Salt

I got here without my prop today. I wanted to bring a little shaker of a common household commodity that we all have. I was rereading the last half of this book written by Philip Keller, Salt for Society, this week. The first half of it, he looks at the Beatitudes, and then the second half of it, he shifts to the scripture immediately following the Beatitudes, where he simply says, you are the salt of the earth.

And so we are familiar with salt. Probably there's no more basic commodity that's put to as many uses as salt. It's used by meat packers. It is used by chemical companies, food processors, soap manufacturers. It is used by state highway departments to sling all over our highways. It is used by construction companies, glass makers, metal refineries. It's used in water softeners, ranchers provided for livestock, and we have it in our homes.

But in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said to his disciples that we were like this compound, sodium chlorine. We are like salt. We are the salt of the earth. And I thought I would take the time today to break that down. There are a number of usages that Keller goes through. I won't go through all of those. But we want to take those uses of salt and apply them to our Christian lives. And yet, we also have one warning that Christ offered with respect to salt. And we should be warned as well. So in the 20th century, we probably have limited understanding of what Christ was saying when he said, You're the salt of the earth because we take it for granted.

It's everywhere. It's a matter that it wasn't always that way. In Christ's day, salt was an extremely important element just for the sustenance of life. All over the Mediterranean and the Middle East and northern Africa, you had the old salt routes where there were certain places like the Dead Sea where they could have access to salt and it would be transported to the more desert regions around.

And those salt routes crisscrossed the whole of that region. People of Christ's day were actually connoisseurs of salt. They could tell a very distinct difference in different salts. You and I get refined salt generally, unless like you do like we do and we get sea salt. But it's still refined to a degree. And it has the same taste, whether you put it on vegetables or a piece of meat or whether you put it on watermelon. I amazingly used to do that when I was young.

I get a slice of watermelon and just shake salt all over it. And somewhere along the line, I stopped picking up the salt shaker. But Christ said, you are the salt of the earth and it would have carried deep, profound meaning for them. And so I'd like to look at that and consider what he meant and what it means for us today. We will look at six functions of salt and then the one warning.

Six functions of salt and one warning. First of all, salt maintains life. Salt is essential for life. It is the key to health and strength and vigor and was especially so or was noticeable in hot arid climates. It is essential for body metabolism and has to do with the osmosis, the movement of fluids and different substances through the cell walls. It has to do with the exchange of fluids. In areas of high humility or of high heat, you will often, or in sports, you will have access to salt tablets. Those who work down in mines are often given or certainly have access to these salt tablets and they are instrumental in being able to continue to function.

If a person runs out of salt, you start having muscle cramps, you start having weakness set in, and it'll be that way until the water and the salt is replenished. In Christ's time, they did not have the air conditioning that we enjoy and take for granted and that we are spoiled by. It's just part of our lives. Once upon a time, you go look at some of the old houses, how they would construct houses in the south, and you generally had a breezeway where you'd get a good wind through there and people would sit around on those porches.

Let's turn over to Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10. It's in chapter 5 that he said, you're the salt of the earth. You are to provide, in this function, you are to provide life for the world around you. You are to be the ingredient that leaves behind in your wake health, life, and vigor for those around you. In Matthew 10, notice in verse 5 after the listening of the the apostles' names, verse 5, these 12 Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, do not go into the way of the Gentiles and do not enter the city of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go preach, saying, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And then he said, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons, freely you have received, freely give. Then down to verse 16, he said, behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. And so here he gives the disciples a charge at that day and age. And of course, that was reiterated at the end of his ministry there, at the end of Matthew and the end of the other synoptic Gospels.

Go, preach, teach, baptize, and take the message of the kingdom of God, wherever you go. We, too, today are sent to penetrate, to permeate society.

If it is to have a degree of hope, if it is to have a proper life and health and stability, we are not literally called out of the world.

There have been those through the years in different Christian communities who have sought to develop some utopian society and just totally get away from the world.

But Jesus told them, you're in the world, you're not to be of the world. So we are in society and we are to stay within society.

And through our life and message and example, inject a little salt, a little life into the world around us.

