Pagină:Obadiah-part-II-1936.djvu/6

198 upon their own strength and acting with the commer- cial traffickers and politivians who support them, the clergy say, as the prophet of God foretold: ‘‘Who shall bring me down to the ground?’’ They well know that they find no support for themselves in the Word of God. They hear Jchovah’s witnesses declare the Word of God, telling the people of God’s expressed purpose to bring down the haughty and arrogant, and concerning which the clergy say: ‘‘Who are those pestiferous ones who seck to destroy us by constantly calling attention of the people to us in the light of the Seriptures? What can they do to bring us down? We are thorvughly fortified in our position, and the scourge shall not come nigh us, Hell shall not prevail against us.’’? But docs their pride and boasting hold them in security? Because they are high and lifted up among cruel and selfish men, docs that make them safe? Jchovah answers those questions by his prophet and says to the modern Edomites; ‘‘Though thou exalt thyself as the cage, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord.” (Obad. 4) The modern-day Hdomites, the clergy, cannot perch themselves so high that God ean- not reach them when he chooses to do so, Lucifer tried that very thing, and Jehovah gave him the full length of the rope and let him go, God hiding his own good time to bring him down to the dust. Lucifer boastfully said: ‘1 will be like the Most ITigh; IT will exalt my throne above the stars of God.’’ To that proud and boastful claim of the wieked one Jehovah says: ‘Thou shalt be brought down to hell [oblivion], to the sides of the pit.’ (Isa. 14:12-15) “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquilics, by the iniquity of thy traffie: therefore will T biing forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devonr thee; and I will bring thee to ashes upon the carth, in the sieht of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.’’ —Ezck. 25:18, 19. 12 Jehovah thus states his rule concerning the self- exalted, the high, and mighty, who boast of their strength and do despite to the Word of God. The Lord Jesus said of these clergy that ‘they are sons of the Devil their father’ (John $:44) and their fate shall be the same as that of their father the Devil.

1. 8 Now we are in the day of Jehovah. Tle is sending

forth his servants to declare the day of the vengeance of our God, and thus they are waging war against the modern Edomites, and when this part of their work is ended the Lord will smite the boastful oppres- sors to the dust. ‘‘The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtingss of men shall be howed down; aud the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.’ (Isa. 2:41) In this day of Jchovah all who love and serve hin will sing, as the psalmist did: ‘‘Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; and thy glory above ali the carth.’’—Pss. 108:5; 113: 4, She WATCHTOWER Broostyy, N.Y. 14* The ancient Edomites had kings long before the Isreelites had a king. The record concerning Fsau’s settlement indicates that Esau became great amongst his people and that his offspring, the Edomites, were ruled by kings, as it is written: ‘‘And these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before there reigned any king over the children of Isracl.’’ (Gen. 36:31) From the time the Israclites marched over the desert to the Jand of promise onward the Edomites manifested their enmity against the Israclites, God’s chosen people; and this shows that they were the seed of the Serpent. (Gen, 3:15) Likewise the modern-day Edomites long ago aceepted the kings or visible rulers of Satan’s organization as the ‘‘higher powers’’ and they themselves became a part of those ‘higher pow- ers’’, and their influence has been to turn the people away from God to the earthly rulers, whom they eall “the higher powers’’. They attempt in this day to compel all people, ineluding those wholly devoted to God, to how to the dictates of Satan’s representatives. In all the years past the modern Kdoumites, the clergy, have been the open and avowed enemies of those who truly worship Almighty God and Christ Jesus, and who do so by proclaiming Goed’s Word of truth, That enmity of the clergy against the true followers of Christ Jesus is conelusive proof that the @lergy are the “seed? of the Serpent their father, Satan the Devil, even as Jesus stated to the clergy of his day and as Cod declared coneerning all who are opposed to him, 15 7n 1914 Jchovah enthroned Christ Jesus ay King, but the modern Hdomites, the clergy, rejected Christ the King. The witnesses of the Lord went forth as he commanded and dcelared to all who would lear (hat Christ is King, and that the Lord is in his holy temple and commands all to give heed to his words, and yct the clergy rejected dchovah’s King and openly de- Mared themselycs on the side of Satan's oreanization and themselves a part of it. Now they seck to feathor their nest high up in the rocks by taking the lead in political matters and by compelling teachers of schools and school children to indulee in enforecd flag salut- ing and to hail men, and this in utter disresard of God's plain commandments, (Ex. 20:3-5) That hypo- critical move on the part of the Hierarchy aud their dupes is another effort on their part to destroy all who truly Jove and worship Jehovah God by bringing them into complete subjection to the dictatorial rule of the Iicrarehy, their Jesuits, and political dupes. They well know that they cannot find an occasion against Jvhovah’s witnesses except they find it concerning the law of God. (Dan. 6:5) Therefore they set about to frame mischief by law, as God foretold. (Ps, 94:20) They well know that Jchovah’s witnesses are careful to obcy every law of the Jand that is in harmony with Cod’s law, but now they frame laws that are directly contrary to God’s law, with the hope of catching Je- hovah’s witnesses and destroying them. They well know that every true follower of Christ Jesus will