Morning and Evening

June 20, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." — Amos 9:9 · KJV

Every sifting comes by divine command and permission. Satan must ask leave before he can lay a finger on Job. More than that, in some sense our siftings are directly the work of heaven, for the text says, "I will sift the house of Israel." Satan, like a drudge, may hold the sieve, hoping to destroy the grain; but the overruling hand of the Master accomplishes the purity of the grain by the very process the enemy intended for destruction. Precious but much-sifted grain of the Lord's threshing floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the Lord directs both flail and sieve to His own glory and to your eternal profit. The Lord Jesus will surely use the winnowing fan that is in His hand and will divide the precious from the worthless. All are not Israel who are of Israel; the heap on the barn floor is not all clean grain, and so the winnowing process must be performed. In the sieve, true weight alone has power; husks and chaff, having no substance, must fly before the wind, and only solid grain will remain. Observe the complete safety of the Lord's wheat: even the least grain has a promise of preservation. God Himself sifts, and therefore it is stern and terrible work; He sifts them in all places, "among all nations"; He sifts them in the most effectual manner, "like as corn is sifted in a sieve"; and yet for all this, not the smallest, lightest, or most shriveled grain is permitted to fall to the ground. Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the Lord. A shepherd would not lose one sheep, nor a jeweler one diamond, nor a mother one child, nor a man one limb of his body; neither will the Lord lose one of His redeemed people. However little we may be, if we are the Lord's, we may rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.

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