Amos 9:1-15

For Reading and Meditation:     Psalm 139:17-24

We said yesterday that the task of honestly facing ourselves in self-examination is often the hardest thing for us to do. We are all very prone to pass quickly over this point. We are quite happy to hear how God has set the ungodly in slippery places but we are not happy to be invited to take a look at ourselves and...

"For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all sections, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." Amos 9:9

The sifting process is going on still. Wherever we go, we are still being winnowed and sifted. In all countries God's people are being tried "like as corn is sifted in a sieve." Sometimes the devil holds the sieve and tosses us up and down at a great rate,...

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...