The Believers Influence In The World - Salt - Part 3

"You are the salt of the earth" Salt’s Influence is simply “The Earth”.

Our commission is to the whole world, the scriptures tell us the disciples went everywhere preaching the word. We have been given the same commission, our influence is to affect the whole earth! We are in the world physically but we are not of the world spiritually. The world is a spiritual graveyard and Christians are the only people who are really alive. Salt makes people thirsty so our life should create a thirst in people to have what we have. Jesus attracted all kinds of people and so should we.

The Danger

“But if the salt loses its flavor” - this means to become tasteless, to make something flat and tasteless, used of salt that has lost its strength and flavor. A good example is of a Christian who has lost their zeal for God, and whose life is no longer influencing the world. Lot was a person like that, he choose the well watered plains of Sodom and he pitched his tent toward Sodom and eventually ended up moving into Sodom. The world doesn’t understand that it is the presence of God’s people that prevents total collapse and final judgment. Lot’s presence in Sodom made it impossible for God to judge the city, his absence condemned the city. Before God will judge this present world He will call His own out of it.

If salt loses its flavor, how can it receive flavor again? How can it be made salty again? The same is true with Christians. "It is no longer good for anything", Luke 14:35 says "It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill”, Godspeed's translation says, “It is fit neither for the ground nor the manure heap”. It would destroy the effectiveness of fertilization, so the only thing left is to toss it out and walk on it. The principle is that uselessness invites disaster. If a Christian is not fulfilling his purpose as salt he’s on his way to trouble. “It is then good for nothing” but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

Salt may still look like salt after it loses its effectiveness, the same is true with the church today. “Having a form of godliness but denying it’s power” — “Keeping up the forms of religion but not giving expression to its power, avoid such people”(2Tim.3:5 Williams). There are alot of buildings that look like Churches but are just an empty shell. Just as salt having lost its saltiness cannot be restored so also is it with those who have been trained in the knowledge of the truth but refuse to obey God. God will not be able to use them, they become disqualified and as a result are set on a shelf. “I do not want to preach to others and then to find that I myself have failed to stand the test” (1Cor.9:24-27 Barclay). This scripture has often been used as evidence that Christians can lose their salvation. The scripture teaches that what God starts in a persons life he also finishes (Phil. 1:6) but that doesn't minimize the seriousness of the warning.