Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners, thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress.

And right now, your generous gift will have twice the impact, thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge, active now through July 6th. To give a special matching challenge gift, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's word with every day on this Bible teaching program on.

Speaker 3

Today’s edition of Pathway to Victory. You know, it's interesting. In John 9:5, another one of those "I ams," Jesus says, "I am the light of the world."

But here, Jesus says, "You are the light of the world." Jesus is the light who generates light. He's like the sun.

But you and I don't generate light. We're like the moon. We reflect the light of the sun.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor, Dr. Robert Jeffress. Should Christians get involved in politics? Well, the answer may surprise you.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress explains that Jesus not only encourages us to influence this world for the gospel, he commands it. It all has to do with being the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Now here's our Bible teacher to introduce today's message: Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 2

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Just yesterday, we announced some exciting news. Pathway to Victory is the recipient of an astonishing Matching Challenge in the amount of $1 million. We couldn't be more excited about the timing of this gift because it allows us to flood our country with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Look, we all know we're living in dark days. Did you ever imagine that Americans would invite high school boys to use girls' locker rooms for taking a shower? It's shocking to see our citizens abandon common sense morality in exchange for l. Well, the Salt and Light Matching Challenge equips Pathway to Victory to shine a light of moral clarity into the dark corners of our world. And by giving a generous gift to the Matching Challenge, you're investing in our only hope as a nation.

You see, it's not politics or legislation that will transform America. Only Christ can redeem individual hearts. Our role is to become salt and light as Jesus commanded, so that our citizens will hear the redemptive message of hope and grace. I'm urging you to participate in the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. By giving a generous gift, you become a part of a movement to boldly proclaim the gospel and stand for biblical truth.

Plus, every dollar you're able to give between now and July 6th will be automatically matched and therefore doubled in size, meaning your gift during this time will have twice the impact. I'm going to say more about the matching challenge and a brand new book I want to send to you, but right now let's turn our attention to Matthew chapter 5. I titled today's message "Straight Talk About Your Faith."

Speaker 3

Turn to Matthew chapter 5, beginning with verse 13. 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 fruitful, thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, 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. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.

Let's look at both of these statements more in depth. First of all, Jesus talks about the value of salt. You are the salt of the earth. In Jesus' day, salt was a very valuable commodity. So what did Jesus mean when he said, you are like this valuable commodity called salt? I think he had two things in mind. One purpose of salt was to enhance thirst. To enhance thirst in the same way Jesus said in Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness." That's what Jesus is talking about here when he talks about being salt. One idea is to enhance thirst. But there's another application of this, and it really was the main use of salt in Jesus' day. And that was to preserve food. Remember, in the days before refrigeration, the only way you could preserve meat was by packing it with salt. And Jesus said, in the same way, you and I are salt. We are restrainers of evil that is destroying our world.

Erwin Lutzer, my good friend, recounts what happens when Christians are indifferent about what is happening in their nation and in their world. Dr. Lutzer recounts the testimony of a Christian living in Germany about the end result of indifference. I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it. Our railroad track ran behind our small trail church. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train. We realized it was carrying Jews like cattle in the cars. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our lungs. We heard the screams. We sang more loudly, and we soon heard them no more.

There are churches across this country. There are churches all over the community of Dallas right now that are singing at the top of their lungs to try to drown out the evil that is pervading our country right now. We dare not do that. We must speak out and push back against evil. And we're going to continue to do it. You know, when it comes to our role in the culture and pushing back against evil, Christians go to one of two extremes. You know, there are some Christians who want to isolate themselves. They're salt, but they're gonna stay in that shaker. There are other Christians who go to the opposite extreme. They identify with the culture. No, Jesus said, don't isolate yourself. Don't identify with the culture. Instead, influence the culture, permeate the culture. Get out of the shaker. Get involved in the world of business and politics and entertainment. God needs his people in those arenas to be that preserving influence that God has called us to be.

