The Threshing Floor

It is becoming more apparent to me that the Enemy’s battle-formation of postmodernism is a frontal assault on the Holy Spirit. Postmodernism is a mushy soup of follow your heart, go with the flow, do what feels right, assimilate contradictory ideas into one incoherent worldview, anything goes, and above all tolerate everyone and everything and any expression of individuality. The rule of the day is tolerance. The hypocrisy of such an ideal falls apart when someone (anyone) is in any way, shape or form intolerant. Because tolerance has to tolerate intolerance, and thereby lets the cat out of the bag: there has to be some kind of objective standard whereby we determine what is right, good, and worthy of acceptance and what is wrong, bad and entirely unacceptable.

The postmodernist wants to say all ideas are equal, but in asserting that all ideas are equal it is putting forth its idea as superior to other viewpoints that would say not all ideas ARE equal. It’s what allows guys like Rob Bell to claim that he isn’t a universalist (meaning, there is no hell), and then write an entire book on how there is no hell. All ideas are equal, but ours is actually superior! It leads to utter confusion of what is right, what is wrong, what is love, what is justice, what is acceptance, and what should be rejected.

Postmodernism wants to accept everything and reject nothing, but in accepting a lifestyle of accepting everything, they are rejecting something; vis. the Gospel which says that oftentimes, eyes must be plucked out and hands must be cut off in order to find true life. The Gospel forces us to reject our desire to eat of the tree of subjective knowledge of good and evil (what’s right to me is right for me, and what’s right for you is right for you). Therefore, the postmodernist is forced to either accept the Gospel (which consequently means the rejection of a great many other unbiblical ideas), or contradict the cornerstone of their worldview; either way, they cease to be a faithful postmodernist.

The Holy Spirit’s role is to testify of and point us towards something; that something is the Person of Christ (John 16:13 & John 15:26). Postmodernism, ultimately, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not some mushy, ooey-gooey, warm fuzzy that tells us, “Be free, pursue your dreams, be yourself!” The Holy Spirit is not confused about the God’s divine purpose: the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ephesians 3:11). The Holy Spirit will not tell a soul to do whatever it pleases, express yourself, love yourself, exalt yourself for, indeed, to do so would be to violate the glory of God as the chief aim of man’s purpose. Should the Holy Spirit impress upon a man to place self at the center, He would ultimately be leading that soul into damnation.

This reality has become so crystalized in my soul during my visit to South Africa. There seems to be a whole lot of fleshly, unbiblical and even bizarre things like this being justified because they are “moves of the Spirit.” If we don’t stand upon something solid, we are sure to be tossed around like a goldfish on moving day.

This past Sunday, I was burdened to preach on the purpose of the Holy Spirit. The Church’s responsibility, in every generation is to be a fenced brasen wall against the errors of the age. We need to return to a biblical understanding of who the Third Person of the Trinity is, and what His glorious role is in accomplishing the great purpose of God! Thus, I gave a message entitled “The Threshing Floor.” The notes are linked here for anyone who would like to peruse them (The Threshing Floor Sermon Notes). The long and short of it is this: In 2 Samuel 24, we read the incredible story of God showing unto David the place where the altar of sacrifice would be in the temple. Many years later, when Solomon actually consecrated the temple the fire of God fell (2 Chronicles 7:1), and the precise location was the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite on the hill or Moria where Abraham had, long ago, offered up Isaac (read the full story of that in Genesis 22).

A threshing floor is the place where the wheat, after being harvested is gathered, and the grain is separated from the stalk by being trampled with a sled of wood & nails, sifted with a winnowing fork, purged of all chaff with the winnowing fan, the chaff is burned in the fire, and the pure grain is prepared to be worked into the loaf of bread. Sounds like harvest time for the wheat has a hard time. It had to be separated from the earth with a sharp blade, the chaff crushed, blown and burned away, and the true grain consecrated unto its purpose.

Now, the day of Pentecost was two things: the final day of the celebration of the harvest season, and even further back it was the day of the giving of the law. The day after Passover was the day when the first stalk of wheat was harvested and held forth as evidence that life had come from the dead seed that had been planted. Harvest had begun! Now, when the fire of God fell on the Apostles in Acts 2:1-4, it was on the day that was the culmination of all the harvest work. And in that upper room, what took place, what did the Holy Spirit do? A rushing wind and a blazing fire and ultimately the New Law of the Gospel was proclaimed. The Harvest of God is a Harvest of souls, cut away from their earthly roots, purged from the chaff of the stalk, and worked into the loaf of the bread. Remember, the bread is His Body, and the body of God is the person of Christ!

Thus, where postmodernism wants to be untethered from any standard, using “Spirit” as some wishy washy excuse for self-centeredness and self-preservation; the Holy Spirit is the bringer of a new law. This new law? You must die if you would truly live. You must be purged in order to be useful to the loaf. You must be threshed on God’s threshing floor. The threshing floor of sanctification is the place where the fire of the Spirit blazes, and sanctification’s great aim and purpose is the glory of Christ in all things!