View source for Page:Obadiah-part-III-1936.djvu/7

<noinclude><pagequality level="1" user="" /></noinclude>Jvery 15, 1936 
bring them into complete contempt and shame, ‘‘The 
wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken; 
Jo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what 
wisdom is in them ?’’ (Jer. 8:9} These things are now 
made known to Jehovah’s witpesses who are in the 
war, and Cod gives them this information as he plesses, 
that they might with patience and comfort of heart, 
and with strong hope, continue to push the fight 
against the enemy by declaring the message of God's 
Word with the zeal peculiar te the Lord’s house. In 
doing this work the faithful remmant will not permit 
themselves to be adversely infflmenced by that other 
class of self-constituted “wise enes’’ who assume to 
tell the Lord that the great multitude will be gath- 
ered after what is mmwisely called “the first phase of 
Armageddon’. Such presumptuous speech before the 
people of Cod tends to defile the demple of God when 
spoken by one who claims to be ef the temple. Mani- 
festly the apostle had such in mind when he wrote 
these words: ‘*If any man defile the temple of God, 
him shall Ged destroy ; for the temple of God is holy, 
whieh temple ye are. Let no man deceive himself, Hf 
any man among you sccmeth te be wise in this world, 
Iet him become a fool, that he may be wise.’’ (1 Cor. 
3:17,18) Those who have ‘the wisdom that eometh 
down from above’ will stand shenlder to shoulder now 
in the fight for the kingdom easpel, being eareful to 
obey the Lord’s commandments and not to try to ap- 
pear wise in the cyes of others by advancing some 
fanciful theory builded on credulity and not -upon 
faith. 
2° Why is Jehovah now usine the remnant to pro- 
claim the truth concerning the modern-day bdomites? 
The answer is, that the hiding place of lies, which the 
Hierarchy has builded up, may be made manifest and 
exposed to view. Everything ceelesiastical, and which 
is therefore hypocritical and religious, Jchovah de- 
elares he will expose and then destroy utterly: ‘OA 
sword [Jehovah’s sword of exeeution, which is pre- 
ceded by his Werd, at the mouth of his witnesses] is 
upon the liars ; and they shall dete [be foolish ; do fool- 
ishly]; a sword is upon her mighty men; and they 
shall be dismayed.’? (Jer, 50:36) ‘Therefore thus 
saith the Lord God, I will also streteh out mine hand 
upon Edom, and will eut off man and beast from it; 
and I will make it desolate from Teman; and they of 
Dedan shall fall by the sword.’”’ (Ezck. 25:13) ‘And 
the shepherds [modern Edomites] shall have no way 
of escape.’ (Jer. 25:35) The time will come, the 
Seriptures declare, when these worldly-wise modern- 
day Edomites will boastingly ane arrowanily say: ‘We 
ure im peace and safety’; and “then sudden destruc- 
tien shall come upon them as travail upon a woinan’. 
—-1 Thess. 5: 3. 
THE REASON 
"7° Why will Jehovah humilizte and disgrace the 
modern Edomites, the Ilierarehy and their allies, and 
then eumpletely destroy them? By his prophet he 
She WATCHTOWER, 215 
answers: ‘‘ For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, 
shame shal] euver thee, and thou shalt be cut vir Yor 
ever,’ (Verse 10) Repeatedly Esau showed violence 
toward his brother Jacob. From the time that Psau 
lost his birthright and from the time Jacol reeeivet 
the blessing, Esau persecuted Jaeob. ‘And Esau hated 
Jacob becnuure of the blessing wherewith his father 
blessed him; and xan said in nis heart, The davs of 
mourning for my father are at hand, then will I slay 
my brother Jacob.’’—Cen, 27: 41, 
22'The Scriptures show that he continued to perse- 
cute Jacob; and this applies both to Esau and to the 
ones whom Esau foreshadowed. (Pss. 83:6; 187:7; 
Ezek. 35: 6-9, 14,15) From the time that the modern- 
day Edomites, the clergy, discerned that God’s favor 
was upon his faithful witnesses, and partienlarly the 
remnant sinee the year 1918, those clergymen have 
put forth their best endeavors to destroy Jchovali’s 
witnesses, the antilypieal Jacob class. Particularly 
the Roman Catholic Ifierarchy has manifested its 
enmity against Jehovah’s witnesses, and the truth as 
told by those witnesses has exposed the crookcdness of 
the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, particularly since 
1918. The clergy have murder in their hearts against 
the faithful witnesses of the Lord. During the World 
War those clergymen met at Philadelphia to further 
work out their conspiracy against Jehovah's witnesses, 
They framed a ease against some of those witnesses, 
and by fraud. deceit, Hes and the eannivanee of crooked 
men in official positions, railroaded some of Jehovah's 
wiines ¢s to the penitentiary, and then tried to pre- 
yent an appeal of those eases to the higher courts. 
Later, when the Supreme Court of the United States 
got to these eases, Jchoval’s witnesses were immediate- 
ly released from privon and admitted to bail, and the 
governinent dismissed the cases, and the judament of 
the lower court was completely set aside. Now the 
cowardly ierarchy and their newspapers falsely 
publish as fact that these men are ex-eonvicts, well 
knowing that such a statement isa deliberate lie. A man 
is not a conviet until a judgment is final against him. 
They have not the courage to come into the open and 
ficht and answer the Scriptural charges against then, 
but strike in the dark and thus attempt to poison the 
minds of their parishioners to prevent them from hear- 
ing the kingdom message of truth. 
23°'These wicked clergymen, failing in their efforts 
to destroy Jchovah’s witnesses during the excitement 
of the World War, have constantly persecuted the 
faithful remnant since that time. The modern-day 
iidomites scem to have no coneeption or understand. 
ing that they are fighting against God and his King, 
Like the Pharisees of old, those clergymen of the pres- 
ent day have turned themselves wholly to Caesar and 
recognize none other as their king. Their persecution 
of the faithful witnesses of the Lord is, as Jesus states, 
a persecution of himsel?, and the Lord will not permit 
sueh wickedness to pass unnoticed. — Matt. 25: 32-46, 
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