Jesus had just taught the “Sermon on the Mount” to multitudes of people in Matthew chapter 5. As He expounded to them about the different facets of being blessed, or happy as some translations word it, He then continued in verses 13-16 to give them several mental pictures of the influence His disciples were to have in the world:
“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.
You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
As Jesus often did in His teaching, He painted pictures for them from their daily lives and culture so that the people could readily understand what He was saying. They knew the value of salt in their daily lives. Salt was used for several things in that culture. For one thing, it was used as a preservative. I know it’s hard for people in our society to fully understand, but 2000 years ago, there was no such thing as refrigerators or freezers to keep their food from spoiling. The people could not stock up with meat that would last them for months as we do, therefore they used salt to preserve their food for a short time until they were able to prepare it for their families’ consumption. So salt was very valuable to them.
Another purpose for salt in Jesus’ day as well as it is in ours, was to flavor their food. Although many other spices can be used to bring flavor and tastiness to food, salt is the one most commonly used. If you have ever tasted a bland dish with no salt or flavoring, then you know what Jesus was talking about. What He was saying about the salt is that we, as Christians, are to be a preservative, an element to hold back decay and rotting in our society; and we are also to be a flavoring, to help bring fullness and interest to life.
Then Jesus went on to say, “but if the salt loses its flavor”. When I researched how salt loses its flavor, the only way I could find that it could happen is if it were to become contaminated by other minerals. Well, that made perfect sense. As Christians, Disciples of Jesus Christ, we live in a morally corrupt world, one filled with sin and violence everywhere. How easy it would be for us to become contaminated by the things around us if we are not extremely careful. We can watch the wrong television shows or hang around with corrupt people. It’s really not that difficult to get caught up in the things of the world. Sometimes by making a small concessions to please someone else when we know in our hearts we shouldn’t, and we can become corrupt right along with them. So Jesus was teaching them to “come out from among them and be separate” as is stated in 2 Corinthians 6:17, and do not allow the contamination of the world to take away your saltiness, or your ability to hold back corruption while still allowing your life to bring fullness and interest to those around you.
Then, He went on to describe His disciples as the "light of the world". If you have ever been driving on a highway at night when it was very dark, and you came upon a large city in the distance, you know what He was talking about. When a city is full of light, you can see it for miles before you ever get to it. In Jesus’ day, of course there were no electric light bulbs, so the people would light a candle, and they would place it on a lampstand which was made high enough to set the light up to a level where it would shine for everyone in the house to see. It would be foolish to put a basket over the candle. Then the candle would be useless, for no one could see it in the darkness. So His audience knew exactly what He was talking about.
The very last thing He said in this scripture is an admonition for all of us who call ourselves Christians, or Disciples of Christ. He said, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.” Think about that….
You may be asking at this point, “What does this have to do with a sleeping giant?” I was wondering that too while I was writing this, but now I think I understand where the Lord is leading us in this lesson. Bear with me if you will.
I was in the shower the other day, and the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart the title of this article… “Awakening the Sleeping Giant”. I thought it might be related to a scripture, so I got on my computer (after the shower of course) and looked it up. But I did not find anything in scripture about sleeping giants, but when I looked online for references to waking the sleeping giant, I found lots of stuff from articles about World War II to nasty song lyrics, but I don’t believe any of that is what the Holy Spirit was referring to. I believe He was referring to the sleeping church in America, and I’ll tell you why.
There was a time when America was considered a Christian nation all over the world, and we were proud of that reputation. But several years ago a lot of people got really upset with President Obama because of a statement he made on June 28, 2006 He said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.” The Christian community was in an uproar because the president of the United States of America was indicating that we are no longer a Christian nation. Though he stumbled over the word “just” in this statement, I had to consider what he was actually saying. Although I love the Lord, and I know you love the Lord, and there are many people in our nation who attend church, and many who really are Christians, but when I talk to people on the street, or in the workplace, or in the marketplace, I find that most of them do not feel the same way that I feel about God. I once worked at a job where I needed to ask about “religious preference” as part of my daily routine, and the overwhelming majority of the people I came in contact with claimed no religious affiliation at all, and many of the ones who claimed to be Christians, certainly did not live as if they knew the Savior...not judgment, just fact. Then there were a lot of them who did have different religious beliefs. So when I heard the statement that President Obama made, I knew exactly what he was saying. I didn’t like it at all, but I knew, as hard as it is to admit, that he was right.
