We have proceeded too far now with the
matter that has been brought to us for
this time for any kind of review or
retrospect, but suffice it to say that
what the Lord is saying to us is
gathered around the first words of 42nd chapter
of Isaiah, Behold my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen in whom my soul delighteth, I
have put my spirit upon him, the servant
of the Lord.
The meaning of servanthood and service.
A glance back to the chapter before that,
chapter 41, at verse 8, we see that
this divine conception and thought of servanthood was
in the first place related to Israel.
Thou Israel, my servant Jacob, whom I have
chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
We have seen that whereas the great thought
of ministering to God in the midst of
the nations and unto the nations was wrapped
up with the call of Israel, these prophecies
and others show how lamentably Israel failed and
had to be put on one side as
the servant of the Lord.
Then, in the prophecy, the Lord brought into
full view the one who would not fail
and who would fulfill all that thought of
ministering to him.
And here he is in these words of
chapter 42.
Then we have seen that the Lord has
not departed from his first thought and intention
to have all that meaning of servanthood as
now gathered up and set forth in his
Son, expressed in a people.
We move on to the later prophecies, not
only in this book, but in the other
prophecies.
See, that thought and purpose deposited in a
remnant.
The main nation failed.
The Lord secured everything in his Son and
then found for himself his answer.
As in a nation within the nation, we
have seen that that is exactly what we
have in the New Testament.
Church, in general, not answering to the Lord's
purpose and his calling to satisfy him, to
minister to him and his pleasure, failing again.
But the Lord moving on and appealing to
the Church and in the Church for a
Church within the Church, a company not nominal
but actual and true.
That is very evident truth in the New
Testament.
What we are then concerned with is the
nature of this kind of service and servanthood
that will bring to God that upon which
his heart is set.
Will satisfy him in establishing in the universe
that law of service or ministry to God.
Now I want you to just look at
one or two other fragments to bring us
to the one particular matter that will occupy
us in this connection this afternoon.
It is in chapter forty-one to begin
with.
Chapter forty-one, we've read the words of
Israel in verse eight.
Israel, my servant, look at verse fifteen.
Behold, I will make thee a new sharp
threshing instrument, having teeth.
Thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them
small.
Thou shalt make the hills as chaff.
Thou shalt fend them.
The wind shall carry them away.
The whirlwind shall scatter them.
Now would you just look at some words
in chapter twenty-one and verse ten.
O thou my threshing ground and the corn
of my floor.
O thou my threshing ground and the corn
of my floor.
Turn on to chapter twenty-eight and verse
twenty-eight.
Bread corn is ground, for he will not
ever be threshing it.
Though the wheel of his cart and his
horses scatter it, he doth not grind it.
This also cometh from the Lord of hosts,
which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in
wisdom.
Here is one more of the number of
conceptions of the servant of the Lord in
these prophecies of Isaiah.
A new sharp threshing instrument.
How many-sided is this service.
How its complexion changes.
With this note something strong, something almost terrible
comes in to the service.
The servanthood takes on something very severe.
There are other aspects.
There is the gentleness.
There is the meekness.
He shall not cry, nor lift up his
voice, cause it to be heard in the
street.
Brood, breed, shall he not break dimly smoking
flanks, shall he not quench.
That sounds far removed from a sharp threshing
instrument having teeth.
But it's the work of the same servant.
It's only another aspect of his business.
There is the goodness and the severity of
God.
They are both of God.
Now before we look at this sharp threshing
instrument, let us note one very important thing.
While I read those other passages in chapter
21 and 28, there coming to this passage
in 41, you can observe a transition.
It is the transition from being threshed to
become yourself the thresher.
In the two passages it's quite clear that
Israel was threshed.
O thou my threshing, seed
corn is bruised, I will make thee a
sharp threshing instrument.
And the point is this, that before we
can do any effective work for the Lord,
that work must have been done in us.
This is a very important, a very vital
part of the service of the Lord, to
be a sharp threshing instrument, as we shall
see.
