What Happens When Salt Loses It's Saltiness?

 I have very recently been faced with a situation that I had not had to previously consider. Let me walk you through my experience, from the introduction of the situation through my processing of the request that brought this situation on, to the final outcome of it.

I had a planned event that I was going to on New Year's Day. This has been a long standing event with the same core people, but it has grown over the years. Yesterday had maybe about 20-25 people in attendance. The situation began a couple of days ahead of the event.

This is a group of Believers gathering together, but this is a group that contains a lot of people who proclaim Christ as their Saviour without truly understanding what it means to surrender to Him and to obey Him fully. I have desired to teach this group more, but I do not have the capital with this group for them to listen to what I have to say and to take it to heart; that is the unfortunate nature of this group. These are good people; I want to be very clear about that. They seek to influence the world for God in the ways that they understand; it is just that they could be more effective if they could, first, accept that their understanding is not complete, and second, accept that they do not know what they do not know. 

We all have that weakness somewhere in our lives. There are subjects that we know that we possess no knowledge about, but there are other things that we think we understand, but we do not realize the limits of our understanding. The problem that came up is that, while at least some of the group claims to know about spiritual warfare, they apparently do not know enough about it to be cautious enough. They simply do not know what it is that they do not know.

The context of this situation is a relationship with a young Muslim man that has been growing among some couples in the group. One of the couples began the relationship by happenstance; this young man used to be their neighbour and they developed a relationship through which other members of the group got to know him as well. For simplicity, I will call this young man Yusef. I met Yusef for the first time yesterday, though it seems that I was probably the last one of the group to have been introduced to him. It was a real pleasure to meet Yusef; he is energetic and very easy to like and to talk to, and I can see why everyone else likes having him around. Yusef has no family in the country while he is here studying, and besides offering companionship, there has been an effort to introduce Yusef to Jesus as his Saviour and not just as a prophet. But as mentioned before, Yusef is Muslim.

He doesn't seem to be very devout as a Muslim. He dresses in western clothes, does not pray five times a day as Muslims are required to do and as I understand it, as of about a year ago anyway, he had not yet fully read through the Quran, the holy book of his own religion. All indications are that Yusef is a cultural Muslim, not a religious one. But that does not mean that he does not practice certain aspects of his religious beliefs.

The request came from a member of the group that we quietly respect the Islamic prayers of this young man should it become evident that he was engrossed in them at some time during our gathering. The story behind this request is that at a recent previous meal time, when the Christian family had finished praying the blessing and began to talk and serve the food, the host had noticed that Yusef had continued praying for a time afterwards, and the host had felt guilty about talking and bustling about while Yusef finished his own, presumably Muslim prayer. This also lead the host to believe and to state in their request, that they believed that Yusef was becoming more serious about his Islamic faith, which of course is contrary to their wishes for him. So, in the midst of a Christian gathering at which we were meeting to celebrate the birth of our Saviour, a lifelong Christian was asking other mostly life-long Christians to quietly respect the prayers of a Muslim in our midst. I had a problem with this. I warned the group that this is a Muslim tactic to attempt to gain an advantage by praying longer than those of another religion, and that if Yusef was becoming more devout in his faith, he could actually be engaging in spiritual warfare against them while hiding behind a smiling and friendly face.

This request came in the morning a couple of days before we were meeting. Everyone else agreed to honour this request, but I wrestled with it all day and I sought the advice of a few trusted mentors. The consensus among myself and my mentors was that this was a dangerous path to walk, and that I could not agree to it. I carefully composed a message to the group about this, and thankfully, it sparked a much needed conversation around this subject.

My argument against offering this quiet respect was that, by doing so, we, children of the Living God, are essentially bending the knee to allow worship to be offered to a demon, which is the true nature of any pagan god. This is not what Christians are called to do. We are called to be salt and light to a lost and dying world. Matthew 5:13-16 are the words of Jesus telling us, "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. 14 You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; 15 nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven."

