 CHAPTER XVIII. THRESHING. For the fidges are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cumin. But the fidges are beaten out with a staff, and the cumin with a rod. Bread-corn is bruised, because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with a wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horseman. ISAIA. CHAPTER XXVIII. The art of husbandry was taught to man by God. He would have starved while he was discovering it, and so the Lord, when he sent him out of the Garden of Eden, gave him a measure of elementary instruction in agriculture. Even as the prophet puts it, his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. God has taught man to plow, to break the clods, to sow the different kinds of grain, and to thresh out the different sorts of seeds. The eastern husbandman could not thresh by machinery as we do, but still he was ingenious and discreet in that operation. Sometimes a heavy instrument was dragged over the corn to tear out the grain. This is what is intended in the first clause by the threshing instrument. As also in that passage, I have made thee a sharp threshing instrument, having teeth. When the corn drag was not used, they often turned the heavy solid wheel of a country cart over the straw. This is alluded to in the next sentence. Neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cumin. They had also flails not very unlike our own, and then for still smaller seeds, such as dill and cumin, they used a simple staff, or a slender switch. The fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cumin with a rod. This is not the time or place to give a dissertation upon threshing. We find every information upon that subject in proper books. But the meaning of the illustration is this. That as God has taught husbandmen to distinguish between different kinds of grain in the threshing, so does he in his infinite wisdom, deal discreetly with different sorts of men. He does not try us all alike, seeing we are differently constituted. He does not pass us all through the same agony of conviction. We are not all to the same extent, threshed with terrors. He does not give us all to endure the same family or bodily affliction. One escapes with only being beaten with a rod, while another fills, as it were, the feet of horses in his heavy tribulations. Our subject is just this, threshing. All kinds of seeds need it. All sorts of men need it. Secondly, the threshing is done with discretion, and thirdly, the threshing will not last forever. For so the second verse of the text says, bread-corn is bruised, because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horseman. First, then, we all need threshing. Some have a foolish conceit of themselves that they have no sin, but they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them. The best of men are men at the best, and being men they are not perfect, but are still compassed about with infirmity. What is the object of threshing the grain? Is it not to separate it from the straw and the chaff? About the best of men there is still a measure of chaff. All is not grain that lies upon the threshing floor. All is not grain even in those golden sheaves which have been brought into our garner so joyfully. Even the wheat is joined to the straw, which was necessary to it at one time. About the kernel of the wheat the husk is wrapped, and this still clings to it even when it lies upon the threshing floor. About the holiest of men there is something superfluous, something which must be removed. We either sin by omission or by trespass, either in spirit or motive or lack of zeal or want of discretion. We are faulty. If we escape one error we usually glide into its opposite. If before an action we are right we err in the doing of it, or if not we become proud after it is over. If sin be shut out at the front door it tries the back gate or climbs in at the window or comes down the chimney. Those who cannot perceive it in themselves are frequently blinded by its smoke. They are so thoroughly in the water that they do not know that it rains. So far as my own observation goes I have found out no man whom the old divines would have called perfectly perfect. The absolutely all round man is a being whom I expect to see in heaven, but not in this poor fallen world. We all need such cleansing and purging as the threshing floor is intended to work for us. Now threshing is useful in loosening the connection between the good corn and the husk. Of course if it would slip out easily from its husk the corn would only need to be shaken. There would be no necessity for a staff or a rod, much less for the feet of horses or the wheel of a cart to separate it. But there's the rub. Our soul not only lieth in the dust but cleaveth to it. There is a fearful intimacy between fallen human nature and the evil which is in the world, and this compact is not soon broken. In our hearts we hate every false way, and yet we sorrowfully confess, when I would do good evil is present with me. Sometimes when our spirit cries out most ardently after God a holy will is present with us. But how to perform that which is good we find not. Flesh and blood have tendencies and weaknesses which, if not sinful in themselves, yet tend in that direction. Appetites need but slight excitement to germinate into lusts. It is not easy for us to forget our own kindred and our father's house, even when the king doth most greatly desire our beauty. Our alien nature remembers Egypt and the flesh pots while yet the manna is in our mouths. We were all born in the house of evil, and some of us were nursed upon the lap of iniquity, so that our first companionships were among the heirs of wrath. That which was bred in the bone is hard to get out of the flesh. Threshing is used to loosen our hold of earthly things and break us away from