Alright, brethren. We're going to be in Mark chapter
9. Mark chapter 9 verses 38 through 50. Now in this scripture, we see
our need of the salt of preserving grace. And that's so that we,
by the grace of God, are enabled to part with the idols of our
heart, the idols that would take us down to hell. and also that
we would rightly discern our brethren, that we would know
how to live peaceably with our brethren in this world. And that's
what we see here in this passage. Our title is Salt Preserving
Grace. Salt Preserving Grace. Let's
begin looking at the salt of preserving grace. The scriptures
teach us that those that are saved by the Lord God Almighty
are saved by grace. Saved by grace. And this grace
is shown to us through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He's
the one who laid aside His glory. He took upon Him the likeness
of our flesh. He came in flesh. In the flesh
and fulfilled all righteousness, and he laid down His life. He bore us in Himself and took
us there to the cross, and He laid down His life, paying the
payment that was due to God, paying the debt that we owed
God, which was His own precious blood, His righteous blood, whereby
we are now purchased and made His. So He cleansed us of our
sins in the work which He did, so that now we are righteous
before Holy God. He did not fail. He's a successful
Savior. Now because of this glorious
work which He did, His people shall know. We shall know what
God has wrought for His people through His Son, because it pleases
the Father to glorify the Son. And so that's why we're going
to know that we have a successful Savior, one who accomplished
our salvation in Himself. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians
2. 2 Thessalonians 2. And we'll start in verse 13,
that well-known scripture. And we'll go down to verse 17.
2 Thessalonians 2.13 Paul says,
rightly giving praise to God and not man, but to God, but
we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation And here it is, through sanctification of the
Spirit, so that by the Holy Spirit of God he separated us out from
this world unto himself, so through the sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth. It is the will of God that we
should be sanctified and set apart for him and his use, and
to know what Christ has accomplished for us. That is what Paul is
saying here, whereunto he called you by our gospel to the obtaining
of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we see the certainty
of our salvation. We see the certainty that we
shall be brought to know the truth of Christ, that we shall
know what we are, that we are sinners in need of God's grace,
and we shall know that Christ is the Savior of His people. We'll be given life by the Spirit,
regenerated to have Christ revealed to us, not in this flesh, but
in the spirit, in the new man whereby we know and worship the
Father in spirit and in truth. And therefore, because God is
pleased to do this, he's going to bring us under the sound of
the gospel, he's going to cause us to hear what's being said,
to actually hear it, in spirit and truth and to believe. So
everything necessary from first to last is all provided for his
people because it's his will to do that. Therefore, verse
15, brethren stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have
been taught whether by word or our epistle. So we stand fast. We're made by God. We're separated
unto this work by the Lord God. We're made to stand fast because
we're going to be brought into trials. The Lord, the Father,
is going to prove the work which he's done in us. We're going
to know that we are His. We're going to know what He has
done, what He's accomplished. Now, in verse 16, Our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word
and work. So we see, we're going to learn
through the proving of the faith which God has worked in us, what
he's given to us, we're going to prove that we are indeed the
objects of his grace. We're going to know Him, and
that's a beautiful thing, and that's comforting because we're
going to feel the fiery trial of our faith. It's going to be
brought near to us, and we're going to know the truth of these
things. Now, in our text, in Mark 9, I want to begin with
verse 50. That's the last verse in our
text. Mark 9, 50. And Christ says that salt is
good, but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will
ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and
have peace one with another. So just as God provided salvation
we're going to be preserved of God to the end. And what I mean
is, we see that just as it's the will of God that we should
know the truth of what Christ has accomplished to us, God's
going to preserve us. He's going to keep us to the
end. And everything in between is
provided for us of God the Father. He's given to us all things.
