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Threshing! By Pastor Bill Taylor A publication of My Father's House, inc. Volume 7/Issue 13 Prophecy: My people, I tell you, I know the longing of the hearts of those who are Mine who desire to be with Me. And I tell you, I desire also to be with you. And yes, I know that you know that I am with you in Spirit but we are hastening the day when we shall be together in the presence and the sight of one another. And I know those who desire Me because they prepare for that day and they let Me prepare them for that day through the purifying, through the chastenings, through the washings of the word; as I am doing here to cleanse you and make you ready. And I tell you My people, I also know the slanders, the blasphemies that have been spoken against you; truly they have been spoken against Me. For those who’ve spoken against the work that I do through you are speaking against Me and the Father. And truly I know and every word that has been spoken against you has been recorded. And I tell you those who say that they are Christians but are not will eat their words; I will feed their words to them in judgment, in righteous judgment, even as Moses fed the golden calf to those who worshipped that wicked thing, and they will know that I have loved you. For I am not unaware of what has gone on concerning you in this place. Every trial, every affliction, everything that’s risen against you I have seen and I am watching. And I have recorded. And I am waiting for the time that I will bring judgment upon those who have misjudged Me and you. And I tell you, My people, the work is an important work that you have been called to. OH, I would love to bring you home today, but the work is too important. There are so many others who are going to come because of what you do. And of course we love them too. And I encourage and exhort you, My Brethren, My Children, My Bride; I tell you, gird up your loins and do the work so that We may come again together and be one in the Heavenly kingdom when this work is finished, saith the Lord. (Prophecy delivered at "My Father's House") 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” (Lk3:16) Here fire indicates purification. “Behold I send My messenger, and He will prepare the way before Me. But who can endure the day of His coming? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” (Mal3:1-3) So this fire also indicates there is a purification taking place. And Luke continues, “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.” (Lk3:17) But here the fire is judgment. And this very strong warning that John the Baptist gives about Jesus’ coming is not “Oh we just love everybody” Christianity! This is a very stern warning that Jesus will violently separate and make a difference between those who are producing the acceptable offering, as it says in Malachi, “an offering in righteousness” versus those who are not producing an acceptable offering. Now the contemporary church is filled with people who are not producing acceptable offerings. They are producing Cain’s offerings or bringing the blind and the lame as it says in Malachi. Too many are giving God their leftovers of time and affection. Not the offering of Christ. Not what God deserves or expects. Now some churches have some understanding of the ministry of sowing. The sower sows the word; there are not many churches that don’t have some comprehension that when the bible talks about sowing that God uses men to sow the word of God. And there are probably quite a number of churches that understand something about plowing; plowing up the fallow ground. That it is a particular type of preaching that causes people to really examine their lives and see whether they’re full of thorns and thistles, cares of this world, lusts of other things. And the plowing anointing would be to break hearts, cause people to repent, and cause them to get into a right relationship with God where they have time for God and they will listen to and obey the word. So we’ve got ministries of plowing and we’ve got ministries of sowing. We also have ministries of reaping and even Jesus said to the apostles that, “You are reaping that for which you have not sown, and you are entering into other men’s labors.” So we can see that pretty much evangelism is the reaping ministry, bringing people into the church and getting them baptized. But I have never heard of any church lately that has seriously looked at the ministry of threshing. And yet the ministry of threshing is as valid a ministry as any of these others. And in fact the ministry of threshing is the ministry John the Baptist emphasizes most that Jesus will do. Threshing is a ministry that separates wheat from chaff. Threshing is a ministry that after you’ve brought the people in to the church, now you are to find out whether or not they are real or if they are hypocrites. And if they are not real you must do something about it. “As I live,” says the Lord God, “surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out.” (Ezek20:33-34) So when God gathers His people together He says, “I’m gathering them with fury” not with “Oh, I just love you so much!” “And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face.” (v35) God has had a problem with His people; they haven’t listened to Him. And He says how He will use fury to get them into a position where they will listen to Him. This is very similar to Isaiah 26 where it is said, “that even when grace is given to the wicked they won’t learn to do righteousness, but when God’s judgments are in the land then they’ll learn to do righteousness.” (v9-10) And God will use judgment to bring people into obedience. “Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you,” says the Lord God. “I will make you pass under the rod.” (Ezek20:36-37) And where there is a threshing ministry, there is a rod. The rod is used to thresh and the rod indicates what? Judgment, chastening. The person who carries the rod has the authority to judge and to discipline. And it’s an interesting thing how the churches can accept the ministries of reaping and evangelism, the ministries of sowing the word, the ministries of plowing, but they read these scriptures concerning threshing and they think that’s all going to happen supernaturally apart from