We have proceeded too far now with the matter that has been brought to us for this time for any kind of review or retrospect.
But suffice it to say that what the Lord is saying to us is gathered around the first words of Isaiah 42:
Behold, My servant, whom I uphold;
My chosen, in whom My soul delighteth:
I have put My Spirit upon Him.
The Servant of the Lord—the meaning of servanthood.
A glance back to the chapter before, Isaiah 41. At verse 8 we see that this divine conception of servanthood was, in the first place, related to Israel:
But thou, Israel, My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham My friend.
We have seen that, whereas the great thought of ministering to God in the midst of the nation and unto the nations was wrapped up with the call of Israel, these prophecies and others show how lamentably Israel failed and had to be put on one side as the servant of the Lord.
Then, in the prophecies, the Lord brought into full view the One Who would not fail and Who would fulfil all that thought of ministering to Him. Here He is in these words of Isaiah 42.
But we have seen that the Lord has not departed from His first thought and intention: to have all that meaning of servanthood, as now gathered up and set forth in His Son, expressed in a people.
We move on to the later prophecies, not only in this book but in the other prophets, and see that thought and purpose deposited in a remnant. The main nation failed; the Lord secured everything in His Son, and then found for Himself His answer as in a nation within the nation.
We have seen that this is exactly what we have in the New Testament. The church in general, not answering to the Lord’s thought and its calling to satisfy Him and minister to Him and His pleasure, fails again.
But the Lord moves on, appealing to the church, and in the church finds, as it were, a church within the church: a company not nominal, but actual and true. That is a very evident truth in the New Testament.
The part with which we are concerned, then, is the nature of this kind of service and servanthood that will bring to God that upon which His heart is set, will satisfy Him, and will establish in the universe that law of service or ministry to God.
Now I want you just to look at one or two other fragments to bring us to the one particular matter that will occupy us in this connection this afternoon. It is in Isaiah 41, to begin with.
We have read the words of Israel in verse 8: “Israel, My servant.” Look at verse 15:
Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth;
Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small,
And shalt make the hills as chaff.
Thou shalt winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away,
And the whirlwind shall scatter them.
Now would you just look at some words in Isaiah 21, verse 10:
O my threshing, and the grain of my floor!
Turn to Isaiah 28, verse 28:
Bread grain is bruised;
For he will not ever be threshing it;
Though the wheel of his cart and his horses scatter it,
He doth not grind it.
This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts,
Who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in wisdom.
Here is one more of the number of conceptions of the servant of the Lord in these prophecies of Isaiah: a new sharp threshing instrument.
How many-sided is this service! How its complexion changes. With this note, something strong—something almost terrible—comes into the service. The servanthood takes on something very severe.
There are other aspects. There is the gentleness; there is the meekness:
He shall not cry, nor lift up His voice,
Nor cause it to be heard in the street.
A bruised reed shall He not break,
And a dimly burning wick shall He not quench.
That sounds far removed from a sharp threshing instrument having teeth, but it is the work of the same Servant. It is only another aspect of His ministry.
There is the goodness and the severity of God. They are both of God. Before we look at this sharp threshing instrument, let us note one very important thing.
What I read in the other passages—in Isaiah 21 and Isaiah 28—leads us to this passage in Isaiah 41, where you can observe a transition. It is the transition from being threshed to becoming the thresher.
In the two passages it is quite clear: Israel was threshed. “O thou My threshing.” “Bread grain is bruised.” Then: “I will make thee a sharp threshing instrument.”
The point is this: before we can do any effective work for the Lord, that work must have been done in us.
This is a very important, very vital part of the service of the Lord. The sharp threshing instrument, as we shall see, is something important to the Lord, something necessary to Him. He must have it. He must have a ministry that corresponds to this idea of a sharp threshing instrument.
But, dear friends, it might be all too easy to assume the business of a sharp threshing instrument and begin to handle people and situations very roughly. Any such business can only be done by those who themselves have been through the threshings and the bruisings. It is only safe, and only right, that it should be so.
So it was for Israel. What a threshing the Lord did with Israel! What a bruising He gave them many times, particularly in their history.
I suggest to you that the remnant that returned from the exile knew in their own experience what being threshed meant, and what it really was to be bruised, broken, humbled, and then used in this tremendously effective way.
That may explain a very great deal. The strength, the power, the tremendously searching and effective ministry of the church can only be as the result of the church having itself been dealt with in that way.