Salt is interesting in that if we had a glass of water and we take a teaspoon of salt, drop into it, stir it up, it's not that just one part of that glass of water has the salt in it.

It penetrates, it permeates, it's throughout the whole.

And he wants us as well to go out.

Let's turn over to Acts chapter 10.

We have in this story of Cornelius and how Peter had been explaining or had been the situation had worked out where he ends up with a household of Cornelius.

I'm always taken by Acts 10 verse 33, the attitude as we get a little insight into the heart and the mind of Cornelius.

Verse 33, this is Okay, verse 33, so I sent you, sent to you immediately, and you have done well to come. Now therefore, we are all present before God to hear all the things commanded you by God.

I mean, these are people who were hungry to hear the words God would give them through Peter as he came to that home.

And we have Peter referring to how God shows no partiality. There are people in every nation. Obviously, it was God's intent from the very beginning that all human beings would have an access to the truth and eternal life. But let's just notice down in verse 8, he mentions in passing a statement about the ministry of Christ when he walked the earth. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

And then notice, what a wonderful summary statement of Christ's life.

Who went about doing good.

That'd be a nice saying for a tombstone, wouldn't it? We're not in a hurry. That'd be a nice statement for a tombstone, wouldn't it? Who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

So years later, Peter, one who was there intimately, working with, learning from, teaching with Christ, looks back and summarizes Jesus' life as saying he went about doing good. Wherever he went, he served. Wherever he went, he left optimism. He left life. He left the zest for life behind. Wherever he went.

Now, we are sent into the world, but not to be a part of the world.

Looking at salt, it is composed of two elements, sodium and chlorine.

Each element individually is toxic to human life.

But together, it is essential for life. Without it, we die.

It is necessary. I think that would serve as an interesting parallel to the life of God's people. That of our own, we're very limited. But with the life of Christ, with the Spirit of God living in and through us, we can go out and leave behind in our wake a lot of good, a lot of life. Number two, salt preserves.

Salt preserves. It's a preservative.

We take freezing, refrigeration, canning, drying.

We take other means of preservation for granted these days.

Freeze drying. None of these were available in the time of Christ. Of Christ. They had salt. And actually, you don't have to go that far back.

That far back in time. And a lot of the meats that were slaughtered, they were preserved by salt.

We went with the kids to the zoo the other day, and the old grass-mere plantation area went and looked in the house and went out back, and they have the smoke room where they slaughter, they hang it up, they salt it, they smoke it.

But some people will make jerky of it. But salt was generally used with great abundance to be able to preserve. Back in the 1500s, as you had the age of discovery and humans getting in ships and going all around the world, they would take barrels of brine and soak their meat in it.

And that's what they had. So a great amount of salt had to be used because it would preserve the food that they had. Salt was the basic ingredient to forestall spoilage.

Now, Christ said, you're the salt of the earth. He said that we are to be the element which preserves society from complete corruption and decay. Back in Deuteronomy, the one point where God said to Moses, oh, that there had been such a heart in them that they would obey my law, keep my commandments. But ancient Israel did not have that. They did not have the spirit of God by and large, except for some leaders like Moses, Joshua, others. By and large, they didn't have God's spirit. They were not able to keep God's word.

And the spirit of God is given to preserve society. Human nature, if you pull water out on open ground, it's going to flow to the lowest possible point. Human nature is kind of the same way. It's going to go to the lowest point. And God works in the lives of individuals whom He sends out far and wide across the face of the earth. We have people scattered in places. You may have read of Mr. and Mrs. Cubic's recent trip over to Zambia and other areas of Africa. We have people scattered in some areas of Asia and in the Pacific and in North and South America and across Europe. And we seem to be so few in number. But anyone out there who reads the Word of God and patterns their life to whatever degree effort can have a preserving effect upon the life around them. Now, we might ask, how do we do this? Someone has to stand up and say, this is right and this is always right. And that is wrong and it's always wrong. But how can we have the effect of helping to preserve society? Well, we can keep and live by God's Word. We are familiar with what Jesus said. You are, where He said, man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So we are to be devout students of the Word of God and use the Bible as our standard for living.

The world around us seeks to do away with, to discount, to minimize statements from the Bible. We see it's more than a drift. It's a plunge these days of the morals of this country.

