LAUNCHING OUT Session 5

LAUNCHING OUT

Session 5: A Place to Begin Again - Part 2

The most dangerous prayer: “Lord, do whatever you have to do to make me what you want me to be!”

The next most dangerous prayer: “Lord, bring my testimony up to date!”

When we decide to launch out into the deep, God begins to refine us and purify us.

Malachi 3:2–3 (NKJV) “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap. 3 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.

John 15:2 (NKJV) “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away (lifts up); and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.”

Last week we began to look at how this works out in the life of Peter.

Luke 22:31–34 (NKJV) And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. 32 But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me (when you are converted), strengthen your brethren.” 33 But he said to Him, “Lord, I am ready to go with You, both to prison and to death.” 34 Then He said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.”

Look at these other passages…

Amos 9:9 (NKJV) “For surely I will command, and will sift the house of Israel among all nations, as grain is sifted in a sieve; yet not the smallest grain shall fall to the ground.

Luke 3:16–17 (NKJV) 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. 17 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.”

The Lord is using an agrarian metaphor very common to the people of the day. It was one thing to grow the grain in the field, but it also took a lot of work after the grain was grown to get it ready to grind into flour. For thousands of years, farmers used a basic three-part system to get the grain to the point where it could be ground into flour: threshing, winnowing, and sifting.

This process is a metaphor for God’s dealings with us.

When grain was harvested in Biblical times, a scythe would cut down the crop and the stalks were stacked into sheaves.  After being harvested, the sheaves of wheat stalks were brought to the threshing floor, a flat surface prepared for the threshing of grain. The threshing floor was usually located at the edge of a village, frequently on a large flat rock outcropping. When no flat rock was available, the threshing floor would be prepared by leveling the ground and pounding the earth to create a hard surface.  The sheaves were loosened and arranged in a circle on the floor.

STEP ONE: THRESHING

Threshing is removing the kernel of grain from the stalk.  Different methods were used to accomplish this depending on the size of the harvest and the tools available to the farmer.

1.  Beating the grain with a stick or flail.

Hebrews 12:6 NKJV “For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.”

Illustration: the sting of the belt…

2.  Walking animals over the grain.  Cattle and oxen would be driven repeatedly in a circle over the sheaves of wheat to trample out the kernels of grain.

I Corinthians 9:9 NKJV For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.” Is it oxen God is concerned about?

Illustration: Show-calf ties to a jack-ass!

3.  For larger operations, animal-drawn machines were used. The most common was the threshing sledge A wide toboggan made of planks with sharp pieces of stone or sharp metal attached to its underside, the sledge was pulled back and forth over the grain. Weight was added by using stones or the weight of the driver and his children.

Isaiah 41:15 (NKJV) 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.

As the oxen or threshing sled went over and over the large pile of harvested wheat, the stalks would be cut up into pieces, and the heads of grain were knocked off the stalk and often even separated from the husk.

Illustration: Beartooth and rippers…

Application:

II Corinthians 4:7-12 NKJV But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you.”

Watchman Nee: The Release of the Spirit…

God wants to remove the hard shells of our hearts through brokenness.  Roy Hession calls this “The Calvary Road”…

Then the grain is ready for the next step.

STEP TWO: WINNOWING

Winnowing was the process that separated the mixed up pile of grain, stalk, and husk so that the edible grain could be sifted and eaten. To winnow the grain, the farmer scooped up the pieces of the crop he had just threshed and threw it all up into the air. The wind blew the light pieces of stalk and chaff to the side, while the grain, which was both heavier and roundish, fell almost straight back down.  The farmer used a “winnowing fork,” or a “winnowing shovel” to throw the threshed grain into the air.

Job 21:18 NKJV They are like straw before the wind, And like chaff that a storm carries away.

Psalms 1:4 NKJV The ungodly are not so, But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Holy Spirit, as we are tossed on the waves of life, blow upon us and separate the chaff from our lives!

After winnowing, the valuable grain is gathered and stored for the next step.

STEP THREE: SIFTING

Just before the grain was ground into flour, it was sifted. This was necessary for a number of reasons.

1.         Weed seeds got mixed in with the wheat, and threshing and winnowing did not separate the different seeds

2.         The winnowing process did not get all the chaff from the grain.

3.         Dust and pebbles off the threshing floor were mixed in with the grain.

The grain sieve, or ghurbal, was round and fairly large, usually two to three feet in diameter. The sides were wood, often 3-5 inches high with a bottom that was often made of woven reeds, grasses, or thin interwoven pieces of wood. Here is what happens as a skilled sifter uses the sieve…

1.         Dust, earth, seeds, and imperfect grains of wheat fall away through the mesh.

2.         Straw, chaff, and light refuse is either blown away to the ground, or else collected in a part of the ghurbal. 

3.         The good wheat gathers in a heap in the center of the sieve. 

4.         Tiny stones or pebbles are brought into a separate little pile. 

5.         Any slight impurities which may yet remain are removed by hand.

The Lord is sifting us to remove anything in our lives that is not of Him!

It may seem like the threshing floor is a terrible place, a place of judgment (Uzza).

I Chronicles 13:9 NKJV And when they came to Chidon’s threshing floor, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled.”

But it can be a place of extraordinary blessing!

It can be a place of calling (Gideon).

Judges 6:11 NKJV “Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites.”

It can be a place of redemption (Ruth and Boaz).

Ruth 3:2-3 NKJV “Now Boaz, whose young women you were with, is he not our relative? In fact, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor. Therefore wash yourself and anoint yourself, put on your best garment and go down to the threshing floor…”

It can be a place of healing (David and the plague).

II Samuel 24:18 NKJV 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.”

It can be a holy place of worship, a place of His Presence (Solomon’s Temple).

II Chronicles 3:1 NKJV “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.”

All of this is preparation for the final step. God grinds us into powder, or flour, so that we can become bread to feed a hungry world!

God transforms us into something different than what we were!

II Corinthians 3:18 NKJV “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

INVITATION: Dangerous Prayers