Matthew chapter 5, I titled the
lesson this morning. You are the salt of the earth.
Our Lord, the prince of preachers, uses an illustration here so
simple, something every one of us have in our kitchen table,
in our cabinets, something we see and use every day, something
as simple as salt to show us the truth of the gospel. Let's
look here in Matthew chapter 5, verse 13. The master says
ye are the salt of the earth. But if the salt have lost his
savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It's thenceforth good
for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot
of men. Now in scripture, salt has several
meanings. The first thing I thought of
was that salt being a symbol of God's judgment. Remember Lot's
wife was turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back
at Sodom. Salt is also a symbol of barrenness,
often destroyed cities. You know, the conqueror comes
in, destroys the city. Remember how they would sow it
with salt so nothing could grow there as a symbol of barrenness.
But if you look in Leviticus chapter two, salt is also a picture
of God's grace. Leviticus chapter two. Verse 13. In every oblation of thy meat
offering, shalt thou season with salt. Neither shalt thou suffer
the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat
offering. With all thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt. Every
meat offering was to be salted before it was offered. And that
salt was a picture of God's covenant of grace. He calls it the salt
of the covenant. Christ's sacrifice, and this
was done as a picture that Christ's sacrifice for his people was
offered to the Father in grace for God's people. Salt on the
meat offering was a picture of the grace of Christ's sacrifice.
You know, we have food. Salt just makes it taste better. Salting the sacrifice was a picture
of how sweet Christ's sacrifice would taste to his people. Salt
also preserves food. Salting the sacrifice showed
how Christ's sacrifice would be good forever, always preserving,
protecting his people. Look at 2 Chronicles chapter
13. Here's another reference to the salt of the covenant.
The salt of the covenant is a picture of God's covenant of grace, God's
promise of grace to his people. 2 Chronicles chapter 13. Nebuchadnezzar stood up upon
Mount Zimmerim, which is in Mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, thou
Jeroboam, and all Israel ought ye not to know that the Lord
God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever,
even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt. David was
made king by God's grace, not because David deserved it, but
by God's grace. And God promised David, David,
you're going to be king. And he promised David he's going
to have a son to reign upon his throne because of God's grace. David did not earn that kind
of favor from God, did he? Before he was king or after he
was king. He didn't do anything to deserve that kind of favor
from God. It was given to him by God's
grace. It was given to him by God's promise. Not because David
earned it, but because of God's promise. Now back in our text,
did you notice this, that the Lord did not say His grace is
the salt of the world. He said, you, you who believe
are the salt of the earth because God's grace is in you. And I
want to look at three properties of salt to see how God's people
are the salt of the earth. I tell you my three points. Number
one is this, salt makes food taste better. Two, salt is a
preservative. And third, salt has healing properties. Now first, salt makes food taste
better. It just does. I mean, there's
just no denying salt makes food taste better. I mean, I hate
to think of eggs without salt. I mean, I just despise to think
of corn on the cob without salt. I mean, I just, I might not even
need it. I mean, I just hate to think of that. You get ready
to grill meat. Jonathan taught me this. salt
it real good and let that salt sit on that raw meat for a good
while before you grill it. It'll taste so much better. It'll
tenderize it, make it taste better. Even homemade ice cream recipes
call for salt. Salt makes the sweet taste better.
Well, the gospel of God's grace is the salt that makes everything
taste better to the believer. Now, all the doctrines that we
believe and we preach are true. These are true doctrines. We
cannot compromise them. But it's the salt of God's grace
that makes it taste good. God's election of a people is
true. You cannot read this book honestly
and deny God's election of a people. But we do not preach that truth
right unless we preach it as the election of grace. It's the
election of grace. It's not a mean, cold, hard doctrine. It's the election of grace. It's the only hope a sinner has.
We won't choose God unless he first chooses us. Now that tastes
good to sinners that cannot deserve salvation, doesn't it? Limited
atonement is a true doctrine. Limited atonement doesn't mean
that the power of Christ's sacrifice was limited. It was limited in
its scope. Christ did not die for everyone.
He only died for God's elect. Now that's true. But you know,
you can make that sound. I've heard people do it. You
can make that sound mean and hard if you don't preach it right.
But the salt of grace makes limited atonement taste good to God's
people. The Lord Jesus Christ graciously
died for his people who do not deserve him. And those people
shall be saved. They cannot perish because Christ
died to put their sin away. Nothing tastes better to a helpless
sinner than that, does it? The irresistible call of the
spirit is a true doctrine. But the salt of God's grace is
what makes that taste good to God's people. I've got good news
for you. You don't have to figure this
out on your own. You don't have to figure salvation
out on your own. You don't have to figure out
the purpose of the eternal God on your own. You don't have to
find a way to get to God and be accepted on your own. It's
a good thing, too. If you're dead and you can't
do it, God the Holy Spirit will draw all of God's elect to Christ
irresistibly. They won't be able to resist,
but now they're not coming against their will. He's going to make
them willing. They will be willing in the day
of his power. and they won't be able to stay
away. They won't be able to stay away. You know, in preaching
the gospel and being a pastor, you know, we want to see God
save His people. We want to see those things.
