I just came in from walking down the street to watch a tree service pruning a neighbor's tree....trimming it of dead branches....and overgrown branches that were on top of electrical lines. I've pruned trees in my own yard in the past....but what the church is going to experience is not a pruning.....but a winnowing....and before that a threshing....and this is happening right now.
Boaz slept at the threshing floor in order to protect the grain from thieves. David purchased the threshing floor of Ornan after the plague....for a place of sacrifice to God....Gideon hid from the Midianites on the threshing floor....and Jesus warned Peter that Satan wanted to sift him like wheat. The threshing is a violent separation of the shells and straw from the grain. Winnowing is a wind passing through taking the chaff that was left.
I posted this in July of 2016 under the title....
A Sifting And Winnowing May Be Ahead
"Most of evangelicalism believes that a good president and a republican congress can, in effect, save us. Those of us on the other side not only know that it cannot save us without national repentance....but without a national repentance a sifting or a winnowing would appear to be ahead! Being ostracized by the Republican Party is nothing....this we know may be coming. Being condemned by a very confident, very practical, very mislead, and very political 'Christian' church is another thing altogether. This would be a very difficult time....confusion would necessarily be everywhere...maybe even "strong delusion." We should therefore heed Paul's warning to us to be watchful and sober....for as he wrote to the Thessalonians..."...the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say 'Peace and safety!' then a sudden destruction comes upon them. (This is exactly what has happened in that strong delusion is surely here along with being ostracized and even condemned as being unpatriotic. Our watershed moment was February 4, 2020....when riding high as the plague was in embryo stage....at the State of the Union....we laughed at God's warnings....and boasted that our best is yet to come)
I've posted on the concept of winnowing quite a few times over the years....this from last October....
A violent windstorm blew away all the dead branches from a tree in our yard..."So what is there to think about on an occasion like this other than the glories of Christ? A few times in the last day I would stand on our patio and look at the tree and the yard....all the dead leaves removed....few to fall until the tree changes color....and think about a winnowing that is surely just ahead for the church....where all those who are not secure in Christ will drop off on their own or be blown away by the great difficulties that are ahead....whatever God has determined that turmoil to be?
And this from this past April.....
We should know that a great delusion is coming....if it is not already here....but we should know this also....a winnowing is coming.....where people who we might beforehand be sure are believers.....will turn on Christians.....for practical and political purposes. This is what makes our current blinding involvement in politics so important....that we should at the least be warned....as we are already starting to rebuke Christians who will not automatically follow a political leader or a political cause.
I really don't know how I can use the word 'mind-boggling' on events anymore....for they are continuous. How the Christian observes what is going on in this world....and is not overcome with the imminence of the return of Jesus.....triumphant....with His angels....in power and glory forever....this I also do not know. It seems a violent threshing must be ahead.....by violent I mean that these 'Christian patriots'....'evangelical patriots' is a more accurate phrase....are not a group that debates anything anymore....their thinking processes paralysed after six years of a bona fide cult leader and false prophet.....perceiving this man....who thrives only on vainglory....to actually care for them. They are ready for war if need be....at the very least a brutal purge of anyone in their party that utters a peep against their leaders.
I read their news sources....and listen in on talk radio....and this media today has no relation whatsoever to news sources and talk radio of the past....of which I was a part. It is nothing more than a mob....a posse at times....vigilantes. There is not a day that goes by that I do not pray for God's faithful men in the pulpits....that they might discern the threshing floor....the brokenness that is in the church....and then to gather up the grain....those who are the redeemed....and in their preaching as if to toss them up in the air....and call forth a cleansing winnowing.
Evangelical pastors on the other hand....far too many of them....want an awakening....not of souls redeemed....but voters redeemed.....not to bring glory to God....but to increase their numbers tenfold....so as to make America great again. As difficult as it is to watch....and to experience....we must take joy in the threshing and the winnowing....for whatever the size of the remnant that will emerge....it will be healthy....united in its love for Christ....not given to fables....or false prophets....or relying in its own perceived strength....but trusting Christ through the maelstrom....knowing that He shall keep the ship intact....bringing it to harbor....for us to be taken up....."caught up together with them (those who have gone before us)....in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord."
1 Thessalonians 4:17 ESV