And so we see that Christ puts us in remembrance he reminds
us he brings us to know that we are saved by this grace of
God and we see the abundance of the grace of God being poured
out in us being shown to us by his spirit and it acts as a preservative
for the saints of God. It keeps us. We're reminded and
we're kept by this knowledge of what God has done for us and
he grows us in it. And therefore, we're to walk,
we're to hear this word, and we're to walk, we're to continue
hearing this word by which God preserves us and keeps us and
sustains us to the end. In John 6.39, our Lord said,
And so we see that God's not going to lose any one of us,
but this walk is a walk of faith. We walk by faith. We don't see
certain things. We're left to lean upon the Lord,
to wait upon Him, to pray to Him, to seek Him, because it's
a walk of faith. And He tells us that it's a walk
of faith. And so we're learning through
this life, we're learning to trust God, we're learning to
deny self, We will take up our cross. We will be brought to
take up our cross and seek that we're going to seek the Lord
that this flesh be mortified. He turns us. He gives us a new
heart to seek after those things which please him and delight
him. And he hates sin. He put away
sin in us. But He's going to bring us to
seek Him for that preserving grace. He's going to cause us
to desire and to desire His righteousness and seek to be fed of Him. So we're going to be brought
to believe God and trust and wait upon the Lord. And it's
not going to be by looking to the law. The Lord isn't using
the law to whip us, but rather He fills us with the Spirit and
fills us with His grace, fills us with His gifts, whereby He
draws out from us that desire and that walk to know Him. And so it's not going to be according
to this flesh, because the flesh is weak. The flesh isn't going
to save the flesh. It's dead and unable to satisfy
that law. Paul said it this way in Galatians
3, 11 and 12, but that no man is justified by the law in the
sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith.
But the man that doeth them shall live in them." So our flesh's
mortification isn't going to be by the law. It's going to
be by the Spirit of Christ. Because if it were by the law,
we better live in it perfectly, 100%, without fail, in any aspect
of it. And because we can't do that,
because of the infirmity and the weakness of the flesh, we're
not directed back to the law, but we walk according to the
Spirit dwelling in us. We walk by faith, looking to
Him for our righteousness and trusting that He preserves and
keeps us. Turn over to 1 Peter 1. 1 Peter
1, verse 5. Here again we see this preservation. First beater 1-5. We are kept by the power of God
through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last
time, wherein ye greatly rejoice. It is a blessed thought to know
that we are the children of the Most High God. But listen, though
now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations, that the trial of your faith being much more precious
than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire,
might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing
of Jesus Christ. Though this flesh is weak, when
we look at the law, it's terrifying. We see our inability to keep
the law, but the Lord fills us with the Spirit and directs us
to walk by faith, to trust Him and trust that the Spirit is
working in us and preserves us and keeps us unto the end. And so we don't go off just because
we believe and preach grace. We don't go off and do that which
is according to the lusts of the flesh, that which is natural
in the flesh, because the spirit keeps us. The spirit teaches
us and directs our hearts and our minds and our eyes toward
the Lord so that we are turned by him and have that desire to
know Him and to believe Him and to walk by the faith which He's
given to us. So that in Christ now we are
the servants of righteousness. As Paul said, when we were dead
in trespasses and sins and didn't have the Spirit of God in us,
we were free from righteousness and were the servants of sin.
But now having the Spirit in us, we are free from the servitude
and and the force and the evil of sin reigning and ruling and
having dominion over us, and we are now made the servants
of righteousness to desire the things which God desires and
seeks. Now I want you to see this. Turn over to Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40. And this is how it's
done. Because we're talking about how
grace is that salt that preserves us. This is the work of God doing
this. Isaiah 40, verses 7 and 8. And here, what Isaiah is saying,
we see this is the Spirit's work that does this in His people. He says in Isaiah 40, verse 7,
the grass withereth, the flower faded, because the Spirit of
the Lord, as a withering wind, the Spirit of the Lord bloweth
upon it, surely the people is grass. The flesh, just like grass,
withereth, and the flesh, just like the flower, faded. But the
word of our God shall stand forever. And so what Isaiah is showing
us there, what we see there is that this is the Spirit's work. The Spirit will wither the flesh. The Spirit will bring this flesh
down to see that it's nothing, that we can't do this work. It's
the Spirit's work. All right, but let's move on
to our next point, these warnings here, back in our text, in Mark
9, 43. Seeing that it's the Spirit's
work that does this, that's a comfort to us because of what we see
in these next few verses here. It's a comfort to know that this
is the will of God to keep and preserve us by His grace. All