man. That God is going to do that somehow without man. And yet the reality of it is (just as in these other ministries) God raises up men and ministries to thresh; and that is what our church is; it’s a thresher. We are a threshing machine. And there is a very, very needful ministry of threshing because there cannot be a glorious church without spot or wrinkle until the church has been threshed. Just as you can’t make bread out of unthreshed wheat because it has the gritty chaff in it, so you can’t make the bread of God out of a church that hasn’t been threshed. A church that hasn’t been threshed cannot feed others. It has to be threshed before it can produce anything that’s a good food for others. We will see that not only have we been threshed here but also much of what we have done at the prison has been in the threshing ministry and much of what is going out in the “Glory of His Grace” is a threshing ministry. Its all designed to show the difference between the wheat and the chaff and to bring the wheat together and make them God’s bread and to get the chaff out of the way. And God very much desires to do this. Jesus even said, “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk12:49) Now finishing Ezekiel 20, “I will purge the rebels from among you and those who transgress against Me. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant.” (Ezek20:37-38) The New Covenant God has given us is a two-sided covenant and it demands things of us even as it makes promises to us about things that God will do. The wheat are the ones who are living up to the demands of the Covenant. In some sense you can look at the baptismal vows and things that you were to receive in your baptism and you can decide whether you’ve lived up to your side of the covenant, in what you said that you would do for God in baptism – renounce the world, the flesh and the devil and live for God’s will. The question is are you living up to your vows? “Now there was a famine in the days of David for three years, year after year; and David inquired of the Lord. And the Lord answered, ‘It is because of Saul and his bloodthirsty house, because he killed the Gibeonites.” (2Sa21:1) David isn’t guilty of anything here that produces this famine but Saul’s previous government in Israel has done something that broke a sacred vow and so there was an injustice done and God considers that when you make a vow to Him or a vow in His name and you break it that’s defiling to His Name and His honor is at stake. When a Christian promises to do something God’s honor is at stake because as a Christian you are representing God. And so a vow of peace had been made by Joshua to the Gibeonites and Saul broke this vow, and because of that God was dishonored in the nation of Israel, so God caused a famine to come on Israel and you would do well to understand this: Sometimes God will bring a famine, a problem or a troublesome time to a good Christian just to get your attention about something you may not know about that has to do with the honor of God. That’s exactly the situation here; it had nothing to do with anything David did wrong, but God brought it about to get David to cry out to Him and David asks, “God what’s wrong, why are we having a famine and what have we done?” God answers and shows him the problem and once he sees the problem he goes to the Gibeonites and he says, “How can I settle this?” And the Gibeonites ask for the seven sons of Saul and David delivers them up and the Gibeonites hang them to make atonement for the broken vow and the attacks of Saul upon them. “After that God heeded David’s prayer for the land” (v14) God’s name has been justified now. I pray that people in the churches will understand how serious God is about vows made in His name, vows made to Him. Are you breaking a vow to God? You can expect famine, you can expect judgment, you can expect God to do something to get you to come back to keeping that vow. (1Ti5:11-12) And essentially what we’re looking at here in the threshing ministry, is the difference between those who make acceptable offerings to God, which would be keeping their vows and doing what the Lord expects of them, versus those who do not honor God acceptably and yet claim to be Christians. And He says “I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant” (Ezek20:37) In other words you must come to the place where you are keeping your side of it. And, “I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me.” (v38) Well what does John the Baptist say? “His winnowing fan is in His hand and He will thoroughly cleanse or purge His threshing floor.” Jesus will not have any disobedient chaff among His obedient wheat. “I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel.” (v38) So before we enter the land there is a threshing, but of course there has to be a reaping to gather the people who are heading toward the land, but then you have to thresh them to see which ones are fit to go in. You have to test them to see who will obey and who will not. Only the obedient are worthy to enter in. The scriptures on threshing are very important. You can see in every one of them something that pertains to the Kingdom of God. After Jacob dies in Egypt, Joseph and the Jews take his body to be buried in the cave that Abraham bought. “Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation.” (Ge50:10) Here we see the threshing floor is a place of mourning. It is not a partying place. When you are harvesting it’s a party. When you’re bringing in the vintage – it’s a party. But when you’re threshing, it’s like death. You are actually separating out the unworthy, and separations are sorrowfully painful like death is a separation so it isn’t a party. It’s a time and place of mourning. It’s a pretty rough ministry. The reason it’s so little understood in the churches is nobody wants to do it. As far as we are concerned at My Father’s House it was something we were already into before we really knew what it was. We were following the Spirit and He led us into it. “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. Your threshing shall last till the time of vintage, and the vintage shall last till the time of sowing” (Le26:3-5) So the threshing produces the edible bread and what do we have in this church? We have bread like no other