Ezekiel 21:27, commentary and pictures

The diadem was taken from Judah's wicked prince and earthly kingship in the line of David came to an end, to be no more until the rightful King should come. The threefold overturning carried that dominion successively through Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, and after the last overturn it would rest with no earthly power until He come whose right it is. He whose right it is is Jesus, to whom God will give the throne of David to reign over the house of Jacob forever, and because His kingdom was not of this world the throne is removed from this world until His coming. God still turns and overturns usurped human authority, unspiritual management of sacred things, and all that men frame to control His people, until His church is purified and the Bible is exalted as the rule of faith and practice. That same overturning scatters congested centers, shakes institutions and nations, and makes way for humble workers, until Christ soon comes to end Satan's conflict for supremacy and take possession of all earthly things.

Crown Removed From Judah

The throne of Judah was to be overturned, and no king would rule there again until the coming of the one with the right to reign. That coming one is Christ, to whom God would give the kingdom. This was fulfilled in the removal of the crown from Zedekiah and the end of Judah's monarchy. Zedekiah was the profane wicked prince of Israel from whom God took the crown, and with that taking the earthly theocracy came to an end and the throne of the Lord was removed from this world.

Earthly Kingdoms Successively Overturned

The threefold overturning is three successive overturnings of the kingdom under Gentile powers. When Babylon fell to Medo-Persia it was overturned the first time. When Medo-Persia fell to Grecia it was overturned the second time. When Greece gave way to Rome it was overturned the third time.

After the crown is removed from Israel it passes successively to Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. The removal from Israel is followed by this succession of earthly dominions under Gentile rule.

After the third overturning it shall be no more on earth until He come whose right it is. Then the overturning will cease. Earthly dominions continue only until the rightful ruler comes to whom God gives the crown.

Christ the Rightful King

He whose right it is is Jesus, to whom God will give the kingdom, even the throne of his father David, to reign over the house of Jacob forever without end. Since Jesus Himself declared while on earth that His kingdom is not of this world, the throne has been removed from this world and will not be restored until His coming, which is the end of this world and the beginning of the world to come.

Satan's kingdom will pass to Jesus, the one whose right it is. After Jesus rose from the dead Satan knew that his own rule would end and that he himself would die, for the resurrection showed that Satan had not overcome Him and opened a way of salvation for everyone who chooses to walk in it. Jesus Christ is He whose right it is to rule, and He will soon come to take possession of all earthly things and sit upon the throne of His Father, and the time of this prophecy is nearly accomplished.

At His coming He will bring to termination the fiercely waging conflict for supremacy carried on under Satan's leadership. He will preserve those who have followed Him as the Way, the Truth, and the Life, hiding them as a sanctuary for a little moment until He cleanses the earth from her iniquity. The present confusion, violence, and crime fulfill Christ's words and are signs of the nearness of His coming.

God Overturns Human Authority

Christ declares in this verse that He will overturn usurped authority, and this applies to men who claim to be Christians and to be the temple of the Lord while revealing the attributes of Satan, counteracting the advancement of truth in spirit and word and action, and grasping in hardness of heart an authority that in no way belongs to them and that they should not exercise. Their confident claim is false because they use common fire, their hearts not softened and subdued by grace, and God will overturn their course and no longer work at cross purposes with them. A claim to know divine things cannot replace a vital connection with Christ, for without that connection human wisdom takes the place of the divine.

The Lord will repeatedly overthrow those who resist the Spirit, misuse authority, and impose harmful methods and principles on His work, until its holy places are cleansed of moral defilement. God will overturn human arrangements when those handling sacred things are unspiritual and act against His will, and after testing and trial He removes them if their words and works do not meet His standard. This is done to protect and advance His work, for no finite person may rule it as though above God, and those responsible must act to avert the danger such control brings.

As judgment nears God will turn and overturn again and again until the Bible is exalted as the rule of faith and practice and God is magnified, bringing cleansing and change where clean-cut Bible principles are not current and the work is not done after His principles. This overturning removes tradition, whose dim light is not needed to make Scripture comprehensible as the rule of life and the standard of character, where duty to God and to fellow man is made plain and every obligation is revealed and every privilege declared. Deviating from a plain Thus saith the Lord places a veil before the face so there is no seeing of the Invisible. God turns and overturns what men set up until they realize they are but finite erring creatures in need of humbling their hearts before Him, so now more than ever there is need to look away from men to God, for those who look to men and make flesh their arm will surely fall into the snare of Satan. Human devising, authority, and judgment must not displace God as the true Shepherd, and His people must stand in their appointed place looking to Him for wisdom and counsel rather than treating human judgment as their guide.

