4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Psalm 1:4

When it was harvest time in Israel, the wheat and the dry, scaly casings of the seeds called chaff would all be mixed up together.  The farmer would take the grain and throw it up into the air and the breeze would blow the inedible and worthless chaff away from the wheat.  That’s a symbol of the ungodly in scripture.  In contrast to the healthy wheat, the chaff (or the ungodly) is dead and unusable.  The ungodly are tossed about by the changing winds of the culture and they eventually “perish.”

I’ve never had to separate wheat from chaff.  However, I’ve seen some insecure things blown about by the wind.  When I lived in Phoenix, on a couple of occasions I experienced what they call a microburst.

A microburst is a severe windstorm that works in the opposite way as a tornado.  Instead of lifting things up off the ground, like a tornado, a microburst is a sudden, powerful, localized downdraft.  It is pretty destructive when it hits.

  • ·       The site of a metal shed blowing down the midddle of the road was common in our neighborhood.
  • ·       A severe microburst could flatten steel buildings, turn over trucks and knock down trees and light poles.

A microburst picks up all kinds of unsecured items – dust, trash, kiddie pools – and blows them everywhere.  Those who reject God’s Word are like those unsecured items.  They are not anchored down to the solid Word of God so they are tossed about by every wind of change.  If a really big storm ever hits, they are destroyed.