evil. This needs a divine hand, and nothing but the grace of God can make the threshing effectual. Something is done by threshing when the soul ceases to be bound up with its sin, and sin is no longer pleasurable or satisfactory. Still, as the work of threshing is never done to the corn is separated altogether from the husk, so chastening and discipline have never accomplished their design till God's people give up every form of evil and abhor all iniquity. When we shake right out of the straw, and have nothing further to do with sin, then the flail will lie quiet. It has taken a good deal of threshing to bring some of us anywhere near that mark, and I am afraid many more heavy blows will be struck before we shall reach the total separation. From a certain sort of sins, we are very easily separated by the grace of God early in our spiritual life, but when those are gone, another layer of evils comes into sight, and the work has to be repeated. The complete removal of our connection with sin is a work demanding the divine skill and power of the Holy Ghost, and by Him only will it be accomplished. Threshing becomes needful for the sake of our usefulness, for the wheat must come out of the husk to be of service. We can only honor God and bless men by being holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. O corn of the Lord's threshing floor, thou must be beaten and bruised, or perish as a worthless heap. Imminent usefulness usually necessitates imminent affliction. Unless thus severed from sin, we cannot be gathered into the garner. God's pure wheat must not be defiled by an admixture of chaff. There shall in no wise enter into heaven anything that defileeth. Therefore every sort of imperfection must come away from us by some means or other, ere we can enter into the state of eternal blessedness and perfection. Yea, even here we cannot have true fellowship with the Father unless we are daily delivered from sin. Per adventure some of us today are lying up on the threshing floor suffering from the blows of chastisement. What then? Why let us rejoice therein, for this testifies to our value in the sight of God. If the wheat were to cry out and say, the great drag has gone over me, therefore the husbandman has no care for me. We should instantly reply, the husbandman does not pass the corn drag over the darnal or the nettles. It is only over the precious wheat that he turns the wheel of his cart or the feet of his oxen. Because he esteems the wheat, therefore he deals sternly with it and spares it not. Judge not, O believer, that God hates you because he afflicts you, but interpret truly and see that he honors you by every stroke which he lays upon you. Thus saith the Lord, you only have I known of all the nations of the earth, therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities. Because a full atonement has been made by the Lord Jesus for all his people's sins, therefore he will not punish us as a judge, but because we are his dear children, therefore he will chastise us as a father. In love he corrects his own children, that he may perfect them in his own image and make them partakers of his holiness. Is it not written, I will bring them under the rod of the covenant? Has he not said, I have refined thee, but not with silver? I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. Therefore do not judge according to the sight of the eyes or the feeling of the flesh, but judge according to faith, and understand that as threshing is a testimony to the value of the wheat, so affliction is a token of God's delight in his people. Remember, however, that as threshing is a sign of the impurity of the wheat, so is affliction an indication of the present imperfection of the Christian. If you were no more connected with evil, you would be no more corrected with sorrow. The sound of a flail is never heard in heaven, for it is not the threshing floor of the imperfect, but the garter of the completely sanctified. The threshing instrument is therefore a humbling token, and so long as we feel it we should humble ourselves under the hand of God, for it is clear that we are not yet free from the straw and the chaff of fallen nature. On the other hand, the instrument is a prophecy of our future perfection. We are undergoing from the hand of God a discipline which will not fail. We shall by his prudence and wisdom be clean delivered from the husk of sin. We are feeling the blows of the staff, but we are being effectually separated from the evil which has so long surrounded us, and for certain we shall one day be pure and perfect. Every tendency to sin shall be beaten off. Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. If we, being evil, yet succeed with our children by our poor, imperfect chastening, how much more shall the father of spirits cause us to live unto himself by his holy discipline? If the corn could know the necessary uses of the flail, it would invite the thresher to his work. And since we know where unto tribulation tendeth, let us glory in it, and yield ourselves with cheerfulness to its processes. We need threshing. The threshing proves our value in God's sight. And while it marks our imperfection, it secures our ultimate cleansing. Secondly, I would remark that God's threshing is done with great discretion. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument. The poor little fitches, a kind of small seed used for flavoring cakes, were not crushed out with a heavy drag. For by such rough usage they would have been broken up and spoiled. Neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cumin. This little seed, perhaps the caraway, would have been ground by so great a weight. It would have been preposterous to treat it in that rough manner. The fitches were soon removed from the stalks by being beaten out with a staff. And the cumin needed nothing but a touch of a rod. For tender seeds, the farmer uses gentle means. And for the hardier grains, he reserves the sterner processes. Let us think of this as it conveys a valuable spiritual lesson. Reflect, my brother, that your threshing and mine are in God's hands. Our chastening is not left to servants, much less to enemies. We are chastened of the Lord. The great husbandman himself personally bids the laborers do this and that. For they know not the time or the way, except as divine wisdom shall direct. They would turn the wheel upon the cumin, or attempt to thresh wheat with a staff. I have seen God's servants trying both these follies. They have crushed the weak and tender, and they have dealt with partiality and softness, with those who needed to be sternly rebuked. How roughly some ministers, some elders, some good men and women will go to work with timid, tender souls. Yet we need not fear that they will destroy the true hearted. For, however much they may vex them, the Lord will not leave his chosen in their hands, but will overrule their mistaken severity, and preserve his own from being destroyed thereby. How glad I am of this, for there are many nowadays who would grind the tender ones to powder if they could. As the Lord has not left us in the power of man, so also he has not left us in the power of the devil. Satan may sift us as wheat, but he shall not thresh us as fishes. He may blow away the chaff from us, even with his foul breath, but he shall not have the management of the Lord's corn. The Lord preserveeth the righteous. Not a stroke in providence is left to chance. The Lord ordains it, and arranges the time, the force, and the place of it. The divine decree leaves nothing uncertain. The jurisdiction of supreme love occupies itself with the smallest events of our daily lives. Whether we bear the teeth of the corn drag, or men do right over our heads, or we endure the gentler touches of the divine hand, everything is by appointment. And the appointment is fixed by infallible wisdom. Let this be a mine of comfort to the afflicted. Next, remark that the instruments used for our threshing are chosen also by the great husbandmen. The eastern farmer, according to the text, has several instruments, and so has our God. No form of threshing is pleasant to the seed which bears it. Indeed, each one seems to the sufferer to be peculiarly objectionable. We say, I think I could bear anything but this sad trouble. We cry, it was not an enemy, then I could have borne it, and so on. Perhaps the tender human foolishly fancies that the horse hooves would be a less terrible ordeal than the rod, and the pitches might even prefer the wheel to the staff. But happily the matter is left to the choice of one who judges unerringly. What dost thou know about it, poor sufferer? How canst thou judge of what is good for thee? Ah, cries a mother, I would not mind poverty, but to lose my darling child is too terrible. Another laments, I could have parted with all my wealth, but to be slandered cuts me to the quick. There is no pleasing us in the matter of chastisement. When I was at school, with my uncle for master, it often happened that he would send me out to find a cane for him. It was not a very pleasant task, and I noticed that I never once succeeded in selecting a stick which was liked by the boy who had to feel it. Either it was too thin or too stout, and in consequence I was threatened by the sufferers with confined punishment if I did not do better next time. I learned from that experience never to expect God's children to like the particular rod with which they are chastened. You smile at my simile, but you may smile at yourself when you find yourself crying. Any trouble but this, Lord, any affliction but this. How idle it is to expect a pleasant trial, for it would be no trial at all. Almost every really useful medicine is unpleasant. Almost all effectual surgery is painful. No trial for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous. Yet it is the right trial, and nonetheless right because it is bitter. Notice too that God not only selects the instruments, but he chooses the place. Farmers in the east have large threshing floors upon which they throw the sheaves of corn or barley, and upon these they turn horses and drags. But near the house door I have often noticed in Italy a much smaller circle of hardened clay or cement, and here I have seen the peasants beating out their garden seeds in a more careful manner than would naturally be used toward the greater heaps upon the larger area. Some saints are now afflicted in the common affairs of life. But they have peculiar sorrow in their innermost spirits. They are beaten on the smaller and more private threshing floor. But the process is nonetheless effectual. How foolish are we when we rebel against our Lord's appointment, and speak as if we had a right to choose our own afflictions. Should it be according to thy mind? Should a child select the rod? Should the grain appoint its own thresher? Are not these things to be left to a higher wisdom? Some complain of the time of their trial. It is hard to be crippled in youth, or to be poor in age, or to be widowed when your children are young. Yet in all this there is wisdom. A part of the skill of the physician may lie not only in writing a prescription, but in arranging the hours at which the medicine shall be taken. One draft may be most useful in the morning, and another may be more beneficial in the evening. And so the Lord knows when it is best for us to drink of the cup which he has prepared for us. I know a dear child of God who is enduring a severe trial in his old age, and I would feign screen him from it because of his feebleness. But our Heavenly Father knows best, and there we must leave it. The instrument of