I have been thinking a great deal lately about something Jesus said nearly two thousand years ago:
“Ye are the salt of the earth…” — Matthew 5:13 (KJV)
Salt is only useful when it leaves the salt shaker.
You can have the purest salt in the world sitting in a glass container on the table, but if it never touches anything, it changes nothing. It preserves nothing. It flavors nothing. It helps nothing.
And I fear that is exactly what has happened to much of the modern church.
We have become comfortable sitting inside our church buildings while the world outside is dying without Christ.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I thank God for churches. I thank God for fellowship. I thank God for good singing, worship, and faithful believers. But somewhere along the way, many churches stopped being rescue stations for sinners and became gathering places mostly for church folks talking to other church folks.
Most churches today are not growing because sinners are being gloriously converted.
They are growing because Christians are swapping aquariums.
One family leaves one church because they like the music better somewhere else.
Another family leaves because of a disagreement.
Someone else moves because another church has a bigger youth group, better coffee, softer pews, shorter sermons, or more programs.
But where are the sinners?
Where are the broken men weeping at the altar?
Where are the addicts crying out for deliverance?
Where are the young people under conviction of sin?
Where are the prodigals coming home?
In many churches today, very few people even identify themselves as sinners anymore.
Most altar calls are filled with church members needing encouragement rather than lost souls seeking salvation.
And I believe one reason is this:
the church has slowly lost contact with the mission field.
We spend nearly all our time inside the salt shaker.
Jesus never told us to hide from the world.
He said:
“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” — Mark 16:15 (KJV)
That means we are supposed to go where sinners actually are.
Jesus said:
“Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in…” — Luke 14:23 (KJV)
The highways and hedges are not comfortable places.
That is where hurting people are.
That is where broken homes are.
That is where addiction lives.
That is where lonely people sit wondering if anybody cares.
That is where confused young people are searching for truth.
That is where people are trying to numb their pain with alcohol, drugs, entertainment, and pleasure because they have never experienced the peace of God.
But much of the church has become isolated from those people.
We have Christian music.
Christian schools.
Christian radio.
Christian bookstores.
Christian conferences.
Christian entertainment.
And some believers spend almost all their time around other believers while having little interaction with the lost world Christ died to save.
Brother, if all the salt stays in the shaker, the meat still rots.
The early church did not live like that.
Those believers preached in streets, homes, prisons, marketplaces, and wherever people would listen. They did not wait for sinners to come into a comfortable building. They carried the Gospel into dangerous places.
And people were converted because the Gospel was preached with power and conviction.
Today many churches are afraid to preach anything that makes sinners uncomfortable. Sermons have become motivational speeches instead of calls to repentance.
But Jesus preached repentance.
Peter preached repentance.
Paul preached repentance.
The Gospel was never meant merely to comfort people in their sin.
It was meant to save them from it.
The truth is, sinners are rarely converted where conviction is absent.
And conviction is rare when churches become more concerned with comfort than truth.
Now before somebody misunderstands me, I am not against nice church buildings or air conditioning. On a hot Indiana July Sunday, I thank God for air conditioning just as much as anybody else. But comfort can become dangerous when it removes our burden for souls.
Much of the underground church around the world has no buildings at all.
Believers gather secretly in homes, basements, forests, and hidden places while risking imprisonment or death simply for following Christ.
And many of those persecuted churches are seeing more genuine conversions than churches sitting in luxury.
Why?
Because they still understand the urgency of the Gospel.
Meanwhile, many American Christians have become so comfortable that they no longer see the lost world outside the church walls.
Jesus did not call us to polish the salt shaker.
He called us to season the earth.
The church is still supposed to be the light of the world.
Still supposed to preach the Gospel.
Still supposed to seek the lost.
Still supposed to weep between the porch and the altar.
This world is growing darker by the day.
Families are collapsing.
Young people are confused.
People are filled with fear and hopelessness.
And while politicians argue and nations rage, the church still possesses the only message that can truly transform a human heart:
Jesus saves.
Not government.
Not politics.
Not entertainment.
Not ideology.
Jesus Christ still saves sinners.
And until the trumpet sounds, our mission remains the same:
Get out of the salt shaker.
Go into the highways and hedges.
And compel them to come in.
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