Morning, June 20
Go To Evening Reading
“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
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 siftings 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 directeth
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 are 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 shrivelled
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, nor a jeweller one diamond, nor a mother one child, nor 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.