church you’ve seen. Why? Because we’ve been threshed and you can bring bread out of a threshed church. And He says the threshing will last until vintage and that’s when the grapes will come in and you get the wine of Salvation. From the pattern here, it’s showing us that threshing precedes vintaging so that having done the threshing here we can expect to have a season of vintage coming. “You shall offer up a cake of the first of your ground meal as a heave offering; as a heave offering of the threshing floor, so shall you offer it up.” (Nu15:20) Even though it’s a grievous thing to go through threshing – and we’ll show you that again in Hebrews 12. What is Hebrews 12 about? It’s the rod, it’s the separating of the legitimate from the illegitimate; those who accept chastening are the wheat and those who run from it are the chaff. No chastening is joyous; it’s grievous. (v11) The chastening or the threshing times are grievous times. But after the threshing what you have left is the real Christians, the real church, because the disobedient chaff is gone. Another thing God is showing by this “heave offering from the threshing floor” is that only after the threshing can you count the wheat. Many of the silly churches around us are trying to count the wheat at the harvest before they’ve gotten to the threshing and most of what they are counting is just hay. Only after you’ve gone through the threshing can you truly say, “We really have a harvest because we’ve threshed it and we have wheat now and only wheat can be made into bread.” So we can be very thankful for the church that remains after threshing because that is the real church; these are the ones that will stick with you; really love each other; have real unity. These are the ones to be thankful for, the ones to give up an offering to God and say thank you for this church You’ve given us; this real wheat You’ve given us; these real brethren You’ve given us. “A heave offering of it to the Lord, a tenth of the tithe. And your heave offering shall be reckoned to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor and as the fullness of the winepress. Of all your gifts you shall offer up every heave offering due to the Lord, from all the best of them, the consecrated part of them.” (Nu18:26-27,29) As we see in Malachi, God is not looking for any sick or lame lambs. You give your best to God not your leftovers. “Therefore you shall say to them: ‘when you have lifted up the best of it, then the rest shall be accounted the Levites as the produce of the threshing floor and as the produce of the winepress.” (v30) The useful produce. Now let’s consider when Gideon is threshing wheat in the winepress in order to hide it from the Midianites. There’s something very similar to pressing the wine out of the winepress and threshing isn’t there? In other words they’re both, in a sense, a judgment – you’re taking your grapes and you’re squeezing the juice out of them in the winepress, and you’re taking your wheat and you’re beating the chaff out of it to make it useful. And you see the connection in a lot of places between threshing and vintage and here you see the possibility when there were a lot of enemies that would steal the wheat, the possibility of threshing going on in a place where wine pressing was supposed to be going on in order to keep it safe. God’s enemies are always trying to steal the wheat and like the Midianites in Gideon’s time they are always looking to see if anybody has any wheat they can steal. So to keep it safe, you keep it out of sight. And we can see God’s ability to prepare a table in the midst of our enemies and to actually keep a work of threshing going on in a place where there are thieves all around trying to steal it. And so Gideon has a work going on in the winepress that the Midianites can’t see. And the winepress represents the true church where the wine of salvation can freely flow, but in times of great peril where there are many adversaries, God may use the church as His place of threshing also, to save the wheat from His enemies. Now, what would you say about this? Is this a big work or small work? In times like these – it’s a small work, but its still feeding God’s people. It’s a needful and necessary work. Maybe even more necessary than the big works that go on in the safer times. Because in a time of great need, a little can be a very important lifesaver. Whereas in a time where there is great abundance a very large work can be mostly just unnecessary surplus. Now when Naomi tries to arrange things for Ruth she sends her to the threshing floor. “Ruth, go to the threshing floor and you’ll find Boaz at the threshing floor.” What kind of a man is Boaz? He’s a Godly man and he’s a man’s man. Women and womanly men are running too many churches today and there’s no threshing going on. Men do the threshing and it’s a hard job to do the threshing; a rough manly job to do the threshing. You’ll find God’s man; you’ll find a man’s man at the threshing floor. If you’re looking for a real man, go to the threshing floor. That’s not where you’ll find wimps. And where do you find Jesus? “His winnowing fan is in His hand, He will thoroughly purge His threshing floor.” If you’re hunting for Jesus, go to the threshing floor to look for Him. Because what’s Jesus busy about? Cleansing His church, that’s what He’s busy about. You don’t go to the foolish churches that do not believe in cleansing if you want to find Jesus, because He won’t be there. He will be found busy where there is threshing and cleansing going on. (Jn2:13-17) “Then they told David, saying, “Look, the Philistines are fighting against Keilah, and they are robbing the threshing floors.” (1Sa23:1) Once again we see, the enemies of God’s people are thieves and particularly they rob the threshing floors, and that’s what the heretics and the wicked false teachers try to do. (Acts20:29-30) They try to grab the people who are coming to the Lord and turn them into two fold more the child of hell than themselves. So there needs to be a war against those who are robbing the threshing floors. God said to David, “Go to war against them” And He says the same thing to us. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude3-4) We are at war with the people who rob the threshing floors. Now David is transporting the ark in an unscriptural way. “And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor” (2Sa6:6) Where does Uzzah die? At the threshing floor! What’s going on at the threshing floor? Judgment! “And when they came to Nachon’s threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error; and he died there by the ark of God.” (2Sa6:6-7) God works judgment at the threshing floor. Now this next passage is speaking about the judgment that comes against Israel because David has sinfully numbered the people and God causes a three-day plague in which seventy thousand of the people died. “And when the angel stretched out His hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the destruction, and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “It is enough; now restrain your hand.” And the angel of the Lord was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” (2Sa24:16) The name Araunah means God is firm, or you may say that God is unchangeable, God is solid, and God is absolute. And the fact that the threshing floor is named for Araunah is an indication that you are not going to change God’s mind about things that pertain to righteousness. God is going to have His way. God is firmly committed to righteousness, holiness and to upholding His word. And He will thresh accordingly. “Then David spoke to the Lord when he saw the angel who was striking the people, and Gad came that day to David and said to him, “Go up, erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite” (2Sa24:17-18) In Chronicles it says, “And God sent an angel to Jerusalem to destroy it. As he was destroying, the Lord looked and relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who was destroying, “It is enough; now restrain your hand.” And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. So David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces. Therefore, the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David that David should go and erect an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. So David went up at the word of Gad, which he had spoken in the name of the Lord. Now Ornan turned and saw the angel; and his four sons who were with him hid themselves, but Ornan continued threshing wheat.” (1Ch21:15-16,18-20) Here’s a man who looks up in the sky and sees an angel of death whose already killed 70,000 people and just goes right back to his threshing. Threshing must be a pretty important ministry. The fact is the Angel is up there threshing and Ornan is down here threshing. They are both threshing. Ornan didn’t stop threshing until he sees David, then he goes out. The Angel didn’t stop him; the angel is a fellow worker – a fellow thresher. But David stopped him. David is a king. He has respect for David. Now back in Samuel “Now Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer up whatever seems good to him” (v22) but then “David bought the threshing floor… and David built there an altar to the Lord” (v24-25) “Now Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where the Lord had appeared to his father David, at the place that David had prepared on the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite.” You cannot build God’s temple until you have a threshing floor. The threshing floor is foundational because what the temple is built out of is the true believers and you’ve got to get the chaff out. The believers have to be threshed first. The temple has to be built out of the people who are truly God’s people, not chaff. It has to be built out of living stones that are acceptable to God, not the dead who bring forth Cain’s offering. So, we’ve already had the Spirit speak to us here, that we are building the foundation for the new Spiritual church that Jesus will soon return to. It will be a threshed church that Jesus returns to. His Spiritual church will be built on the threshing floor. There won’t be any chaff, wood, hay or stubble in it. There won’t be any spots, wrinkles or blemishes in it. It’s going to be a well-threshed church. A glorious church. So if you are building the temple; you start at the threshing floor. And all these things that are calling themselves churches where there isn’t any threshing going on will not be a part of that temple. And it isn’t just God that threshes – God uses men. God threshes through the preaching. He threshes through discipline in the church; reproving, rebuking, etc. Now let’s look at some things pertaining to chaff. Remember Christ’s winnowing fan is in His hand. The wheat will be gathered into His granary but the chaff will be burned with unquenchable fire. “The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.” (Ps1:4) The winnowing fan is Jesus himself creating a wind that drives the chaff away. Now have you seen chaff driven out of this church? What kind of wind did Christ use? Sometimes He used the wind of a zealous preacher. We’ve seen chaff driven out at the prison, and the wind being used is a preacher who is not preaching quietly but who is standing up and showing people their sins. His winnowing fan is in His hand. What does Revelation say concerning the angels of the churches being in His hand? Who is in His hand and what is His fan? What does He use to create the wind? It’s that preaching in the Spirit that offends the ungodly and drives them away. God is showing us this isn’t a strange thing. You don’t think, “Oh you’ve been offending people.” And you think, “God, they don’t like me.” But this is what God is saying, “Bill, this is what I’ve created you for. I created you to chase the chaff away. I created you to separate wheat from chaff – this is what you are here for. Don’t think it’s strange, or tragic or a pathetic thing that many people leave when you preach. Your preaching is designed to drive the chaff away. When chaff runs you’ve done a good job.” Because somebody has got to show My people the difference between wheat and chaff, otherwise they just stay together. The wheat doesn’t know any better and the chaff just keeps running in the flesh. But you get a preacher in here who tells the difference between who is of God and who isn’t – the separation begins. And I can show you the difference between who is of God and who isn’t. I can tell you who is in the Spirit and who isn’t by what they do. But what I do, I will also continue