Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3388
“For the black cummin are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cartwheel turned about upon the cummin, but the black cummin are beaten out with a stick and the cummin with a rod. Bread flour must be ground; therefore he does not thresh it forever, nor break it with his cartwheel, nor bruise it with his horsemen.” Isaiah 28:27,28.
The art of farming was taught to man by God. He would have starved while he was discovering it, 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 did instruct him to discretion and did 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 orders of seeds.
The Eastern farmer 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 you 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 cart wheel turned about upon the cummin.” They also had flails not very unlike our own, and then for still smaller seeds, such as dill and cummin, they used a simple staff or a slender switch. “The black cummin are beaten out with a stick and the cummin 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 farmers 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 convic-tion—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 feels 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 flour must be ground and, therefore, he does not thresh it forever, nor break it with the his cartwheel, nor bruise it with his horsemen.” First then—
I. We All Need Threshing
Some have a foolish conceit of themselves that they have no sin—but they deceive themselves and the Truth of God 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 so joyfully been brought into our garner. 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 is shut out at the front door, it tries the back gate, orclimbs 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 is rains. So far as my own observation goes, I have found 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 lies in the dust, but “cleaves” 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 run 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 does 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 till the corn is separated together 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 Spirit and by Him only will it be accomplished.