Will you turn to several passages of the Word?
Firstly, in the Gospel by Matthew, Matthew 3, at verse 12:
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.
Back to the Old Testament, in the second book of Samuel, 2 Samuel 6, at verse 6:
And when they came to the threshing-floor of Nacon, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen stumbled.
And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God.
In the first book of Chronicles, 1 Chronicles 21, verse 15:
And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was about to destroy, the Lord beheld, and He repented Him of the evil, and said to the destroying angel, It is enough; now stay thy hand. And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
The prophecy of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 23, at verse 28:
The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.
It is impressive that so many turning points, or crises, in the Bible have threshing floors as their basis. We have noted one or two of these, and they were turning points.
As you know, in the first instance David was now being brought to the throne according to the Word of the Lord and the anointing. He was moving up to Jerusalem. Saul was dead, and David would bring the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem.
It was a turning point, and a very vital one, in the history of God’s goings with His people. In the second place, the temple was about to come in. That great symbolic representation of the house of God was now immediately in view.
And the whole thing turned upon this threshing floor, for that threshing floor of Araunah became the site of the temple. A very big development in the goings of God.
In the case of the passage in Jeremiah, this is a tremendous crisis, because it is the doom of the false prophets who had led the people of God so far astray as to make their exile and captivity necessary.
The Lord speaks of their word as chaff, and makes this great difference by this question: “What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.” It is a big turning point in the spiritual life of God’s people. All this comes to the threshing floor.
We know the general purpose and action of the threshing floor, or, as in these days, a threshing machine. We know what it means and what it represents.
In the first place, it speaks of discrimination and separation: discrimination between the true and the false, the action of separating those two things.
You look at all these passages that we have mentioned, and you see that is what is in view: making this necessary discrimination between what is true and what is not true; what is the thing and what is not the thing.
And, in so discriminating, putting things in their right place, in their right category: that belongs there, and this belongs here. These two things are altogether different; they belong to two different realms.
That is the first action and meaning of threshing. It is taking up this whole matter of the difference between what looks to be, and is not, and what really is.
You might write over the door of any threshing floor or threshing room, or inscribe upon any threshing instrument, just one word. God would inscribe it: reality. Reality.
That is the effect: to secure reality, to establish reality, and to deliver reality from all make-believe and all falsehood; between appearance—what looks like it, but is not it—and reality; between the merely outward and what is really inward.
That is what goes on in a threshing floor. Or again, it is between what is just flimsy and will not be able to stand up to any adverse winds, and what is substantial and abides the test.
Because in the East, even right up to this day, it is a very simple form of threshing. The threshing floor is placed in some position where there is a draught, where the wind blows, or where they can make a wind—an open space exposed to the elements.
Then, with this simple fan, like a carpet-beater with prongs, the whole thing is beaten and thrown into the air. Away in the wind goes the chaff, and the solid grain holds to the ground.
Now, of course, modern methods are different, but the effect is the same: to let go of that which cannot stand up to the elements, and to secure that which is substantial.
Dear friends, may the Lord let His wind blow on us all.
Threshing is not a soft and kind thing. It may be very hard, amazingly cruel; but you all agree that it is very necessary.
Suppose what you eat that is made of wheat had never been separated from the chaff. There would be a lot of trouble with the merchant. Indeed, you would complain, “Why has this not been properly threshed? Why has this been allowed to come in like this?”
Oh yes, we all agree that it is a very necessary thing. It is essential. But it is a hard thing; it is a painful thing—just beating out, just exposing to the elements, this carrying away of much, this reducing to solid reality.
It is hard, but we will say, “It is right. It is necessary.” We know, we do know, as to ourselves, there is a lot that cannot pass with God, that cannot stand. We do not want it to stand; we want it to go.
But we know there is a great deal that is mere chaff in our lives—perhaps make-believe, appearance, flimsy, unreal. We do not know how true that is until we get onto the divine threshing floor and begin to discover how much reality there is in us.
We sometimes wonder whether there is going to be anything remaining at all. There it is: the Lord knows. The Lord knows.
It is a very necessary thing for us individually, and for us as a company of the Lord’s people, from time to time. It is a recurrent thing—like it is year by year, every year, in nature. The Lord, from time to time, brings everything to the threshing floor.
There, through an ordeal—a painful ordeal—He begins to get down to this matter of reality.
Many questions begin to arise. How did we come to be where we are? Is there a solid background or foundation to where we are? How much of what we think we have do we really have?
How much of all that we have received of teaching, and whatnot, is our very life and able to carry us through in times of adversity? The adversity is allowed to find that out—to find it out.
But whatever may be the effect, or however many may be the effects, God is after one thing, and we will agree with Him: everything must be real, one hundred percent real.
Not wrapped up in some husk of profession, pretence, unreality, mere form, mere teaching as teaching—nothing. It may be a small grain, but it is a grain; it is real. The Lord is reducing to that.
So it is said of the Lord Jesus, “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing-floor.” In these instances that we have cited, it is very evident that there was this confusion and this mixing up of things which the Lord was not going to tolerate.
So again, it is impressive that the issues were settled at the threshing floor.
Take this matter of bringing the ark to Jerusalem: bringing the testimony to its divinely chosen and appointed place; bringing it to the end of its journey and getting it established. Take note of all that. The testimony of God where it ought to be, and there settled, so that they can draw out the staves—the symbols of progress—and reach finality over this matter.
David essays to bring the ark to Jerusalem. But David, as we were told last week, had spent some time—some months—in the Philistine country by failure in faith. Failure in faith.
