Chaff…

Chaff…

His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Matthew 3:12

In the English Standard Version the word, chaff, is used  16 times…it is not a term that we want to be called or referred to…. 

A few references…

Will you frighten a driven leaf and pursue dry chaff?

Job 13:25

“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? 

That their calamity comes upon them? 

That God distributes pains in his anger? 

That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away? 

You say, ‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.’ Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it. 

Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty. 

 For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off?

Job 21:17-21 

The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Psalm 1:4

I will scatter you  like chaff driven by the wind from the desert. This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, declares the Lord, because you have forgotten me and trusted in lies.

Jeremiah 13:24-25

Gather together, yes, gather, O shameless nation, before the decree takes effect —before the day passes away like chaff— before there comes upon you the burning anger of the Lord, before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord . Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord .

Zephaniah 2:1-3 

Chaff is the husk that covers the kernel of wheat…it is beaten/removed/thrashed away from the kernels of grain…it floats in the wind…

When you watch the harvest of a wheat/grain field, there is a “cloud” around the thrasher. The chaff is coming off the grain…the grain is saved and the chaff is thrown away…it is light and easily floats, settling to the ground, having no value.

As a child, my father and I would walk through wheat fields adjacent to our home, picking a few wheat heads at harvest time…rubbed them in our hands until the kernels were loosened, blowing away the chaff and then chewed the kernels until we had “wheat gum”. We savored the kernels but got rid of the chaff…

 

Looking at the previous verses, chaff is what you get rid of…the wheat is saved…it compares to the wicked and the righteous…judgment…

In the Matthew verse, John the Baptist is speaking of Jesus…a time of judgement…

God desires that all would be “wheat”…

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,  not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

2 Peter 3:9 

He gave his Son for us…

  

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 

Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

John 3:16-21

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, 

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. 

That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers. 

Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. 

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

Psalm 1:1-6

Thank YOU….