But notice Jesus gives another image that describes our purpose, and that is light. You are the light of the world. And our job here is not just to push back against evil, but it's also to share the light, the only light of the world, Jesus Christ. I mean, quite frankly, what use is it to create spiritual thirst in people if you never show them how to satisfy that thirst through the living word of God, Jesus Christ, the water of life? What use is it to delay God's judgment on the world if you don't tell people how to escape God's judgment in their life by trusting in Christ as Savior? And that's why Jesus says we must be the light of the world.

Jesus likens believers to a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. Verse 14. In Israel, in Jesus' day, the country was dotted with small rural villages. But there was one hill and there was one city on that hill. It was Jerusalem. And at night, when the temple lights and candles were on and the individual homes were lighted, it could be seen from miles away. What is the city set on the hill today? It's not America. It's not Israel. It's not a nation. It is Christians, he said, who are showing forth the light of God's word in a dark world. He said, not only that, you are a lamp that cannot be hidden. In Jesus' day, for light in a house, you would take a lamp, kind of like Aladdin's lamp, and it was made out of clay with a reservoir of oil in it. It would be lit, and then it wouldn't be hidden under a basket. It would be put on a lampstand so that it could shine for everyone to see.

For a light to be effective, it has to be seen. Just imagine the middle of the night during one of these cold Dallas nights. Your electricity goes off, your house is completely black. But you remember you have a flashlight in the drawer beside your bed. So you reach for the flashlight and you're about to turn it on and you have another thought. And you thought, you know what? I sure don't want to offend the darkness by showing this light that will chase the darkness away. I don't want to offend the light. Would you do that? No, light is meant to confront the darkness. In fact, light is of little value in the light. A flashlight makes no difference in the sunlight. It's in the darkness that it does its work. And the fact is, if a light is going to be effective, if we're going to be effective, we're effective for Christ not when we're around other light sources, other Christians. It is when we are in the darkness. Light has to confront the darkness and it chases the darkness away.

Perhaps you're wondering right now, why is it God put me in this company where there are no Christians anywhere to be found? Why did God put me in this ungodly school? Why did God put me in this neighborhood where I'm the only believer? You've just answered your own question. Paul said in Philippians 2:15-16, "For in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation, you are children of light holding forth the word of life." As the old saying goes, instead of cursing the darkness, light a light, and we are the light of the world.

What's the application for us of this message? There are two applications. One for Christians individually. Remember, he starts with you individually. You are salt. Are you looking for opportunities to create spiritual thirst with the people around you by what you say? As far as pushing back against evil, what can you do to push back against evil? It may be going to a school board meeting and voting against a policy that is trying to cram ungodly thoughts into the lives of our children. It may be voting not because a candidate is perfect and godly, but because at least they embrace godly values. There are a lot of things that you can do individually to push back.

As far as being light, are you praying for non-Christians around you? Praying for an opportunity to share with them the way to Heaven? You know, I am so proud of my son-in-law Ryan and my daughter Julia. They have such an evangelistic heart about them. They always have had. When they first moved to Dallas 14 years ago to be interns in our youth ministry, when they came to Dallas, Julia and Ryan made a list of all the non-Christians they knew in Dallas, friends or family members who needed to know Christ as Savior. They made a list and they made a commitment that they were going to schedule an appointment with each one of those individuals either for coffee or for dinner and they were going to share with them the Gospel. And Julia said in her talk yesterday at the women's conference, they kept that commitment and they saw every one of those individuals come to faith in Jesus Christ that year. Now that's something we can all do. That's something we can all do. But we have to be intentional about it to be that light that God has called us to be.

But there's also, secondly, an application for Christians collectively. We're not just individual grains of salt or an individual flashlight. We're in a church. You know, the only thing more effective than one grain of salt is a shaker of salt. The only thing more effective than a pen light or a flashlight is a floodlight. And that's what we are as First Baptist Church Dallas. We are a shaker of salt. We are a floodlight for the gospel.

