THE GREAT SEPARATION
"His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." Matthew 3:12
1. The two great classes into which mankind may be divided. The passage of Scripture above was spoken by John the Baptizer. It is a prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ that has not yet been fulfilled. Viewed with the eye of man, the earth contains many different sorts of inhabitants. Viewed with the eye of God it contains only two. Man's eye looks at the outward appearance; God looks at the heart. Tried by the state of their hearts, the two classes are illustrated here by wheat and chaff.
A. The wheat. The wheat are all men and women who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. They have been led by the Holy Spirit of God to feel themselves sinners and flee for refuge to the salvation offered in the Gospel for all. They therefore love the Lord Jesus, serving and obeying Him, taking the Bible for their only guide, regarding sin as their deadliest enemy, and looking to heaven as their only home. All such individuals of every church, name, nation, people, language, rank, station, condition, and degree constitute God's wheat.
They are the sons and daughters of God the Father. They are the delight of God the Son. God the Holy Spirit regards them as spiritual temples He Himself has erected.
B. The chaff. The chaff are all men and women who have no saving faith in Christ and no sanctification of the Spirit. Some are irreligious and some are very religious. Some are sneering Sadducees and some self-righteous Pharisees. Some of them make a point of keeping up religious practices and some are careless of everything except their own pleasures. What they have in common is no faith and no sanctification or holiness in God's sight.
They bring no glory to God the Father, for "he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him" (John 5:23). They neglect that mighty salvation countless angels admire. They disobey the Word of God, which was graciously written for their learning. They do not listen to the voice of Him who condescended to leave heaven and purchase salvation through His righteous life, death, and resurrection. They pay no tribute of service and affection to Him who gives them "life, breath, and all things" (Acts 17:25). Therefore God takes no pleasure in them. He pities them, but He reckons them no better than chaff, which is useless vegetation.
This is humbling truth: You may have rare intellectual gifts and high attainments; you may sway many by your influence, but if you have never submitted yourself to the yoke of Christ and honored His Gospel by heartfelt reception of it, you are spiritually lacking in His sight. Natural gifts without grace are of no eternal value. You do not honor God with heart, will, intellect, and body, which are all His. You invert His order and arrangement, living as if time is more important than eternity and body better than soul. You are cold about the subject that fills all heaven with hallelujahs. So long as that remains the case, you belong to the ultimately worthless part of mankind: you are the chaff of the earth.
See now what cause there is for self-inquiry! Are you among the wheat or the chaff? Neutrality is impossible. Either you are in one class or in the other. Which is it of the two? Do not rest until you know how it is between you and God. Better a thousand times to find you are in a dreadful spiritual state and then repent than to live on in uncertainty and be lost eternally.
2. The time when the wheat and the chaff shall be separated. There is no separation yet. Good and bad are now all mingled together in the world and even in the visible church of Christ. But it shall no always be so. Christ shall come the second time with His winnowing fan in His hand to separate the wheat from the chaff.
A. Before Christ returns, separation is impossible. It is not in man's power to effect it. There is no minister on earth who can read the hearts of everyone in his congregation. The winnowing fan is not put in their hands. Grace is sometimes so weak and feeble that it looks like nature. Nature is sometimes so plausible and well dressed that it looks like grace. Judas looked as good as any of the apostles, yet he was proved to be a traitor only at the end. Peter looked like chaff when he denied the Lord Jesus, yet he repented immediately and rose again. We are all fallible, for we "know in part" (1 Corinthians 13:9) and scarcely understand our own hearts. It is no great wonder we cannot read the hearts of others.
But it will not always be so. One is coming who never errs in judgment and is perfect in knowledge. Jesus shall purge His floor, sifting the lightweight chaff from the dense wheat. Until then, we are to lean on the side of charity in our judgments. As Jesus taught in His Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, it is better to tolerate some chaff in the church than cast out one grain of wheat. The certainty about every one shall be known soon enough.