Up at the conference, one point Dr. Ward, when he was addressing, he just stopped and he observed that he had not seen the last year in his whole lifetime, the last year, such a marked descent in the morals of this country. Because we watch it, one country, or one nation, excuse me, one state after another, a few by referendum at the ballot box. But more than that, by a judge ruling a state law against things like same-sex marriage as being unconstitutional.

And we're seeing that all over the place. The world needs people who will live without compromising by the Word of God. We are to, let's turn to Philippians 1, verse 27.

Philippians 1, verse 27. We are to live a proper example. We should never underestimate the power of a proper, the godly example. Philippians 1, verse 27. Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

And he goes on, but the main thought there that I want to point out is, let our conduct be that which glorifies God and is in harmony with the life, the example, of Jesus Christ. There can be no greater impact than to live by what we find to be biblically sound, to live without compromise. Never underestimate the power of a good example, the impact that that example can have on others.

Philip Keller in his book mentioned in one point where he had a couple who came to him. He spent a lot of years in his earlier part of his life. They lived over in the country of Kenya.

And his parents were involved in missionary work, and he got involved in that, and also in farming and ranching in the area. But he mentioned a couple came to him, and again, from his point of view, they wanted him to know that they had made they had devoted their life to God. Okay, again, that's from their point of view. But he asked them, why did you do that? And they told him one of the first things that they noticed was the year they needed help in harvesting their crops, and he dropped everything and went and helped them.

They had noticed his Christian example. He didn't thump the Bible. He didn't preach Scripture at them. He didn't... well, all he did was live like Christ would have had him do. So we can be positive examples. We can be filled with the Scriptures. We're told the study to show ourselves approved to God, that we need to be able to rightly divide the Word of Truth. We are told that the Scripture is God breathing his instructions to man. And so as we live that, as we are filled with the Scriptures, then we can be positive examples and hopefully be in a position of helping to preserve the world around us. We can set a good example in our music, in our language. Language was mentioned here in the sermonette. Yeah, we all like to roll back the clock and wish there were certain things that we got involved in that we had never had taint our life. But there is hope. We can be forgiven. We can have that washed and removed. We can live and set a right example of marriage, of family, of marital longevity to the world around us that desperately needs examples like that. All right, number three. Salt. Seasons. It seasons. And here again, we probably have difficulty relating to what life was truly like in the days of Christ. Many, many people lived and existed on a rather drab diet. A diet that may have been long. Well, look at the world today. We've got people who have diets very long on rice or in another part of the world, very long on corn.

Another part of the world would be something else. They may have just certain basic foodstuffs with very low variety. You and I take that for granted. Year-round, we can go down to Kroger's or whatever grocery store you want to go to. And year-round, you can have grapes. Now, they might have come from Chile, and that's fine. And they might have come... Well, I've seen oranges from Israel.

You might have pineapples from who knows where. But they didn't have that in Christ's day.

And some of you, probably when you were quite young, you had... I mean, your foods strictly were seasonal.

And you would enjoy it and go out and collect the berries. And you had berries for a little while. You might can some, you might freeze some, but then they ran out.

The day of Christ, salt was used to add a certain zest, a certain tang, to a very simple diet.

And I think most of us can't really, truly comprehend what it would be like to just be given your rations of a little bit of cornmeal and very little, maybe a little jerky, a little jerked meat of some type. And that's all you had, day after day after day. It's hard for us to really relate to that. But there are many on the earth to this day. When Christ said, you're the salt of the earth, in one sense He said, you are to be the element that helps make life bearable for those around you. You are to be the ones who make life a bit more palatable. You are the ones who are to bring inspiration and enthusiasm into those around you. Now, the last two weeks, we've had a funeral.

Two weeks ago, Velma Peppers died. She was a long-time member of the Gadsden Church. She was 90 years of age. And at the funeral, it was amazing. Of course, her sister and her niece are members there in Gadsden, but it was a large family. I saw so many that remembered me from 30 years ago, when we lived in Birmingham, over 30 years ago. And there were others that they remembered the nation and the Garrison family. But the funeral was filled with people who either were in the church or were in the church at one time or had been influenced by people around the world.

