return to the rebuilding of Zion.

I am thinking of a minister who was esteemed among them because of his spirituality (who nevertheless eventually settled for being one of them), who said of them in a certain locality, “They do not know what salvation means.” When I first heard this, it seemed rather extreme and a little far-fetched. Surely they could not have such a heritage without at least knowing what salvation means! But he was right. Not only did they not have the experience working in them, they had at that place lost consciousness of it to the extent that they regarded a good moral life, a sensitivity and loyalty to what was taught, and a “sweet” spirit as evidence of salvation. They had lost all consciousness of such truths as, “Anything less than a perfect trust in God is a denial of Him.” They actively intermingled with others of the same philosophical bent as themselves in the group of people with whom their congregation fellowshipped, and they were suspicious and a little apprehensive of those who went deeper. Their pastor was a man of mighty intellect; he edified their minds, satisfied their curiosity, and entertained them. They ignored and still ignore the holes in the earth. Behind the closed doors of their hearts, they burn their incense and worship their abominations. Their descendants come along and build on their work, little suspecting that the effort is adulterated and impure in the eyes of God. These descendants act sincerely, more or less, in following something that is less than complete truth. The same goes on in tens of thousands of sects all over the world.

When faced with this general summary, and very specific accounts of their apostasy, they are highly offended. Just outraged. In a different time, physical imprisonment and even death might have followed. Now they just kill the influence of those who oppose them as best they can, and keep that door firmly sealed against anything else that conflicts with where their heart is set.

Every now and then, something happens that exposes a hole. This is God’s mercy to the people behind the door, although it is largely unrecognized.

About 23 years ago, a pastor was teaching a standard that was in direct contradiction of the Bible on a number of points. If you lived in that congregation and loved the Lord, you were heavily censured, even persecuted, if you did not go along with those Bible contradictions. This pastor was quite influential; he was much thought of in many other congregations, and the less-than-spiritual standards had made headway in many other places. Several spiritual ministers were quite burdened about the situation, and several (unsuccessful) meetings were held in that pastor’s congregation to try to help all, including him. These were of no avail. A man in his congregation opposed these same things. Finally a general ministers’ meeting was held about the matter, and the details of the spiritual conflict came to light. About twelve points came out—all of them in violation of the Bible. All of them were apparently little things. The matter was presented before the ministerial body, and the pastor spoke. It was plain that he was indeed teaching and doing those things. He defended them. He sidestepped the importance of those things.

I sat in that meeting and confidently waited for men and women of God to refute the false teaching and deal with the heart of the brother. And I received one of the great shocks of my life. They did not. There were brethren there who had good understanding of what was involved and what it would mean. One of them said, “Well, let’s have a Bible study. If we don’t know what we believe, then let’s study it now.” But there was no consensus to study the Bible about those things. Any fair study would come to a conclusion that those things were wrong. Folks weren’t mixed up or confused about those things. The problem was not ignorance or confusion.

The problem was political. A young brother and sister approached an older sister and asked her, “What’s going on? Why won’t any of you speak up? We were taught that these things were wrong.” The old sister replied, “We are all so afraid.” And that was the truth. They were afraid to stand up for the truth. They were afraid that it would split them. Such was the pastor’s influence. Instead, they had a vote of confidence in the pastor. Most of the ministers there, in the presence of the pastor’s apostasy, showed by uplifted hands that they continued to have confidence in the pastor and his ministry. Some abstained (I was one of them). The pastor continued to teach the same poisonous stuff among them until he died.

Now this was a hole in the wall that demanded further inquiry. God was showing great mercy in allowing all this embarrassing, awkward confusion to surface. But much of this was wasted on the vast majority of the ministers who attended the meeting. They were not interested in digging to discover any closed doors. They will deny to this day that there was any significant change among them as a result of their doing (or not doing). In another meeting, some months before the one mentioned, a young minister had voiced the same sentiments as the older minister in this meeting described above. Remarkably, the entire body of ministers had rejected the exact same letdowns in principles and concepts…. The young minister did not have the same influence as the older minister.

In this way, people choose (by not taking a stand for truth) the abominations that they really believe in behind their closed doors. And regardless of their overall profession, the actual fruits of their idols and abominations began to manifest themselves.