The verse forbids putting the name to any writing that binds what will be done or left undone in business lines in the future in order to secure means or to protect financial interests. Men do not know what will take place in the future, while God knows the end from the beginning and knows what is in man's heart and the dangers of men entrusted with great responsibilities, so man is not to assume more than God has given him, and human agreements will be overturned rather than give lasting security. The future is in God's hands, and God's workers must not bind themselves by contract to secure means. The Lord will turn and overturn what men frame to control His people, and no man is to put himself where God should be or lay human yokes on fellow workmen. When men do this strange things will take place as the Lord overturns their arrangements and sets things in order, for He keeps responsibility for His own work and has not entrusted the management of His people to unsanctified hands that claim jurisdiction over God's children, plan for them and bring them to their own terms, establish offending policies, show partiality and hypocrisy, make it hard for those they dislike while favoring the self-serving, and regard it as their privilege to control God's heritage.

The Lord will work to purify His church by turning and overturning in the institutions called by His name, and this overturning is about to begin and will not be long deferred. It is Christ with His fan in His hand cleansing His temple of moral defilement and thoroughly purging His floor, because He has a controversy with all who practice even the least injustice, for in so doing they reject the authority of God and imperil their interest in the atonement, the redemption which Christ has undertaken for every son and daughter of Adam. The overturning in His own institutions does not stop at one disturbance but continues until the hearts of those connected with the work are purified or the unpurified workers are separated from it. This applies to publishing houses and like centers because they are the Lord's consecrated instrumentalities for the advancement of His work, established by Him through which He manifests light to the world, and those who labor in them must recognize and honor them as such.

God will turn and overturn to prove and try the people who have followed their own pernicious ways and by whom truth has been misrepresented. He will humble those who have falsified principle if they harden their hearts as Pharaoh did, and He will come near to them in judgment at an hour they will not know. He requires truth in the inward parts, condemning all phases of experience contrary to His Word and to the Testimonies He has given, so no controversy is to be held with them, for their strong spirit will wax stronger and their blindness will increase. God comes close in judgment on those who advance step by step in unrighteousness, selfishness, and greed despite continual warnings and who hate to be checked or interfered with, hardening the heart when often reproved. He will not prosper their transactions but will bring them to nothing by turning and overturning their work, speaking first by servants, then by judgments and purifying fires, and then by still greater afflictions if they do not repent, and refusing to hear the prayers of evil workers. Those who lend themselves to selfishness will not see the kingdom of God unless they repent right early, but if they are true to principle, represent Christ in character, and put away all fraud and sharp practice, He will hear their prayer.

Warning Applied to Battle Creek

The overturning is a coming reform and upheaval in the Battle Creek church, in which when the principles of truth shape daily life there will be a movement of reform followed by a scattering from Battle Creek. The time of this change is not known. Those who moved there without a call from the Lord will move away. Some who had a work to do in their former churches lost missionary spirit and spiritual discernment after moving there, and encountered self-righteousness, Phariseeism, worldliness, and a form of godliness without power.

God's principles are fixed and eternal, and if His people form large congested centers as in Battle Creek, He will after sufficient warning turn and overturn and scatter them to places where their light will shine to those in darkness who have not heard present truth. The overturning judges crowding buildings into one city while other cities and the world are left unworked. When God's word has been despised He will overturn what had been established, so major changes would come to Battle Creek and the Review and Herald Office, making plans to build another office building there misguided. The overturning gives evidence He means His warnings after many messages including counsel against erecting more buildings there were disregarded, culminating in the destruction of the office.

The Lord overturns what is unfaithful and brings judgments on Battle Creek because those connected with its publishing institution neglected confession and repentance and disregarded the word of God. He will scatter His people from there unless they respond to admonition about too many centered buildings and gatherings, disregarded cautions by ministers and physicians, and despised warnings. The warning calls youth away from Battle Creek rather than sending them there for education. Leaders and teachers there who have rejected repeated messages are not safe or reliable, and misrepresentations there may draw youth from the truth and from teaching for this time.

A great upheaval there is to take place, and what has been done there since the 1903 General Conference in Oakland will result in the loss of many souls. Ministers and medical missionaries who could have served faithfully have accepted false theories and deceptions without realizing they have changed. There will be turning and overturning where the foundation is insecure and uncertain, God is not glorified, truth is not practiced, and justice and equity cannot enter. The overturning exposes neglect and deformity of character, while the oracles of God become extinct and sound work is mingled until men drift into atheism and false science. An entire change must come with all things changed and management placed in safe hands under a business manager of sound principles and the physician in chief no longer as ruling power.

Upheaval Opens Worldwide Opportunity

The verse means the Lord will bring repeated overturnings and changes, overturning existing and established conditions to bring decisive changes in the world. Those changes open the way for humble people who have remained obscure to be given opportunity to work and become workers.

The Lord turns and overturns conditions on earth, so that everything is being stirred, nothing is sure and steadfast, and the world is in complete agitation. At the same time men and women and even little children increase in wickedness day by day and become utterly reckless of life, as in the days of Noah. Therefore the movements made by God's people must be made on a sure and certain basis without recklessness, keeping strictly to firm belief in the Word of God and receiving Christ in order to receive power to become sons of God and to obey the law of God.

The repeated overturning describes God's power to bring down what is established, and by that power the great buildings of New York will one day be thrown down. Yet it is not a specific prediction that New York will be destroyed by a tidal wave or at a stated time.