Let us also look to a related passage in Matthew 3:1–12. Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (the margin reads, “has come near”). For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet, saying, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, make His paths straight!’ ” This passage in Isaiah is quoted with regard to John the Baptist in each of the four gospels: Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3, and John 1. In each instance the voice of one crying in the wilderness refers to John the Baptist.
Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair, and a leather belt about his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea, and all the district around the Jordan; and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins. But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance; and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.
“And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees” (hold that in your mind); “every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. As for me, I baptize you in water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not even fit to remove His sandals; He Himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean His threshing floor….”
This might be difficult for us to comprehend until we understand the old methods of harvesting used in Bible times. First, a hand threshing instrument called a flail was used to thresh the grain. Usually it consisted of a wooden staff with a broad piece of board or a short, thick stick attached to one end by a hinge. The one who did the threshing would swing the board and beat the grain which was lying on the threshing floor, a smooth stone surface.
After flailing the wheat repeatedly in this manner, the thresher tossed it into the wind with a large, wooden winnowing fork. The wheat, being heavier, fell back to the floor, while the chaff blew away. Later it was burned. Psalm 1:4: …the chaff which the wind driveth away. The Holy Spirit comes as a fire; He comes also as a wind.
The chaff is the protective covering of nature that is upon the wheat as it grows. Because this part is inedible, it must be separated from the grain. In Luke 6:1–2 the disciples picked a handful of wheat while passing through a field and began rubbing it in their hands to loosen the chaff so that they could eat the wheat. The Pharisees accused them of threshing on the Sabbath day.
The chaff must be separated from the wheat. Afterwards it can be gathered together and burned with fire. It cannot be burned while it is still on the wheat. The entire kernel of wheat represents the Christian; the chaff is the human nature with which we are born. It grows with us from the time we are an infant.
The time must come when God brings some experience to our life that is like a threshing, which takes away that which is natural to us. By the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire, the Lord wants to separate us from the chaff in our life and burn it by the fires of the Holy Spirit. The initial experience in the Holy Spirit does not make us holy. It is the baptism of fire that removes from us the predisposition to a nature that God condemns. It looses us from it and brings us into another dealing of the Lord completely.
Today most people will accept the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but they reject the fire. It is not the reproach now that it was some years ago when people who attended a certain church were called Holy Rollers.
Today people do not stumble over receiving the Holy Spirit, but they do protest and reject the fire that was prophesied would come with that baptism, the fire which deals with the chaff in their lives. They reject the fire that is related to the threshing of the Lord which will separate them from their human nature and bring an end to ambition, and their own personal desires and burdens.
The mountains shall be brought down and the valleys will be filled and a way will be made for the Lord. The fire comes to take the ups and downs out of our lives. Until the Lord threshes the chaff out of our lives, we will continually waver in our walk.
As victims of the old nature and victims of our emotions, we become discouraged and disheartened, hemmed in by the chaff that completely surrounds the nature that God wants to bring forth in us.
The true characteristic of walking with God is the unique way that God works a chastening in our life by disciplining us and working the fire within us. The threshing separates us from it; but the Holy Spirit destroys it with an unquenchable fire.
No one who follows their own understanding will ever come into a walk with God. Too much of it is involved with being threshed. Solomon’s Temple was built on the threshing floor of Ornan (II Chronicles 3:1). And on the threshing floor, God is again building up the living stones that will be His temple. The temple of Soloman is a type of irreversible dedication. The stones were finished before they were set in the temple.
Many say yes to the Holy Spirit, feeling that He will help them as they do their own thing. But the baptism of fire will help them to do His thing. The dealings of God’s is a key to the Kingdom.
Matthew 3:2 says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” When the Word begins to come about the Holy Spirit and the baptism of fire, about the threshing floor and the burning of the chaff, then the Kingdom of heaven is near. The greatest assurance we can have that we are walking in the truth which God has revealed is the fact that we are experiencing the repentance that is necessary for the gospel of the Kingdom to prevail.
We need to Make a fresh dedication, not only to the outcome, but also to the process by which God brings it to pass. Be dedicated to the Kingdom, but be dedicated also to the means by which God brings it about. We have to go through the wilderness of testing, before we walk in the power of the kingdom. When we Let God put the fire to our chaff, then because of our submission to the means by which God brings about the end, we can move ahead immediately.
God’s righteousness is attractive. It is not repulsive like that which we normally find in holiness teaching and the pharisaic attitudes. When we suffer with Him; when we suffer the threshing and the fires upon the chaff then we will reign with Him. The wheat does not lose a thing when it loses its chaff. It brings forth a hundredfold.