right, Mark 9, 43. And if thy hand offend thee,
cut it off. It is better for thee to enter
into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into
the fire that never shall be quenched. Where their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee,
cut it off. It is better for thee to enter
halt into life, than having two feet, and be cast into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched. Where their worm
dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend
thee, pluck it out. It is better for thee to enter
into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes
to be cast into hell fire, where there worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched." So we see that the Lord is calling
us to rigorous self-denial. So that as He grows us, He separates
us from the idols that are in our heart. He makes these idols,
that which would drag us down to hell, He makes it known to
us what is standing between us and God, between us and the Lord
and seeking Him. He reveals that to us. Again,
it's not through The Law of Moses. The Law of Moses creates enmity
in us. We see, I mean, it shuts our
mouths. The Law of Moses does show us that we're sinners, but
it gives us no power, and no desire, and no ability to turn
from the idols in our heart. But God is able to turn our hearts. He's able to give us a new and
living heart that believes Him. And this is why the preaching
of the gospel is such a blessing. To be able to hear the gospel
is such a blessing because you can go to many different places
and sit under the law of Moses. You can go to a lot of places
today and hear the preaching of the law. And the problem is
that the law, it creates that enmity in the flesh. If you think
that you're doing it, you're deceiving yourself because we
can't do the law. We can't fulfill the law. As
Paul said, if there had been a law that could have given righteousness,
made us righteous, God would have given it. But because of
the infirmity and the weakness of this flesh, we can't keep
it. But instead, it's as our Lord
said in Matthew 23, 15, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye compass sea and land to
make one proselyte, and when he is made, you make him twofold
more the child of hell than yourselves. And that's what you get in false
religion. With the preaching of the law
to make yourselves righteous, it will make you two-fold more
the son of hell in doing that, thinking that you're righteous
by your law-keeping. But the second reason why the
Gospel is such a blessing is because of what we saw there
in Isaiah 40, verses 7 and 8, where we saw the Spirit's work.
Because it's under the Gospel that the Spirit blows upon you. and the spirit withers the flesh. The spirit is the one that turns
us from self and seeking self, right? The grass withereth, the
flower fadeth, and the reason for that is because the Lord
bloweth upon it. In the preaching of the gospel,
the spirit is blowing upon that flesh to wither it, like a drying,
withering wind that dries out the the plant of the flesh, if
you will. I have some little seedlings
started and I have been putting them outside to get them used
to the sun and to grow because they're getting leggy. But as
soon as I put them out there, it's so windy around here that
the wind just dries it out and they perish. They just wither
away and they die. And that's what the spirit does.
The spirit shows us the vanity of our flesh. It shows us the
vanity and the foolishness of our vain worldly pursuits. It
dries that up. It shows us that these things
are coming to nothing. And the Spirit, under the preaching
of the gospel, shows us, reveals to us, that we're sinners. And it shows us the sin which
doth so easily beset us, and drag us and weigh us down, so
that he gives us that hunger and thirst for righteousness,
in which we begin to cry out and seek him, Lord, save me.
Deliver me from these things. Lord, let me not love the things
of this world. Lord, let me love you the way
you love me. And draw from me that desire
to know you. And so the Spirit does that.
So it's not just this looking to the law at all. It's not a
looking to the law where that enmity is created and saying,
I hate this. I don't want to do it, but I don't want to go
to hell, so I'm just going to fight through this and not do
it." Instead, he gives you his spirit, whereby he turns you
from the love of this world to love him and seek him and desire
those things which he seeks and desires. Paul said it this way
in Galatians. 5, 24, and 26. And they that
are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and
lusts. If we live in the spirit, let
us also walk in the spirit. And let us not be desirous of
vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. So the spirit
helps us to hear that and hear it in the spirit. So that's not
in that flesh and just this clash of enmity between the old man
and the Lord. but the Spirit will overcome
that old man, and the Spirit will turn that heart unto the
Lord Himself. So it's that saving work of Christ
whereby we're delivered, and we're delivered from the torments
of hell that we just saw spoken of there in Mark 9, 43-48. We're
delivered from that which is coming upon the
children of disobedience who have no love and no heart, no
spirit to walk before the Lord God. Hell is a real place. It's a place of torment which
is reserved for the damned, as the Lord said in 948, where their
worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. We ponder that,
we reflect upon it, we consider it, and whether that language
is literal or it's figurative, it's still a terrifying thing.