It is something important to the Lord, something
necessary to him.
He must have it.
He must have a ministry that corresponds to
this idea of a sharp threshing instrument.
But, dear friends, it might be all too
easy to assume the business of a sharp
threshing instrument and begin to handle people and
situations very roughly.
Any such business can only be done by
those who themselves have been through the threshing
and the bruising.
It's only safe and only right that it
should be so.
And so it was with Israel, what a
threshing the Lord did with Israel, what a
bruising he gave them, many times, particularly
in their history.
And I suggest to you that the remnant
that returned from the exile knew in their
own experience what being threshed means, and really
bruised, softened, broken, humble, and
then used it this tremendously effective way.
That may explain a very great deal.
The strength, the power, the tremendously
searching, effective ministry of the Church can
only be done as the result of the
Church having itself been dealt with in that
way.
I have said that this is a ministry
that the Lord needs, a service that he
requires.
And to have it, he must take those
whom he will use through the experience that
he is seeking in those to whom he
uses them.
It's a law of service, however it may
be, individual servants of God to be effective.
I suggest the sharp threshing instrument having teeth
is quite a positive thing.
It is an effective thing, nothing negative about
that.
For any individual servant of God to really
be like that, positive and telling and counting,
effective, that servant will go through some seemingly
rough handling by the Lord.
It's a law of service.
If it should be a company, we have
sought to emphasize this repeatedly these days, the
Lord needs companies of people who stand in
this servanthood ministry.
Here, there, and there, standing as his servant
whom he upholds, upon whom he makes his
spirit rest.
And such companies, local assemblies, in order that
they shall really be effective, will go through
devastating experiences.
Make no mistake about it, the sharp threshing
instrument carries out a devastating work.
The Lord is very practical, he is not
theoretical, he makes things very real.
So that this, which here in the
symbolism is likened to a machine, is not
really a machine, it's a people with a
spiritual history.
A sentient people, unlike a machine, sensitive with
feelings, with a heart, with a soul, with
a human nature.
And this people, this machine, if you like,
here is a people or a machine with
a spiritual history.
It's been through it.
This people, when they came really to fulfill
this ministry, were in a position to say,
well, I know what I'm talking about, I've
been through it, and it's been through me.
I'm not giving you just a subject, and
a theme, and a theory, and a teaching.
I know this thing in my very being.
I've been through it.
That is what is here.
You dare not come to Isaiah 41.15,
I will make the sharp threshing instrument until
you have been to Isaiah 21.10, my
threshing machine.
Realize that?
Well, now that sounds pretty hard, but as
I've said, that may explain quite a lot,
may be.
Why the Lord deals with us so severely?
Why he is not going to allow us
to be in a false position if we
are going to be of any value to
him?
Why he takes us through it?
Why we become his threshing?
And the corn that is brewed.
The corn that is brewed.
Well, having said that, and I trust you
grasp it, and that it may be some
help, some explanation of your experience, we can
proceed to look at the function of this
instrument.
That is what it does, its effect.
This ministry, this kind of service, is in
the first place something that challenges.
Gazing your eye, mine's eye, the threshing instrument
advancing toward the standing corn.
And as it comes into contact, it's an
interrogation.
It's a challenge.
It says, in effect, what are you?
What have you got?
Are you worth anything?
I'm going to find that out.
It's a challenge.
And is there anyone here this afternoon who
will say that such a ministry is unnecessary
in these times or at any time?
The interrogation of profession, of what is standing
there in the field, is occupying the ground.
The interrogation of it as to what it
is.
What are you?
No, when the Lord gets to work on
us, that's the thing that immediately arises.
What we are.
And what we've got.
This is only one way of speaking of
it.
Speaking in general, you can say, whenever the
Lord begins to bring us under His flame,
under His testing, into days of severe trial,
the very first thing that is discovered is
what we are and what we have got.
Can you really stand up to this?
Have you got something with which to meet
this testing?