to do, that I may cut off the opportunity from those who desire an opportunity to be regarded just as we are in the things of which they boast. (2Co11:12) Am I mean? You go to any other church in the country and they will sit there and let the chaff and the wheat just be like they are the same because they don’t want to hurt the chaff’s feelings. But God can’t make bread out of a church like that. You can’t do anything with a church like that- it’s full of garbage. Think about it. Why is it that I have to show you the difference? So many “Christians” will run to get some earthly catalog – the latest Wal-Mart mailer to see what’s on sale at Wal-Mart and let the Bible just sit. Now, am I hurting feelings when I say that? I’m telling you the truth. I’m showing you where the heart is. I’m exposing the difference between wheat and chaff. The wheat in the church will read their Bible. Whatever God is into, they are into because their heart is in God and in God’s things. The chaff will leave their Bible sit while they fool around with other things. The wheat comes to church with an offering for God that is acceptable; the chaff will just sit and not be a part of the church service. They don’t prophesy. They don’t testify! They are full of imaginations that exalt themselves against the truth of God and they think it’s ok to be chaff as they are. But they are disobedient and it isn’t ok to have chaff in God’s church. The chaff must either repent or be run off. The true church has every right to pray, “God burn that chaff up and get it out of the way.” The disobedient make their own decision to be chaff: They decide that; we don’t. They decide it by their reaction to God’s word. This is why Jesus isn’t wringing His hands over people that are going to hell. He is FANNING THE FLAMES! He is sending them there. He’s separating the wheat from the chaff. Those who believe the word and are baptized are the wheat. Those who don’t believe are damned. (Mk16:16) Paul says, “You judge yourselves unworthy of Eternal Life.” The chaff are rejecting God’s word as far as being doers of it. They may hear but they don’t do; they are chaff. When you walk into the threshing floor at the beginning of the work there is no wheat. But there are sheaves. At this stage the church people may or may not know each other but they don’t really treat each other as family. You have to thresh to get wheat. As you thresh you get a little pile of wheat started. These are the faithful; the ones that endure chastenings, repent of their unspiritual ways and grow in obedience. They receive instruction and they stay in unity. They begin to act as brethren; a real family of God. They pray for one another, they depend on each other, they truly enter into the edifying of the brethren in love. You keep threshing and the little pile of wheat gets bigger and bigger and bigger. The family of brethren increases, but the church itself appears smaller because you keep blowing the chaff away. You don’t save the chaff, but Christ blows it into the fire. The chaff are those people who won’t receive correction. As they leave the number of people in the church seems to decrease but actually the true church is growing. The “family” is growing. The brethren who truly love and care for each other is increasing. As you keep threshing, pretty soon you’ve got a nice pile of wheat, and the chaff is gone. And every time we get done threshing, God brings in some more sheaves and we thresh them also, and the pile of wheat gets bigger. If you want to have a church that’s worth anything to God you have to get the wheat separated from the chaff and get the chaff out of the church. “Let those be put to shame and brought to dishonor who seek after my life; let those be turned back and brought to confusion who plot my hurt. Let them be like chaff before the wind, and let the Angel of the Lord chase them.” (Ps35:4-5) We see so many references to the wicked as being like chaff and God chases the chaff away. He won’t have them in His church. “Therefore as the fire devours the stubble, and the flame consumes the chaff, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will ascend like dust; because they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts, and despised the Word of the Holy One of Israel.” (Is5:24) The difference between wheat and chaff is decided by whether or not they live by God’s word. “And the prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream: and he who has My Word, let him speak My Word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the Lord.” (Jer23:28) The one who has a dream includes the one who has an imagination, the one who has an opinion, the one who trusts in his own conceits or the conjectures of men; anything other than the word of God. Because anything other than the word of God is a dream; it’s not real. When we go to the prison, I preach what the word of God says and it offends the chaff because they do not believe God’s word. They want to have church according to their own biases and not God’s way. But God’s house will not have chaff in it. His people are word people and they live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Jesus says, “My Words are Spirit and My Words are life.” (Jn6:13) “Heaven and earth will pass away but My word won’t pass away.” (Lk21:33) The word must be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. If you don’t receive what Moses and the Prophets said, then you won’t believe if someone rises from the dead. (Lk16:31) God’s house is made up of God’s wheat and God’s wheat are the people who have the word of God in them. Jesus is the Bread of life. Jesus is the Word made flesh. What are we if Christ is in us? The Bread of Life. What are we if Christ is in us? The Word made flesh. We are the Word people. We live by what God says not by what people imagine. The preaching that tells you what God says separates those who live by what God says from those who disagree with God. And that is the issue upon which the chaff is blown away. The chaff are offended that you would actually believe what God says instead of agreeing with their traditions of men. (Mk7:7) They are insulted that you would actually wear a covering instead of making excuses not to like they do. (1Co11) They are insulted that we would actually say, “women