I have said that this is a ministry that the Lord needs, a service that He requires. In order to have it, He must take those whom He will use through the experience that He is seeking to produce in those to whom He uses them. It is a law of service.
However it may be with individual servants of God, to be effective—I suggest that a sharp threshing instrument having teeth is quite a positive thing. It is an effective thing; there is nothing negative about that.
For any individual to be like that—positive, searching, and effective—that servant will go through some seemingly rough handling by the Lord. It is a law of service.
If it is to be a company, we have to emphasise this repeatedly in these days: the Lord needs companies of people who stand in this servanthood ministry here, there, and elsewhere, standing as His servant whom He upholds and upon whom He puts His Spirit.
Such companies—local assemblies—in order that they shall really be effective, will go through devastating experiences. Make no mistake about it: a sharp threshing instrument carries out a devastating work.
The Lord is very practical; He is not theoretical. He makes things very real.
So that this, which here in the symbolism is likened to a machine, is not really a machine. It is a people with a spiritual history: a sentient people, unlike a machine; sensitive, with feelings, with a heart, with a soul, with a human nature.
This people—this machine, if you like—is a people with a spiritual history. It has been through it.
These people, when they come really to fulfil this ministry, are in a position to say, “Well, I know what I am talking about. I have been through it, and it has been through me. I am not giving you just the subject, the theme, the theory, and the teaching. I know this thing in my very being. I have been through it.”
That is what is here. You dare not come to Isaiah 41:15—“I will make thee a sharp threshing instrument”—until you have been to Isaiah 21:10—“My threshing.” Realise that?
Well now, that sounds pretty hard. But, as I have said, that may explain quite a lot—maybe why the Lord deals with us so severely, why He is not going to allow us to be in a false position if we are going to be of any value to Him, why He takes us through it, why we become His threshing, and the grain that is bruised.
Having said that, and I trust you grasp it and that it may be some help and some explanation of your experience, we can proceed to look at the function of this instrument: what it does, its effect.
This ministry, this kind of service, is in the first place something that challenges. Get in your mind’s eye the threshing instrument advancing toward the standing corn.
As it comes into contact, it is an interrogation; it is a challenge. It says, in effect, “What are you? What have you got? Are you worth anything? I am going to find that out.”
It is a challenge. Is there anyone here this afternoon who will say that such a ministry is unnecessary in these times, or at any time? It is the interrogation of profession—of what is standing there in the field, occupying the ground—the interrogation of it as to what it is. What are you?
Now, when the Lord does that work on us, that is the thing that immediately arises: what we are and what we have got.
Speaking in general, you can say that whenever the Lord begins to bring us under His hand, under His testing, into days of severe trial, the very first thing that is discovered is what we are and what we have got.
Can you really stand up to this? Have you got something with which to meet this testing? Actually, it is important that that should be discovered and revealed.
I say again: it is not the Lord’s will that any should be in a false position—a mere profession without possession.
So, if He needs a ministry, He needs you and me, and He needs companies. Oh, that the whole church would be of this kind, as He intended Israel to be and as He intended the church to be!
He would have this kind of ministry fulfilled, which first of all discovers what there is for God in profession—in the whole system of things, all that which is spread over the earth, standing there and occupying the ground. What is its worth? What is its value? What has it got? What is the truth about it?
The Lord has to have a ministry that does that, that finds it out. See?
I only heard last week of somebody who thought that they were Christians. Having been asked if they were Christians, they said, “Yes, I go to church. I take communion. I read the Bible. I pray.” They went through the whole Christian thing.
Then into the home circle came some very thorough-going Christians. I mean, it was sad, but here it was: there was something different. This was not just formal Christian system; this was not nominal assent to a creed. This was real. There was really life in God there.
That person went to her room, had a bad night, and came down next morning and said, “Look here, I do not think I am a Christian at all. Really, am I? Can you tell me?”
Of course, that opened the door to some very thorough-going dealings as to the difference between profession, nominalism, Christian practices, and life in reality in the Lord.
I am glad to say that that person came clean through into a new place altogether of assurance. But it required, you see, something that really exposed the falsehood and manifested the real state of things. That is a ministry that is necessary.
The people who have been through it with God, and through some very drastic handling by Him, will, amongst other things, have that effect of being present as His challenge to all unreality—His challenge to all falsehood, His challenge as to what really is there.
