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Ezekiel 10:6-7
This is a very interesting passage. It makes no mention of the Babylonian troops who would later descend upon and lay siege to Jerusalem, who were going to slay and burn. Spiritually speaking, those who died in that catastrophe died at the hands of the angels whom God had sent, and Jerusalem burned with the fire of God! Herbert Armstrong taught that the book of Ezekiel is for the modern nations of Israel, which are presently led by the United States of America. Truly, it is a vision, but it points to a reality: that America's fall will be the greatest of any nation in the history of the world. Yes, and the vision seems to tell us that when she burns, America will burn with the very fire of God. Ezekiel, as verse 19 indicates, watches as the cherubim "mounted up" and left the earth. God returns to His throne in heaven, but the impact of the visions remain on Ezekiel's psyche. Thousands in Jerusalem had perished, and the city was in flames. Ezekiel must have been absolutely terrified to see God leave, to see such utter devastation in advance and probably in living Technicolor, to witness the destruction of God's Temple, the slaughter of myriads of people, and the end of his homeland as he and his forefathers had known it for centuries. He may have asked, "Could Israel have become so decadent? Could this happen to the city of God?" He must have wondered, but he knew the answer. He had seen it in visions from God Himself. Similarly, we could ask today, "Could America drift so far from the principles of its founding?" and "Can the destruction of America as we have known her really be happening right before our eyes and her final dissolution be so relatively close?" We, too, know the answer, for we have seen it in God's Word. Are we tormented by what we see around us? Are we spiritually tortured by the evil that we hear and see?
Charles Whitaker
The Torment of the Godly (Part One)
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