The group, at least those who engaged in the conversation, appreciated my concerns, except that they misunderstood them. They took my words to mean that I did not want Yusef to participate in the day with us, which was not my point. I had to labour the point that my issue was not Yusef's attendance, but that I was in no way willing to acknowledge or allow uninterrupted pagan worship in my presence, in a place that we are expected by God to practice dominance over, which was a Believer's own house. If the group could not accept this and the fact that I may feel led by the Spirit to openly engage in my own spiritual warfare should I see Yusef praying, then it would probably be best if I did not attend.

And this is where the crux of the matter is; again, they acknowledged my concerns and even admitted that they had not considered the spiritual ramifications of allowing pagan worship in their homes, but they still wanted to allow it! Their arguments were that a pagan god is just a demon, over which God has ultimate power and authority; that since they had claimed their homes for God, they were not concerned about whatever potential threat a prayer to a demon may present; and that, Yusef would not be praying out loud, and since demons cannot know our thoughts, any prayer that he would mutter in silence would not be heard by the demons and would hence have no effect anyway. And this is where they did not know what it is that they did not know.

I agree that God is Almighty, that demons cannot read our thoughts and that God can protect us, but, we are called to stand for Him, to stake our claim for Him and to defend that claim. This group, as a collective, was willing to stand aside and allow pagan worship in a home that most of them did not even live in, or their own home for that matter, in order to not cause discomfort to one whose beliefs are absolutely contrary to their own. What this group wanted to do was to practice tolerance towards another religion. Tolerance is not a Christian virtue; tolerance is a western virtue, one that has undermined our ability to wield our authority in our own lands, and apparently, in our own homes!

After a little further back and forth, and after the group stated that they still wanted me there, even given the warning that I had offered them, and after some further prayer on my part, I attended the gathering and met Yusef, whom I really like personally.

As things turned out, when the meal time blessing was done, Yusef's eyes were open and he did not appear to be praying. On top of that one of the group had suggested that we sing the Doxology after the prayer, which served to both extend the prayer and to give me, and as it were everyone else, an opportunity to battle in the spiritual realm if Yusef had been offering up a prayer, without the appearance of being spiritually aggressive towards him and his faith.

We, as Christians, are not called to tolerate the other religions around us; we are called to bring the world to Jesus. In the Old Testament, God wanted the whole world to come to Judaism, a Theocracy with God as the head, when the world would see how God blessed Israel due to their obedience to Him. However, due to their disobedience, all the world got to see was Israel's repeated subjugation and eventual destruction and dispersion among the nations. Now, as we live under the New Covenant as revealed to us in the New Testament, God wants the whole world to come to Jesus when they see the blessings and the peace that we as Believers hold as we walk in relationship with Him.

The best way to do that is to build relationships and to love those of other belief systems, but that does not include participating in or otherwise granting any credence to their religious beliefs or practices. And I am not unaware that this can get very tricky at times. My recent experince was just a small taste of what others have to deal with on a regular basis. Because I live in a fairly non-diverse population, I don't have much practical advice on how one should go about achieving this. But there are those who minister to others in foreign countries where this is a balancing act that they must learn to master, and they will have a very steep learning curve. I suspect that most of them will make mistakes along the way, but I trust that they are Spirit led and that the Spirit will correct their errors and that they will be sensitive to His leadings. And He will do the same for us if we are paying attention.

These other Believers with whom I gathered are not paying attention, and are exposing themselves to forces that they do not understand. They have given their lives to Christ, but that does not protect them from the repercussions of their own decisions. Allowing pagan worship in their homes opens the door for the enemy to sneak in. It won't be an all-out assault; it will be subtle. It is most likely that most people won't even notice the changes, but left unchecked, and even added upon by repeated offences against the Spirit, things can grow. The occupants of the house may not ever come to the point of losing their salvation, but their peace will be stolen from them and they won't understand how or why.

Demons have already lost the war, but they will fight every battle that they can find until they are finally vanquished from the earth, doing as much damage to the Kingdom of God as they possibly can. Don't allow a foothold to be established in your home or even in your spirit. The world preaches tolerance while it chops away at the long-established roots of our Christian heritage. Christians have come to believe that it is best to try to win others to Christ by avoiding confrontation and discomfort while we are being confronted all of the time. It is far past time to push back against the assault and take a firm stand for God.

If we can't take a stand for God in our own home, what chance do we stand in the real world? Let's make sure that we do not lose our saltiness.