The great war for the extermination of sin out of the heart, or
sinners out of the church is destined to sweep over all the nations
of the earth. "The isles saw it, and feared; the ends of the earth
were afraid, drew near, and came" (Isa. 41:5).
Thus saith the Lord: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of
Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the
Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 41:14). When sin and self are all
destroyed there is barely enough left of Jacob to constitute a
small worm. But by thus reducing her to "naught," God has prepared
the church to exhibit his power in shaking the heavens and the
earth and bringing "to naught the things that are"--the great
things of the world.
"Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing-instrument having
teeth: thou shall thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and
shall make the hills as chaff. Thou shall fan them, and the wind
shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and
thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One
of Israel" (Isa. 41:15,16). The characteristic of God's church
here portrayed is nearly lost sight of at present. People think
it is the business of the church to stand like a beggar at the
door of the devil's kingdom and politely coax his subjects over;
saying much about the duty and advantage of belonging to church and
little about their sin and the duty of repentance, as though God
were dependent, and the devil proprietor of the universe. Satan,
having thus stolen the spikes out of the church--her power of
execution--has distinguished himself in helping to run the empty
machinery. But he that sitteth in the heavens will arise and bring
to naught Satan's devices.
"The time is soon coming, by the prophets foretold,
When Zion in purity the world shall behold;
When Jesus' pure testimony will gain the day--
Denomination selfishness vanish away."
Already the Lord has begun to make Jacob new again; a sharp
instrument, reset with the spikes of its primitive power, the
"weapons of his indignation."
A church or ministry that is destitute of these teeth will hurt
no flesh, awake no persecution, thresh out no wheat, please the
devil, and give no glory to God. But spikes are not the only
essential to a first-class thresher. Anciently grain was threshed
with flails or trodden out by cattle and horses. Then a great
improvement was secured by the invention of what is called the
"old open machine." But, oh, the heaps of chaff that piled up, and
filled the entire floor! Then came the dreadful task of cleaning
up--of separating and removing the worthless heap.
Such have been the crafty open machines that have for years imposed
heaps of trash upon the Lord's threshing-floor. They have not
taken "forth the precious from the vile" (Jer 15:19). "Her priests
have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they
have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have
they showed difference between the unclean and the clean" (Ezek.
22:26). "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words ... when ye say,
Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he
delighteth in them" (Mal. 2:17).
Is not this perfectly fulfilled at present by preachers who invite
sinners into their folds without requiring a particle of saving
grace, and who even flatter them that they are already pretty good,
and need but to come and join the church? And how many of their
poor, deluded victims remain in the church for years and never
hear the gospel preached straight enough to convict them of their
unregenerated hearts! The policy of these teachers has been to
"gather of all kinds," but the next thing in order--to separate
and "cast the bad away"--has been wholly omitted. But as the Lord
liveth, he is going to clear away this ecclesiastical rubbish.
"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor,
and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff
with unquenchable fire" (Matt. 3:12). Who would accept as a gift a
few bushels of wheat scattered through a great heap of chaff and
dirt? And think you that God will accept the church in her present
condition? No, indeed; the gold must first be separated from the
dross. The bride must dissolve her unholy friendship with the
world, in which she is guilty of spiritual adultery in the sight
of God (Jas. 4:4). She must put away all her rival gods, and adorn
herself in robes of spotless white, before prepared as a bride
for her husband. The Bible most assuredly teaches that God will
separate the chaff from the wheat before he comes to garner home
his church. To accomplish this he is converting Jacob from an open
machine to a separator....
When the "rushing mighty wind" from heaven strikes the gathered
heaps of stubble and chaff and begins to "scatter them," people
think the church is being ruined; but this fan is in the hand of
the Lord Jesus, and it will not carry a grain of wheat off his
floor, and why fret about that which is not meet for the Master's
use? "What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord." Let the wind
from heaven drive it, and the fire consume it, "and thou [even in
this scatterment] shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the
Holy One of Israel."
In the prophet Micah, chapter 4, and verses 1, 2, we have the
mountain of the house of the Lord (the church) established, and the
law going "forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem."
In the 10th verse we have recorded the captivity, or "falling away"
of the church--"Thou shalt go even to Babylon." And, in order to
restore her purity, the Lord commands the following severe measures
in verse thirteen: "Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I
will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and
thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their
gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole
earth."
Threshing and separating, purging and consuming is the order of
God, in the day of the Refiner. Many think we must so temper the
gospel as to preserve peace in the church, notwithstanding her sin
and idols. But, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth
[peace with sin]? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." So answers
the Lord. His "fan is in his hand," and he would rather blow the
church to atoms and secure a little clean wheat by itself than see
it prosper in peace and multitudes and under mortgage to Satan, and
bearing his brand mark, i. e., spots of sin. For this purpose, says
Jesus, "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it
be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and
how am I straightened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:49,50).
Jesus intimates that the work of refining the church with the Holy
Ghost fire could not begin until he himself had passed through the
ordeal of suffering and death.
"For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots
like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke
with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord
plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many"
(Isa. 66:15,16). Here is the fire, sword, and division that Christ
came to send on earth. Its shaking and purifying power was first
manifest on the day of Pentecost. This light makes Israel see her
condition and cry out, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!"
"Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the
Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." "When thus it shall
be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as
a shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the
vintage is done" (Isa. 24:15,13). "And it shall come to pass, that
he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit"
(v. 18). There is no escape from the sweeping fire of holiness but
into the pit of sin; and all that can not "abide his coming" are
"like chaff, which the wind driveth away."