But I'll tell you what, you don't have to talk God's people into
doing anything. You don't have to do one thing.
You just preach the gospel to them and you wait. If they belong
to Christ, the Spirit will draw them to Christ and they'll come
willingly. The perseverance of the saints
is true. This is a true doctrine. I cannot,
for the life of me, understand why somebody would argue against
you. Hear this in religion. You know,
once saved, always saved. Why would you want to argue against
that? This is a true statement, true doctrine. It's the salt,
though, of God's grace that makes that taste good to God's people.
Here's more good news for you. God has saved you. You don't
have to keep yourself. No, you don't have to keep yourself.
And it's a good thing, isn't it? Because we can't do it. But God
will keep and preserve His people to the end. He'll keep them by
the power of His grace. This salt will never lose its
power, never lose its savor. He will keep His people by the
power of His grace. Now, that tastes good. Oh, that
tastes good. Give me more of that. And I know,
naturally speaking, Too much salt can be bad for our bodies,
can give you a high blood pressure or whatever. And you know, we
ought to use the sins God gave us. Whatever is good, use it
in moderation. But spiritually speaking, you
can't get too much. No, you can't get too much of
God's grace. Too much table salt could be
bad for our bodies. But I'll tell you what, not enough
grace will be deadly to our spiritual man. It'll be a detriment to
the health of the spiritual man if we don't get a lot of salt,
a lot of grace, as much as we can get. Now remember, the Lord
says you are the salt of the earth. You who believe are the
salt of the earth. It's God's grace in his people
that makes them useful to this world. Now make it your business
to be like salt and be useful to the world in which you live.
God's given you this message of grace. He's given you this
message of salvation by grace. Now, brethren, let's go preach
it and preach it in grace. God's people, you're the salt
of the earth. You are to make this world a
more pleasant place. First of all, by preaching the
gospel to every creature, by preaching the gospel all over
the world. Go out in your life and shake
your salt shaker as liberally as you can all over this world. It'll make it a sweeter place.
And we need to remember this, though, about preaching the gospel.
The message of the gospel is offensive to the flesh. That's
why we need to be sure we preach it with salt, preach it with
grace, preach it graciously and kindly. Now don't take an edge
off the truth. Don't, don't, don't deny the
truth. Don't take an edge off the truth, but preach the truth
kindly and graciously so that if somebody's offended and leave,
let's make sure it's because they're offended because of the
gospel. Not because of my bad attitude. Preach it with grace. Look at Colossians chapter four.
Here's exactly what I'm talking about. Colossians chapter four. Verse five, Paul says, walk in
wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time. Let your
speech be all the way with grace, seasoned with salt, that you
may know how you ought to answer every man. Now walk in wisdom,
speak in wisdom, but season your words with salt. Let your speech
always be with grace. Not just to know what to say,
but how to say it. How to say it in a way that's
gracious and kind. Having compassion on a dead,
lost sinner. So when we preach, when we talk
to folks, let's be sure our speech is well seasoned with salt. And it's full of God's grace.
And our Lord warns us the salt could lose its savor. He's not
saying that someone could lose their salvation. They can lose
God's grace. They'll take His grace away from
them. He's not saying that at all. The salt loses its savor
when somebody compromises the gospel. When they start getting
another goal, a goal for the flesh, a goal for results, a
goal to build a bigger ministry, a goal to get more money, whatever
it is, when they compromise the gospel, the salt loses its savor,
loses its power. If we take the edge off the gospel,
we make the gospel lose its power to say. Now, why would you want
to preach a message that has no power to say? The salt's lost
its power, its savor. When we compromise the gospel,
we take away the gospel's power to heal, to comfort, to preserve
God's people. Why would we want to do that?
Don't you care about folks? I mean, first of all, don't you
care about God? Don't you care about His truth?
Don't you care about His gospel? But second, don't you care about
people you preach to? The gospel loses its power when
we make salvation depend upon something that the creature does
or does not do, not purely grace alone. Salt substitutes might
work just fine on your kitchen table. opinion that they don't, but
you might think salt substitutes work fine on your kitchen table.
But I promise you this, this is a hard, fast, true statement.
Not in the pulpit. No salt substitute, no substitute
for grace will ever work in the pulpit. It'll never bring God
glory. It'll never save a sinner. It'll
never comfort His people. It'll never edify and cause His
people to grow in grace. How can somebody grow in grace
if you withhold salt? Can't be done, can it? But here's
another way that our speech should always be with grace, seasoned
with salt. It's by the way that we talk
to one another. The salt of grace in our speech
makes it more bearable for our brothers and sisters to go through
this life, to go through the unbearable and the difficult.
