WEAKENED BY COMPROMISE

When the Salt Loses Its Flavor

The book of Revelation refers to the apostate church as a harlot when she beds herself with the world system and false religions of the world, and when she compromises the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ in order not to offend the world and its ungodly values.
The prophet Ezekiel said that Israel’s idolatry with the gods of foreign nations was spiritual harlotry. “You offered yourself to everyone who passed by and multiplied your acts of harlotry” Ezekiel 16:25.

In their commentary on Ezekiel 16, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown said, “The wanton advances were all on Israel’s part; the idolatrous nations yielded to her nothing in return. She had yielded so much that, like a worn-out prostitute, her tempters became weary of her. When the church lowers her standards and lowers her testimony for God to the carnal tastes of the world, with a view to conciliation (with the world), she loses everything and gains nothing.”

A church with a compromised message is useless to the purpose God intended. It is no longer the church of the living God, but a social club cloaked in the skin of Christianity.

“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God” James 4:4.

Jesus ate with sinners, but He did not sin with sinners. In His prayer for the disciples just before the crucifixion Jesus explained that we are separated from the world yet sent into the world.
“I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them (set them apart) by Your truth. Your Word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17: 14-18).

To reach the world we must have something to offer other than its own empty philosophy and godless values. We must offer God’s word and His truth. That which separates us from the world is also what brings life and hope to the world. We cannot lay down and forsake our treasure. If the church stands for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, it will be hated by those who are determined to reject Him. But if the church compromises the word of God and takes no Biblical stand on the issues, it will be despised as a weak and irrelevant institution, fit for nothing. May the Lord grant the church boldness and power to proclaim the Gospel of the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

“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.” Matthew 5:13.

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