TEXT: 1 Samuel 23: 1 - 6

‘Threshing Floor Sermons’

THEME: ‘Robbing the Threshing Floor’ (Part 1)

INTRODUCTION: It is amazing how God uses the ordinary,

mundane and routine processes of life to teach mankind, especially
His Church eternal Kingdom lessons.

Many of these lessons are borrowed from the agriculture sector, and
since Israel was an agrarian economy, the inspired authors of the
Scriptures used its images and imagery liberally to unveil what
manner of people we ought to be.

If we trace the use of the threshing floor throughout the sacred and
inspired Book, we will find that among other things it was:

 a public place,

 a personal place,

 a purifying place,

 and a perfecting place.

Hence, while the threshing floor was, agriculturally, a place to

separate chaff from grain, and publicly, a place for social gathering
among the Israelites and attracted numerous attacks by her
enemies, spiritually and symbolically, it was a very sacred place: a
place of blessing and of judgment.
1. The Threshing Process
Threshing was a two-step process:

(a) The harvested crop was spread out on the threshing floor and
one of several processes was used
- A threading sledge, a wood with stones or metals under it,
was pulled over the crop to remove the chaff
- Or, oxen were used to trample it in the removal process; or
- Sticks were used to beat the chaff off.
(b)Then there was the winnowing process. This was to
guarantee that chaff was completely removed from the grain.
To do this, both were thrown in the air, and the precious grain
fell back on the floor, but the chaff was blown away by the
wind.

2. Application of the Agriculture

Metaphor
- The crop had to be harvested, that is, brought out of its
‘natural’ environment and placed on the threshing floor
- God plucked us out of our natural environment, SIN and
placed us on His threshing floor
- He uses various methods to remove our ‘chaff’ from our
lives: the sledge, oxen, or the whip according to the nature
of the individual.
- Then there is the winnowing to remove chaff from grain.
- Winnowing used by ancient cultures to separate grain from
chaff.
- Winnowing was also used to remove weevils or other pests
from stored grain.
- (1) The earth is God’s present-day threshing floor, and two
types of people dwell thereon:

● those who repent of their sins and become useful in His

Kingdom, producing “fruit in keeping with repentance”;
● those who, like the dusty, worthless, and light-as-a-
feather chaff, serve no purpose in the Kingdom and are to
swept up. the chaff is worthless: some people, regrettably,
are of no value: to their families, their Churches, their
clubs, their schools, their workplaces, their communities,
or to themselves.
- This separation process is the key: goats must be separated
from sheep; the wicked from the just (Psalm 1); wheat from
tares (Matthew 13); truth from error.
- Jesus has His fan in his hand (Matthew 3)
 He must thoroughly purge His floor. His Church must
be ‘without spot or wrinkle’. The threshing floor is a
sanctifying place.
 Speaking about the wheat and the tares, Jesus said
‘let them grow together until the day of harvest’ the
heavenly angels will ‘blow’ on them and they will
disappear into the lake of fire, but the grains will be
gathered into His barn.

 But the barn filled with precious things attracts

the thieves. They come to ‘kill, steal and to
destroy’.
 They want to demoralise and destroy the Church by
raiding its barn. They want to steal all its precious
gems:
- prayer and fasting;
- tithing and giving;
- visitation and reproduction;
- forgiveness and patience;
 - purity and perfection;
- Bible reading and Bible study;
- praise and worship;
- obedience to the Word;
- regularity and punctuality to fellowship;
- confession of sin to God and our faults to each other;
- love from husbands and respect from wives;
- obedience from children and Biblical training from
fathers;
 We need watchmen at the threshing floor: with
their trumpets at their mouths, ready to warn, and
swords in their hands prepared to war.

CONCLUSION

1. We must allow the Holy Spirit to keep us at the threshing

floor to do His work of sanctification: it is a personal and
painful place, but it is also a purging, purifying, and perfecting
place.
2. We must all be patient during the separation process,
constantly plunging the two-edged sword with precision
into our imperfect lives.
3. He longs to separate the chaff from our lives: the lies, the lust,
the lateness; the rage, the resentment, the revulsion.
4. He demands an unblemished Church; He will rapture nothing
but a flawless bride with an untarnished reputation and
immaculate character; and what He has started he will
complete despite those who raid the threshing floor.
 Metaphorically,
 The chaff was a protective outer shield for the grain
while it was growing, but at harvest, it is worthless.
 Jesus wants only the priceless grain in His barn.
 Militarily, chaff is a metal foil, or filings deployed as
missiles to obstruct radar detection, or confuse radar-
tracking missiles.
 There are some in the Church planted/deployed by
Satan to distract attention from Christ; they are hiding
in the congregation, thinking they are avoiding
heavenly ‘radar’ detection; like the birds of the air,
they are hiding within the leaves of the trees. They
have “a form of godliness but they deny the power
thereof”.