From experience I can tell you that it hurts when people leave this beautiful truth. Sometimes those people are close friends, relatives, mentors, or people that you looked up to spiritually. Someone that you thought would be the last person to get out. It can definitely leave feelings of hurt, confusion, bitterness, resentment, and sometimes can lead to the backsliding of yourself. The big question left in our minds is “Why?” Sometimes we wonder if we could have done something to have changed their decision, or we wonder if we did something to them to make that decision.
While I was going through one of those situations listed above, my heart was heavy. I felt guilt, hurt, and I just didn’t understand why it happened. I was on my way to a campmeeting, and I was thinking about the situation. We finally arrived at the camp grounds and church was starting. I went through the music, barely realizing what song was being sung. I kept thinking ” If only they could be here to experience this.” Finally, the word of God was about to be preached. I tuned my ears in and the man of God read the title for his message: “The Winnowing”.
I felt the Lord immediantly. His text for his message was Luke 3: 16-17:
16 John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire
17 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.”
When you have a harvest of wheat, there’s a process the wheat goes through. It is called the “Winnowing”.
Winnow: — cast away , compass , disperse , fan , scatter (away , spread , strew , winnow . It’s where the wheat is separated from the chaff. The Chaff is the pieces that are not rooted in with the wheat. Its the part that when the wheat is thrown in the air, the chaff is blown away by the wind. It wasn’t rooted. It was the pieces that looked like wheat, but were not.
If you compare this to a spiritual sense, the church, the part that is rooted in. The people that are in this thing with everything they have, are the wheat. God knows every man’s thoughts and intents of the heart. And there are people who are not in this thing with their whole heart, theyre not rooted in.
Matt 15:8 “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.”
Jesus has his winnowing fork in his hand. To separate the wheat from the chaff is God’s job, and his alone. We dont see the inward parts. To get to the place where he has a perfect church and revival is going to take place, the winnowing must take place. It hurts, soemtimes I can see it coming, and im like No Lord, we just got these people in or those people just got saved, but God’s saying “The Winnowing”.
Im not here to judge but just to encourage you when someone leaves the truth, dont blame yourself or a situation. God knew where they stood in their hearts. Just understand the winnowing will and does take place to scatter the chaff away. The parts that are not rooted and look like wheat, but are not. Some people are just not going to stick this thing out. But though some fall along the way, STAND. Dont compromise this truth! Love it!!!
2 Thess 2:10 “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.”
The Winnowing..It comes, but so do people who are hungry for something else in their life. The Winnowing.