B. Before Christ returns, it is useless to expect to see a perfect church. There cannot be such a thing now. I pity those who leave one church and join another because of a few minor faults and unsound members. They are seeking that which cannot be found on this earth. Only when Christ returns will there be a "glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (Ephesians 5:27). Then, and not until then, the floor will be purged.
C. Before Christ returns, it is futile to look for the conversion of the world. How can it be since He is to find wheat and chaff side by side in the day of His second coming? I see nothing in the Bible or in the world around me to make me expect it. What we can expect to see is a few raised up as witnesses to Christ in every nation and place. Then I expect the Lord will return with His fan in His hand. When He has purged His floor, and not until then, His Kingdom will be realized in full.
3. The Lord's provision for His people.
A. The Lord takes pleasure in His people. It is comforting to know that "the Lord takes pleasure in His people" (Psalm 149:4) and "cares for [them]" (1 Peter 5:7). But how much He cares for them I fear is little known and dimly seen. Believers have their many trials, the flesh is weak, the world is full of snares, the cross is heavy, the way is narrow, and the companions are few. But still they have strong consolations if their eyes are widely opened. Like Hagar, they have a well of water near them in the wilderness (Genesis 21:19) and like Mary Magdalene, they have Jesus standing by their side, though their eyes are blinded by tears (John 20:14). They need to be reminded they are sons and daughters of God by adoption and enjoy full and perfect forgiveness. They have a place in the Book of Life and a name on the breastplate of the Great High Priest in heaven.
He took them for His own with a perfect understanding of their liabilities and infirmities. He will never break His covenant and cast them off. When they fall, He will raise them again. When they wander, He will bring them back. Their prayers are pleasing to Him. As a father loves the first stammering efforts of his child to speak, so the Lord loves the petitions of His people. He endorses them with His own mighty intercession and gives them power on high. Their services are pleasant to Him. As a father delights in the first daisy his child picks up and brings him, even so the Lord is pleased with the weak attempts of His people to serve Him. Not a cup of cold water shall lose its reward. Not a word spoken in love shall ever be forgotten.
B. The Lord cares for His people in life. Their addresses are intimately known by Him. The street called Straight where Saul/Paul temporarily lodged and the seaside place where Peter prayed were familiar to their Lord (Acts 9-10). No one has better assistants than His people. Angels rejoice when they are born again, angels minister to them, and angels encompass them for protection. No one has better food. Their daily bread is provided and they are nourished by the water of life. They have food to eat of which the world knows nothing. No one has better company than they do. The Spirit indwells them and the Father and the Son make Their home with them (John 14:23). Their steps are all ordered from grace to glory. Their difficulties are all measured out by a wise Physician: not a grain of bitterness is ever mixed in their cup that is not good for the health of their souls. Their temptations, like Job's, are all under God's control. Satan cannot touch a hair of their head without their Lord's permission or tempt them beyond what they are able to bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). When they are transplanted from place to place, it is so they may bloom more brightly. All things are continually working together for their good (Romans 8:28).
C. The Lord cares for His people in death. Their times are all in His hand. The hairs of their heads are all numbered and no one can ever fall to the ground without their Father (Matthew 10:29-31). They are kept on earth until they are ripe and ready for glory, and not one moment longer. When they have had sun, rain, wind, and storm enough, when the grain is perfect in the stalk, only then will they be harvested. It is a blessed thing to be Christ's wheat. Death opens the door to believer and instantly lets him or her into paradise.
D. The Lord will protect His people on the awesome and dreadful day of His return. The voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God shall proclaim no terrors to their ears. They shall lift up their heads with joy as they see their full redemption approach. They shall be instantly changed, putting on their beautiful garments in the blink of an eye, caught up together "to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Jesus will do nothing to a sin-laden world until all His people are safe, just like there was an ark for Noah when the Flood began. There will be a barn for all the wheat on Judgment Day. Whether then or now, Christ's people persevere throughout life. "My sheep," says the Good Shepherd, "shall never perish" (John 10:28). They shall all be gathered into the same fold and barn.
