Bill Cook | America’s Black Robe Regiment
Nature of Salt?
What is the meaning of “salt of the earth?” Was Jesus referring to the flavor enhancing properties of salt when he said his followers were the salt of the earth? Taste is important, but in Jesus’ time salt was also used as a preservative, a disinfectant, an insecticide, to remove noxious odors, extinguish fire, melt ice, relieve sore throats, and embalm the deceased. Salt is good, but if it loses its efficacy, it is good for nothing.
Why is the Church in the West being trampled underfoot today? Why is Tyranny running roughshod over Christianity in America? Could it be that the salt of the earth has lost its savor? Far from being secure, the Blessings of Liberty, which the Church has largely been taken for granted for the last fifty years, are rapidly being supplanted by the arbitrary dictates of tyrants.
Savorless Salt
Psalm 12:8 says, “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.” When vile persons are elected or appointed to positions of public trust, they threaten the peace and safety of the civil society. The Apostle Paul would agree, for he wrote that those who do not know God (i.e. “the children of disobedience”) are incited to action by the “prince of the power of the air” (i.e. the devil), and we know that he “comes only to steal, kill and destroy.” (John 10:10)
Evidently, when the wicked rule, the salt of the earth has lost its savor.
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. —Ephesians 2:2
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Saltless Salt Empowers Tyranny
British statesman and philosopher Sir Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” If Burke’s maxim is true, then voting is a sacred duty. Voluntary failure to vote is damnable, especially in the aggregate. We can’t claim to love God and our neighbor when neglect of our most basic civic duty. Not voting empowers those who would rob and ruin our neighbors?
A good shepherd lays down his life for the flock of God. Jesus said, “One who is a hired, is not the shepherd. The sheep are not his own. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and abandons the sheep. He flees. The wolf then catches and scatters the sheep.” (John 10:12) Unwillingness to preach the whole counsel of God is abandonment. Unwillingness to speak the truth because it might cause some sheep to leave is abandonment.
A Word to Shepherds
In his farewell message to the elders of the Church at Ephesus, Paul testified of his freedom from bloodguilt. He had faithfully preached the whole counsel of God:
I kept back nothing that was profitable to you … for which reason you are my witnesses. My conscience is free from bloodguilt. I have not neglected to declare to you all the counsel of God. Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers. Feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. —Acts 20:20, 26-28
In his message, Paul insinuated that bloodguilt accrues to failure to address any topic that might be of eternal or temporal benefit.
If a pastor today is unwilling to preach an election sermon, he is unwilling to preach the whole counsel of God. He has abandoned his flock to political ignorance and apathy, tyranny, or worse.
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A Final Admonition
Presbyterian Minister and Lawyer Charles G. Finney was a central figure in Second Great Awakening. As President of Oberlin College, he wrote an article that ran in “The Independent of New York” on December 4, 1873. In the article, Rev. Finney attributed “frauds and villainies in high and low places, among all ranks of men” to anemic preaching. He defined anemic preaching as that which did not probe the consciences of men. The great revivalist concluded his article with the following admonition, which sadly, rings true today.
“Brethren, our preaching will bear its legitimate fruits. If immorality prevails in the land, the fault is ours in a great degree. If there is a decay of conscience … if the public press lacks moral discrimination … if the church is degenerate and worldly … if the world loses its interest in religion … if Satan rules in our halls of legislation, if our politics become so corrupt that the very foundations of our government are ready to fall away, the pulpit is responsible for it. Let us not ignore this fact, my dear brethren; but let us lay it to heart and be thoroughly awake to our responsibility in respect to the morals of this nation.”
SOURCE: America’s Black Robe Regiment
