You Are the Salt of the Earth

Salt of the earth. Can you explain why? If someone comes up and asks you, like they will do about different parts of the Bible, can you explain why you are called the salt of the earth? Not dirt, not water, not grass, not honey, not sugar, but salt. Is it perhaps today because you are holding salt in your hands? That makes you salty. Makes you salt. Or maybe it's that your bones are comprised of 27% salt. Is it that approximately, or about 3 to 3.5% of your body is salt? Or is it that the average person's body depends on how big you are? My size may be 11 tablespoons, where faith is probably 7. So there are 7 to 11 tablespoons of salt in your body at any one time. Maybe that's it. Or maybe it's because the average American consumes about 7 pounds of salt a year, or 500 pounds in your lifetime. Is that the reason? The Good News Bible says, in Matthew 5, verse 13, You are like salt for all mankind. You are like salt for all mankind. Do you consider yourself that? I just got done talking about the called-out ones last week.

Two totally different nouns. Light, salt, with seemingly no connection. Are you the salt of the earth? Am I? Go back to Matthew 5, verse 13. It says, You are salt of the earth, but, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? Salt itself is sodium chloride. I did a lot of research here with my nephew, who is at Vanderbilt University. He's a doctor. He's been going to school for 20 years. He keeps going back. But he is finally the doctor, as been, and very intelligent.

But as he was explaining to me about salt and the application of it in the body, I said, Salt, how, but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? But salt, which is sodium chloride, is extremely stable and cannot lose its flavor.

So what is Christ referring to? Do you think, maybe he didn't know? The poor guy misspoke. He didn't understand. Even though he made the entire universe and he made salt, he just didn't get it. He had a senior moment. Don't think so, do you?

He knew what he was saying. He was teaching. And he was a wonderful teacher.

You are salt of the earth, he said. Salt in that era was pure, rather than less it was mixed with something. You have to understand, at that time, salt was very valuable. Very, very valuable.

And it was pure, unless it was mixed with some inferior product, which a lot of people like to do, because they could trade it for money. They could trade it for stuff. And so, why take a half a jar of salt when you could throw a little sand, as they did in with it? Throw a lot of sand and throw just a little bit of salt and sell it. They would actually take Jimson, even dirt. They would mix with the salt. And people knew that. Maybe you've worked on houses, if you've ever had any relationship with a mason, where he laid brick, and you find that there's mortar, there's water, and there's sand.

And there's a certain way you do it. There's proportions that you stick to, so that the mortar is very hard, and it stays hard for a hundred years. But to save money and to save some of that mortar, which is more expensive than sand, people will throw more sand than they do mortar. And then your brick, the mortar, becomes very sandy. And pretty soon, it begins to crack and fall out. It won't last a hundred years. Inferior is what it is. Christ is saying then, you are salt of the earth. Be pure.

He's saying to his followers, stay pure. Do not mix with the world. Don't lose what you have. Do not mix heaven and earth.

One of the things about salt, do not mix heaven and earth. How shall it be seasoned? It said. Was Christ saying that there isn't any way of re-salting salt? You see, salt is a unique ingredient.

If you lose your salt, you lose your what? Your uniqueness. You cannot become the true salt from anywhere else except Christ and the Bible in God's teaching. What makes you salt? You get your salt from Christ.

He said, I am the way, the truth, the life we talked about last week. It's what makes you unique, isn't it? It's what makes you different. It's what makes you a unique ingredient on this earth.

Christ was teaching the truth because he was the truth. And he said, stop looking. Don't mix your salt with the thinking of the world. What do we see today? Let's put a little mysticism in. Why don't we put a little bit of this from out in the world? You know, the Hindus have this amazing thing they do. Why don't we bring that in? It will help us have a better church, a better church service. How about Kabbalah? The Jewish teaching wasn't good enough. Let's bring in a little Kabbalah.

And just look! Even the Muslims have teachings that we can bring into the church.

Christ was saying, He is the truth. Everything you need to know is here.

We don't need anything else. You know, I have water.

And it's good water. It looks pure. Pure as it can get. But I put a little bit of strict 9 in. It's still poison, isn't it? So it can be clear. It can look great. It might even taste great. But something's going to happen to me. You can't mix poison with the truth, brethren. You can't mix the stuff that's impure. Because the world, as we heard in the sermon, there's so much impurities in the world. It's like God's having to come back and change everything.