4. The Lord's punishment of those who are not His people. When the Lord Jesus Christ returns to purge His floor of the chaff, all who are found impenitent and unbelieving—who "suppress the truth unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18), clinging to sin and the world instead of Christ and His Word, will come to an awful end. Christ will "burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." There is no pain like burning. Fire is of all elements most opposed to life. Creatures can live in air, earth, and water, but nothing can live in fire. This punishment will be eternal. The fuel of that fire will never waste away or be consumed. These are sad and painful things to speak of, yet they are written for our learning and it is good to consider them. "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16).
A. Hell is real. Some believe there is no hell at all, thinking such a place is inconsistent with the mercy of God. They say it is too awful an idea to be really true. The devil delights in the views of such people, for they are preaching his favorite doctrine: "You surely shall not die" (Genesis 3:4). Jesus at His return, however, will say to those who wickedly forget God and His people, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.... These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:41-46). The same blessed Savior who now sits on a throne of grace will one day sit on a throne of judgment. Terrified people will discover there is such a thing as "the wrath of the Lamb" (Revelation 6:16). The same lips that now say, "Come to Me" will then say, "Depart from Me."
B. Hell is eternal. These are all biblical descriptions of hell: eternal fire, eternal punishment, their worm does not die, torment of thirst, weeping and gnashing of teeth, darkness, blackness, and the second death. All are figures of speech, but they describe something real and even worse than what mere words can describe. The present suffering, the bitter recollection of the past, the hopeless prospect of the future will never be thoroughly known except by those who go there. "Trembling has seized the godless: 'Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire? Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?'" (Isaiah 33:14). "Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake: some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2). "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.... He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:16-36).
C. Hell should be spoken about. It is striking to observe the many texts about it in Scripture. No one says more about hell than our gracious and merciful Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. John, the most loving apostle, wrote often about hell. The most loving thing we can do for others is to speak the truth in love about supremely important matters. What would you say of the man who saw his neighbor's house in danger of being burned down but never said a word of warning? Beware of manufacturing a god of your own who is all mercy, but not just; all love, but not holy; a god who has a heaven for everybody, but a hell for none; a god who can allow good and bad to be side by side in time, but will make no distinction between good and bad in eternity. Such a god is an idol. The hands of your own sentimentality have made him. He is not the God of the Bible, and beside the God of the Bible there is no God at all.
5. The Lord's merciful provision for people now. Realize you are reading this by God's design. The truth about hell is for you to know and take to heart. Never mind now what it means for others. You will be either gathered with the wheat when Jesus returns or burned with the chaff. If you are willing to be of the wheat, the Lord Jesus Christ is willing to receive you. Do you suppose He is not willing to see His barn filled? Do you think He does not desire to bring many sons and daughters to glory? If so, you know little of the depth of His mercy and compassion. He wept over unrepentant Jerusalem. He mourns over the impenitent and careless in the present day. He sends you an invitation right now to hear and live, to forsake the way of the foolish and go in the path of understanding. "I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies," says the Lord God. "Therefore turn and live!" (Ezekiel 18:32).
If you are determined to have the world and the things of the world, all its pleasures and rewards, all its follies and sins; if you must have your own way and cannot give up anything for Christ and the sake of your soul, there is but one end before you. Sooner or later you will come to the unquenchable fire. But if you want to be rescued from that fate, the Lord Jesus stands ready to save you. "Come to Me," He says, "and I will give you rest. Come, guilty and sinful soul, and I will give you free pardon. Come, lost and ruined soul, and I will give you eternal life" (Matthew 11:28). Arise and call upon the Lord. Let the angels of God rejoice over one more saved soul.
Settle it down in your mind that if you have committed your soul to Christ, He will never let you perish. The everlasting arms are around you. Lean back in them and know your safety. The same hand that was nailed to the cross is holding you. The same wisdom that framed the heavens and the earth is maintaining your cause. Take comfort and know your privileges. Cast every care on Jesus. Tell Him about every need. He loves serving as your High Priest. He loves to be trusted and seeing His people ceasing from the vain effort of carrying their fears, anxieties, and doubts for themselves. Be among Christ's wheat now and then, on the great day of separation, you will be gathered into Christ's barn.
