SUNDAY, JULY 25

Scripture: Matthew 5:13b, Matthew 8:28

The rest of Matthew 5:13 says of those who lost their salt, “It is then good/is-khoo-o for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.”  Is-koo-o is a very interesting word in Greek.  Because it is a word that defines a contest.  A contest generally pitting good against evil.  We see it in Matthew 8:28 where we are told, “When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could/is-khoo-o pass that way.”  The spirit who was on the Gadarene demoniac completely stopped all travel in his region.  Isn’t it interesting that the same spirit that was on the Gadarene demoniac infected the Supreme Court and they stopped all prayer in school.  They stopped prayer by a perverse interpretation of the constitution and continue to limit Christian activity in the public square.  Did Jesus over-power the Gadarene demoniac?  Yes – He did it with deliverance.  And yet when it was a politician who was possessed, as in King Herod, the early church did not get a deliverance, they got a prominent judgment.  When we have to go judicial and must demonstrate our salt, we put a demand on God’s covenant for judgment and if the person won’t turn, we demand they be removed.  Anything less is not the salt of the covenant and it is not what Jesus died to make available to the church.  Jesus did not make us wimps and Priests, He made us Kings and Priests.  It is time we started acting like it!