I mean, in the church. And the funeral went well. Mrs. Peppers, of course, had lived a long life. The quality of life had not been good the last year. And then there was a funeral last week, last Sunday. And it was not someone who was a member of the church, but the brother of one of our members down in Huntsville. And a lot of those people have had background because the grandparents went way back in the church. And again, you can see the influence. But we've gone to a lot of funerals where people don't have any basic level of understanding of what happens to people when they die. And it is a horrible realization. There are times you'll go to a funeral and the music chosen makes a difficult situation that much worse because it's chosen to bring out the emotions. Music, after all, is the language of emotion. And it just adds to rather than calming, comforting, soothing. But there are so many times when we can go as God's people and have an impact and stand for some, you know, we can be there, be in control, maybe be able to say something that will be helpful to someone who doesn't have the same hope burning within them that we have.

Over 30 years ago, we were at the Feast in Palm Springs, and the Feast Coordinator mentioned one day that one of the local restaurateurs said that when your people are in my restaurant, it's like having a hundred bulbs, a hundred light bulbs lit up. And he was pointing out he could tell how different the people of God are. The camp, this camp, other camps that we have had, the people down in Alabama, they look forward to the week our people come because they know we're different. We're going to take care of the place. We're going to deal with behavioral issues. We're going to leave the place as good or better shape than when we got there.

And so again, these are ways that we can have, in the sense of seasoning, society around us. There are those around us, again, we probably can't relate to how bored stiff they are. How many go through the motions? They sleep, they get up the next morning, they go to work, they don't really like their job, they go through the routine, they come home, they eat, they watch some sports, they do the same thing tomorrow and the day after.

They don't have the focus, the dream of the world tomorrow that we've been given.

And so God wants us to go and to provide hope and encouragement. And in so doing, we can be a proper seasoning of comforting those who grieve, of rejoicing with those who rejoice, of showing empathy for those who are suffering. All right, let's go on. Number four is that salt facilitates healing. Salt facilitates healing. In the first century, salt was one of the more common medications for someone who had scrapes, bruises, cuts.

You may have noticed in the past, if you have cuts and scrapes and you're down in the Gulf, the salt water may burn when you first get in it, but it has a healing effect. There are places where you have salt plains and maybe some waters flow from that and downstream on a river. There's a degree of saltiness and people will see that as facilitating healing. But a strong solution of salt water or brine can be used to cleanse and to aid the process of healing. Now, I have in here today without my little bottle. You may think it's Visine. I have this little bottle. I actually bought it in the Philippines and I squirted it all out and I made my own solution of distilled water and sea salt. I sucked it up into that thing because my left eye almost continually puts out a discharge. I've tried this prescribed remedy and this over-the-counter remedy. Everything I've tried, nothing works, but what works the best is salt water. Put a drop in. You may see me before church and I generally just put it in the left eye. Today, I didn't get in here with it, so you're kind of blurry and fuzzy through the left eye. And for that matter, you're a little bit fuzzy through the right eye because it's got its problems too, but it doesn't put out a discharge. So, get your tongue back in your mouth back there. No, I can still see.

Let's go over to Matthew 8. When Jesus came to the earth, one of the great reasons he came was to be the great healer of humanity. He healed a lot of people physically, and that was to foreshadow the more important job and process of bringing healing spiritually.

Matthew 8, verse 16.

Matthew 8, verse 16. When evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed, and he cast out the spirits with the word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. So, He came to heal. That had been prophesied by Isaiah, and that foreshadowed the spiritual healing that He came to bring.

Now, He called, He chose, He sent forth disciples, and that process has continued for approaching 2000 years. We, too, are to have the benefit of healing. In fact, let's go to 1 Corinthians 12. You've got a listing of spiritual gifts. And here we have one of the gifts that is mentioned is that of healing. There are more ways we can look at that than one. 1 Corinthians 12 verse 9, to another faith by the same spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same spirit.

Toward the end of the chapter, verse 28, it mentions God has appointed these in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various tongues, a variety of tongues, but healings is mentioned.

