America’s Threshing Floor Moment

I want to be clear that I personally believe that these dreams are legitimate, God-given, and that God has given Pastor Coverstone a mantle similar to that of the late David Wilkerson for this hour. I believe that these dreams are a warning for us and alarm to waken us up to the reality of the exact moment in which we are living in this nation. I also believe this is a “Ninevah-like” word much the same as the one Jonah delivered in his day. You may disagree, but I feel crystal clear about this.

However, the response of the American church has been anything but crystal clear. In an age of seeker friendly services, self help messages, and fortune-telling type prophetic ministry, we are not used to receiving non-user friendly prophetic warnings. As such, we have a wide variety of responses from the western church: Some Christians say that dreams, words, and messages like this are un-true and simply aimed at fear mongering and that we should continue to strive to find a sense of church normalcy in the midst of trying times. Some Christians take the opposite interpretation and say that we all should be buying guns, heading for the hills, and storing 10 years of emergency food as we wait for the judgment of God and the demise of America.

For the past weeks I have been praying and wrestling to discern the truth of our current reality. And then I read 2 Samuel chapter 24 and America’s current moment and the church’s appropriate response became crystal clear.

This is the story of David at the threshing floor. You can fully read this story for yourself but I will give the nutshell version here: David had decided against his counselor’s advice to take a census of the people of Israel, specifically the men that were able to fight in battle. This action displeased the Lord and as discipline the Lord told David that he could chose between three punishments: 7 years of Famine, Three months of running from his enemies, or three days a plague in the land. David chose the last option and a plague was released upon the land of Israel.

70,000 people died from the plague on the first day until the Lord, in His mercy was grieved and put a hold on the angel that was releasing the plague upon the people:

2 Samuel 24:16

As the angel was stretching out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, theLord was grieved because of the calamity, so he told the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Stay your hand!” So the angel of the Lord remained near the threshing floor that belonged to Araunah the Jebusite.[i]

David comes to this threshing floor and knows that this is the time and place that he must offer a sacrifice of repentance, asking for the Lord’s forgiveness. Araunah offers his threshing floor to David free of charge, but David refuses saying: “No, “I will buy them from you at full price. I won’t offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50 silver shekels,[m]25 built[n]an altar to the Lord there, and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings. So the Lord answered David’s prayers for the land[o]and the pestilence on Israel was averted.

Just like David, America finds itself at its own threshing floor moment right here and right now. The parallels in the spirit are significant, but so are the parallels in the natural world. America right now is facing a literal plague and is also in a census year (The 2020 census). I believe there is a clear, Biblical response that applies to all believers regardless of denomination, culture, race, or age.

America’s Census

The act that caused the judgement of God to be released upon Israel in David’s situation was that David took a census that displeased God. Why did the simple act of counting people and resources displease God so much? The short answer is because David did not follow the specific census instructions that included giving an offering of atonement. The longer answer is that all of this has to do with heart position and motive behind the census. If a census is taken with out a sacrifice being given at the same time, it is displeasing to God. Said another way, David put his faith and trust in what the numbers were showing and not in God’s provision, protection, and plan.

For decades now, America has taken her census without any recognition of God. We boast about being the most powerful nation in the free world, yet we remove God from our schools. We have killed 50 million unborn babies in the name of healthcare. Secular humanism is rapidly becoming the accepted norm. We provide for ourselves via the largest economy in the history of mankind yet we fight to remove “in God We Trust” from the very currency of that economy. We have the most powerful military in the world and believe that we can protect ourselves from any foe. The American church has also been taking its own census for many years. We place value on the number of cars in the parking lot, building size, quality of weekly production, social media following, likes and views.America has taken her census and decided that by the numbers, we don’t need a God except for ourselves. Because of this, what I believe we are seeing in 2020 is just what we asked for: a nation with less of God’s involvement.

God’s Pause of Mercy

God has been and always will be primarily motivated by mercy. It is His nature for mercy to triumph over judgment. When Abraham pleaded with God to have mercy on Sodom and Gomorra, the lord said “For the sake of only 10 righteous, I will spare the city. Jesus himself cried out of his aggressors, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” while hanging on the cross bleeding to death.

In the story of David at the threshing floor, God himself stops the angel (at the threshing floor) from releasing the plague because God was saddened by the death of His people. He was moved by mercy just as He always has been. God caused a pause in the punishment that Israel deserved, stopping the angel from continuing in the execution of the plague. It is interesting to me that God did not tell the angel to permanently leave or stop at this point. It was just a pause. The angel stood there at the threshing floor, not continuing yet not permanently stopping…. waiting for what would happen next.

A threshing floor is literally a floor that looks like a grate. In ancient times, wheat an other grains were harvested and then beaten across threshing floors to separate the edible part of the crop from the non-edible part (chaff). As such , a threshing floor represents a place of complete brokenness. It represents a place where something is painfully smashed over and over again until it is completely broken apart, separating the good parts from the bad. It reveals truth because only the fine, processed grain can fall through to be collected. It is no coincidence that this is where the angel’s pause happened and David recognized this. He recognized that the only way forward was through the place of the threshing floor where He needed to get real and honest and broken and threshed before the Lord. He also knew that he could not take it for free. He recognized the weight of what was at stake and determined that he would not sacrifice that which cost him nothing”. This was his place of repentance that ultimately would lift the judgement off of the entire nation of Israel.

The American Church’s response

David’s response at the threshing floor resulted in the deliverance of an entire nation. My spiritual father Robert Stearns always says “the story of the Bible cover to cover is the story of the majority missing it but the remnant getting it.” American Church, we are standing at our threshing floor moment and this season demands our unified, clarified response. Our children and grandchildren depend on it.

Our flesh and our minds will try to steer us around the threshing floor with ideas of better webstreams, online services, outreachhes, and out of the box strategies in this season as we say things like “We can get through this as an overcoming church!!”. There are also many distractions right now that have been crafted to blind us to the threshing floor: Political arguments, economic fears, racial division, even perceived church persecution of the church due to pandemic restrictions. Yes, I am saying that fighting “persecution” in this moment can be a distraction because I don’t believe that it is what our primary focus should be. If we are not careful we will focus on these things with our eyes and completely miss what the Lord is trying to do in our hearts and the heart of this nation.

The Lord is giving us this pause, I believe now through November for one purpose: to give opportunity for the priesthood to rise up. To see if there is a praying church in America that will purchase the threshing floor at all cost, throwing itself corporately upon the floor in repentance and crying out for mercy. The threshing floor is not free. Instead, it will cost us and it may hurt. But the remnant, the priesthood, the Church of Jesus Christ was never meant to be a Sunday morning social club. It was meant to stand in the place between heaven and earth, in the place of intercession for those who don’t know any better or understand for themselves. A royal priesthood, a Holy nation, a peculiar people that can turn the heart of God. I am convinced that the future direction of America is in the hands of the priesthood.

Between now and November the Body of Christ needs to be unified in prayer like never before:

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

We don’t need to all be under any denomination, organization, or banner other than the banner of the Blood of Jesus. We don’t have to have it all figured out. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to all look the same, sound the same, or worship the same. We don’t have to have business strategies, huge events, or millions of online followers. We need to pray. We need to repent. We need to cry out for mercy for America. Pray at home, pray with your families, pray online, pray in your church while social distancing, pray in your car. Pray. Add your voice to the remnant because it’s only together that we can buy the threshing floor and see our land healed.

Are Dana Coverstone’s dreams really going to take place? I believe the answer to this question will be determined by our response as the Church at the threshing floor.