6:1-4. And the Word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the rivers and to the valleys; Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places. And your altars shall be desolate, and your images shall be broken: and I will cast down your slain men before your idols.—This chapter relates to the Divine wrath, after 1918 A. D., upon the governments, symbolically called “mountains and hills,” and the rivers, the denominations.

6:5-7. And I will lay the dead carcasses of the children of Israel before their idols; and I will scatter your bones round about your altars. In all your dwelling places the cities shall be laid waste, and the high places shall be desolate; that your altars may be laid waste and made desolate, and your idols may be broken and cease, and your images may be cut down, and your works may be abolished. And the slain shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.—All state churches are to be destroyed, literally by the sword, and by the truth about them in the Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit. (2 Ki. 23:13-22.) At the tops of the hills and mountains, the governments, are the altars, the centers of the nation's worship. Great sacrifices are made by the masses to maintain these altars.

6:8. Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries.—Heathendom will be the safest place on earth in the time of Zion's travail! (Jer. 44:28.)

6:9. And they that escape of you shall remember Me among the nations whither they shall be carried captives, because I am broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from Me, and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols: and they shall loathe themselves for the [pg 403]evils which they have committed in all their abominations.—God has completely broken relations with the churches, which with heart and eye have “departed from Me.”

6:10. And they shall know that I am the Lord, and that I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.—After the trouble is over, the survivors will have a thousand years in which to recognize the hand of God.

6:11. Thus saith the Lord God; Smite with thine hand, and stamp with thy foot, and say, Alas for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel: for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence.—The attitude of the Lord's true people, “the mourners in Zion” (Isa. 61:3), is that of righteous indignation against the abominations of Christendom.

6:12. He that is far off shall die of the pestilence; and he that is near shall fall by the sword; and he that remaineth and is besieged shall die by the famine: thus will I accomplish My fury upon them.—In spite of the manifest judgments of God, the devotees of Mystic Babylon, “Christians,” will not turn to God but, while doing reverence and rendering service to their altars and idols, will be overtaken by literal sword, famine and pestilence (Jer. 15:2) and by the spiritual Sword of the Spirit, by starvation from the lack of God's Word, and by pestilential doctrines.—Psa. 91:6, 7.

6:13. Then shall ye know that I am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.—In the Roman and Greek churches the idols, images and ikons are literal. There are other idols in all the churches—power, prestige, social position, clerical honor, gold, worldly education, etc. As in the Tabernacle types, zealous, obedient sacrifice caused a “sweet savor” to rise to God, so the same service raises a sweet savor to the idols of Christendom. The “green trees” and “thick oaks” were favorite objects of idolatry (Jer. 2:20; Hos. 4:13), and typed the worship of prominent preachers and other men.—Psalm 37:35.

6:14. So will I stretch out My hand upon them, and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate than the wilderness toward Diblath, in all their habitations; and they shall know that I am the Lord.—Christendom is to be made more desolate than the wilderness surrounding Palestine, wiped off the face of the earth, to make way for the New Order of things, “the world to come” (Heb. 2:5), “wherein dwelleth righteousness.”—2 Pet. 3:13.