We all, I mean, we have these cards over here. We would like to see greater healings in the church, and hopefully we pray for that. But we also realize God lets us suffer, and we learn things from the things we suffer. We learn to empathize with each other. We learn to support one another.

But we also grieve with those who grieve, who hurt.

But salt facilitates healing. There are many types of healing. There are people who have grief that they go through, and they need someone to just show them. You may not say a thing, but just to be there. A lot of people will comment on the many cards they get when you have a prayer request that goes out over the church network, and they get some 200 cards in signed by congregations and individuals all over, and how much strength they get from that, and how much it strengthens them.

You know, salt, the more pungent, the sharper, the bite, the greater the healing powers.

And Christ wants us to go out and to have that unique, distinct, bite, pungent bite within society. We live among billions. We live among the sick, the suffering, and the dying. And in living in the world, we would offer a degree of healing and soothing to the world. I probably have used this example before, but I mentioned to Denise on the way up later this summer it will have been 30 years ago that we moved from Memphis to Lubbock, Texas. There was tremendous growth in the congregation in Memphis, those three years that we served in that area. It went from 290 on an average to 400, almost 400. That's in a three-year period of time. God was calling, adding a lot of people at that time. And quite often, we'd get an envelope in those days, no email, none of that, but we'd get an envelope from Pasadena, and there'd be these new visit request cards where somebody called the 800 number they wanted to hear from a local minister. They'd mail those back to pastor that we assisted, and he'd generally give them to me, and we'd go on new visits.

There was one, well, just many different times there'd be a young man, a young woman, we'd go and visit, and it was amazing the the found of the grounding that they had in the Bible. They were students of the Bible. And somewhere along the course of time, it would come out that, well, I know about your church because of my uncle Henry. And there was this man in the Memphis church. His first name was Henry, and it was invariably a niece or a nephew of uncle Henry because they had seen his example. I was in his in their house once, and he had a phone call. It turned out, you know, I asked him, you want me to step out? He didn't. But it was obvious from just hearing his end of the conversation that someone in the family had called wanting to use his address as their address for the purpose of getting welfare benefits. And Henry explained, I can't do that.

And he said, that's okay, that's against my principles. That would be that would be lying.

And you see, one afternoon that family saw that example, and it had the effect of providing that staff for them. So salt as a healing agent penetrates, does its job, moves on, disappears, and we're called to give our lives for the sake of giving. Not because we don't want anything out of it, but to be able to give to others, to bring hope to a dying world. A world that needs a word of encouragement, needs an example of someone who'll get in there and work hard for an employer.

All right, number five. Salt symbolizes friendship. Friendship. Again, this is foreign in our day and age, but back in the first century, in the Eastern societies especially, you had something that was done that was rather interesting. The days of Christ outright dishonesty was everywhere, and Christ was hated because he declared himself as the truth and the light and the way. But in that society, there was a custom called eating the king's salt, or sharing a friend's salt. And when an individual had the opportunity to go and go to a banquet or go and have a meal with one of the local leaders, didn't have to be a king or a prince. Could be anyone. And in the process of the meal and just the visiting and the interacting, if there was a special camaraderie, the beginning of a friendship, whoever the host was would offer, at the end of the meal, he would offer salt. And a little saucer was placed in front of each one with a little bit of salt poured on it, and they were encouraged to take a little pinch of it and put it on their tongue. And it was known as eating of the king's salt, or sharing a friend's salt. And by partaking of it, it showed that it was reciprocal, that the feelings of friendship and camaraderie were both ways. It was a public validation of friendship, of devotion to each other. Now, sharing salt was well known in that society, well understood as indicative of a close friendship and of a loyalty between people. So Jesus told the church, you are the salt of the earth. And in essence, he said, go forth, permeate society, bring these feelings of friendship and devotion and loyalty to those in the world terribly lacking from those qualities.

We, as God's people, are to become known as those who are trustworthy, reliable, dependable in our friendships, in our relationships in general, in our work relationships.