But nowhere in the Bible is the line more clearly drawn between
the wheat and the chaff, the gold and the dross, than in our
key-note text to this entire subject. What shall remain after
the "once more" shaking? Nothing but the divine elements of the
"kingdom, which can not be moved," and which Paul represents as
"righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17).
These only remain in the heart that has passed through the crisis.
Halleluiah! But what is thereby removed? Answer: All "things that
are shaken" and that "are made." By the first class we understand
everything that flinches and shakes before the searching light
and sin-exterminating gospel of Christ; every vein of our nature,
every motion "flesh and spirit," every temper of the mind and habit
in life that does not perfectly harmonize with the "righteousness
of God revealed" in the Bible, will naturally shake beneath the
voice of the Holy One, and must, therefore, be removed. The second
class--all "things that are made"--denotes every thing that is not
original: every phase of our moral being that is not implanted by
the hand of God. Or, in other words, everything adhering to us that
was produced by Satan, sin, or the perversion of our moral being.
As the Lord says, "Every plant that my Father has not planted,
shall be rooted up." This includes inbred sin. We have all along
assumed the existence of this besetting foe. Yet we are aware that
a very few deny the fact. But we think David settles this matter
in the 51st Psalm, where he declares that, as fallen creatures,
our very being is "conceived" and "shapen" in the mold of sin and
iniquity. Paul also avers that we are "by nature the children
of wrath" (Eph. 2:3); and that we are "cut out of the olive-tree
[Adamic root] which is wild by nature" (Rom. 11:24).
But why multiply texts? Observation must necessarily teach
everybody that children are possessed with a perverse nature long
before the knowledge of right and wrong is developed. Justified
Christians almost uniformly confess this same inward trouble.
The remaining question is, Can we get rid of it in this life? To
decide this, we have but to ascertain whether it is original, or
the result of the fall. That it formed no part of the likeness of
God in the soul, is very certain. It is therefore the "works of the
devil," and just what Christ "came to destroy." It shakes, flashes
out and roils up when pierced by the sword of the Lord, and must,
therefore, be removed from the soul.
But the words of Paul apply to the church, as well as to the
individual. It is designed to assay and remove the dross of the
whole body of Christ. Before the great holiness reform had shed
its benign influence upon the Christian world, and to some extent
raised the church out of the narrow rut of churchism into a deeper
and broader loyalty to God and unselfish love for humanity, the
idea of getting saved from "your church" would have been regarded
as blasphemy. But, thanks to the Lord! a purer light and higher
standard of truth now compel the trumpeters of God all along the
line of holiness to insist on salvation from all "our churches."
But it may be asked, What is it that we must be saved from in "our
churches"? Surely there must be some way to discriminate between
that which is pernicious and that which is of God. Now, I know of
no corner from which to run off this line but the one that Paul
points out: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid,"
and, "This word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those
things that are shaken, as of things that are made." God has
founded one body--one church, fold, or kingdom. In it he has placed
every element that is essential to its work, its prosperity, and
its perpetuity. His wisdom has adapted it to all ages of time and
conditions of men. Its faith was delivered to the saints once for
all. Its principles and precepts are the last testament, the final
and immutable will of the eternal God. This divine organization is
invested with such absolute symmetry and perfection that to attempt
the slightest modification of its divine unity or polity is wicked
presumption in the sight of its divine Founder, and incurs the
curses and forfeits all the blessings of God's Holy Book. Now,
since the work of entire sanctification is designed to elevate the
church to her normal and perfect condition in the sight of God, it
must shake out and purge away every existing element that was not
originally implanted by the hand of the Lord. This test, I think,
is one in which all true Christians agree. Indeed, if we were to
untie from this moorage we should soon be driven to sea without
compass or chart; we should virtually open the door for every
tradition of Rome and invention of error.
Starting, then, from this corner-stone of divine truth, established
at Jerusalem nearly nineteen hundred years ago, and with the Bible
as our compass and field notes, let us run off a line.
1. Between the true and false spirits in the church--let us "try
the spirits whether they are of God." "Now if any man have not the
Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." But the party spirit, so
prevalent in the churches, is not of Christ, hence must be removed,
purged out of the heart. A zeal that springs from anything but
pure, unmixed love for God and humanity, a spirit that would even
promote holiness, or the conversion of sinners, partly to build up
"our church," is badly mixed, is soon shaken and can not survive
the Refiner's fire. It is only when the "eye is single" that the
"whole body is full of light"--wholly sanctified.
A spirit which, out of deference to its own creed, wilfully
disobeys the divine word, is not of God, and can not coexist
with a pure heart. All these secondary motives, these mixed and
unclean spirits, "shake" at the voice of the "mighty God," and are
"removed" in the thorough work of entire sanctification.
2. The next thing I am compelled in the fear of God to speak of, as
included in the catalog of the devil's shaky works, the foul smut
and chaff of error, is the evil of sectarianism. This is the most
destructive bane that God has ever suffered the devil to sow in his
kingdom. It is the very mildew of hell, that spreads its blasting
curse over nearly all the precious fruit of the Lord's vineyard.
Here the words of Paul are an all-sweeping besom.
Oft the enlightened Christian's conscience inquires whether it is
right for the church to be divided thus into a plurality of sects
or denominations, with their respective human creeds and party
names. In the light of truth we are compelled to answer, No. And
for the simple reason that these parties are not of divine origin.
Christ is the source of all true union among his disciples, and
all divisions between them and the world; while the devil is the
instigation of divisions in the church, and of all union between it
and the world.