It's a place where we don't want to go because it speaks of that
gnawing worm of a guilty conscience that's never silenced. And it
speaks of being kept in that fiery, torment of God's righteousness,
of His holy wrath being poured out upon us, which is never quenched,
it's never put out. And in Mark 9, 49, He says, Mark
9 49, for everyone shall be salted with fire and every sacrifice
shall be salted with salt. And we know that salt is a preservative,
right? People put salt on things like
meat to keep it from decaying and corrupting and breaking down
and disappearing. And what he's saying there is
that the fires of God's judgment are a preservative in that the
wicked will never perish. That'll never be extinguished.
They'll be preserved in that fiery judgment being poured out
upon them. And that's a terrifying thought
and it horrifies us to consider that. But that's what he's saying
there is that it's a preservative in and of itself so that those
that are there, the damned that are there, will never corrupt
and perish away. They'll remain, they'll be kept
in that fiery judgment. So the Lord says then, coming
back to 950, Verse 950, now let's look at it again. Salt is good,
but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season
it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.
So we looked at this verse, we began with this verse, and what
we see is that it's the preservative of grace. God's grace preserves
his people. He will keep his people unto
the end, that we don't come to that bitter and damning end there
in hell. He delivers us from that. And
the example that, well, and then this grace that preserves us
and comforts us and creates peace between us and holy God is that
peace which is created and established between the children between
one and another in this gospel. And so this example that we'll
look at here in verse 38 in a moment, we also see that Christ earlier,
they were disputing, the disciples were disputing among themselves
as to who should be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And
so it's this grace that preserves us and establishes us in peace
among one another and also with those that we don't know as well. Look there in Mark 9.38 because
what we see here at the end of this chapter, what we're seeing
there is that pride that's in us by nature, what's so bad is
that it causes us to think of ourselves more highly. It causes
us to hold our brethren to a standard that we don't even hold ourselves
to. We might think that we do in pride, but we don't even hold
ourselves to that standard. We want people to show us grace,
but we're so reluctant to show that same grace to others that
we want to be shown ourselves. the Lord's got to deliver us
from that. But look at Mark 9.38, because if we can't even be peaceful
with ourselves, you see how easy it is to be not so peaceful with
others who aren't like us and are outside of us. Mark 9.38,
And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out
devils in thy name, and he followeth not us, and we forbade him, because
he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not,
for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that
can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us
is on our part." And what we see here is that we ought not
to be so hasty to condemn people and to judge them as not being
the Lord just because they're not in with us, just because
they don't go here or just because they don't fellowship in our
circle of churches. We don't know that the Lord has
his people scattered about and we don't want to be quick to
cut off because you may be cutting off a brother and judging a brother. And so we're to be patient one
with another, especially with one another. Paul said in Romans
14, 19, let us therefore follow after the things which make for
peace and things wherewith one may edify another. So if you
have an issue with a brother, we do offend one another. We
do say things or do things that hurt one another, whether on
purpose or accidentally. And a lot of times we don't even
know when we've offended somebody else. But if they have, you speak
peaceably to them. You speak to them as you want
them to speak to you and pray. Because it's the Lord that creates
that healing. It's the Lord that creates that
peace and the fellowship. Just as he preserves us and keeps
us following him, it's also the Lord that establishes that bridge
of peace and that welcome and that enjoyment of fellowship
with one another. And then in Colossians 4, 6 we
read, And so what we see there with John rebuking that man, And what the Lord says to him
is basically we meet a lot of people and we don't usually know
how to speak with the people. We don't always know what to
say. We don't always know the right thing to say. We know that we
have a heart and a desire for the Lord to save his people and
the Lord to seek out those that are his, but we don't always
know what to say, and we ought to be praying, Lord, help me
to know what to say in this situation, and what might be a help here. Typically, we lead off with a
complaint. This weather is not really hot.