We are to say what we mean and mean what we say. Or as Jesus also said in the Sermon on the Mount, let your yay be yay, let your nay be nay. And we live in a world where governments break packs and treaties. We, our country, is in so many alliances with peoples around the world, and you have different countries who realize that we can't be counted on. We can't be counted on. We are withdrawing from our covenants, our contracts we've made with others. You look at the history of our country and every agreement made with Native Americans, every last one, we broke. We broke. So long, long story. Not just our government, but all governments around the world, breaking treaties. We live in a world where business deals are, unless it's all written down well on paper, people are going to turn back from that. We live in a world where marriage contracts, people may stand there one year and devote unending devotion and give a vow before God even to love that person till death do its part. And a week or a month or three years or 12 years later, come back and say, essentially, I didn't mean it. I want out of it.

God wants people who go out, and we really are truly devoted. We stand for each other. That Passover night, Jesus mentioned there in John 13, verses 34-35, that herein will they know you're my disciples if you have loved one for another.

Let's see.

Okay, Philippians 2. Let's look at Philippians 2.

And we'll read verses 13-15.

In Christian's Word is to stand.

We are to keep promises, be trustworthy, carry out commitments, show up on time.

Philippians 2, verse 13.

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do, of his good pleasure.

Do all things without complaining and disputing.

That you may become blameless and harmless, children of God, without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.

The world desperately needs the examples of friendship, of devotion, of integrity. 6. Salt symbolizes sacrifice.

In fact, if we go back to Leviticus 2, back when the various sacrifices were being outlined, is pointed out here with every offering. This is the meal offering, the grain offering.

Every offering you bring with salt. Leviticus 2, verse 12.

As for the offering of the first fruits, you shall offer them to the Lord. They shall not be burned on the altar for sweet aroma.

And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt.

You shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering with all your offerings you shall offer salt. Interesting.

Salt is connected with sacrifice. And the Jews for generations plotted through these instructions regarding sacrifices. Enormous quantities of salt would have been involved. Well, some have suggested, Keller suggests, that when you, in the case of one of the other offerings, when you have actual animal flesh there on the fire, that if it's just burning flesh, it gives a rather disagreeable. I'm not sure I agree with that. But then if you add salt to it, it makes it that much. I mean, nothing like in the neighborhood and you get the smell of someone grilling steaks or grilling burgers somewhere. But Jesus said, you are to have a sacrificial role in society today. We are to identify with Christ and share in His sufferings. We are to give of ourselves as living sacrifices to God. We are, as the salt in the grain offering, to lose our identity and to be offered completely in the process. Back to Matthew, Matthew 16.

Matthew 16 verse 24. Verse 24, then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it. Speaking of the fact that the calling that we're given is to give, to sacrifice our life for the benefit of others. But whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? So, again, we are given a new life to serve or to perform the work of God, to give up and sacrifice our own rights, to be about our Father's business, to lose ourselves in the sacrifice and to willingly give of our lives that others may live. 1 John 3.

1 John 3. And we'll notice verses 16 and 17. 1 John 3 verse 16. By this we know love, because He, and speaking of Jesus up above, He laid down His life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

Now, it is not generally as dramatic as Jesus offering His life in going through the horrible beating He endured, but our life involves of our time. It involves of giving someone a little attention, giving someone a word of encouragement, living a right example. Our life consists of time.

Verse 17. But whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the law of God abide in him? So life consists of those who have need, those who have, say, a storm that destroys their property, someone who has a fire, someone who has hard times for whatever reason. It involves giving, sharing, serving those by giving of what you have and what you are. We all have different talents. We're all called to use our experience, our training, our blessings in happy, willing service to those around us. Think back to the example of Christ.

He often times, whether he had 4,000 that he was feeding, he was serving them, whether it was the 12 who came to him and he was teaching, whether it was one person he was interfacing with, he always left behind, he always touched that life and gave his own time, his life, his being for that person. Salt always permeates and penetrates, and we are called to do no less.

All right, those are six functions of salt, but we have a warning, a warning about salt.

Let's go to Matthew 5. We didn't actually read the scripture or turn there together earlier. I just quoted, and you already knew that first phrase, but we need to realize what the rest of the verse says. There is that potential dark side of being salt, and therein lies a warning for us. Matthew 5 verse 13, again, right on the heels of the Beatitudes, and then he says, The salt of the earth. But then he adds, 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.