Don't you think it's important that that should
be discovered and revealed?
Say again, it is not the Lord's will
that any should be in a false position,
a mere profession without possession.
So, He needs a ministry, a ministry.
He needs you and me and He needs
companies.
Oh, He would that the whole church would
be of this kind as He intended Israel
to be and did intend the church to
be.
He would have this kind of ministry fulfilled
that, first of all, is ever discovering what
there is for God in profession, in the
whole system of things.
All that which is spread over the earth,
standing there and occupying the ground.
What is its worth?
What is its value?
What has it got?
What is the truth about it?
The Lord has to have a ministry that
does that.
The Lord finds it out.
See, I only heard last week or heard
only last week of somebody who had thought
that they were Christians and having been asked
if they were Christians, they were a Christian,
said yes, went to church, took communion and
read the Bible, prayed the prayers, went on
with the whole Christian form of things, and
then came into the home and circle of
some very thoroughgoing Christians.
Nothing was said, but here it was.
There was something different.
This was not just formal, the Christian system.
This was not the nominal state of things.
This was real.
Real.
Life with God there.
And that person went to her room and
had a bad night, came down next morning
and said, look here, I don't think I'm
a Christian at all.
Really, am I saved?
Can you tell me?
Of course, that opened the door for some
very thoroughgoing dealings between the difference in mere
profession, nominalism and Christian practices and life.
Reality knowing the Lord.
And I'm glad to say that that person
came clean through into a new place altogether
of assurance.
But it required, you see, something that really
exposed the falsehood, manifested real state of things.
And that is a ministry that is necessary.
The people who've been through it with God,
had some very drastic handling by Him, will,
amongst other things, have that effect of being
present as His challenge to all unreality.
His challenge to all falsehood.
His challenge as to what really is there.
And it may be that here this afternoon
the Lord would do that work.
Find out things and challenge someone here.
You've gone to church.
You've taken communion.
You may read the Bible, more or less.
You may pray, sometimes.
But the sharp pressure instrument would challenge you
today.
What really have you got if you were
put to the test?
What have you got?
Believe me, dear friends, the whole of Christianity
is going to be put to that test.
It has begun.
Christians all over this world are being challenged
by the situation.
The pressuring instrument is at work.
And it's being found out whether they've got
the real thing or whether it's only a
profession.
It's at work.
The day has already begun when this very
thing is coming to the whole of the
professing church.
Let there be no mistake about it.
Well, first of all then, the pressuring instrument
challenges and asks or confronts with the question,
what are you?
What have you?
And then as it proceeds with its work,
it separates.
It separates.
It discriminates.
You see what it is doing?
There is the chaff.
There are the husks.
There is that which is apparent on the
outside.
There is that covering.
There it is.
The sharp pressuring instrument gets to work to
separate between what is merely and only external,
outward, and that which is truly inward, the
grain.
To separate.
Yes, it's a great discriminating ministry.
Another prophet, the prophet Jeremiah, whose life and
ministry had so much to do with the
false, the false in Israel, asked a question
in the name of the Lord of the
people.
His question was, what is the chaff to
the wheat, saith the Lord of hosts?
Chaff.
Now, that which is so light, so flimsy,
so superficial, can be so easily carried away
by any draft that blows, goes with the
wind.
The light stuff.
Oh, I'm not trying to make up something
this afternoon.
Anyone who has any concern about the state
of things today will feel a poignancy, a
pain over the superficiality, the lightness, the frivolousness
of a great deal.
Indeed, it seems that some people have laid
themselves out to make it so.
Turn Christianity into having a good time and
the best of both worlds.
All their attractions are, come and have a
good time when you look into it to
see what it is.
It's all so light, so frivolous, so superficial.
A lot of that today.
I'm not exaggerating, and God knows how I
hate anything like unnecessary criticism.
But the spirit of a prophet, I don't
claim to be a prophet, but the spirit
of a prophet demands that the ministry of
the sharp-pressing instrument shall come alongside of
every other kind of ministry.
