In the prophet Micah, chapter 4, and verses 1, 2, we have the mountain of the house of the Lord (the church) established, and the law going "forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." In the 10th verse we have recorded the captivity, or "falling away" of the church--"Thou shalt go even to Babylon." And, in order to restore her purity, the Lord commands the following severe measures in verse thirteen: "Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth." Threshing and separating, purging and consuming is the order of God, in the day of the Refiner. Many think we must so temper the gospel as to preserve peace in the church, notwithstanding her sin and idols. But, "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth [peace with sin]? I tell you, Nay; but rather division." So answers the Lord. His "fan is in his hand," and he would rather blow the church to atoms and secure a little clean wheat by itself than see it prosper in peace and multitudes and under mortgage to Satan, and bearing his brand mark, i. e., spots of sin. For this purpose, says Jesus, "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straightened till it be accomplished!" (Luke 12:49,50). Jesus intimates that the work of refining the church with the Holy Ghost fire could not begin until he himself had passed through the ordeal of suffering and death. "For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: and the slain of the Lord shall be many" (Isa. 66:15,16). Here is the fire, sword, and division that Christ came to send on earth. Its shaking and purifying power was first manifest on the day of Pentecost. This light makes Israel see her condition and cry out, "My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me!" "Wherefore glorify ye the Lord in the fires, even the name of the Lord God of Israel in the isles of the sea." "When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as a shaking of an olive-tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done" (Isa. 24:15,13). "And it shall come to pass, that he who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit" (v. 18). There is no escape from the sweeping fire of holiness but into the pit of sin; and all that can not "abide his coming" are "like chaff, which the wind driveth away."