...AND HE WILL THOROUGHLY PURGE HIS FLOOR
“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: Whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (John the Baptist, Matthew 3:11, 12).
God anointed John the Baptist to call the Israelites to
repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. The message that the LORD gave to John was
simple: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.” (Matthew 3:3).
Repentance was necessary if the people were to receive Christ’s
teachings. Those who did repent and responded
to John’s message, he baptized, washing away their sins in the waters of regeneration. Those who came and only feigned repentance, however, he challenged, saying, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you
to flee from the wrath to come?...Bring forth therefore fruits meet for
repentance…now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every
tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.”
(Matthew 3:7-10). It wasn’t just vain
words and an outward show that God was looking for, but it was the fruit of
righteousness produced in the lives of those whose hearts were truly changed.
As great as John’s ministry was, he nevertheless understood
that it would be dwarfed by the work that Christ would do in the hearts and
minds of His people. This is why John
testified of Christ saying, “He that
cometh after me is mightier than I, Whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.” John said it was Christ Who would “…baptize with the Holy Ghost, and with fire.” He knew that his own ministry would fade
and disappear while that of Christ would only increase (see John 3:30).
We Christians often miss the broader picture. Repentance is essential to our spiritual
maturity, but it is only the first step of our Christian journey. After this we must submit ourselves to the
discipline of the Holy Spirit in order to mold and shape us into the likeness
of Jesus Christ. It also involves being
baptized in the fires of tribulation so that our character becomes refined and
purified. Peter spoke of this process
when he wrote, “Beloved, think it not
strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange
thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s
sufferings; that, when His glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with
exceeding joy.” (1 Peter 4:12, 13). When
trials come our way we have the tendency to think that it is something strange (surprising;
astonishing; out of the ordinary) that is happening to us. We may think it is because of something we
have done wrong; but, in fact, it is a normal part of our maturing in
Christ.
John mentioned that there would be a fan in the Lord’s
hand when He came with which He would “thoroughly
purge His floor.” He was alluding to
the large winnowing fans that farmers used in Bible times to separate the chaff
from the grains of wheat. The chaff (or
husks and straw) was first loosened from the grain by means of threshing
instruments. Depending on the grain, the
farmer could use a rod or a flail to beat the more delicate herbs, or he could
use a team of animals going around and around the threshing floor to trample
and loosen the hulls, or chaff, from the grain.
The animals could also haul a sledge behind them which was fitted on the
underside with rollers or with rocks (usually sharp flint). Once the chaff was loosened, someone would
toss the grain (together with the loose chaff) into the air while someone else
used the fan to blow the chaff away from the threshing floor while the heavier
grain dropped to the floor. Once
separated, the grain was collected, and the chaff was burned. Interestingly enough, the sledges used to
separate the chaff from the grain were called “tribulum” in Latin. This is
where we get the word “tribulation.”
John tells us that “…He will throughly [thoroughly] purge His floor, and
gather His wheat into the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with
unquenchable fire.” When we read
that Christ will thoroughly purge His floor, we can believe He means THOROUGHLY! He intends to leave no stone unturned in our
lives. The Lord is relentless in His
pursuit of righteousness and holiness in those He calls to inherit eternal
life. There is much chaff in our lives
that needs to be dislodged and removed from the good grain. The chaff doesn’t just represent outright
sin, but also the dead works of the flesh and, frankly, anything that is unlike Christ.
I recently ran across this poem by an early English
writer by the name of George Wither. I
feel it is fitting to quote it here because of the understanding that the
writer appears to have about this thrashing process:
Till from
the straw, the flail the corn doth beat,
Until the
chaff be purged from the wheat-
Yea, till
the mill the grain in pieces tear,
The
richness of the flour will scarce appear;
So, till
men’s person’s great afflictions touch,
If worth
be found, their worth is not so much;
Because,
like wheat in straw, they have not yet
That
value which in thrashing they may get.
For, till
the bruising flails of God’s corrections
Have
threshed out of us our vain affections-
Till
those corruptions, which do misbecome us,
Are by
Thy Sacred Spirit winnowed from us.
Until
from us the straw of worldly treasures-
Till all
the dusty chaff of empty pleasures-
Yea, till
His flail upon us He doth lay
To thrash
the husk of this our flesh away,
And leave
the soul uncovered-nay, yet more-
Till God
shall make our very spirit poor,
We shall
not up to highest wealth aspire,
And then
we shall, and that is my desire.
By George Wither
We are the grain.
We must all go through the processing of the Holy Spirit and the fire of
tribulation in order to separate and remove the unwanted chaff from our
lives. We often cling to our “chaff” as
if it were as precious as the grain itself!
The Lord must then employ the best method to loosen and remove it.
