5-18-08 Salt of the Earth, Light of the world
Matt 5:1-13 (particularly verse 13)
Salt preserves
- salt keeps from spoiling
- salt also stings ***
- does our witness ever produce a sting?
- Similar to light, which invades darkness.
light never asks for permission to invade darkness
- salt does not ask for permission to invade the meat
- Put salt into an open cut
- First reaction, is an immediate ouch!
People need to be woke up
- people need to be spured
- people need to have their eyes opened
- The Lord told Paul. "I am sending you unto the Gentiles to open their eyes". (Pause and think on this sobering statement).
Ye are the salt of the earth!
- the world is in chaos
- the world is in a tail spin towards hell
- Gaping open, like an open wound
- the gap is exposed for more germs (sin) to penetrate
We should be so drastically different from the world
- different in mannerisms
- different is speech
- different in thoughts
- different in language
When we are introduced (through our witness) ,
- it should produce a sting
- it should put the brakes on, on indifference
- people should be uneasy around us,
- if we live uprightly, grounded in love.
what’s it like to eat food without salt?
- blah! tasteless! unappealing!
Christians are salt:
- illustrate: the same as a country ham is cured
- salt must be applied before things spoil/rot
- not just applied, but rubbed in.
- rub in some, and a few days or hours later, rub in some more
- not just rubbed in, but allowed to soak it up (from a salt pan)
- then hung up in a good warm breeze to cure for 3 months to a year
- then you can put it in the smoke house above some smoking sawdust
- and smoke it to your specific flavor
- however, if you forget the salt (firt step) your efforts are wasted.
Store a huge 25 pound ham in the smoke house
- and forget to salt it
- it will spoil in a very short time
- Lazarus stunk in only four days
- Mark 9:50 If the salt has lost its saltiness, how are we going to salt it?
- Luke 14:35 salt is good, but if the salt has lost its savor (saltiness)
- “how is it going to be seasoned/preserved?”
- “It’s not good for the land”,
- nor will it help to cast it into an outside *toilet (*see Luke 14:35) It doesn’t say toilet, but it does say dunghill.
- but men will cast it out (dispose of it, for it is rendered useless)
Teenagers often end up incarcerated
- because no preservative has been input into their lives.
- They went unchecked
- often undisciplined
- they end up grossly spoiled
- No godly influence has been added, in far too many cases.
what rots first in a young persons life?
- I got this input from a 16 year old grandson (Justin)
1.Hope: hoping for a chance
2.attitude: loss of respect:for others, just don’t care
3.teens ability to love others
4.their self respect, let their self go,
5.loose faith in everything, and in everybody
6.loose trust
- I took these notes after interviewing a good number of teens:
- some of your favorite complaints from teens that I hear as your chaplain:
- “I don’t trust anybody”,
- “I don’t believe anybody loves me”
- “the only one I love is my mother” (in most of your cases)
The Word of God teaches:
- “ye are the salt of the earth”.
- it does not say: You should get ready to be the salt of the earth
- so if they don’t get any salt, its because ours is mixed with impurities
- simply said: rendered useless/ruined
We are the salt.
- silently working (often unheard/unheeded,)
- someone falls under our influence
In todays critical times:
- there is a dire need, that someone is able to make a difference
Now illustrate: Compared to hams being cured
- millions of persons spoil (decay) while hanging out at the local market place
- While Christians debate, vote and meet at the local church building
- the world grows on a man, sin festers like a fungus
- the salt supply is urgently needed
- the fungus must be scrubbed off by the Christian sharing the cleansing blood of Christ
- many of your expensive Virginia Hams ara covered with fungus as they cure, and it must be scrubbed off before being served.
- the salt must be rubbed in
- we must rub sholders with the world (not be like them),but rub sholders.
- in the world, but not part of the world
Why are we called the salt of the earth?
- what was needed, the salt, was placed within us!
Answer yourself this question:
If your church body were dissolved today
what influence/impact would it have on your community?
- Salt and light has three things in common:
1. both are critical for survival
2. both produce purity
3. both are born up in truth
We are not called to be salt and light
- as in being called to be a preacher or an evangelist
- "we are" salt and light (again, not called. "ye are")
- “ye are the salt and light of the world”
- People will only find God, if you are both salt and light
- It takes different brands of cured hams longer periods of time to cure.
- some times people have to be exposed to us for a long period of time. For the salt to work.
- it’s not at a fast food restaurant pace.
- Be willing to spend some time and effort
There is a term often heard at the table
- please pass the salt
- just sitting there in a fancy salt shaker, with pretty holes in the top, is not going to help
- Salt creates thirst:
- and Jesus had the answer,“drink from this well and you will never thirst again”.
- Christians are to this world, what salt is for meat.
- Salt has a profound super impact, on one who is unsaved
- salt is their only hope (will lead to the hope of all hope which is Christ)
-Both salt and light must make contact, to have any effect/impact
- both must be shared
- If you aren’t salt, then you are a stumbling block
- Christians add flavor
- Christians add preservatives
to a sour and very foul world
- salt and light must be a daily application
- or spoilage sets in immediately
- Some "would be" Christians only create a stink
- always negative
- always critical
- never impacting
We all msut answer this for ourselves.
- Do we create stink, or do we prevent rot?
- We have only a tiny bit of salt in our bodies
- without which our bodies will totally shut down
- our muscles will feel the impact (possibly cramp up)
Salt is a preservative:
- when one brings salt, they prevent spoilage
- We are called to be salt
- not sugar
- again, salt stings
- we effect the world by the way we live
- again, either a stumbling stone
- or a preservative
Christians are to make Christ attractive and desirable
- Christians like salt can loose their usefulness
- modern day salt is sodium chloride
- salt during Christs ministry probably came from the dead sea
- had many impurities
- in a great many cases:
- by the time those impurities were removed,
- the real salt was either weakened
- or was rendered useless
