Worldly Churches Lack Credibility (Salt of the Earth - Part 2)

Moore's Corner Church

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Holding off God's Judgement (2 Peter 3 / Matthew 5:13-16 Salt of the Earth - Part 3)

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Thank you for listening to this message from the ministry of Morse Corner Church in Leverett, Massachusetts.

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Morse Corner is a non -denominational church that is committed to the preaching and teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Our church was founded in 1896 by two students of the famous evangelist

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D .L. Moody. We seek to encourage and edify the body of Christ through the proclamation of God's Word through the ministries of the local church.

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If you'd like more information, visit our website morsecornerchurch .com. We hope you enjoy the message.

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We should show our faith not only by speaking of our faith, we should also be showing our faith with our our actions.

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We should help people, we should visit the sick, encourage those who have a heavy heart. If you heard of a believer who's gone through something difficult, hey pick up the phone, give them a call.

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That's what Christians should do. We should be willing to forgive. This is the most basic of all.

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A Christian should be willing to forgive. You say, yeah but you don't know what that person did to me.

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Well God knows what they did and the Lord tells us to forgive.

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A Christian should be faithful to their spouse and keep their vows. A follower of Christ should not only not kill, this is one of the commandments, we should not only not kill, we shouldn't get angry at people without a cause.

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What's one way people get angry without a cause? You know someone in front of you is driving just a little too slow that day and you get mad and of course, what would an unbeliever do?

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They would pass them and they'd give them a one -finger wave, wouldn't they? Christians don't do that kind of a thing.

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Now have Christians done that kind of thing? Yeah, we shouldn't do that, right?

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So you are the salt of the earth but if the salt loses its flavor we become good for nothing.

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Now not in that ultimate sense but we become of no use to God. God can't use us when we're living just like everybody else or when we lose our testimony.

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You know when we lose our testimony it's really, really difficult to get it back. Once that happens, if you can get it back, unbelievers you know they view us as not being credible when they see us doing things that everybody else does.

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You've probably noticed this is true and I've picked up on this. An unbeliever, if they know you're a

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Christian and you're a member of Morse Corner Church or whatever, if they know you're a believer, an unbeliever will want to see you get into the things that they're doing.

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They want to see you say the wrong thing. They get some sort of delight in hearing you curse or say something you shouldn't.

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Have you noticed this? If an unbeliever sees a Christian saying or doing something they shouldn't do, they like that.

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They like it. I think it makes them feel better because when they see someone living a godly life it makes them feel convicted.

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So I think they like it when believers say and do the wrong thing. It makes them feel better but they also view the believer as a hypocrite.

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They might not say that but they'll view us as being a hypocrite.

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They'll see that we don't really, this will be their impression, that we don't really take our faith that seriously.

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And Christianity in the process. Here's the big picture. When churches lose their saltiness, when churches become worldly,

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Christianity loses all credibility. When the world sees that we're just like everyone else,

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Christianity, not just you personally or us collectively, Christianity itself loses all credibility.

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Matthew Henry said this about this passage, Christ sent forth his disciples into the world that their lives and doctrines to season it with knowledge and grace and they are not, if they are not such as they should be, they are as salt that has lost its savor.

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If a man can take up the profession of Christ and yet remain graceless, no other doctrine, no other means can make him profitable.

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So if we are not living that life that God wants us to live, we are not profitable.

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We are of no use. So what are these graces that we should be displaying?

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This is, we talk about taking the Bible in context. If you want to know the context of a passage, what do you do?

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It's like Christianity 101, what do you do? Yeah, you look at the verses either before or the verses after.

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So let's look at some of the verses before. What do these Christian graces look like?

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Matthew 5, verse 5, Christians should be meek. We should be meek.

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So we should be patient and we should be kind to people. Verse 6, a believer should hunger and thirst for righteousness.

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So we should love what is right and we should hate what is evil.

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See I think everyone would say, of course, obviously we should love what is right.

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But do we actually hate what is evil? Obviously in talking about all of this, even the disciples of Jesus.

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You know you can go back to the Old Testament and even look at giants in the faith, men like Abraham and Moses.

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But the disciples of Jesus sometimes they did say and do the wrong thing, didn't they?

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And at times it reflected upon them poorly. So here's the thing, we all say and do things that we regret.

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So I think you have to look at this more as a pattern of life. Not that, hey, I really blew it last week.

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Or I really said something the other day that I shouldn't have. Don't get too focused on just that.

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It's the pattern of life. You know nobody's perfect. All have sinned and have come short of the glory of God.

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But what is your pattern of life? Verse 7 of Matthew 5,

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Christians should be merciful. Verse 8, there should be purity in our lives.

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Verse 9, we should be peacemakers. And then verses 10 through 12 we should be willing to suffer persecution for the

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Lord's sake. So when there's hard times that you know when you're following Christ, you're trying to do the right thing and then people they don't like you, or you know you catch flack for doing the right thing.

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There's two responses, either you endure it or people sometimes they drop out when things get tough.

