Morning, June 20
Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings
Amos 9:9
"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
Every sifting comes by divine command and permission. Satan must ask
leave before he can lay a finger upon Job. Nay, more, 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 corn; but the overruling hand of the Master is
accomplishing the purity of the grain by the very process which the
enemy intended to be destructive. Precious, but much sifted corn of the
Lord's floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the Lord directeth
both flail and sieve to his own glory, and to thine eternal profit.
The Lord Jesus will surely use the fan which is in his hand, and will
divide the precious from the vile. All are not Israel that are of
Israel; the heap on the barn floor is not clean provender, and hence
the winnowing process must be performed. In the sieve true weight alone
has power. Husks and chaff being devoid of substance must fly before
the wind, and only solid corn 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 shrivelled 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 jeweller one diamond, nor a mother one
child, nor a man one limb of his body, nor 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.