The Treshing Floor

As I was praying into the new spiritual season that commenced on the 1^st of Abib, The Holy Spirit dropped this Scripture in my heart one morning:

His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear out His threshing floor (Matthew 3:12). While I was pondering the meaning of the verse so early in the morning, I heard the Holy Spirit say: “Did you not ask me for a word for the new season?”

 

Since neither Louis or myself grew up on a farm, we started to do some research on the workings of a threshing floor.

 

The process of threshing and winnowing

Those who grew up on a farm, can skip this paragraph 🙂

There are different steps and different tools to the process of threshing and winnowing wheat. First all the harvested crops are gathered and brought to the threshing floor. The floor was made from hard compacted soil.

The loosened sheaves were spread on a circular enclosure of hard ground, and oxen, sheep or other animals were driven round and round over it so as to tread out the grain. This enclosure was placed on an elevated piece of ground so that when the straw was removed the wind blew away the chaff and left the wheat on the floor.

After the grain had been beaten out by the flail or ground out by other means, the straw was carefully raked away and the wheat and chaff collected to be separated by winnowing when there was a wind blowing. This consisted of tossing the mixture of wheat and chaff into the air so that the wind carried away the chaff while the grain fell back on the threshing floor.

Here is a photo of a typical threshing floor:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Layers to the word for the season

The word for the new season is an extremely serious one. I believe it pertains to the body of Christ as a whole, regardless of denomination, size or flavour. At the end of the day, Jesus only has one ecclesia and it’s this group that will be brought to the threshing floor.

We are living in the last days, the days of the final harvest. During our days, we will see the gathering of the wheat and the separation of the tares that was allowed to grow between the disciples of Jesus. When we look around us, we can also see the separation happening within the ecclesia. We will also experience the threshing and winnowing process, whether we are a true disciple or just someone that tags along. Both groups will be brought to the threshing floor.

 

One plant

When we drive past a field planted with wheat, we refer to the plant as a whole as wheat. We don’t see the plant as different segments. We will think: “The farmer’s wheat looks healthy”. The same thing happens when we see a sheave. We’ll say, “What a beautiful wheat sheave”. Only at harvest do we start to recognise the different parts of the plant. We don’t want the chaff to land on our breakfast plate. Once the separation took place, chaff is not even recognised as wheat anymore, even though we saw it as part of the plant only a few weeks ago.

The same happens within the body of Messiah. When people look at a group of believers, they will think everyone is Christians, “it’s a church”. In general people don’t separate one believer from another, especially not to the level of ‘this one is a true disciple’ and ‘that one isn’t’.

You see, in our eyes, Christian-wheat and Christian-chaff look the same. Both can shout Hallelujah, both can quote Scriptures and both can live a good life. For the most part, we regard them as one thing – all Christians. Only the Lord looks deep into our hearts, there were no other man can see. He examines the motive of our hearts.

This is the purpose of the process of threshing…

 

True life

There is a significant difference to the wheat and the chaff. The essence of the difference lies within the life. Which portion of the plant has the ability to bring forth life? Which portion of the plant carries the DNA of the creator? Which portion of the plant has the ability to live?

Only the grain of wheat.

The stalks and the chaff grew with the plant. It even served a purpose for a time. But at the end of the day, only the grain will remain. The grain carries the life.

 

Unhindered flow of life

Do we have the life of the Spirit of the living God in us? Or do we depend on the words and the life that someone else must hand out to us? Do we tag along with a family member that serves the Lord or do we have life in ourselves? What if there is another strict lockdown, like the one in China at the moment? Will you be able to spiritually survive for a few months without interaction with other believers? Will you grow because of the unhindered flow of the living waters from the throne of God or will you whither and fade away? How strong is the life within you?

 

Separation

The threshing floor is a place of great shaking, pounding, sifting – all for the purpose of separating. At the threshing floor, we are exposed to the winds of circumstances. When the Lord will allow difficult circumstances in our lives, will we have weight in our souls to fall back to the threshing floor? Or will the wind blow us away?

Winds can look different:

• It can be the winds of different doctrines as James wrote about.
• Maybe it’s in the form of truth that is hard to swallow. Will we be like the rest of the 70 disciples that turned away because the word was too hard for them?
• Life as we know it will get tougher. Will we fall away because we were only told about the promises of prosperity, but never about the hardship of a believer?
• Whatever the wind may look like, we can be sure it’s going to blow over us. May each one of us be found as wheat and not as chaff.

 

Only the Blood of the Lamb can change chaff into wheat

After reading this, a person can fall into great despair. What if I’m chaff? Maybe you realise that you are dependent on a typical ‘Moses’ to hear from God and convey the message to you. Deep within your heart, you might know that you are just walking along, that you are not even truly reborn and converted. You might realise that there is no visible fruit in your lives, which is the evidence of being in Christ.

There is still a small amount of time left. Call upon the Name of Jesus Christ and repent. Only the Blood of the Lamb can change chaff-Christians into wheat-Christians. But the time is very very short. Make haste and don’t delay.

 

Theology of hardship

It’s so sad to hear of the widespread deception of a cheap prosperity gospel. So many people are told that they only have to accept Jesus by repeating a prayer and after that their lives will be perfect.

That is not what the Bible teaches. We need to urgently study the Scriptures and get a theology of hardship. My Bible tells me that every one that wants to live fruitful in Christ, will be persecuted. If we don’t understand that only wind can separate wheat from chaff, how will we be able to welcome it.

Many people will be offended to hear that it’s Jesus Christ Himself that uses the winnowing fork. He is the one that allows us to be exposed to the winds of circumstances to bring about the separation.

 

The chaff within

There is a third dimension to this word which I believe applies to each one of our hearts. How much chaff is there in our lives? We have entered the season where the Farmer, Jesus our Messiah, is standing with the winnowing fork in His hands and He wants to clean us thoroughly from all stalks and chaff so that only the wheat can remain.

Back in 2019, The Holy Spirit gave me deep insight in this concept. I will share some more on a separate post. There is much to share and I don’t want to condense it to the point of having no meaning by trying to fit it into this post.