Start over. Because it's become so corrupt. Verse 13. It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. You see, dust and dirt combined with water and air can change salt into almost a different substance. It's not edible anymore. It's contaminated. But at that time, with that salt that was contaminated, they actually took it, the Romans did, because they had concrete, but they also had gravel roads that they traveled on, and they could use this salt with water and dirt and spread it over, and it would keep the dust down. So the roads weren't as dusty. Trampled under foot. Hmm.

You will turn to Luke 14.

Luke 14.

Verse 34.

And 35. And 35.

Christ said, Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dung hill. But men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. So what's he saying? If you lose your salt, are you going to be in the kingdom?

Hmm. You're not fit.

I'm not fit, brethren, if I turn my back or I decide I want to put one foot in the world, and one foot in God's way, God's church. He says, I'm not fit. Not my words, it's His words. That's why it's important that we stay salt. Because He said, Salt is good.

That's interesting.

Many people talk to talk, but they don't walk the walk.

A few years ago, a national survey ranked 71 professions, 71 professions regarding their perceived honesty and integrity. TV evangelist was number 68 right after prostitutes and right before organized crime boss. That's true.

Christ said, you are the salt of the earth. Do you feel like a salt? Do you know you're His salt? An ancient world of salt was highly valued. The Greeks actually called salt divine. Divine. Real salt. Pure salt. Did not lose its saltiness. It was so stable that it was actually used as a currency. Many years ago, at the Roman times, actually, a road salary comes from the Latin word salt. Salt. Salt. Roman soldiers were often paid when they didn't have the money. They paid them in salt because they traveled all across the known world at the time, and they could trade for food. They could trade this salt for anything they needed.

You've heard the phrase, worth is salt? What's it mean? It means you're worth your pay, right? Are we worth our pay?

Only two people can answer that. You and God. I can't. Neither can anyone else.

We'll get into trouble when we try.

How are we good stewards?

In the Middle Ages, salt was known as white gold. Christ is telling us we need to stay pure, isn't he? Not mixed with the world. James 1, 27, was pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is to take care of the widows and orphans and do what? Keep yourself unspotted from the world. We must keep ourselves salt. Pure salt. Unspotted from the world. So we're not affected because, as we heard in the sermon at, it's easy to get affected. It's everywhere. I have to fight it every day. You have to fight it every single day. And as he said about Lot's wife, she was turned in the pillar of salt. Why?

He looked back at what? The world. She wanted. And if you go back to the original Hebrew, there was actually a saying in Hebrew that it was not just looking back, there was a longing. There was a longing to go back. How about us? Do you think that was a good enough example to realize that we don't need to go back into the world? We've got to make sure we keep our foot from going back there. I want to give you some salt facts. Salt facts. One fact. Salt. Everybody needs it. Every human needs it. Another fact. Almost all animals need salt.

Another fact. Most potato chips need it. Right? They make potato chips, what? In different kinds and have even lightly salted, but I've never seen any that has no salt. I doubt anyone would eat them. Probably why they're not out there. Salt facts. Salt has healing properties. Salt has healing properties. If you've ever sprained an ankle, used to do plain sports all the time, my father would come home and throw on some, he had some epson salt. If you've ever had it, put my ankles in it. As you can hear, if you hear, listen to me walk, you'll still hear my ankles crack and pop. I've sprained them so many times. But it would help take the swelling. It had healing properties, this epson salt. It's a fact. Salt is a preservative, isn't it? Salt is a preservative. In fall, refrigerators and freezer, salt was used as a preservative for meat. Meat was very valuable. We don't think anything about it today. A lot of us eat meat every day. Back then, they ate meat, lucky, once a week. Most of the known world out here, not in America, they don't eat meat. They can't afford it. It's very expensive. So at this time, when they slaughtered a cow, they salted the meat. Brethren, we are called to preserve God's Word. Salt preserves things. We are called to preserve His Word, to hold on to it, as it's been given, and preserve it. We are called to preserve God's truth in this rotting, dying, sick world. To hold on to that truth, brethren. To hold on to that truth, but also to spread it. Say, well, that sounds strange. You're going to hold on to something, and you're going to spread it? How do you do that? See, there's one thing, if you've ever had been around meat that's been salted. My brother does a lot of turkey jerky, beef jerky, and uses a lot of salt in the processing of it. But when people used to hang meat at that time, and they would hang it, and they would cover it with salt, and that salt would help preserve it. But if you got near it, and I remember as a kid at the old smokehouse, if you rubbed up against it, just a little bit of it came off on you. Just a little bit. Brethren, isn't that what we're to do? We're to rub a little off on people who come in contact with us. Not take this and go, here, you need this, and throw it all over them, is it? They need to come in contact with the salt, with God's salt.