Now I want you to understand something about our church, what it means for us to be salt. God has given us an important amount of influence in this world. A great platform that we need to be faithful in using for God. Part of our strategy in being salt is to push back against evil. God's given us the ability to do that in a very public way. Today there are people who wonder, why do we get involved in the pro-life movement and speaking out against abortion? That's politics. No, that is a moral, a spiritual issue. The fact is that word politics, the Latin word for it means influence. Influence. When you say Christians shouldn't get involved in politics or pastors shouldn't get involved in politics, what you're saying is Christians should not try to influence the world in which they live. Can anybody say that with a straight face?

And man, Jesus said, you are salt. You are a preservative. We need to push back against evil. What I want to say clearly is this. We will never, we never have and we never will at First Baptist Dallas get involved in partisan politics. We are not an extension of the Republican National Convention. We are not an extension of the Democrat National Convention. I'm not a Republican or a Democrat. I vote according to biblical values. We will never get involved in partisan politics, but we will always speak out against evil wherever and whenever we find it.

Now, I think, to be fair, to be fair, I have to commend the Biden administration for their response in Ukraine. I commend them for imposing these tough sanctions. I commend them for sending military aid to the Ukrainians. And I encourage them to do more and more and more of that. But the good they are doing in Ukraine does not erase the fact that the policies of the Biden administration are the most ungodly policies of any presidential administration in the history of the United States. That is just a fact.

The Supreme Court said they will hear a case. They are willing to hear a religious liberties case. It involves a web designer in Colorado, a Christian who was told that she had to design an invitation for a homosexual marriage. That's no marriage. But they said, you have to design a wedding invitation or be fired. And she pushed back and said, my religious beliefs do not allow me to condone what God has condemned. So the issue is going to be, should she be forced to make that wedding invitation? The Biden administration says yes. In fact, right now, they are reversing every religious liberty protection the former president put into effect. They are doing a war against religious liberty. They are ungodly in doing that.

It is the Biden administration that is arguing for sex change operations for minor children who are confused about gender. This whole transgender agenda that they are cramming down the throats of Americans is nothing but an abomination to Almighty God. He's the one who creates people, male and female, not us. And this, let me say this, the Supreme Court has announced that this summer they will issue a ruling and a challenge to Roe v. Wade. For the first time in 50 years, there is the opportunity that we will overturn this ruling that has sanctioned the murder of 50 million children since 1973. They are seriously considering overturning it or seriously diminishing it. It is the Biden administration, those Justice Department officials who are arguing before the Supreme Court, parents ought to have the right to murder their children. That is the Biden administration.

And again, the reason I say they are the most ungodly administration in history is not because they are Democrats. It is because they are wrong. And we're going to continue to say that every opportunity we have to say this. That's the role of the church. And if you want to go to a church where that's not discussed, go someplace else where they sing loud. They just sing at the top of their lungs and never stand for anything. This city is filled with those churches just like that.

Now one thing we're going to stand for and push back against is the erosion of religious liberty. Now I've alluded to you all over the last few months I've made some cryptic references to an attack that our church is under when it comes to religious freedom. And I can't talk about it fully yet. Soon I'm going to be able to tell you the whole story about the attempt to challenge our religious liberty. But I can tell you right now we're winning the fight. We're winning the fight. And the reason we're winning is not because God is on our side, but we're on God's side. And no church ought to have government telling them anything about what they can or cannot do in a worship service. What they can or cannot do in the pulpit. That is none of their business. And we're pushing back hard against that.

I had very recently a very high-ranking official in Washington D.C. say, "Do you realize that of all the churches in America they could have chosen to go after, they're going after the First Baptist Church of Dallas and they're doing it for a reason. They know if you all fail and crumble and fold on this, it will have a chilling effect on thousands of churches in America that will think twice about what they say. They will check what they say and so forth. That is why they are going after you. You ought to consider that a badge of honor."