To first challenge, then to discriminate, to separate
between what is true and what is false.
The chaff may be a deception.
It may be a deception.
You may go to the wheat field where
it's all growing, standing up, take hold of
an ear, and when you press it, you
find nothing in it.
Husks.
Empty.
It's a lie.
It's a deception.
Do you think God is going to be
ministered to by that sort of thing?
Just an outward deception.
No.
The sharp-pressing instrument, a ministry of such
character, will always find out whether the thing
is true or false.
It's a very necessary thing.
It's necessary for it to be done in
you and in me, finding out whether there's
any deception about our position, any lie in
our position, how far it is true.
And I say again, God needs a ministry
that will do this, that will, by his
mercy, make those who are in a false
position realize how false their position is, and
seek for reality.
Chaff.
Would you like to feed on chaff?
How much satisfaction and growth would you find
in a diet of chaff?
And is it not true?
There's very, very much today in ministry, in
Christian life, upon which Christians are feeding that
brings no satisfaction.
It's empty.
It is not ministering to their spiritual building
up and strength and constitution.
It's not doing that.
Far, far too many Christians who are in
spiritual debility because of the lack of solid
food, real food, bread, corn.
How necessary it is, the Lord must have
a ministry that finds out and discriminates between
that which is only chaff and never, never
does build up, and that which ministers to
spiritual stature and food growth.
If we take the great servant, the Lord
Jesus, that one who did satisfy God with
all the other aspects of his ministry, how
true these things were of him, how challenging
he was to the situation in his day.
Oh, it was not possible for him to
be anywhere without the state of things being
exposed.
It was a vital part of his servanthood
to challenge, to challenge, and how thoroughly he
did it.
Yes, in that respect he was a sharp,
threshing instrument, having teeth, and how true again
it was of him that he was all
the time discriminating, setting things in their place.
This is the truth and that's the falsehood.
This morning we referred to the vine, Israel,
as God's vine.
We read from Isaiah chapter 5 how the
vine had disappointed the husband man.
Then Jesus came in, and we have to
put a circle around one word, I am
the true vine, the true vine.
This is but a tradition.
This is but a profession.
This is an empty thing, a pretense.
I am the true vine.
I am the truth.
His presence as well as his ministry had
that effect of dividing between the false.
The next thing that the sharp threshing instrument
does is that it settles destiny.
It settles destiny.
The chaff, the chaff, and you know why
it was said, when the Lord Jesus first
came into his ministry, he will truly purge
his threshing floor.
The wheat will he gather into his garner.
The chaff will he burn with unquenchable.
The garner and the fire, two destinies.
And the threshing floor decides and determines that
destiny, what the end is going to be.
Its positive object, of course, is not to
send to the flames.
I think that some ministries, especially in past
days, have thought that that was the supreme
thing to do, to send men to hell,
to hold flames before them.
Well, it may be necessary to keep in
view the one side of destiny, whatever it
means, whatever it means, with unquenchable fire.
That's a destiny.
And the threshing instrument determines that on the
one side.
But the positive intention and purpose of this
instrument, surely, is to get wheat and to
garner it, to preserve it, to secure it
against loss.
That's really what it is after.
If this chaff threshing instrument had intelligence, it
would not come with this attitude, I'm going
to find out all the chaff, that's my
business.
And to be occupied with the chaff and
talk about the chaff and condemn the chaff,
that's easy.
You don't want to be caught in that.
The instrument would say, no, I'm here, though
I know there's much chaff, I'm here really
to get wheat.
That's what I'm after.
I'm after the positive thing.
Dear friends, let us always remember in our
ministry that the Spirit of God is concerned
with the positive side and not the negative.
He has to take account of that and
deal with it accordingly.
But what he is really here for is
to get the corn, the corn, the bread
corn.
The real thing is after that.
Not to condemn the world, but that the
world might be saved.
So said the great servant of his coming.