the threshing, the place, the measure, the time, the end, are all appointed by infallible love. It is interesting to notice in the text the limit of this threshing. The husbandman is zealous to beat out the seed, but he is careful not to break it in pieces by too severe a process. His will is not to grind, but to thresh. The horse's feet are not to break, but to separate. He intends to get the cumin out of its husk, but he will not turn a heavy drag upon it utterly to smash it up and destroy it. In the same way the Lord has a measure in all his chastening. Courage, tried friend, you shall be afflicted as you need, but not as you deserve. Tribulation shall come as you are able to bear it. As is the strength, such shall the affliction be. The wheat may feel the wheel, but the pitches shall bear nothing heavier than a staff. No saint shall be tempted beyond the proper measure, and the limit is fixed by a tenderness which never deals a needless stroke. It is very easy to talk like this in cool blood, and quite another thing to remember it when the flail is hammering you. Yet have I personally realized this truth upon the bed of pain and in the furnace of mental distress. I thank God at every remembrance of my afflictions. I did not doubt his wisdom then, nor have I had any reason to question its sense. Our great husbandman understands how to divide us from the husk, and he goes about his work in a way for which he deserves to be adored forever. It is a pleasant thought that God's limit is one beyond which trials never go. If trials six be fixed for men, they shall not suffer seven. If God appoint afflictions ten, they nare can be eleven. The old law ordained forty stripes save one, and in all our scourgings there always comes in that save one. When the Lord multiplies our sorrows up to a hundred, it is because ninety and nine failed to affect his purpose. But all the powers of earth and hell cannot give us one blow above the settled number. We shall never endure a superfluity of threshing. The Lord never sports with the feelings of his saints. He does not afflict willingly, and so we may be sure he never gives an unnecessary blow. The wisdom of the husbandman in limiting his threshing is far exceeded in the wisdom of God by which he sets a limit to our griefs. Some escape with little trouble, and perhaps it is because they are frail and sensitive. The little garden seeds must not be beaten too heavily lest they be injured. Those saints who bear about with them a delicate body must not be roughly handled, nor shall they be. Possibly they have a feeble mind also, and that which others would laugh at would be death to them. They shall be kept as the apple of the eye. If you are free from tribulation, never ask for it. That would be a great folly. I did meet with a brother a little while ago who said that he was much perplexed because he had no trouble. I said, do not worry about that, but be happy while you may. Only a queer child would beg to be flogged. Certain sweet and shining saints are of such a gentle spirit that the Lord does not expose them to the same treatment as he meets out to others. They do not need it, and they could not bear it. Why should they wish for it? Others again are very heavily pressed, but what of that if they are a superior grain, a seed of larger usefulness, intended for higher purposes? Let not such regret that they have to endure a heavier threshing since their use is greater. It is the bread-corn that must go under the feet of the horsemen, and must feel the wheel of the cart, and so the most useful have to pass through the sternest processes. There is not one among us but what would say. I could wish that I were Martin Luther, or that I could play as noble a part as he did. Yes, but in addition to the outward perils of his life, the inward experiences of that remarkable man were such as none of us would wish to feel. He was frequently tormented with satanic temptations, and driven to the verge of despair. At one hour he rode the whirlwind and the storm, master of all the world. And then after days of fighting with the pope and the devil, he would go home to his bed and lie there broken down and trembling. You see, God's heroes only in the pulpit, or in other public places. You know not what they are before God in secret. You do not know their inner life, else you might discover that the bread-corn is bruised, and that those who are most useful in comforting others have to endure frequent sorrow themselves. Envy no man, for you do not know how he may have to be threshed to make him right and keep him so. Brethren, we see that our God uses discretion in the chastisement of his people. Let us use a loving prudence when we have to deal with others in that way. Be gentle as well as firm with your children. And if you have to rebuke your brother, do it very tenderly. Do not drive your horses over the tender seed. Recollect that the cumin is beaten out with a staff and not crushed out with a wheel. Take a very light rod. Perhaps it would be as well if you had no rod at all, but left that work to wiser hands. Go you and sow and leave your elders to thresh. Next, let us firmly believe in God's discretion, and be sure that he is doing the right thing by us. Let us not be anxious to be screened from affliction. When we ask that the cup may pass from us, let it be with a nevertheless not as I will. Best of all, let us freely part with our chaff. The likeliest way to escape the flail is to separate from the husk as quickly as possible. Come ye out from among them. Separate yourselves from sin and sinners, from the world and worldliness, and the process of threshing will all the sooner be completed. God make us wise in this matter. A word or two is all we can afford upon the third head, which is that the threshing will not last forever. The threshing will not last all our days even here. Bread-corn is bruised, but he will not always be threshing it. Oh, no, for a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. He will not always chide, neither will he keep his anger for ever. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Rejoice, ye daughters of sorrow, be comforted ye sons of grief. Have hope in God, for you shall not praise him who is the health of your countenance. The rain does not always fall, nor will the clouds always return. Sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Threshing is not an operation which the corn requires all the year round. For the most part the flail is idle. Bless the Lord, O my soul, the Lord will yet bring home his banished ones. Above all, tribulation will not last forever, for we shall soon be gone to another and better world. We shall soon be carried to the land where there are neither threshing floors, nor corn-drags. I sometimes think I hear the herald calling me. His trumpet sounds, up and away. Boot and saddle, up and away. Leave the camp in the battle and return in triumph. The night is far spent with you, but the morning cometh. The daylight breaks above yawn hills. The day is coming, the day that shall go no more down forever. Come, eat your bread with joy, and march onward with a merry heart. For the land which floweth with milk and honey is but a little way before you. Until the day break and the shadows flee away, abide the great husbandman's will, and may the Lord glorify himself in you. Amen. Gather the wheat into my barn, Matthew chapter 13 verse 30. Gather the wheat into my barn, then the purpose of the Son of Man will be accomplished. He sowed good seed, and he shall have his barn filled with it at the last. Be not dispirited. Christ will not be disappointed. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. He went forth weeping, bearing precious seed, but he shall come again rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. Gather the wheat into my barn, then Satan's policy will be unsuccessful. The enemy came and sowed tears among the wheat, hopeful that the false wheat would destroy or materially injure the true. But he failed in the end, for the wheat ripened and was ready to be gathered. Christ's garner shall be filled. The tears shall not choke the wheat. The evil one will be put to shame. In gathering in the wheat, good angels will be employed. The angels are the reapers. This casts a special scorn upon the great evil angel. He sows the tears and tries to destroy the harvest, and therefore the good angels are brought in to celebrate his defeat and to rejoice together with their Lord in the success of the divine husbandry. Satan will make a poor prophet out of his meddling. He shall be balked in all his efforts, and so the threat shall be fulfilled. Upon thy belly shout thou go, and dust shout thou eat. By giving the angels work to do, all intelligent creatures of whose existence we have information are made to take an interest in the work of grace, whether for malice or for adoration. Redemption excites them all. To all the wonderful works of God are made manifest, for these things were not done in a corner. We too much forget the angels. Let us not overlook their tender sympathy with us. They behold the Lord rejoicing over our repentance, and they rejoice with him. They are our watchers and the Lord s messengers of mercy. They bear us up in their hands, lest we dash our foot against a stone. And when we come to die, they carry us to the bosom of our Lord. It is one of our joys that we have come to an innumerable company of angels. Let us think of them with affection. At this time I will keep to my text and preach from it almost word by word. It begins with but, and that is a word of separation. Hear note that the tares and the wheat will grow together until the time of harvest shall come. It is a great sorrow of heart to some of the wheat to be growing side by side with tares. The ungodly are as thorns and briars to those who fear the Lord. How frequently is the sigh forced forth from the godly heart? Woe is me that I sojourn in Mesut, that I dwell in the tents of Qadar. A man's foes are often found within his own household. Those who should have been his best helpers are often his worst hinders. Their conversation vexes and torments him. It is of little use to try to escape from them, for the tares are permitted in God's providence to grow with the wheat, and they will do so until the end. Good men have emigrated to distant lands to found communities in which there should be none but saints, and alas, sinners have sprung up in their own families. The attempt to weed the ungodly and heretical out of the settlement has led to persecution and other evils, and the whole plan has proved a failure. Others have shut themselves away in hermitages to avoid the temptations of the world, and so have hoped to win the victory by running away. This is not the way of wisdom. The word for this present is, Let both grow together, but there will come a time when a final separation will be made. Then, dear Christian woman, your husband will never persecute you again. Godly sister, your brother will heep no more ridicule upon you. Pious workmen, there will be no more jesting and taunting from the ungodly. That but will be an iron gate between the God-fearing and the godless. Then will the tares be cast into the fire, but the Lord of the harvest will say, Gather the wheat into my barn. This separation must be made, for the growing of the wheat and the tares together on earth has caused much pain and injury, and therefore it will not be continued in a happier world. We can very well suppose that godly men and women might be willing that their unconverted children should dwell with them in heaven. But it cannot be, for God