Well, I don't consider it necessarily a badge of honor, but I consider it a badge of responsibility. They know if they can silence us, they can silence anybody. And that's why we are not going to allow that to happen. We are going to stand firm. And I say that because you ought to be honored and proud to be a member of a church that God is using not just to protect its own religious liberty. God has raised this church up to protect the religious liberty of thousands of churches just like us. So let's continue to pray that God will grant us success in all of that.

We are called. We are called to push back against evil. But none of that is worth anything if we're not faithful collectively to be the light of the world. The only reason we want to delay God's judgment on America and our country is so that we have longer to share the gospel. And that's why a couple of weeks ago we took time from Sunday School to try to equip every one of our members in how to share their faith in Jesus Christ. We're that light in this community. Right now we are broadcasting our messages to millions of people in all 195 countries around the world.

I got a letter recently from a public school teacher of an inner-city school in Los Angeles, California. That teacher is a Christian. She said, "Every morning I listen to Pathway to Victory on the radio on my way into school. It gives me the encouragement, it gives me the information I need to be a witness to my students. Thank you, First Baptist Church, Dallas, for doing that." That's what our church is about. That's why we're here. That's the only reason we're here.

I mean, think about it. Why did God leave you and me on this earth? Why didn't he take us to heaven? He didn't leave us here to build a big financial portfolio of stocks and bonds and possessions. He didn't lead us here to have a successful career. He didn't even leave us here to have a happy family life. He left us here to be that salt, to be that light. And that's what we're gonna do at First Baptist Dallas in these months and years ahead. We're going to turn on the floodlight of the gospel. We're going to pierce the darkness with the light of God's word.

Speaker 2

Well, I can assure you that we receive scores of letters just like this. In fact, our radio audience has showered us with thank you notes. People often tell us that Pathway to Victory has become a daily oasis and their source of light in a very dark world.

And when you join hands with us, when you give voluntary gifts, you're equipping Pathway to Victory to push back the forces of darkness and to bring light and life to all those who are ready to hear God's word. As you heard at the beginning of today's program, we're the recipients of a generous matching challenge in the amount of $1 million. Because of this Salt and Light matching challenge, every dollar you're able to give between now and July 6th will be automatically matched and therefore doubled in size. That means your generous gift of $100 becomes $200. A $500 gift becomes $1,000. A $5,000 gift would be matched until it became $10,000.

I don't need to convince you that we're living in chaotic times. People are not only confused, but they often live in fear. When you give to Pathway to Victory through this Salt and Light matching challenge, you're becoming the channel God uses to reach people with hope and life. You're becoming salt and light in our world, just as Jesus commanded.

To say thanks for your generous gift today, I'm going to send you a brand new book I've written called Shine the Light. In my new book, you'll see how small, faithful acts such as teaching, serving, and encouraging can restore Christian values in your family, church, and community.

So thanks for reaching out with your generous gift to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. We couldn't provide Pathway to Victory every day without you.

David, thanks Dr. Jeffress.

Speaker 1

Today, when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, you're invited to request a copy of the brand new book by Dr. Jeffress, *Shine the Light*. To get your copy, call 866-999-296 or visit ptv.org. When you give $100 or more, we'll also send you the complete collection of audio and video discs for the *Shine the Light* Teaching series. And remember, because of our Salt and Light Matching Challenge, your gift to Pathway to Victory will be matched and therefore doubled in impact. So be sure to get in touch with us today. One more time, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. If you'd like to send your gift by mail, write to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins. To many Christians, persecution is something that happens in a far-off place, but in reality, persecution is already taking place in America. Join us Wednesday for an urgent message called *When Persecution Comes*. That's next time on Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible.

Right now, your ministry gift will be matched and therefore doubled in impact thanks to the Salt and Light Matching Challenge. Take advantage of this opportunity to double your impact before the deadline on July 6th. To give toward the matching challenge, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.