It may be that here this afternoon the Lord would do that work: find out things and challenge someone here. You have gone to church; you have taken communion; you may read the Bible, more or less; you may pray sometimes. But a sharp threshing instrument will challenge you today: what really have you got, if you were put to the test?
Believe me, dear friends, the whole of our Christianity is going to be put to that test. It has begun. It has begun.
Christians all over this world are being challenged by the situation. The threshing instrument is at work. It is being found out whether they have got the real thing or whether it is only a profession. It is at work. It has already begun.
This very thing is coming to the whole of the professing church. Let there be no mistake about it.
Well, first of all, then, the threshing instrument challenges us and confronts us with the question: “What are you? What have you?”
Then, as it proceeds with its work, it separates. It separates; it discriminates.
You see what it is doing. There are the husks. There is that which is apparent on the outside; there is that covering. There it is.
The sharp threshing instrument gets to work to separate between that which is merely and only external and that which is truly inward—the grain. It separates.
Yes, it is a great discriminating ministry. Another prophet, Jeremiah, whose life and ministry had so much to do with false Israel, asked a question in the name of the Lord:
What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.
Chaff—that which is so light, so flimsy, so superficial, can be so easily carried away by any draught that blows. It goes with the wind: the light stuff.
Oh, I am not trying to make up something this afternoon. Anyone who has any concern about the state of things today will feel a poignancy, a pain, over the superficiality, the lightness, and the frivolousness of a great deal of Christianity.
Indeed, it seems that some people have laid themselves out to make it so—to turn Christianity into having a good time. All their attractions are: “Come and have a good time.” When you look into it to see what it is, it is all so light, so frivolous, so superficial.
There is a lot of that today. I am not exaggerating, and God knows how I hate anything like unnecessary criticism. But the spirit of a prophet—I do not claim to be a prophet, but the spirit of a prophet—demands that the ministry of the sharp threshing instrument shall come alongside of every other kind of ministry: first to challenge, then to discriminate, to separate between what is true and what is chaff.
The chaff may be a deception. You may go to the wheat field where it is all growing and standing up, take hold of an ear, and when you press it, find nothing in it. It is chaff. It is a deception.
Do you think God is going to be ministered to by that sort of thing—just an outward deception? No. The sharp threshing instrument, a ministry of that character, will always find out whether the thing is true or false.
It is a very necessary thing—necessary for it to be done in you and in me, finding out whether there is any deception about our position, any lie in our position, and how far it is true.
I say again: God needs a ministry that will, by His mercy, make those who are in a false position realise how false their position is and seek for reality.
Chaff! Would you like to feed on chaff? How much satisfaction and growth would you find in a diet of chaff?
There is very, very much today in ministry and in Christian life on which Christians are feeding that brings no satisfaction. It is empty. It is not ministering to their spiritual building up, strength, and constitution. It is not doing that.
Far, far too many Christians are in spiritual debility because of the lack of wholesome food—real food, bread corn. How necessary it is! The Lord must have a ministry that finds out and discriminates between that which is only chaff and never builds up, and that which ministers to spiritual stature and full growth.
If we take the great Servant, the Lord Jesus, the One Who did satisfy God in all the other aspects of His ministry, how true these things were of Him.
How challenging He was to the situation in His day! Oh, it was not possible for Him to be anywhere without the state of things being exposed. It was a vital part of His servanthood: the challenge, and how thoroughly He did it.
Yes, in that respect He was a sharp threshing instrument having teeth. How true, again, it was of Him that He was all the time discriminating, setting things in their place: this is the truth, and that is falsehood.
This morning we referred to the vine, Israel, as God’s vine. We read from Isaiah 5 how the vine had disappointed the husbandman. Then Jesus came in, and we had to put a circle around one word: “I am the true vine.”
The true vine. This is not a tradition. This is not utter profession. This is not an empty thing, a pretence. “I am the true vine. I am the truth.”
His presence, as well as His ministry, had that effect of dividing between the false and the true.
The next thing that the sharp threshing instrument does is that it settles destiny. It settles destiny.
You know what was said when the Lord Jesus first came into His ministry:
Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor;
And He will gather His wheat into the garner,
But the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.
The garner and the fire: two destinies. The threshing floor decides and determines that destiny—what the end is going to be.
Its positive object, of course, is not to send to the flame. I think that some ministries, especially in past days, thought that that was the supreme thing to do: to set men to hell and hold the flames before them.
Well, it may be necessary to keep in view the one side of destiny—whatever it means, whatever it means, with unquenchable fire. That is a possibility, and the threshing instrument determines that on the one side.