will not have his cleansed ones defiled, nor his glorified ones tried by the presence of the unbelieving. The tares must be taken away in order to the perfectness and usefulness of the wheat. Would you have the tares and the wheat heaped up together in the grainery in one mass? That would be ill-husbandry with a vengeance. They can neither of them be put to appropriate use till thoroughly separated. Even so, mark you, the saved and the unsaved may live together here, but they must not live together in another world. The command is absolute. Gather the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. But gather the wheat into my barn. Center, can you hope to enter heaven? You never loved your mother's god, and is he to endure you in his heavenly courts? You never trusted your father's savior, and yet are you to behold his glory forever? Are you to go swaggering down the streets of heaven, letting fall an oath, or singing a loose song? Why, you know, you get tired of the worship of God on the Lord's day. Do you think that the Lord will endure unwilling worshipers in the temple above? The Sabbath is a wearisome day to you. How can you hope to enter into the Sabbath of God? You have no taste for heavenly pursuits, and these things would be profaned if you were permitted to partake in them. Therefore, that word but must come in, and you must part from the Lord's people never to meet again. Can you bear to think of being divided from godly friends forever and ever? That separation involves an awful difference of destiny. Gather the tares and bundles to burn them. I do not dare to draw the picture, but when the bundle is bound up, there is no place for it except the fire. God grant that you may never know all the anguish which burning must mean. But may you escape from it at once. It is no trifle which the Lord of Love compares to being consumed with fire. I am quite certain that no words of mine can ever set forth its terror. They say that we speak dreadful things about the wrath to come, but I am sure that we understate the case. What must the tender, loving, gracious Jesus have meant by the words? Gather the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them. See what a wide distinction between the Lord's people and Satan's people. Burn the wheat? Oh no! Gather the wheat into my barn. There, let them be happily, safely housed forever. Oh, the infinite distance between heaven and hell. The harps and the angels, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Who can ever measure the width of that gulf which divides the glorified saint, white-robed and crowned with immortality. From the soul which is driven forever away from the presence of God, and from the glory of his power. It is a dreadful but, that but of separation. I pray you remember that it will interpose between brother and brother, between mother and child, between husband and wife. One shall be taken, and the other left. And when that sword shall descend to divide, there shall never be any after union. The separation is eternal. There is no hope or possibility of change in the world to come. But, says one, that dreadful but, why must there be such a difference? The answer is, because there always was a difference. The wheat was sown by the son of man. The false wheat was sown by the enemy. There was always a difference in character. The wheat was good. The tares were evil. This difference did not appear at first. But it became more and more apparent as the wheat ripened. And as the tares ripened too. They were totally different plants. And so, a regenerate person, and an unregenerate person are altogether different beings. I have heard an unregenerate man say that he is quite as good as the godly man. But in so boasting, he betrayed his pride. Surely there is as great a difference in God's sight between the unsaved and the believer, as between darkness and light, or between the dead and the living. There is in the one a life which there is not in the other. And the difference is vital and radical. Oh, that you may never trifle with this essential matter. But be really the wheat of the Lord. It is vain to have the name of wheat. We must have the nature of wheat. God will not be mocked. He will not be pleased by our calling ourselves Christians, while we are not so. Be not satisfied with church membership. But seek after membership with Christ. Do not talk about faith, but exercise it. Do not boast of experience, but possess it. Be not like the wheat, but be the wheat. No shams and limitations will stand in the last great day. That terrible but will roll as a sea of fire between the true and the false. Oh, Holy Spirit, let each of us be found transformed by Thy power. The second word of our text is gather. That is a word of congregation. What a blessed thing this gathering is. I feel it is a great pleasure to gather multitudes together to hear the gospel. And is it not a joy to see a house full of people on weekdays and Sabbath days, who are willing to leave their homes and to come considerable distances to listen to the gospel? It is a great thing to gather people together for that. But the gathering of the wheat into the barn is a far more wonderful business. Gathering is in itself better than scattering. And I pray that the Lord Jesus may ever exercise His attracting power in this place, for He is no divider, but unto Him shall the gathering of the people be. Has He not said, I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me? Observe that the congregation mentioned in our text is selected and assembled by skilled gatherers. The angels are the reapers. Ministers could not do it, for they do not know all the Lord's wheat, and they are apt to make mistakes, some by too great leniency, and others by excessive severity. Our poor judgments occasionally shut out saints, and often