Scripture

 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.

Quote

We are the salt of the earth, not the sugar. Our ministry is to purify, not just change the taste.

~Vance Havner

I listen to sermons on Youtube and I heard a good one yesterday by Gary Hamrick. Concerning our influence upon a fallen world; Hamrick says we need to keep five things in mind. [1] We are in the minority and we will always be in the minority but that doesn’t mean that we cannot influence the world around us. [2] We must be genuine in our faith because the world is watching. [3] We must be bold in our faith. We cannot let this flood tide of evil intimidate us. It is time for us to speak up and speak out. [4] When we speak, we must be gracious and loving. We cannot use the hate rhetoric that the world spews at us. [5] We must be salty saints. If we are not irritating those living in rebellion, we are not being salt. I thought his words were on target and I wanted to share them with you.

I am reading Jacob Needleman’s WHY CAN’T WE BE GOOD. Needleman does not mention Paul or Romans one but he believes that God has planted a conscience in every human and that intuitively, we know right from wrong. We know that courage is good and treason is bad. Needleman is a professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. He is a Jew. He believes in God or should I say one eternal supreme being and He believes that God is good. He conducts experiments in his classes. He had 12 students in an ethics class and he wanted to set up and engineer a debate. He began with the topic of abortion. His question: how many of you support a woman’s right to abort her baby? About eight hands went up quickly and eventually all 12 raised their hands. So he narrowed the subject: how many of you support partial birth abortion, this time there was a slower response and all but two raised their hands. Needleman had enough experience to know that some of them were not being honest. This is a result of political correctness—it eliminates debate. If we don’t agree with the left, we are censured, cancelled or condemned as a racist or fanatic. No one wants to be labeled racist or fanatical. Without going into the details, Needleman choose a young woman named Janice to speak for the rights of the child and the pro-life position and a woman named Arlene to speak for pro-choice, the woman’s right to abort at any time for any reason. Long story short, Alice, although in the minority won the debate. She used simple logic…the fetus is in fact a child and abortion takes the life of the child. The unborn child is not a part of the woman’s anatomy. The child is a separate life developing within the woman’s body and the woman has a responsibility to protect the child. Arlene’s point of view was strictly emotional; she was going by her feelings and ignoring the facts.

My point is simple: the world is telling us to shut up. We are racist and deplorable fanatics and we have no right to speak. We cannot let the world intimidate us and that is exactly what has happened. We have the word of God and Jesus: both are filled with grace and truth. We are familiar with absolute truth. Were can logically expose their error but we have to speak up and speak out. Cowing down will not get the job done. I had a preacher tell me years ago, “sugar draws more flies than vinegar.” He told me I was doing more harm than good. It is because of preachers like him that we murdered babies for 50 years. Our job is not to be politically correct. John the Baptist was not politically correct and neither am I. Salt can flavor and preserve but it can also irritate.

Extra

I guess I celebrated a little too soon, Big Mama says we have some more hot weather coming. It can’t be much more. Enjoy this little cool snap. God bless you and thanks for reading the blog.