God's righteousness and justice was versus their injustice, their unrighteousness, and their oppression. During Ezekiel's time, the people used oppression and exercised robbery (22:29). That was unjust and unrighteous. On the basis of God's righteous throne, He must exercise His judgment against unrighteous and unjust things. God's judgment on His people was based upon His glory, His holiness, and His righteousness. Anything that did not match God's holiness, God's glory, and God's righteousness had to be judged.
God judged His people by four terrible things: by the sword, by famine, by pestilence or disease, and by wild, noisome beasts (14:21). Ezekiel mentions clearly that some were killed by the sword. The rest, the escapees, were short of food. Others were killed by the pestilence. The remainder were devoured by the beasts. Where there is war, there is a shortage of food; war causes famine. The shortage of proper food brings in pestilence or disease. These are the means God used to exercise His judgment on His people (7:15-17).
How can we apply these four things to today's Christianity? Have you realized that among the Christians there is no peace, but rather always fighting and war? There is always a sword. If in a church the peace is gone, that means the sword of God's judgment has come. To have war and the sword indicates God's judgment. It means that something idolatrous, unholy, or unrighteous has brought in God's judgment. God's judgment is first by the sword. We all must be careful. If we have among us any fighting or dissenting, we should not consider that as something positive. We should realize that is God's judgment. The more we fight with one another, the more we are suffering God's judgment. Then due to the fighting, there will be the shortage of food. When a church is filled with fighting—the elders are fighting one another, the deacons are fighting against the elders, the sisters are fighting against the brothers, the brothers are fighting against the sisters, the older ones are criticizing and looking down on the younger ones, and the younger ones are fighting the older ones—do you believe that in such a church there could be a rich supply of spiritual food? There would be no spiritual food; rather, there would be a famine. There would be no supply, no riches of Christ, no living word, no healthy word. If we desire to have the healthy word, the supply of Christ, the rich and special spiritual food, we need the oneness. We need peace and harmony. We need for all the saints to be in the Spirit and to be one. When people come to the church meetings, they must be able to get a rich food supply. Every meeting should have an abundance of leftovers. Even the leftovers of one meeting should be enough for two other meetings. Then those two meetings will also have leftovers. If this is our condition, it means we have the rich food supply. We do not have a famine. That would be strong proof we are not under God's judgment.
Due to the shortage of spiritual food in Christianity, there are pestilences among the people—all kinds of spiritual disease, weakness, and sickness. When the church life is proper there will be no disease, no pestilence. Rather, there will be health and strengthening and building up.
Furthermore, Christianity today is full of roaring, devouring, ravening beasts. Paul warned the elders from Ephesus that one day wolves would come into the church who would have no pity on the flock (Acts 20:29). They would care only for themselves and they would devour the church. It may be that even in some of the local churches there are some small wolves. Today's Christianity is characterized by these four things: there is much fighting; they have little spiritual food; they have much spiritual weakness and disease; and they are plagued by the devouring, roaring beasts. Because of these, nearly all the Christians are dead. Not many living ones are left.