"For, lo,
I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as
corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the
earth."
Amos 9:9
Amos 9:9
Every
sifting comes by divine command and permission.
Satan must ask leave before he can lay a finger upon Job. Nay, more, in some
sense our sifting are directly
the work of heaven, for the text says, "I will sift the house
of Israel." Satan, like a drudge, may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy
the corn; but the overruling hand of the Master is accomplishing the purity of
the grain by the very process which the enemy intended to be destructive.
Precious, but much sifted corn of the Lord's floor be comforted by the blessed
fact that the Lord directed both flail and sieve to His own glory, and to thine
eternal profit.
The
Lord Jesus will surely use the fan which is in His hand, and will divide the precious from the vile.
All are not Israel that is of Israel; the heap on the barn floor is not clean
provender, and hence the winnowing process must be performed. In the sieve true
weight alone has power. Husks and chaff being devoid of substance must fly
before the wind, and only solid corn will remain.
Observe
the complete safety of the Lord's wheat;
even the least grain has a promise of preservation. God Himself sifts, and
therefore it is stern and terrible work; He sifts them in all places,
"among all nations"; He sifts them in the most effectual manner,
"like as corn is sifted in a sieve"; and yet for all this, not the
smallest, lightest, or most shriveled grain, is permitted to fall to the
ground. Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the Lord, a
shepherd would not lose one sheep, or a jeweler one diamond, or a mother one
child, or a man one limb of his body, nor will the Lord lose one of His
redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord's, we may rejoice
that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.
God
bless,
David
L. Wynn, Pastor
Pauline
B. Grant CME Church
“This
is the Potter’s House”
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