Rub a little salt off. You know, and it's as if we are salted in this life to preserve us, to protect us from this rotting, deteriorating world. See, I have a little salt there. Just a little bit. Not a lot. How many of us have made the mistake in the past of thinking we had to douse somebody with salt? You don't. You just need to touch, rub just a little bit. Let them rub up against you and let the salt come off.

And you can do that by living your life that way. Salt, brethren, it keeps things from going bad. It keeps us from going bad. Another fact, salt is a seasoning. It gives taste, flavor, food, evens and drinks, if you like your margaritas with a little salt on the rim. But food without salt is what? Brand. It's dull, isn't it? Lifeless. We add taste and flavor to this common life.

We do not live our lives like everyone else. Salt does not do it. Salt does not do it. We have the Holy Days. We have His Sabbath. We look at the Sabbath, and it's a day of rest, and we take time and we spend time with God, but it also pictures a time when all mankind can spend a Sabbath with God. Pictures a thousand year reign. Pictures us with God today and in the future. When we add salt to a recipe, it's usually in smaller proportions to the other ingredients, isn't it?

It doesn't take much to impart the flavor. Haven't we all made the mistake of putting too much salt in something? You can't eat it, can you? It gets in your mouth and you just want to spew it out. Brethren, we have to be careful how much salt we give people so they don't spew it out. But just like that potato chip. It's a little aged, can't eat just one. So it's got just enough salt, just enough flavor so you eat one. And then you may even say, I'm going to fold the bag back up and not eat any more.

And then you unfold the bag and you've got to have some more. That's what God wants us to do. He's been charged with the universe. Who could call everyone, but He's not doing it. He's letting us do our jobs. He doesn't micromanage. He says, here, spread a little salt. Synergy, teamwork. We're all in this thing together. The Atlantic Ocean out here, like the Mediterranean Sea, varies very little. But it's about 3 to 3.5% salt. How much is in the ocean?

Isn't that amazing? About 3 to 3.5% is the same thing that's in your body. Just enough, it supports life in the ocean. It preserves life. With us, run out here and run out of salt in your body, and you'll find out.

You won't be able to live as your electrolytes are changed. But it's interesting because the Dead Sea is what? Do you know what percentage it is? 31.5%. Nine times the amount of salt is in the Dead Sea, is in the Atlantic or Mediterranean Sea. And why do you think it's called the Dead Sea? Because it's dead! Nothing can live! It's too much salt! You know, what's interesting is I was studying this salt a few years ago.

And I was in Hawaii and saw the triathlon. I was staying at our hotel. The Iron Man competition was done every year on an island there. And we had a feast there a couple of times, and I was actually there. Oh, you've been... I know Janaye has been there. And it's interesting because all the stuff that they do, these incredible athletes, where they swim two and a half miles, then get out of the water, the ocean, and they bike 114 miles, and then they get off the bike, and they run 26.3 miles.

Marathon. And they do this like... I think Mark Allen won it seven years in a row, and the best time was in eight hours. So they're pushing their bodies to the max for eight to ten hours. And it's interesting because it was because of the Iron Man competition that the medical science field found out about the problem with table salt.

Because they found out that these athletes could not finish, even though they had plenty of salt before, and they would drink these drinks that had salt in them as they're doing this incredible competition. Because, I mean, you're talking world class after swimming all that distance and biking all that distance, and then they would go run 26.7 miles, and Mark Allen was running them right at five minutes a mile after spending five hours competing in the other thing. So you would sweat so much. They would sweat so much, but then they would get to where they couldn't actually move their legs.

Their bodies started shutting down. And you know, what's interesting is all these companies that were backing these men, paying their sponsors, they got everybody on the case and said, well, wait a minute, it doesn't do us any good. He's got our name on the back and he's laying on the ground. It wasn't good advertisement. So they started getting all the medical field involved, health field involved. Found out that the health people actually knew something that could help everybody. It was pure salt. This is Himalayan salt.

It said the purest salt in the world. It's supposed to be. And if you actually go on the Internet, you can actually pull up Romanian salt mines. And you can find in Romania, they actually have mines that are dug out. And you can go in there and spend the day. You actually pay. It's almost like a health facility.