are not to be pastors or teachers with authority over men.” (1Ti2:12) God says this and we didn’t make this up! They become indignant if we say Christians are not sinners and true believers should be perfect as their Father in Heaven is perfect! (Mt5:48) They say nobody can be perfect! They are insulted by the word of God itself and that’s what makes them chaff. But in the stupid churches the people will not bring up issues that would insult the chaff, so the chaff sits there pretending they are believers, and the issues that would separate the wheat from the chaff are ignored. But in God’s church where there is threshing the issues that bring about the threshing are the very issues that show who will obey God’s word versus who will argue with it and disobey and be separated from God’s word. These issues distinguish the ones who believe God and separate them from the ones who oppose God’s word and believe the opinions of men. Those are the very lines upon which we separate wheat from chaff. So those are the things we preach and that is how we find out where each one is. Do you believe all of God’s word and do it? Then you are wheat. Do you fight with God and argue with Him about the things His word requires? Then you are chaff. There are a lot of ways to fight with God. Some come out aggressively and fight against the word, but others will sit there and say, “ I agree with you” and never do the word and then hinder the rest of the church by never doing what they claim to agree with. (Mt21:28-31) There are all kinds of disobedience and different levels of it, aggressive disobedience, passive disobedience, but its all chaff. Now, the very essence of how to separate wheat from chaff is – tell people what God’s word says and see how they react to it. And don’t ignore the unpopular subjects. It’s especially important to go after those unpopular subjects; subjects like shunning; a very unpopular subject. The unpopular subjects are the ones that show you most clearly who is wheat and who is chaff, because you see wheat can never argue with God. Wheat says, “If God’s word commands it then we obey it.” (Jn12:49-50) This is the way the wheat is. You start finding the people who are arguing with God on anything; shunning, covering, what they call “love,” reproving, rebuking, women preaching, any of that stuff that God says to do; they disagree with it. They are CHAFF. They don’t respect God’s word. They want to have it their own way. These subjects are “controversial” not because they are unclear or hard to understand. They are controversial because false Christians, chaff Christians, don’t like them. They are easy to understand. But the chaff doesn’t want to obey. They want to have it not God’s way but the way men have decided to have it. They are CHAFF! Notice the attitude of Jeremiah when he says, “What is the chaff to the wheat?” Who cares about them? They are chaff. We don’t cry over them. They make the choice to be chaff. When somebody doesn’t receive God’s word as God’s word, (1The2:13) they are CHAFF! There is no sense in us crying over them. They make the choice. We offer them truth and they count themselves unworthy and they choose not to love the truth. (2The2:10) They choose not to believe God. They choose to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. (Ro1:18) They choose to argue with the living God. (Is45:9-10) They choose to argue with the truth. They choose to rebel against God and have it their own way. What is the chaff to the wheat? We don’t concern ourselves about them anymore. We care for the wheat. Our job is to take care of the wheat. God judges those outside. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore “put away from yourselves the evil person.” (1Co5:12-13) When they show themselves to be chaff they are cast out and it’s the Father who takes over in dealing with them. When they show themselves to be wheat they are inside and it’s the Lord Jesus and His church who watch over their lives. In the true church we are in the place where the Lord Jesus runs things. Anybody who shows themselves to be chaff, they are not our worry anymore. The Father takes over concerning them now. He will judge them and He will deal with them. Our business is to care for the wheat. We are busy about the body of Jesus, the temple of God. That’s our business and that’s what we take care of. Once the disobedient show themselves to be out of the church, they’re not our business any more. “And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.” (Mt18:17) The Father will judge whether He can bring them in later or whether He needs to destroy or to chasten. But this much we can tell you, if they don’t repent they’ve got no business in the church, no business bothering the church and no business harassing the church and we can pray and cast them out and know God will blow them away! And that’s what God says He will do with the chaff; blow them away! “Woe to the multitude of many people who make a noise like the roar of the seas. And to the rushing of nations that make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters! But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away, and be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind, like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.” (Is17:12-13) Woe to people who fight against God, because God will turn on them and like they are chaff, He will blow them away. “Moreover the multitude of your foes shall be like fine dust, and the multitude of the terrible ones like chaff that passes away; yes, it shall be in an instant, suddenly.” (Is29:5) “Oh, my threshing and the grain of my floor! That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.” (Is21:10) Everything God has told me I share with you. You are my threshing and you are the grain of my floor. I have threshed in this place and you are the wheat that is left. And now to whom do I talk? I don’t talk to the people who have left, I talk to the people who stayed. “Oh, my threshing and the grain of my floor!” I declare to you what God declares to me. You are the ones that hear and you are the ones I speak to. The same thing with Jesus; Jesus is speaking here when He says, “Oh, My threshing and the grain of My floor!” Bill, I’ve threshed you and I tell you what I have to speak, because