There are two overall trends in this process of falling away. The first is an increasing skepticism in God and His promises as He sees fit to work. The second is the worship of idols, such as Tammuz. Both are recorded in Ezekiel’s writing. The first characteristic leads to the second, for if we are not led by God and His promises, we will be led by something.

“Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, the LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth. He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.”* (Ezekiel 8:12-14)

The saying, “The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth,” pretty well sums up the attitude of skepticism. The idea of an absent, unconcerned Christ is a key thought to how false Christianity justifies its doings.

Tammuz was a young god in the pagan myth who supposedly died each fall and was resurrected each spring. According to the myth, he was very comely, and festivals of rejoicing greeted his arrival in the spring, while mourning attended his supposed annual death in the autumn. In many ways, he represents fleshly, earthly hopes, and this fable was especially attractive to women. Many Jewish women of the captivity found this story particularly appealing. They had hopes that there would be a “spring” from their captivity as they mourned the loss of Jerusalem, etc. As though there was a natural rhythm of loss and gain, and this “fate” was the explanation of what had happened to them, of why they were exiles in Babylon.

There are many people weeping for Tammuz today. They have little or no faith in God, except as it appears convenient to do so, but their real confidence is in the flesh, especially the flesh at its best, i.e., Tammuz. The Tammuz worshipers believe in the flesh. Better and gifted preaching. More money. Projects. Great enthusiasm and zeal. Great fleshly wisdom. The praise and support of men. It is the exact opposite of Brother Paul’s testimony, “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”* (Philippians 3:3)

“But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”* (John 4:23-24)

But if you weep for Tammuz, this scripture does not really mean very much to you, for your worship is offered in fleshly wisdom. God is not pleased with nor does He accept any worship but that offered in His Spirit and in His truth. “He is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.”* (Revelation 17:14) We see that God is a choosing God. He does not have to take what is offered to Him and be glad to get it. Notice again how particular God is: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”* (Matthew 25:31-34) The scripture goes on to tell how the rejected protest their end, but to no avail. These scriptures are going to come true in front of our eyes, and you and I, dear reader, will either be accepted or rejected before the throne of God. Oh, let us all take warning! What do you think will be the fate of those who weep for Tammuz?

The Spirit of God will spoil you for the enticements of Tammuz. He will prove to you the vast superiority of God’s way over every other way. He will lead you in such a way that your testimony will be, “Right was the pathway leading to this.” He will teach you to see through and “hate every false way.”* (Psalm 119:128) How precious it is to be under Holy Spirit government! To be one of the number whom God has unified and keeps in unity! It exceeds the unity of a creed as day exceeds night.

Tammuz is only attractive when people have lost sight of God. In Tammuz, the preachers arise in the power of a people united on a creed, anointed with the praise of men, and these people experience a certain kind of reward. But in Zion, the ministers speak “as the oracles of God,”* (1 Peter 4:11) anointed by the same Holy Ghost that inspired the writing of the Bible, and the Holy Ghost fire is the same as with the saints in the Book. It proves out. It needs no revision. As the Lord who gives it, it is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is timeless and will do to live by and to die by. Men change. Their conceptions and ideas vary. But truth in the hands of the Holy Ghost is ageless and eternal.

“He speaks, and eternity, filled with His voice,
Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.”*

It is a kingdom that cannot be moved, a stone cut out of the mountain without hands.

When the people of Judah fell away from the truth, and judgment fell upon them, God sent His prophet to hold before them eternal truth and to expose what they had actually followed, if perchance, they might humble themselves before Him and repent. And of them that received this message of truth recorded in the book of Ezekiel, they were those that returned to Zion and rebuilt the walls and the temple. The rest stayed in Babylon and grew more Babylonish each year.

“Are you of the holy remnant,
Gathered to the King of Peace?
Have you found a full atonement,
And abundance of His grace?
Yes, my soul has come to Zion,
On the high and holy way,
And I’ve seen the darkness flying,
Driven by the light of day.

“Have you heard a voice from heaven,
Calling in a solemn tone,
‘Come, my people, from confusion,
This is not your native home’?
Yes, I heard, and to my vision,
Zion’s glory brightly shone;
Then I rose and fled the ruin,
Taking not a Babel stone.

“Have you learned that all this remnant
Must be dressed in uniform?
Are you clothed in that white raiment,
That will shine before the throne?
Yes, I found the precious fountain,
Opened when the Savior died,
Here I washed my stains of crimson,
And my soul is sanctified.”*