And everything in that room, in that cave, it's like three times the size of this room. It's all salt. It's all salt mine. And they go in there and it helps your codes. It helps so much of your body. It helps you to heal. And so they found, as they started experimenting, they wondered, what was the deal with Mark Allen? Why he won so many times and how everybody else was dropping out, and he didn't. And they thought, well, maybe it's just because he lives in Colorado, and when he comes down, the oxygen, he just has so much more when he comes down.

Well, he could just outrun everybody. No. One of the things he didn't give up on was his salt. He used pure salt. There was no iodine, no mortens, none of this stuff. But he was using pure salt. And he found out he could just salt the daylights out of something, and your body would not reject it. Your body would get to the point, you go, I don't want salt anymore.

So if you use pure salt, it's hard for you to over-salt anything, because your body will naturally say, I've had enough. So he could salt. Pure salt. And he could go a lot longer, a lot faster, because it was pure.

You know, once stirred or dissolved, salt, it isn't easily removed. That's how we are to affect the world. Even the small amounts we put in the world can have a great effect.

It already has. Is your life seasoned with salt, brethren? Like you turn to Colossians 4. Colossians 4.

Colossians 4, verse 5. Walk in wisdom towards those who are outside. Redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace. Seasoned with salt. Seasoned with salt. That you may know how you ought to answer each other. Hmm.

Walk in wisdom towards those who are on the outside, redeeming the time. That's what we've been talking about. So do people see you as salt? Do people hear you as salt?

Or do they say, man, that man is just way too salty. I just don't even want to be around them.

Happened? All the same here. Season with salt. Use wisdom. Walk in wisdom. You've heard the phrase, take it with a grain of salt. What does that mean? It means you don't know whether it's the truth. Can people go to us and know that we speak the truth? We have guidelines that tell us why. Don't even stretch the truth.

If you use too much salt for seasoning or flavoring, what happens? Food is inedible. Not edible. But adding a little salt means being able to use God's word adequately. You want to be salty enough so that people see there's something different in you.

Being salty, brethren, means being balanced like the ocean. Like your body's being balanced.

And haven't we all seen someone in the church over the years? They're not balanced. And so people really can't talk to them. They're like, he's weird.

She's weird. You can't even communicate with them. The example is Jesus Christ. Could people communicate with Him? Yes! They wanted to talk to Him. Even the kids wanted to come and talk to Him. They wanted to spend time with Him. Everybody had hundreds and thousands of people wanted to be around Him. Why? He was balanced. That's what it takes. We don't have to be religious nuts. We have to stand for what we believe in. We have to be strong. But not nuts.

We've seen a lot of those. In other words, brethren, Jesus has the salt.

If the salt, His Spirit is in you, you'll be salt. A living sacrifice. Interesting because that's what Romans 12 verse 1 says, Let your bodies be a living sacrifice. Let your bodies be a living sacrifice. That's what they're supposed to be. The only problem is we crawl off the altar sometimes. Don't we? We all crawl back off there. Get the...

But we need to be that living sacrifice. In Israel, every sacrifice was to be seasoned, salted, for God. I read from the Good News magazine. Excuse me? Good News Translation. Got the seminar on my mind. Leviticus 2 verse 13. You can turn there, you can just listen to the Good News Translation. It says, Put salt on every grain offering because salt represents the covenant between you and God. You must put salt on all your offerings. Salt is so valuable in this world. Always has been. You've got to have it to survive. If you've ever raised cattle, horses, or anything else, you have to have a salt block. They'll die without it. We would die without salt.

It's so valuable, but so is the value of God's people.

Brethren, you are so valuable to God.

Do we realize that? Do we think about that?

You know, salt is a reminder. You ever thought about that? Salt is a reminder.

Had someone asked me one time, I don't know that I understood what you were talking about. You were talking about salt being a reminder. Then you went back to Adam and Eve.

You remember where they fell from grace? Follow a man as they call it. What happened? He told Adam that you will now have to work the ground. And by the sweat of your brow. Reminder, every time you sweat, they don't know what God intended.