David said, “I shall one day die by the hand of Saul. It is best for me to escape to the Philistines.” Although anointed, he broke down under pressure, went and dwelt in the land of the Philistines, and there he saw how the Philistines did things.
Amongst the many things that the Philistines did was to make carts, make machines. When they captured the ark, eventually having suffered so much because of it, they sent it back. They made a new cart and put the ark on it.
David knew something about Philistine machinery—the ways of the world. He came back, and when he would bring the ark to Jerusalem, he made a new cart and put the ark on it. Disastrous consequences.
We know that, in the end, the discrimination came home to his heart as he looked at the Word of God, and eventually he said, “The Levites are to bear the ark of God.”
The difference is between a mere mechanical contrivance—worldly machinery, worldly methods, organization according to the business standards of this world—and living men: living Levites, whose very origin is in the blood.
Here is the blood. Here is the blood. “The life is in the blood.” Whose very service is the blood: living men who by the blood are cut off from all that natural way of going on, circumcised with the cross of Jesus Christ.
God is very particular about His spiritual principles in all ages. So when they reached the threshing floor of Nacon, it was no wonder that the oxen stumbled.
The whole thing broke down. The procession was stopped. The ark was turned aside for many months. It remained there until the lesson was learned: “What is the chaff to the wheat?”
The Lord will not have this sort of thing—a mixture of the world in the life of His people, the methods of this world, mere machinery to carry on His testimony. No. The whole thing will come to a standstill until we have established this thing.
God’s testimony must be in the lives of living men. Living men. Everybody related to this testimony of God must be livingly, as a person, related to it.
Another thing, of course, arises out of this: Uzzah put forth his hand and took hold of the ark. Friends, it can be fatal to become too familiar with holy things.
It can be disastrous for these holy and sacred things of God to become commonplace, cheap—something that you and I can take charge of and manipulate, having that kind of familiar association.
Well, Israel learned that you cannot do that. All Israel now knew: you cannot do that. It sounds hard, does it not? We do not like talking in this way, but, you see, a threshing floor is like that. What is necessary is necessary.
Later, the ark is in Jerusalem on right grounds, by right methods and means, and everything now is established. Israel is in blessing and prosperity, growing and expanding.
It says Satan stood up against Israel for the object of destroying Israel, of destroying the testimony. And how did he do it? He moved David to number the people.
What did that mean? Oh, for David to take a census in order to say, “What a marvellously great nation we have. I am king over such a people. Look at this! Look at this wonderful thing!”
You can almost hear Nebuchadnezzar saying, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built?” Coming back from before times eternal, there where he said, “I will exalt my throne above the clouds.”
Pride of self-exaltation, pride of self-gratification, boasting in things—just the complete opposite of dependent, humble, meek, conscious dependence upon God.
However great the thing may have become, however expansive it may be, however much blessing God may give, never lose the deep, deep sense of absolute dependence upon Him. Pride is the embodiment of independence of God.
God will not have that. If He cast Satan from heaven because of that, He is not going to allow a man on earth to become governed by that spirit.
And so the terrible, terrible plague passed over the land, mowing the people down by the thousands, reducing this whole thing. The turning point was at the threshing floor of Araunah.
You see, the judgment of the flesh—the proud flesh, independent, glorying in things. When that has been settled, then there is a way for the house of God, because the house of God can contain none of that.
It is the place of dependence upon God, the embodiment—the house—of the meekness of Jesus Christ. The threshing floor of Araunah settles that issue.
The Lord does bring us to the threshing floor if, at any time, we are in danger of boasting in things and ceasing to be wholly, utterly, and consciously dependent upon Himself.
No pride can come into the house of God. We all agree with that. And so the threshing floor must deal with anything like that.
Well, I think you see from these instances and illustrations—and they could be carried into many other realms—it is necessary from time to time that we should see, from the Word of God, how again and again the Lord just stepped in and said, “Look here, we are getting confused a bit. We are getting mixed up.”
“Things are not just as clear, transparent, and single as I would have them. We must do something about this.” And then He brings His winds to blow.
They are very, very devastating winds—devastating to all that is not of God, but complementary to that deep and true work of God.
The Lord is not ever on destructive lines, on negative lines. He is always for the positive. You are having a bad time; you are on the threshing floor, and the Lord seems to be dealing with a lot. You are beginning to wonder if there is anything going to remain at all.
You remember that the Lord is not after your destruction, your annihilation, to finish up everything. The Lord is after something solid: to establish you, really to get that which will go right through.
Oh, that is the point of difference. The Lord is after the thing that will stand, will remain; getting rid of just everything that will not do that.
Whatever it may be, we have all gone that way. You have learned a lot, perhaps by birth—been born into Christianity, perhaps in a Christian home; got a lot from your association with Christian things. You may have come into a realm of much Christian teaching—all that.
But that does not mean that the whole thing is really true and in you because of that. The Lord is going to put that to the test from time to time. It is a very necessary work.
Here it is: it is only that which is really worthless that will be destroyed.
“The wheat He will gather into His garner.” He is after wheat. That is what He is after: to have in you and in me the thing that abides.
May we have grace. He will not always keep us on the threshing floor. As Isaiah says, Isaiah says:
Bread grain is bruised; he will not always be threshing it.
At times when it is like that, they seem to be long drawn out, I know. We wonder if ever we are coming off the threshing floor. But, in the order of nature, that is only one part of the whole course of the years.
And in the grace of God, it has its place; it has its time. If it effects its purpose, it will pass. It may come back again later on when it is necessary, but it will not always be threshing.
Shall we pray?