It's like, We tend to complain, I know I do, I tend to complain
because it's very easy to relate. It's very easy when you talk
about things that are difficulties that you're going through, because
everybody's going through difficulties. I have to wonder if we ought
not to praise the Lord and give him thanks in the sight of people
and let them hear that instead because you never know. You might
actually meet somebody who's seeking the Lord. You might meet
somebody that has an interest and hears what you say and wonder
what's going on. Who knows how the Lord's pricked
them in their heart and caused them to be thinking and seeking
the Lord and how they may then ask you a reason for the hope
that is within you, and that desire, and you might make a
friend. In Malachi 3.18, he says there
at the end of that book, then shall ye return and discern between
the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God
and him that serveth him not. you know, just speaking peaceably
and glorifying the Lord, yeah, many people probably will look
at you kind of weird, although maybe not here. They might expect
it, because a lot of people are pretty vocal about what they
believe in this area, I've noticed. But you may make a friend, and
you never know. Don't cut them off so quickly,
because you just don't know. Now, that being said, we don't
tolerate false religion. We're not to befriend that which
is a lie and turns us back to the flesh. Those who preach and
believe and teach in their free will, that their free will has
saved them, they believe in works religion. By saying that they
believe that they've saved themselves by their free will, they believe
in works religion. But a lot of people don't even
know what they're talking about. A lot of people have just heard
that and you don't know. You just have to patiently work
through that and give it a little bit of time because they may
realize, you know what? What you're saying is right.
It's not the truth, my free will. It didn't save me. It is Christ
and it is his will that saved me. The thing is though that
if you hide it, if you don't say anything, you're never going
to know. You're just never going to know who who are the lords
and who he's calling out. Alright, but let us look at the
next verses in Mark 9, 41 and 42. And he says, for whosoever
shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because
ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his
reward. And whosoever shall offend one
of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that
a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into
the sea. You know, not everyone is a scholar
and not everyone is a theologian. Not everyone can articulate all
the things that we believe. So we're going to be patient
with them, just because they can't articulate it or say it
the way we would, it doesn't mean that they're a reprobate
and that we should immediately rebuke them and come down harshly
upon them. But those that join with us and
those that fellowship with us and meet with us, We're to be
patient with them and not judge them and not say things to be
like us or to say it necessarily the way we say it, but to be
patient and pray because the last thing we want to do is offend
one for whom Christ died and come down harshly on them because
if you offend that one for whom Christ died, you've offended
Christ. If you sin against that one for
whom Christ died, you sin against Christ. We don't want to find
ourselves in opposition to the Lord. You know, in Numbers 11,
there's a similar situation where one runs up to Moses. Moses is
sitting there with Joshua, the son of Nun. And one comes up
and says, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp. And Joshua
hears this, and he stands up and says, Moses, Lord, rebuke
them. Don't let them do this. And Moses
responds to him, Envious thou from my sake? Would God that
all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his
spirit upon them. We see there that we can be so
hasty, but we see how foolish we are and unable we are even
in discerning between the sheep and the goats and between the
wheat and the tares. We really need the Lord to do
that work. We're to be patient in kind with
those that meet and fellowship with us, because the Lord doesn't
need us. Some people think that they're
the ones that got to be the policemen, that they got to kick out the
people that they are suspicious of and don't think should be
here. But in 2 Peter 2.9, he says,
the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations
and to reserve the unjust until the day of judgment to be punished.
So we just don't want to be so harsh and critical that people
would not want to be among us. But remember in Mark 9 40, for
he that is not against us is on our part. So I pray the Lord
will give us wisdom and discernment to understand that, to learn
that more and more and to understand what he means there in teaching
us that word. And just that also, we would
rejoice in the blessedness of grace and that preservation,
the grace that is preserving us and keeping us to the end,
because that's how we're all going to be saved and preserved
in Him. All right, let's pray. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you, Father, for the salt of your preserving grace. Lord, we pray that you would
teach us, Lord, not to be harsh and condemning, and mean-spirited,
but that we would be kind and gentle and patient, Lord, remembering
how kind and gentle and patient you are with us. Lord, we need
mercy. Help us to show one another mercy. And we depend upon your grace.
Help us, Lord, to be gracious and to learn of your spirit and
to walk by your spirit, by faith, Lord. We pray this in Jesus'
name, our Lord and Savior. Amen.