Why does Les compare the world empires to chaff on a threshing floor?
The world empires are pictured as chaff because even their enduring remains—Greek architecture and philosophy, Roman law and government—will be suddenly blown away when Christ returns. Just as wind separates chaff from grain on a threshing floor, the pictured stone, Christ at His Second Coming, literally blows all those remnants away, while the grain is gathered.
Les teaches that the remains of the ancient empires—such as Greek architecture and philosophy and Rome’s courts, judges, law, and republican government—are all rolled under the pictured stone, which is Christ at His Second Coming. He will literally blow it all away. Les uses the harvest and threshing-floor illustration: grain is separated from chaff by wind, as with a combine, where chaff blows out the rear while grain goes into the bin. So the nations and great empires, with all that remains of them, will blow away like chaff. Les also connects this to Daniel’s closing verses, where Daniel is told to wait 75 days, a period that will cleanse the planet of everything that has remained. He then moves to Luke 21, where Jesus speaks during His earthly ministry about end-time scenarios.