And then the chaff threshing instrument had as
perhaps its last and final function, expression of
its ministry, a providing for the continuation of
the testimony.
The last thought is not to put it
away in the garner and shut the door
and leave it there.
And that's that.
We've got it.
That's all that matters.
No, it must be sown again.
It must be the start of further harvest.
That is what the Lord is really after,
to carry on, perpetuate and extend the testimony.
He's after spiritual increase.
But to get it, it's a chaff threshing
instrument.
You see, something very drastic.
The continuation of the testimony of Jesus through
the ages has ever been on this way.
It's never been an easygoing, superficial kind of
thing.
We know from the New Testament, we know
from John the Apostle in Patmos, that the
continuity of the testimony was coming through very
drastic handling, the Lord with the Church.
Oh, listen to those words to the seven
churches again.
What is it that the Lord is after?
The preserving and the going on of the
testimony of Jesus.
That is the heart of it all.
But in order that that might be this
chaff threshing instrument of discrimination, of manifestation, of
separation, must do its work in the churches,
in the believers, in the whole church.
And if the testimony is to be perpetuated,
it will be like this.
But let us take some heart from this,
which sounds a bit disconcerting.
Let's take some heart from this, dear friend.
The thoroughgoing dealings of the Lord with us
are to make things permanent and to give
increase.
They are not destructive and limiting in His
intention.
They are that He might have more and
more.
It's like this.
But having said all that, we must take
note of one thing here as we close.
You see, Isaiah's context, Isaiah's context, these words
about the chaff threshing instrument beating the mountains
and the hills.
And if you want to know what that
means, I think you'll find it in verse
11.
Behold, all they that are incensed against thee
shall be ashamed and confounded.
They that strive with thee shall be as
nothing and shall perish, because I will make
thee a chaff threshing instrument having teeth and
you'll beat the mountains alone.
These mountains correspond to those adverse forces, those
forces that were against the Lord and against
His puppets and His servants.
In some, some way, some mysterious way, they
were going to be broken and they were
going to be given like chaff to the
wind through the ministry of this people.
They were going to be proved incapable standing
before the Lord.
The mountains, the hills, the incensed against thee
will not be able to abide if you
are a people like this.
Well again, take one glance at the great
servant, what mountains of opposition, what mountains of
incensed people against him.
What's he done with them?
Jury was a tremendous mountain against him, set
for his destruction, incensed against him.
Oh, how incensed against him!
Crucify him!
Away with him!
Crucify!
What's he done with it?
He's plucked that mountain up and cast it
into the sea, the sea being the nations.
It's sunk in the nations.
He's done it.
Now that sounds hard, but you know the
Lord must have a ministry that really does
overthrow the forces of evil.
More to say about that perhaps later, but
there it is.
The letters close.
A disciplined, purged, separated people are a great
force against everything that is set against God.
They are.
They mean something to the hostile forces.
Well, this was very true of the Lord
Jesus, and it is intended to be true
of us.
I wonder if you can really grasp this
and appropriate it.
See, the Lord wants a ministry of this
kind today.
He needs it.
He needs your company where you are.
And I could mention the various places that
are represented here.
He wants that company there and there and
there to be, amongst all the other things
of servanthood, a sharp, threshing instrument having teeth
that will challenge all that is around as
to what it's got and what it is.
Not by your words, but by what you
are.
What you are.
And that will discriminate and separate.
It will go on.
You get into trouble for it.
And a lot of trouble.
But it's got to be done between falsehood
and truth.
It will do all this.
The Lord needs such an instrument.
Well, I haven't made this up.
This is not my conception.
I have given you the scripture.
The Lord said to Israel, and Israel failed.
He transferred it to an Israel within Israel.
He said it concerning the church.
The church is not doing it as a
whole.
And so he transfers it to the church
within the church and says, I have made
these sharp, threshing instruments having teeth.
Lord, give us all the meekness, humility that
is needed to fulfill that ministry.