you are My threshing and you are the grain of My threshing floor. I’ve shown you My word and you’ve held to it, and I’ve chastened and disciplined and you’ve endured and remained. The winds of affliction haven’t blown you away. Who is the real Christian? The threshings of Christ are the real ones – the grain of His floor, the ones who stay with Him and He talks to them. In John 6 when Jesus tells His followers they must eat His flesh and drink His blood, He is threshing and most of the disciples leave Him but Then Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also want to go away?” But Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn6:67-68) And here you can see the disciples who remain are the wheat – His threshing and the grain of His floor. “For the black cummin is not threshed with a threshing sledge, nor is a cartwheel rolled over the cumin; But the black cumin is beaten out with a stick, and the cummin with a rod. Bread flour must be ground; therefore he does not thresh it forever.” (Is28:27) This tells us that with God seasons change and although many of us have been through God’s threshings there comes a time when the threshing stops and He turns us into bread. Threshing doesn’t continue forever. It’s a season. The plowing doesn’t continue forever. After plowing there is sowing, and sowing doesn’t continue forever. After sowing there’s watering, and watering doesn’t continue forever. After watering there is harvesting and harvesting doesn’t continue forever. After harvesting there is threshing and the threshing doesn’t continue forever. After threshing there’s the grinding of the wheat into flour and then bread making. And you know, until the wheat is ground each kernel is an individual but God grinds His wheat by putting us through a common affliction together – and when He is done we are one flour – no longer individuals each one doing his own thing, but now a true church, a people with a common purpose, truly connected to one another, truly in unity and that’s when we are fit to be made into bread. That is when the church as a congregation starts producing the word of life – they become a loaf of God’s living bread; one bread. (1Co10:17) There is a lot of bread coming out of My Father’s House. “Likewise the oxen and the young donkeys that work the ground will eat cured fodder, which has been winnowed with the shovel and fan.” (Is30:24) Winnowing is part of the threshing. The winnowing is what gets the chaff away from the wheat so that you’ve got clean wheat to make good bread. In this church there is good bread, because there has been winnowing to remove the chaff. “You shall conceive chaff you shall bring forth stubble; your breath, as fire, shall devour you.” (Is33:11) Because they have dealt treacherously, (v1) “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness has seized the hypocrites: “Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? He who walks righteously.”(Is33:14-15) Remember Christ will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fan is in His hand. This is talking about threshing again isn’t it? “Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I will help you, says the Lord and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make you into a new threshing sledge with sharp teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and beat them small, and make the hills like chaff. You shall winnow them, the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them; you shall rejoice in the Lord.” (Is41:14-16) This also describes the threshing ministry. We are like a threshing sledge. We are teaching the true churches, the true Christians, the true believers, to see the difference between real Christians, wheat, and false Christians, chaff, so that the true can separate themselves from the false; the blind leaders of the blind and such; so that they can come out from among them and join together with real Christianity where they can be useful to God. Most Christians today do not have a discernment to see the difference. Most preachers don’t know that they have so much chaff in their churches; they just cover it up and pretend it isn’t there. But God has raised us up and we’ve been showing the difference and the people who are of God, who are the wheat; they are starting to wake up and they are hearing and seeing. What hadn’t been shown them has been shown them. What they haven’t heard before they are hearing now and they are seeing the truth in it. And there is a threshing going on. And those who are chaff HATE US! THEY HATE US! Because we have shown everybody what they are. And it’s a good thing to be hated by people who are hateful to God. (Mt5:10-11) Rejoice! Don’t let it hurt your feelings. People that hate God, that hate His word and His true church; why it’s a compliment when they hate you. We are doing our job well if they hate us. We are uncovering the demons and the devils and the chaff in the church and it is only to be expected that they should hate us. Hallelujah, that they hate us! We are not friends to chaff. We are saving the wheat from this wicked chaff bunch, the churches of chaff. We are uncovering their plots and their devices and their wicked ways. God is chasing them away with their foul doctrines and their lies that come against God’s word. Thank God they hate us. There would be something wrong if they didn’t hate us. We wouldn’t be doing our job, because our job is to destroy the works of the chaff and to destroy the works of the evil one (1Jn3:6) and to show them what they are so they can either repent or be blown out of the way of God’s work. I’m telling you that if the Lord tarries the power and effect of what God is doing through this church at My Father’s House is not going to be fully understood in this generation. It’s a work that will continue way beyond us. Since the days of the Apostles there hasn’t been a work that has so clearly shown the difference between wheat and chaff. And in the church today we are one of the very few peoples who can truly teach what a threshing ministry is. And it is the threshing ministry that will produce the glorious end time church, and get the chaff out; the spots and wrinkles out. (Eph5:27) Christ has called us for this very purpose. “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor when it