Salt is peculiar in that after it has lost its bite, its ability to season, it still retains one very dangerous potency. It can kill. It can sterilize soil. Some may take, we lived in a place years ago out west where there was this brick walkway, and it was just bricks laid there. You always had grass growing up in it. I took some salt, ice cream salt, spread on it, and that walkway stayed free and clear for a long time.

Salt can sterilize soil. It can kill plant life. It can kill every blade that tries to spring forth the life from that salt-poisoned soil. It can be used to keep roadways clear. It is interesting that in times of war it has been used to ensure the total devastation of a conquered foe to make certain they'll never come back again. Rome did that with Carthage.

Carthage there on the north African coast was a major thorn in the side to Rome, and when finally, finally they went down and completely overthrew Carthage, they destroyed the area, they burned what they could, they sowed the fields with salt, and it took a long, long, long time for anything to be able to grow there. But they ensured that Carthage would not be a threat again. Let's turn to Judges 9. We've got a biblical example of that as well. Judges 9, this is back in the days of Bimalak, the son of Gideon.

In his days, they were having some difficulty. You could read through the hall of chapter 9, they were having conflict and difficulty with people around Shekin.

And so, we just notice the crux of it as it builds, and as the armies under Bimalak take the city.

Verse 44. So Judges 9, 44, and 45. Then Bimalak and the company that was with him rushed forward and stood at the entrance of the gate of the city, and the other two companies rushed upon who were in the fields and killed them. So Bimalak fought against the city all that day.

He took the city and killed the people who were in it, and he demolished the city and sowed it with salt. So we see biblically that that was something that was practiced as well.

When Christ referred to the disciples as being the salt of the earth, we need to look at that and realize He's warning us. Salt can destroy. Salt can kill. Salt can at least paint whatever it touches. And our lives can do the same. Our lives can be beneficial, life-giving. They can be very destructive. We can bring reproach to the name of Christ. You can spend years, you can spend decades building a good reputation, and it just takes one bad example. Let down one time and you can erase years of hard work. The way we live, the words we speak, the attitudes we carry with us, the lifestyle we adopt, we will produce either positive or negative fruit. Again, years of good can be undone by one foolish example. Matthew 6. It has to be one way or the other. Matthew 6. And let's read verse 24. Verse 24, No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon or riches, wealth. One has to be first in life. Now, in the letters to the churches back in Revelation 2 and 3, the last one, Delia and Asea, they were lukewarm. And Christ said, I wish you were either hot or cold. There's no middle ground. It's going to be one way or the other. We're going to be setting a right godly example, providing an inspiration, providing sharing, an enthusiasm, a whole world, a whole world. A dream of what is yet ahead. Sharing a devotion to a way of life. Or, we can let down. And we can potentially unsettle the roots of those around us. How many, wouldn't it be interesting to know, how many through the years have left their Christian calling because of the bad examples that were part of blowing them away? Now, a bad example doesn't throw somebody out. You can't separate someone from the love of Christ. But that can be a factor of them beginning to walk another way. Mark 9. Let's go to Mark 9 and we'll wrap it up right over here. Mark 9, verse 49 and verse 50. 49. For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Verse 50. Salt is good. Now, humanly, we go to extremes. And we have a lot of health issues that come because we've got salt everywhere. Anything you get in it from a can, anything process, you've got probably lots more salt than we have any idea. Salt is good, though, because we have to have it for life. But if the salt loses its flavor, how do you season it? Have salt in yourselves and have peace with one another. And so, we are called the salt of the earth. To do so, the Spirit of God must be leading our lives. And if it is, God will use us as His agents to preserve the world, to foster healing, to instill enthusiasm and encouragement into the world around us. It will foster devotion, loyalty, and friendship from within us. It will lead us to sacrifice our lives, to give our lives for fellow men. We will be genuine and for real. Salt works invisibly. It is imperceptible to the senses. It does its work, it seasons, and then it quietly goes on. To be salt for society, we don't have to be spectacular, sensational, successful by the world standards. We only follow what Jesus Christ did. And as Peter summarized it, He went about doing good. So let us be the salt of the earth that God wants us to be.