The Lord uses many illustrations from life to describe
this all important process that He employs.
Imagine a sculptor standing before a block of stone before he takes his
hammer and chisel to it to remove all of the unwanted portions and create a
beautiful statue. Before he begins his
work, it is just a block of stone; afterwards, it is a work of art. Imagine a refiner raising the heat around a
crucible full of precious metal. Until it
becomes molten and releases the impurities trapped inside, they are unseen. When he turns up the heat, however, they rise
to the top. He can then ladle them off
and discard what is not pure. Think of
the blacksmith taking the white hot iron from his forge and raining blow after
blow on it with his sledge hammer until it bends to his will. These all convey the same principle as John’s
illustration of the threshing floor, and they describe the purifying work of
the Lord in a Christian’s life.
A few things that all of these processes have in common
are: 1) they are all drastic (even violent) actions that are employed to separate
what has no value from that which has great value when the process is complete;
2) they all involve tribulation for the material that is being processed; 3)
the one doing the work takes great care not to mar or ruin the object of his
labors.
Jesus said this to his disciples concerning the Holy
Spirit’s work: “And when He [the Holy
Ghost] is come, He will reprove [convince,
convict, call to account] the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on Me; of righteousness, because I
go to My Father, and ye see Me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this
world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them
now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth,
is come, He will guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak of Himself;
but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak: and He will shew you things
to come. He shall glorify Me: for He
shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you.” (John 16:8-14).
During his lifetime, the Prophet Isaiah foretold of
three enemies that would come against the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They were the alliance of the Syrians with
the Southern Kingdom of Israel, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. God used these enemies to purge His people from
the chaff in their lives and rid them of their sins. In the case of the first two enemies, God
sent miraculous deliverance. In the case
of Babylon, God allowed Israel to fall, but He promised to restore them in
time.
In the 28th chapter of Isaiah, the Prophet
uses the same metaphors as John the Baptist would later use to describe the
purging process of the Lord in our lives. Listen to Isaiah’s words: “Give ear and hear My voice, Listen and hear My speech. Does the plowman keep plowing all day to sow?
Does he keep turning his soil and
breaking the clods? When he has leveled
its surface, Does he not sow the black cummin And scatter the cummin, Plant the
wheat in rows, The barley in the appointed place, And the spelt [an ancient
whole grain] in its place? For He instructs him in right judgment, His
God teaches him.” (Isaiah 28:23-26 NKJV).
What the Prophet is saying here is that God has a plan for everything,
and He also has his methods. Isaiah asks
if someone who is plowing his fields would continually plow over the same
ground that he has already prepared again and again. Once he has cultivated his ground and leveled
it out, doesn’t he instead begin to sow his crops into that ground? This is the whole point of stirring things up
in the first place: to prepare a fertile seed bed so that his crops will
eventually bear good fruit. Isaiah tells
us that God instructs him in right judgment and teaches him the right way. Preparing the ground of our hearts is
important if we want to bear the fruits of righteousness and grow up into
sonship. The plowing is essential in
that process. It turns the soil upside
down and exposes the rocks and stones.
God does not want to just overturn our lives again and again. He also wants to plant us, nurture us, water
us, and shine His light on us. There are
times when the Lord leads us beside the still waters and causes us to lie down
in green pastures; but there are also times when we must walk through the
valley of the shadow of death. Whichever
the case, we know that He is always with us and that we will emerge as victors
in the end.
Isaiah continues by addressing the threshing process, saying,
“For the black cummin is not threshed
with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cummin; but the
black cummin is beaten out with a stick, and the cummin with a rod. Bread flour must be ground; therefore he does
not thresh it forever, break it with his cartwheel, or crush it with his
horsemen. This also comes from the LORD
of hosts, Who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in guidance.” (Isaiah
28:27-29 NKJV). Different types of
grains and herbs require different means and instruments to thresh them. Some only require a stick or a rod, while
others need the sledge, cartwheel or horses’ hooves; but, again, they will not
be threshed forever. The Lord is
wonderful in council and excellent in guidance, therefore, He knows just what
is needed to remove the chaff from you and me.
Paul tells us in Hebrews 12 that it is those whom the Lord loves that He
chastens (verse 6). He writes, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth
to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are
exercised thereby.” (Hebrews 12:11). It is this peaceable fruit of righteousness
that God is after, and He has great patience in waiting for the process to be
complete. And so should we. Tribulation will work that patience in
us. Even Jesus learned obedience by the
things He suffered, why should it be any different for us?
“The voice
of the LORD calls out to the city (and it is wise to fear Your name): “Pay attention to the rod and the One Who
ordained it” (Micah 6:9 The Holman Christian Standard Bible).
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