Originally written by Charles H. Spurgeon, Updated to modern English by Darren Hewer, 2009.
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“For I will give the command, and I will shake the house of Israel among all the nations as grain is shaken in a sieve, and not a pebble will reach the ground.� Amos 9:9
Every sifting comes by divine command and permission. Satan must ask before he can lay a finger on Job. In some sense our siftings are directly the work of heaven, for the text says, “I will sift the house of Israel.� (Amos 9:9)
Satan 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. You, who are the precious, much sifted corn of the Lord’s floor, be comforted by the blessed fact that the Lord directs everything to His own glory, and to your eternal benefit.
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 food, and hence the sifting 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 the nations�. He sifts them in the most effective manner, “like as corn is sifted in a sieve�. And yet during all this, not even the smallest, lightest, or most shriveled grain is permitted to fall to the ground. Every individual believer is precious in the sight of the Lord, and as a shepherd would not lose one sheep, and a jeweler will not lose 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 insignificant we may sometimes feel, if we are the Lord’s, we can always rejoice that we are preserved in Christ Jesus.
Question: If you died today, would you go to heaven? How can you be sure?
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