And then, I stumbled across this article the other day, and it stated, “A Christian apologist and commentator claims statistics point to what some are calling a “Fifth Great Awakening” as Christianity is on the rise everywhere but in the United States.” It goes on to state, “Denison also notes that the number of atheists and agnostics in the US has quadrupled in the past 20 years and that only one percent of American college students attends church on any given Sunday. “In our culture, God is a hobby; God is for Sunday, not Monday.” And he adds, “We separate the spiritual from the secular and religion from the real world.” (quotes taken from Church Around the World, March 2012 edition) Does that sound like the description of a “Christian Nation” to you?
I also received a flyer from the Billy Graham Association a while back, and this is what it said… “They know LESS about Jesus than any generation in our history…they are our youth, our children and grandchildren. They crave TRUTH and ACCEPTANCE and LOVE. Let’s help them find it.” Friends, we are raising generation after generation of children who become adults who DO NOT know our Lord, who have never accepted the Truth of God’s Word, and who have never met Jesus Christ as their Savior. They are LOST!!! And we, Christians, cannot point the blame to anyone but ourselves.
So my thought is this…if we, the Body of Christ…the Church, want our nation to be considered a “Christian Nation” once again, we need to earn that right. If we want our country to be “the light of the world” and a “city set upon the hill” then we need to start BEING THE CHURCH that Jesus told us to be. We need to stop having our social meetings and begin to once again to reach out to a lost and dying world, or at least the lost and dying right here in our own backyard. We need to start caring for the poor, reaching out to the hurting and destitute in our society. For too long we have turned up our noses and walked around them just as the Pharisee and the scribe in the story of the Good Samaritan. (Luke 10:25-37) We need to stop expecting our pastors to spoon feed us the Word of God and we need to begin to get into the Word and read it for ourselves…and then apply it to our lives and truly live it. We need to get by ourselves, alone with God and shut off the TV and all the electronic gadgets, and truly get to KNOW our Father in Heaven. We need to stop expecting somebody else to do our praying for us, and we need to get in touch with the God of the Universe for ourselves. WE NEED TO WAKE UP CHURCH!! I believe the Church in America IS the Great Sleeping Giant, and we must shake ourselves, rouse ourselves out of this slumber that we have been in for so many years. We need to face our shortcomings, not just excuse them, and we need to admit our apathy, our complacency and “lukewarmness” and we need to stop it! We have lulled ourselves into thinking that “everything is okay, when in truth EVERYTHING IS NOT OKAY! We are not doing fine! The Church in America is in dire trouble, and until we WAKE UP and realize that fact this nation will not get any better…NO…it will only get worse! We must stand up to the Enemy who is trying to overtake our great country. Our enemy is not Iran, it is not the terrorists, they are the manifestation of the results of our enemy…our true enemy is our own apathy, our own complacency, and our own state of denial. We tell ourselves that everything’s fine in our churches when they are not fine. We go through the motions, we show up at the church every time the doors are open in order to soothe our ego, thinking that as long as we are going to that place that it will somehow make us okay in God’s sight. But NO…God says, “But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?” (I John 3:17) and again, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:27) We need to be American Christians and stop depending on the government and the politicians to do it for us. I promise you, they will not fix America. Any greatness that America can claim has been because some great Christians have stood tall and been willing to pay the price to make and keep her great. Where are those great Christians today?
I truly believe that we can once again be the great nation that our forefathers dreamed of when they came to this land. When they formed our Constitution, they envisioned that those laws and documents would be strong enough to protect our freedoms…freedoms that were based on the Word of God and their faith in Him and Him alone. And when people came against those freedoms, our forefathers were willing to stand up and battle the opposition. They didn’t send emails complaining that their politicians weren’t living up to their expectations. NO…they stood up and went to battle in whatever way they needed to in order to protect those freedoms. Yes, I believe we can once again see the moral climate of our nation change for the good, but it is not up to governments to do that. It is not up to presidents or governors, or congressmen and women to do that…it’s up to us, the Church! We have the POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT dwelling in us, we have the WORD OF GOD as our guide, we have the COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS to stand with us and we must go forward. Only we, the Church in America, can take our nation back.
And here’s the method…it’s found right there in God’s Word in 2 Chronicles 7:14… “ if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” It will take God’s people, humbling themselves, getting before a holy God and repenting of our own sins first of all, and then the sins of our nation, and we must seek His face with diligence, and then we MUST STOP SINNING OURSELVES, and we must pray…pray like we have never prayed before. We need to beg God to revive us again. Stop putting down the government. They are not our answer. God is our answer, and until we decide to stop playing church and truly BE the Church, there will be no changes in our land. We must do it God’s way. It’s time NOW to awaken the Sleeping Giant in America…the Church!
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