is time to thresh her; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.” (Jer51:33) The daughter of Babylon is not Babylon, it’s the daughter of Babylon. And most of the churches today are the daughters of Babylon. You can tell because they look so much like the world – like Babylon. And when churches look like Babylon they’re daughters of Babylon and they are about to be threshed, because its time for God to thresh them and we can pray – “God thresh them.” “You watched while a stone was cut out without hands, which struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were crushed together, and became like chaff from the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. (Da2:34-35) This is the threshing ministry of Jesus. This is what Jesus has come to do; to knock down every thing that is not of God and just as it were chaff, to blow it away. whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. (Heb12:26-27) “Oh, Jesus just loves everybody. He just wants everybody to be so happy and peaceable and enjoy their worldly lives.” If you think this you do not know the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus we know. “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Lk12:49) Hosea speaks of those who sin more and more making false gods and following lies. “Therefore they shall be like the morning cloud and like the early dew that passes away, like chaff blown off from a threshing floor and like smoke from a chimney.” (Hos13:3) God is not messing around with the people who reject His word; He is blowing them away and burning them up. Over and over the people who reject His word are blown into the fire like chaff. “What is chaff to the wheat?” “Gather yourselves together, O undesirable (or shameless) nation” – this is a people who are not acceptable to God. “Before the decree is issued, or the day passes like chaff, before the Lord’s fierce anger comes upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you! Seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth” (Zep2:1-3) Before the day of the Lord comes upon you – seek the Lord! Because if He hasn’t destroyed you yet, you still have opportunity to repent before He blows you away like chaff and then it’s too late. Remember in Ezekiel 20 that God will take the people out and cause them to pass under the rod and He will purge out the rebels – that’s a threshing! Hebrews 12, the chastening of the Lord is also a threshing – It separates those who receive correction, who receive His word, from those who reject the correction; and the ones who reject are chaff and they are blown away. Even the passage that says “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” (Heb12:12-13) So that what is lame may not be blown away, because if you don’t get straightened out you will be blown away like chaff. Or you can look at Paul when he says “I discipline my body and I keep it under lest having preached to others I should be blown away like chaff and I should be a castaway.” (1Co9:27) “Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion; for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves bronze; you shall beat in pieces many peoples; I will consecrate their gain to the Lord, and their substance to the Lord of the whole earth.” (Mic4:13) Churches that are like the world are the daughters of Babylon. But churches that are like Christ are the daughters of Zion, and He has called us, the daughter of Zion, to arise and thresh. It is a ministry. It is just as real a ministry as plowing, or sowing, or reaping, because you can’t make bread even after you have plowed, and sowed, and watered, and reaped. You can’t make BREAD until you have THRESHED! How important threshing is and how inedible has the wheat of God been in these foolish churches around us who will not thresh. And they want us to eat unthreshed wheat like a donkey. Well “Arise, and thresh,” says God. Get rid of the chaff so I can turn you into bread and feed the people. Well, thank God you have done it here, Lord. Grant grace to open the eyes that those around us who have been blind to the threshing ministry and have not seen it or recognized it and have even hated it and thought is was mean and cruel can see that in fact it is a most needful thing to be threshed if you are to produce the bread of God. Threshing has to be done, and they must repent who have hated the threshing if they are to become a part of God’s house. They must repent deeply and they must respect the threshing machines that God raises up because this is where the bread comes out. The chaff comes out one side and is burnt but the wheat gathers in the granary, and then it is ground to flour. The chaff goes into the fire, and the flour into the oven and holy bread of God comes out. And that is what is happening at My Father’s House. Blessed be the name of the Lord! Prophecy: I tell you My people, My love is righteous. My love is not sloppy. My love is not given just to anybody who wants to use it for their own things. I tell you, in this place, you have experienced My love. My love has come through My preacher. My love has come through My word. My love has come through My chastenings. And My love has come through My threshings. And you have recognized My love because you want to be like Me, because you want to love Me back for who I am and not for what I can give, because you know My love is holy. And you know without holiness no one will see Me. So therefore; when you say that My love draws you to Me it’s because you know what I do for you is right and it will make you right in My sight. And I also tell you My people, that because My love has drawn you near Me, I will use you to show others the love that I have. And I tell you it’s not sloppy. It’s not that sloppy agape, lovey demons, loving the wicked in his sin. But I tell you My love is threshing. My love is separating the wheat from the chaff because I love the righteous. And if you love Me, you love the righteous. And I tell you, be strong in My word and stay close to My Spirit and I will use you because you have My heart; You have My love and you have My heart for the Bride. And I will use you in such a way that will bring forth the Glorious Bride, saith the Lord. (Prophecy delivered at “My Father’s House”)
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