Be Salt and Light

You are the salt of the earth.
—Matthew 5:13

Unfortunately, many Christians have adopted an attitude of passivity toward those sins in our country that God has labeled abominations: homosexuality, abortion, the murder of the unborn. And what disturbs me so much is that Christians excuse their passivity with their piety. “Oh, I’m just going to worship God and not get involved in those other things.” Or they excuse their lack of action with their theology. “Oh, I can’t change God’s sovereign plan.” Yet whenever God’s people refuse to be salt and stand up against unrighteousness, God’s judgment always comes.

All we have to do is look back in history to see the result of passivity that is covered in a thin veneer of theology and piety. Many German Christians used those excuses as a rationale for staying silent during the rise of Adolph Hitler. They said: “We’re not going to get involved in politics. We’re not going to threaten our own peace and prosperity and freedom from pain.”

It’s time for Christians to stand up against the tide of unrighteousness that threatens to engulf our country. But in doing so we must never lose sight of the ultimate aim of saving people from the coming judgment of God. That is our mission. Salt brings life to nothing. All it does is buy a little more time to share the light of the gospel in this increasingly dark world. Let me be very blunt. Outlawing same-sex marriages, reducing the number of abortions in America, allowing for the displaying of the Ten Commandments—doing those things will not add one single person to the population of heaven unless those activities are combined with sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Think about it. In heaven the culture war will be won. But right now there is a war going on between God and the people of this world and Satan. And the war has to do with the eternal soul of every human being. Satan’s goal in this war is very clear. In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 Paul says, “And even if our gospel is veiled; it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Curing short-term social ills must never take precedence over our primary mission of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in the weeks ahead we’re going to discover how to find that balance between being salt—pushing back against unrighteousness—and being the light that God commanded us to be.

There is a tide of evil rising up that is about to engulf our nation. If we sit on the sidelines and do nothing, we are not only ensuring the collapse of our nation, but we are also ensuring the consignment of millions of souls to a Christless eternity. It is time for the church of Jesus Christ to stand up, to push back against unrighteousness, and to shine bright the light of Jesus Christ. We cannot allow evil to triumph. We can tolerate no more.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Twilight’s Last Gleaming” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2011.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.