What about what they did and how it had to be answered? They had to sacrifice an animal. God did. To make their clothes. There was bloodshed. It was interesting that you could sweat. When you actually sweat, taste it. Salty, right? It's actually about 1.5% salt they found in sweat. It's interesting that blood is only about 1%. And you know these things that you, my wife, is about 1%, which makes about 3.5% the balance. Remember that old 60's group, blood, sweat, and tears? I always thought in my mind about the Adam and Eve. And then being able to, all the time before the fall, they were able to spend time with all those animals. You can imagine just laying up against one tiger or whatever animal, a little lamb. And you know, they could just pet it. Chances are that Adam had already named them. They knew what they were, spend time. But I always thought that probably what the clothes were made out of was that animal that was very close to them. And they come back and find that the animal is dead. And the blood from that animal had to be shed as a covering for their sin. And you imagine seeing these peaceful animals at a time would do nothing to harm you and then you caused this death. I think you had some tears. I think Adam and Eve had some tears. It's a reminder, salt is a reminder, blood, sweat, and tears, that God is on His throne. And there's a purpose being worked out down here.

You know, salt cleanses. Salt cleanses. If you studied about the temple and you go back in the various history books and you find out about the temple, and all the animals, they slaughtered. Remember all the sheep? All the sacrifice? There were millions at the spring holy days slaughtered at one time or another. How much blood? They cut it and then they had blood everywhere! Well, they didn't have simple greens, greased lightning, didn't have these cleaners, didn't have bleach. The clean. How did they get the temple clean? Salt. Salt was their cleanser. It cleansed. It cleansed. It's interesting. Also, it points out in the Bible that salt is symbolic of peace. So we have salt preserves, it heals, it seasons, it's a reminder, it cleanses, and it's valuable. Pretty impressive if you put that with us. That's what we do for God on this earth. We preserve. We help cleanse. We bring peace. We help season. Salt is symbolic of peace. I'd go to Mark 9. Mark 9. Verse 50. 49. It says, For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt loses flavor, how will it be seasoned? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another. It's symbolic of peace. It's interesting that actually in the Middle East at that time, the better ones still do it. But actually, when a new baby is born, they would actually rub the baby down in salt and olive oil. They would rub the salt down, rub it on the baby to fight the infection that might be there. But they only used a small portion. They didn't need to use a lot. They would help cleanse it with olive oil.

The Hebrew word salt not only means soft, but it also means to be smooth and soothing.

Why is it symbolic of peace? Are we that smooth and soothing? Are we the ones that can help broker peace?

When no one else can? Are we that way? You know, in Greek, salt actually means prudence, watchful, to care, to heed, vigilance, to be discreet, and means judicious. What about us? Do we fit that profile?

Are we discreet? Salt was and is used above Florida for melting ice. It doesn't. We use it up in Tennessee. We get ice more than we get snow. We moved up north, most of it have. We got a sidewalk like the Strauss's there in Ohio. So I have to have plenty of salt. And they sit on the sidewalk because it helps melt the ice.

It's been done for centuries.

What about us? We should be able to help melt cold as ice hearts. Yes, we should be able to melt cold as ice hearts if we have God's salt in us.

If we have just enough that we do not throw it and cover someone with it. But they begin to see that we have no agenda but God's. We want peace in our lives. We want peace in your life. We begin to see it. Peace. What about those hearts of stone? I think about so many people. So interesting because there is a woman in Nashville congregation that she came into the church. Her husband wanted no part of it. He made fun of her for years. Stupid religion.

Stupid people who go there.

And then, as he saw her life begin to change as God was working with her, he became so much better wife.

And the friends that were so stupid in the church began to go of low kindness. He began to notice, you know, I have more fun being around those people when they come to my house than my old friends.

The more people have been brought to God, the more people have this understanding of God's truth, not by some minister, not by some evangelist. I can't get that out to them myself. Not by so much preaching of the Gospel, more people have been brought to God's truth by you. You. God's people have rubbed off. Yeah, they may have heard about Good News magazine. That's why we do it. We preach the Gospel. It's what we've been called to do. But it's the real contact. It's that rubbing off of that salt by you. It's that more impact on the work of God than most of the preaching.

And yeah, some people were brought in, radio, TV, magazines. One of the reasons they stayed was the people.

That's one of the reasons they stayed. You have a responsibility. I have a big responsibility by being salt to God's work. And do you really think God is going to call in a bunch of people into a church where all they've had is misfits? All he's had is bickering and fighting.

But he wants them to find a home. And he wants people there who will make them feel at home. That's why it's so important to me that this church be a family. And I'll do everything I can to help that be. There's a problem. Let's work it out. There's issues with me. Let's work it out.

This needs to be a place of peace. It will be peace in this church. We will have peace. Because that's what the Sabbath is supposed to be.