shut in sinners. The angels will know their master's property. They know each saint, for they were present at his birthday. Angels know when sinners repent, and they never forget the persons of the penitents. They have witnessed the lives of those who have believed, and have helped them in their spiritual battles. And so they know them. Yes, angels by a holy instinct discern the Father's children, and are not to be deceived. They will not fail to gather all the wheat, and to leave out every tear. But they are gathered under a very stringent regulation. For, first of all, according to the parable, the tears, the false wheat, have been taken out, and then the angelic reapers gather nothing but the wheat. The seed of the serpent, fathered by Satan, is thus separated from the seed of the kingdom, owned by Jesus, the promised deliverer. This is the one distinction, and no other is taken into consideration. If the most ambiable, unconverted persons could stand in the ranks with the saints, the angels would not bear them to heaven. For the mandate is, gather the wheat. Could the most honest man be found standing in the center of the church, with all the members round about him, and with all the ministers in treating that he might be spared? Yet, if he were not a believer, he could not be carried into the divine garner. There is no help for it. The angels have no choice in the matter. The peremptory command is gather the wheat, and they must gather none else. It will be a gathering from very great distances. Some of the wheat ripens in the South Sea Islands, in China, and in Japan. Some flourishes in France. Broad acres grow in the United States. There is scarce a land without a portion of the good grain. Where all God's wheat grows, I cannot tell. There is a remnant according to the election of grace, among every nation and people. But the angels will gather all the good grain to the same garner. Gather the wheat. The saints will be found in all ranks of society. The angels will bring in a few ears from palaces and great armfuls from cottages. Many will be collected from the lowly cottages of our villages and hamlets, and others will be upraised from the back slums of our great cities to the metropolis of God. From the darkest places angels will bring those children of sweetness and light, who seldom beheld the sun, and yet were pure in heart, and saw their God. The hidden and obscure shall be brought into the light, for the Lord knoweth them that are his, and his harvestmen will not miss them. To me it is a charming thought that they will come from all the ages. Let us hope that our first father Adam will be there, and mother Eve, following in the footsteps of their dear son Abel, and trusting in the same sacrifice. We shall meet Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and David and Daniel, and all the saints made perfect. What a joy to see the apostles, martyrs, and reformers. I long to see Luther and Calvin and Bunyan and Whitefield. I like the rhyme of good old Father Rylan. They all shall be there, the great and the small. Poor I shall shake hands with the blessed Saint Paul. I do not know how that will be, but I have not much doubt that we shall have fellowship with all the saints of every age in the General Assembly in Church of the First Born, whose names are written in heaven. No matter when or where the wheat grew, it shall be gathered into the one barn, gathered never to be scattered, gathered out of all divisions of the visible Church, never to be divided again. They grew in different fields, some flourished on the hillside where Episcopalians grow in all their glory, and others in the lowlier soil, where Baptists multiply and Methodists flourish. But once the wheat is in the barn, none can tell in which field the ears grew. Then indeed shall the Master's Prayer have a glorious answer, that they all may be one. All our errors removed and our mistakes corrected and forgiven, the one Lord, the one Faith, and the one Baptism, will be known of us all, and there will be no more vexings and enviings, what a blessed gathering it will be, what a meeting, the elect of God, the elite of all the centuries of whom the world was not worthy. I should not like to be away. If there were no hell, it would be hell enough to me to be shut out of such heavenly society. If there were no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, it would be dreadful enough to miss the presence of the Lord, and the joy of praising him forever, and the bliss of meeting with all the noblest beings that ever lived. Amid the needful controversies of the age, I, who have been doomed to seem a man of strife, sigh for the blessed rest, wherein all spiritual minds shall blend in eternal accord before the throne of God and of the Lamb. O that we were all right, that we might be all happily united in one spirit. In the text there is next a word of designation. I have already trespassed upon that domain, gather the wheat. Nothing but the wheat must be placed in the Lord's homestead. Lend me your hearts while I urge you to a searching examination for a minute or two. The wheat was sown of the Lord. Are you sown of the Lord? Friend, if you have any religion, how did you get it? Was it self-sown? If so, it is good for nothing. The true wheat was sown by the Son of Man. Are you sown of the Lord? Did the Spirit of God drop eternal life into your bosom? Did it come from that dear hand which was nailed to the cross? Is Jesus your life? Does your life begin and end with Him? If so, it is well. The wheat sown of the Lord is also the object of the Lord's care. Wheat needs a deal of attention. The farmer would get nothing from it if he did not watch it carefully. Are you under the Lord's care? Does he keep you? Is that word true to your soul? I, the Lord, do keep it. I will water it every