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So how are we salt and light? By learning from Christ and doing what

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He says. Now a lot of people would say that being a light.

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Let your light shine. How do you normally think of that? What would that look like? Somebody say, ok, you're the light, let your light shine.

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I think a lot of people say, well that means you need to evangelize, that means you need to talk about your faith.

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Can I suggest that it's not, and obviously we should do that, we should always be ready to give an answer to the one who asks us.

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But can I suggest that it's not so much witnessing, it's being a witness.

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I want to think about that for myself, am I being a witness? You know that I'm not saying don't share your faith, we should share our faith.

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But here's the thing, our faith becomes a stench in the nostrils of the unbeliever when they see that we are not living our faith.

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So instead of witnessing we should first focus on being a witness.

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Let your light shine based on what? Look at verse 16, Jesus says, let your light so shine before men that they may see your what?

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Not good words, they may see your good works and glorify your

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Father in Heaven. So if our pattern of life is not there, if the salt loses its flavor, we're not going to have any credibility.

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So let's focus on our own selves first, displaying Christian graces. And that way ideally when people see that they will come and they will ask you, because they'll see it and they will desire what you have.

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But if the salt has lost its flavor that's not going to happen.

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We're going to turn to 2 Peter chapter 3 in a moment, just turn there if you would, 2

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Peter chapter 3. But you know sometimes, and this is a unique thing maybe in our country or in Western civilization, but sometimes there are unbelievers who live more of a

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Christian life than some professing believers do. What do you do with that?

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Like there are some people they are not Christians and yet their lifestyle seems more

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Christian than some Christians, you know. What does that do? That is a damaging testimony on the

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Christian Church. But why is that? Why do some people live the Christian life without actually having

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Christ? I think it's because this country originally, maybe it wasn't a

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Christian nation officially, but it was a nation of Christians. You know the church, some of you can remember, some of the older folks can remember when you were young where the church really had probably the most influence on society more than any other institution.

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I mean the Christian Church was it. The Christian Church had massive influence and everybody was either part of it or at least they said they were if they didn't actually go.

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So here's the point, there have been people who have been brought up in with Christian values but they don't actually have

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Christ. So what's the ideal? And then there's people that profess Christ but they for whatever reason don't live out the

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Christian values. So it's damaging, it's a damaging testimony. What's the ideal? You have both.

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You have your profession, you have the doctrine, and then you also have the practice.

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That is the only way the kingdom of God can really expand on this earth if we have both.

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Okay, so 2 Peter chapter 3, that's where you're at. This whole idea about you are the salt of the earth.

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Salt is a preservative. So when there's enough Christians, like way back when, when the church had all this influence, when there is enough

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Christians preserving society, things will go well in society. Why are things going bad in society right now?

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Because there's so few Christians. So many people have dropped out, or the younger generation isn't as faithful.

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Why are things the way they are in the world today? Because the salt has lost its flavor.

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So 2 Peter chapter 3, this is Peter talking about the day of judgment, and the day of the

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Lord. Jesus when speaking about His return in Matthew 24 verse 37

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He said, but as the days of Noah were so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

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You remember before the Flood there were so few believers on earth, there were so few people living a godly lifestyle that what did

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God do? He destroyed the world in a flood. So as long as there is that salt, as long as there are believers in this world living godly lives that's preserving the world against the day of judgment.

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Do you realize that? Once the numbers shrink, and they are shrinking, but once they shrink, shrink, shrink, shrink at a certain point

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God's going to say, okay now's the time. Look at 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 10, but the day of the

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Lord will come as what? A thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

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Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

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Now the book of Revelation speaks of the church in the last days as being so corrupt the

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Lord refers to the false church as the harlot of Babylon. That's how bad things will get.

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Why? Because the church is in bed with the world system. It's doing whatever the governing authorities of the world, the church is going along with whatever the world's doing.

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It's called the harlot, and that's contrasted to the true church, the true believers who are the pure bride of Christ.

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So, look at it this way when the salt loses its flavor on a grand scale when so few godly people are left there's no more preservation going on, and then that's when

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God's judgment falls. Look at 2 Peter 3 verse 3, go back to verse 3, he says, speaking of the last days, knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days walking according to their own lusts, and saying where is the promise of his coming?

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For since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

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Does that describe the time we're living in? Scoffers? Jesus give me a break, He's never coming back.

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Things will just continue like this forever unless climate change ends it all or something like that.

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That's what people say. That's what they believe. Peter mentions that they seem to forget about this one thing it's called the worldwide flood.

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So, what are they doing? They're walking according to their own lusts. They're scoffing and they don't believe the flood happened.

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That's pretty good, pretty good picture of the age we live in. Here's the disturbing thing, it's not just that the atheists and the agnostics don't believe in the flood and they mock and scoff, that happens within churches.

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Thanks for listening, I'm Pastor Michael Grant from Morris Cornick Church. If you'd like to listen to the complete message or you'd like more information about the ministry visit our website morriscornickchurch .com

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and we'd love to have you join us some Sunday morning here in Leverett. Until next time, may the grace of God be with you.