But the positive intention and purpose of this instrument, surely, is to get wheat into the garner—to preserve it, to secure it against loss. That is really what it is about.
If this sharp threshing instrument had intelligence, it would not come with this attitude: “I am going to find out all the chaff. That is my business: to be occupied with the chaff, talk about the chaff, and condemn the chaff.” That is easy. You do not want to be caught in that.
The instrument would say, “No, I am here. Though I know there is much chaff, I am really here to get wheat. That is what I am after. I am after the positive thing.”
Dear friends, let us always remember in our ministry that the Spirit of God is concerned with the positive side and not the negative. He has to take account of the negative and deal with it accordingly, but what He is really here for is to get the corn—the corn, the real thing. He is after that.
“Not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved”: so said the great Servant concerning His coming.
Then the sharp threshing instrument has perhaps its last and final function—its expression of ministry—in providing for the continuation of the testimony.
The last work is not to put it away in the garner, shut the door, and leave it there: “That is that. We have got it. That is all that matters.” No, it must be sown again. It must become the stuff of a further harvest.
That is what the Lord is really after: to carry on, perpetuate, and extend the testimony. He is after spiritual increase. But you get it through a sharp threshing instrument, you see—something very drastic.
The continuation of the testimony of Jesus through the ages has ever been on this wise. It has never been an easy-going, superficial kind of thing.
We know from the New Testament. We know from John the apostle in Patmos that the continuity of the testimony was coming through very drastic handling by the Lord with the churches.
Oh, listen to those words to the seven churches again. What is it that the Lord is after? The preserving and going on of the testimony of Jesus—that is the heart of it all.
But in order that that might be, the sharp threshing instrument of discrimination, manifestation, and separation must do its work in the churches, in the believers, and in the whole church. If the testimony is to be perpetuated, it will be like this.
Well, let us take some heart from this. This sounds a bit disconcerting. Just take some heart from this, dear friends: the dealings of the Lord with us are to make things permanent and to give increase.
They are not destructive and limiting in His intentions. They are that He might have more and more.
But, having said all that, we must take note of one thing here as we close. You see Isaiah’s context—these words about the sharp threshing instrument beating the mountains and the hills.
If you want to know what that means, I think you will find it in verse 11:
Behold, all they that are incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded:
They that strive with thee shall be as nothing, and shall perish.
Because, “I will make thee a sharp threshing instrument having teeth,” and you shall thresh the mountains. These mountains correspond to those adverse forces, those forces that were against the Lord, against His purpose, and against His servants.
In some mysterious way, they were going to be broken, and they were going to be given like chaff to the wind through the ministry of this people. They were going to be proved incapable of standing before the Lord.
The mountains, the hills, those incensed against thee, will not be able to abide if you are a people like this.
Again, take one glance at the great Servant. What mountains of opposition there were! What mountains of incensed people against Him! What did He do with them?
Surely there was a tremendous mountain against Him, set for His destruction, incensed against Him. Oh, how incensed against Him! “Crucify Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!” What did He do with it?
He has plucked that mountain up and cast it into the sea—the sea being the nations. It sank in the nations. He has done it.
Now, that sounds hard. But, you know, the Lord must have a ministry that really does overthrow the forces of evil. More may be said about that later, but there it is.
But let us close. A disciplined, purged, separated people are a great force against everything that is set against God. They are. They mean something to the hostile forces.
Well, this is very true of the Lord Jesus, and it is intended to be true of us. I wonder if you can really grasp this and appropriate it.
You see, the Lord wants a ministry of this kind today. He needs it. He needs your company. There you are—and I could mention the various places that are represented here. He wants that company there, and there, and there, to be, amongst all the other aspects of servanthood, sharp threshing instruments having teeth.
Such a people will challenge all that is around as to what it has and what it is—not merely by words, but by what you are. It will discriminate and separate.
You will get into trouble first—and a lot of trouble—but it has got to be done: the separation between falsehood and fruit. It will do all this. The Lord needs such an instrument.
Well, I have not made this up, so it is not my conception. I have given you the Scripture. The Lord said it to Israel, and Israel failed.
He transferred it to an Israel within Israel. He said it concerning the church. The church is not doing it as a whole, and so He transfers it to the church within the church.
He says, “I have made thee a sharp threshing instrument having teeth.” Not devoid of all the meekness and humility that are needed to fulfil that ministry.