moment lest any hurt it. I will keep it night and day. Do you experience such keeping? Make an honest answer as you love your soul. Next, wheat is a useful thing, a gift from God for the life of men. The false wheat was of no good to anybody. It could only be eaten of swine, and then it made them stagger like drunken men. Are you one of those who are wholesome in society, who are like bread to the world, so that if men receive you and your example and your teaching they will be blessed thereby? Judge yourself whether ye are good or evil in life and influence. Gather the wheat. You know that God must put the goodness, the grace, the solidity, and the usefulness into you, or else you will never be wheat fit for angelic gathering. One thing is true of the wheat, that it is the most dependent of all plants. I have never heard of a field of wheat which sprang up and grew and ripened without a husbandman's care. Some ears may appear after a harvest when the corn has shaled out, but I have never heard of plains in America or elsewhere covered with unsown wheat. No, no. There is no wheat where there is no man, and there is no grace where there is no Christ. We owe our very existence to the Father, who is the husbandman. Yet dependent as it is, wheat stands in the front rank of honor and esteem, and so do the godly and the judgment of all who are of understanding heart. We are nothing without Christ, but with Him we are full of honor. Oh, to be among those by whom the world is preserved, the excellent of the earth and whom the saints delight. God forbid we should be among the base and worthless tares. Our last head, upon which also I will speak briefly, is a word of destination. Gather the wheat into my barn. The process of gathering in the wheat will be completed at the day of judgment. But it is going on every day, from hour to hour, saints are gathered. They are going heavenward even now. I am so glad to hear as a regular thing that the departed ones from my own dear church have such joy in being harvested. Glory be to God, our people die well. The best thing is to live well. But we are greatly gladdened to hear that the brethren die well. For full often that is the most telling witness for vital godliness. Men of the world fill the power of triumphant deaths. Every hour the saints are being gathered into the barn. That is where they want to be. We feel no pain at the news of in-gathering, for we wish to be safely stored up by our Lord. If the wheat that is in the field could speak, every ear would say, The ultimatum for which we are living and growing is the barn, the granary. For this the frosty night, for this the sunny day, for this the dew and the rain, and for this everything. Every process with the wheat is tending toward the granary. So is it with us, everything is working toward heaven, toward the gathering place, toward the congregation of the righteous, toward the vision of our redeemer's face. Our death will cause no jar in our life music. It will involve no pause or even discord. It is part of a program, the crowning of our whole history. To the wheat the barn is the place of security. It dreads no mildew there. It fears no frost, no heat, no drought, no wet when once in the barn. All its growth perils are past. It has reached its perfection. It has rewarded the labor of the husbandman, and it is housed. O long expected day begin. O brethren, what a blessing it will be when you and I shall have come to our maturity and Christ shall see in us the travail of his soul. I delight to think of heaven as his barn. His barn, what must that be? It is but the poverty of language that such an expression has to be used at all concerning the home of our Father, the dwelling of Jesus. Heaven is the palace of the King. But so far to us a barn, because it is the place of security, the place of rest forever. It is the homestead of Christ to which we shall be carried, and for this we are ripening. It is to be thought of with ecstatic joy, for the gathering into the barn involves a harvest home, and I have never heard of men sitting down to cry over an earthly harvest home, nor of their following the sheaves with tears. Nay, they clap their hands, they dance for joy, and shout right lustily. Let us do something like that concerning those who are already housed. With grave sweet melodies let us sing around their tombs. Let us feel that surely the bitterness of death is past. When we remember their glory we may rejoice like the travailing woman when her child is born, who remembereth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world. Another soul begins to sing in heaven. Why do you weep? O heirs of immortality. Is the eternal happiness of the righteous the birth which comes of their death pangs? Then happy are they who die. Is glory the end and outcome of that which fills our home with morning? If so, thank God for bereavements. Thank God for saddest severings. He has promoted our dear ones to the skies. He has blessed them beyond all that we could ask or even think. He has taken them out of this weary world to lie in his own bosom forever. Blessed be his name if it were for nothing else but this. Would you keep your old father here full of pain and broken down with feebleness? Would you shut him out of glory? Would you detain your dear wife here with all her suffering? Would you hold back your husband from the crown immortal? Could you wish your child to descend to earth again from the bliss which now surrounds her? No. No. We wish to be going home ourselves to the heavenly father's house and its many mansions. But concerning the departed we rejoice before the Lord as with the joy of harvest. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. End of Chapter 19 Wheat in the Barn End of Talks to Farmers by Charles H. Spurgeon Recording by Lauren Randall