And there needs to be peace when people walk in the door and they feel it. Because it's out there. It's amazing. You may not even know how many people you've affected. You do not know how many people you've affected. You do not know how many people you've affected. You do not know how many people you have rubbed salt on. But you'll find out soon. We're all going to find out.

So at Preserved Seasons, as a reminder, it's valuable. It's symbolic of peace. It heals and it cleanses. Today, we've only scratched the surface on the many purposes. The salt. Christ didn't say, Be salt. He said, You are salt. You are the salt. What a blessing! What a blessing! What an honor to be called God's salt!

Sometimes we take it, well, we're just like everyone else. No, you're not. It's by His grace, by His gifts, by His calling, the called out ones, that are the salt. You know, from geology, when they take a rock and to find out how old that rock is and what it's composed of, they break the rock in two so they can go and see what's inside. And it changes a lot of times when they break that rock. Because I had a geologist tell me this, that some things they can actually tell from the salt inside that rock, different things about the rock, but even breaking the rock will change some molecules and atoms inside the rock. But it's interesting because when salt is stressed or broken, it keeps its shape. The molecules and the atoms keep their shape, they don't change when they're under stress. That's what He wants us to be. Because we're all going to be under stress, aren't we? All got stress in our lives. But He wants us to stay the course. You know there's an old saying, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. I'm here to tell you today, that's a lie. That's a lie.

Just give him salt. Just give him salt, and you'll lead him to water.

And you'll feel drink. God has given this world His salt. Brethren, are you ready to lead this world to water? The real water. The water Jesus Christ talked about. The water that no one will thirst.

It's a salt. It's a salt.

I noticed when someone drinks you, all of a sudden you become thirsty. You sit there and you think, well, I wish I had some water. If you've ever done this, take some potato chips and open them up and eat one across the room. My wife, she's really healthy, better than I do. So we don't ever keep potato chips in the house, but occasionally we'll get some with sea salt. Makes her feel better.

And they are set up in the cabinet for a long time, probably three or four months, and I came in one night. I just wanted something salty. You ever desired that? You just want something salty. Especially pregnant women. They just want something salty. You need more salt. You know when you need more salt.

That's His word.

Rather than that desire should be in us and it's by the Holy Spirit. Well, we know we need more of His salt.

And it's so interesting because I opened up that bag of potato chips. It's over on the couch. She was in the kitchen doing something. I'm sitting there. I chomped down on a couple of them. She goes, Are you going to eat those whole things? Are you going to eat that whole thing? I said, Well, you say you bury a cell to meet it. Yes, but I might want one. But it's so interesting because she could go months without eating it, but if I'm eating a potato chip with salt, she's got to come and have it.

She wants one.

Rather than that is what we need to be with each other. If we desire His Word and we talk about that Word to somebody, guess what happens? You're going to talk to them about it. That's why we always use that down in Caribbean. I'm trying to change the culture a little bit in that people would come in and go, How was your week?

And we change that, and a lot of them we try to say now. The first thing you say was, What did you study this week? What did you study this week? And you found the whole conversation, the whole church began to be more excited.

And you found those people who went and sputtered up, because they didn't study, next week they were, Oh, guess what I studied? Rub, rub, some salt, rub. I want to leave you with one last thought. I'd like you to turn to Matthew. As we start in Matthew, we're going to finish in Matthew.

Matthew 24.

Matthew 24.

Verse 22. Have you ever thought to yourself, because we all have moments where we're beat down by the world, suffer maybe even minor depression, and sometimes we just get in negative attitude, or maybe big depression. And you think, well, I'm not worth a lot.

You know, we all have to kick ourselves and get out of that mood. We control our minds. We can change it and go, I'm not going to let Satan influence me. How many times, one of my favorite sayings this week is, Get behind me Satan. Because I'm looking at something, I'm going, Nope, get behind me Satan. Because I know that I'm going down the wrong road. And how am I going to be a man of God if I don't pick it up like the filth that can come into my mind and hold it?

But ever thought, maybe you're just not that important? Matthew 24 and verse 22. And lest those days were shortened, talking about the end time, talking about just before Christ returns, talking about the last days, and lest those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved. Therefore, the salt is the elect.

The elect have his salt. Therefore, the salt's sake those days will be shortened.

Go. Preserve God's truth. Preserve his word and flavor and season this earth. Like that thing you have in your hand. Hold it up. You still got it? You are the salt of the earth.