Let's talk to each other with words full of grace, seasoned
with salt. That's how you're useful to one
another. And I can show you that in Job chapter 6. Poor old Job. My goodness. We just can't even imagine the
depths that Job was in here. And then these three poor friends
come to him with all this religious jargon, and look what he tells
them in Job 6, verse 6. Can that which is unsavory be
eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the
white of an egg? This is what Job is telling his
friends. He says, you didn't bring me
any salt of grace in the way that you came to speak to me,
you miserable comforters. Not only did they not help, they
made it worse. by not having their speech with
grace. They made it worse by not salting
their speech with grace. They came to him and said, what,
Job? You must have done something
wrong now. This is why God's punishing you. God wouldn't do
this to you unless you did something wrong. Let's see if we can figure
out here what you did wrong. That's so harsh. I saw that's
so judgmental. There's not a drop of grace in
that, is there? Not a drop of grace in it. And
this is what Job's saying. He said, boys, this trial is
hard to swallow. It sure would be easier if my
friends came to me with some salt. It'd be a whole lot easier
to swallow. It'd be a whole lot easier to
endure. Your words would have tasted
a whole lot better if you sprinkled some salt of grace on them. Now
you, you who believe, we're the salt of the earth. Let's pray
that the Lord will enable us to speak with words full of grace,
that salt is sprinkled in our speech. Our words will be a whole
lot more profitable if we do. All right, two. Salt is a preservative. You know, people cure ham and
all kinds of different meat with salt. It keeps that meat from
spoiling, even though there's no refrigeration. Well, the salt
of God's grace is a powerful preservative. It's grace that
preserves His people. It's grace that preserves God's
people to the end. It's God's grace that keeps us
from spoiling and falling away. It's God's grace that keeps us
from spoiling and being offensive to everybody around us. The smell
of spoiled meat. Boy, that smells bad, doesn't
it? How much worse do we smell when
this flesh was spoiled without the salt, the salt of God's grace? Now, the Lord says, you are the
salt of the earth. You know, God preserves this
world for the elect. It's exactly right. Remember
when Abraham interceded for Sodom, the Lord came and said, why,
why hide this thing? I'm going to do from my friend,
Abraham. He told Abraham what he's going to do. I'm going to
destroy the city. I'm going to destroy this whole
plane. And Abraham interceded for those people. He said, Oh
Lord. He said, you wouldn't destroy
that city for a venture that 50 righteous men in which Lord
said, no, I won't restore. I won't destroy it for the 50s. And Abraham said, Oh, now I've
taken it on me to speak to the Lord. I'm just but dust. But
Lord, you wouldn't, you wouldn't destroy it for the sake of 45,
would you? And the Lord said, if there's 45 righteous people
in that city, I won't destroy it. How about 40? How about 30? How about 20? I won't destroy
it for days. And Abraham left off speaking,
but you know what? Actually, the Lord did not destroy
the city. for the sake of one. One righteous
man was the salt that preserved that place. And when it came
time to destroy that city, you know what the angel told Lot?
You've got to get out of here. I cannot destroy this city as
long as you're in it. Salt is what preserved it. Now
when the salt was gone, the place was destroyed, wasn't it? But
you could not destroy that city because there's one of God's
children in it. And right now, you know why this
world keeps spinning in space? You know why God hadn't destroyed
this whole thing already? It's for the elect's sake. The
Lord's preserving this wicked, wicked world for the sake of
his elect. God cannot, we think God can
do anything. Here's one thing God can't do.
He cannot wipe out this creation. until all of his elect have been
called to faith in Christ. There could be some not even
born yet. God's gonna preserve this world
for a while, isn't he? And when it comes time for God
to destroy this creation, he's gonna destroy it with fire, create
a new heaven, a new earth, a second creation. He will not destroy
this earth with fire until all of his elect have been taken
out. He preserves this world for the elixir. It's grace. It's in God's grace that he preserves
his people till that time. It's God's grace that preserves
them. It's not the strength of their faith. It's not the strength
of their doctrine. It's not they're just so strong
they won't come. No, it's God's grace that preserves
them to the end. By the same grace, he preserves
his people and preserves this world for the elixir. And in our preaching, it's God's
grace that's the preservative. You know, the thing about preaching,
I watched, you know, I don't want to use the same phrases
over and over again. You want to watch how you do
that, because you know what? Every message, the same message.
Well, how come you don't get tired of it? You hear the same
message over and over and over again. How come you don't? It's
God's grace that preserves it. It's God's grace that preserves
our preaching and makes it useful. It's God's grace that keeps us
from spoiling true doctrine. God's grace keeps our preaching
the preaching of Christ. Not intellectual facts, not facts
that might tickle the fancy, but keeps our preaching the preaching
of Christ. It's God's grace that keeps us
from compromising. It's God's grace that keeps us
from seeking results, but rather seek God's glory. It's God's
grace that's the preservative. All right, thirdly, salt has
healing powers. Now we use the phrase pouring
salt in a wound to mean somebody's adding to our pain. Pouring salt
in a wound hurts. It's adding injury or insult
to injury, isn't it? But you know, pouring salt in
a wound could be good. That salt could kill infection
in that wound and help that wound heal. Well, that's the gospel. The gospel of grace has healing
powers. But before that gospel heals,
it's going to hurt. It's going to kill the flesh.
The flesh has got to be killed before we can ever be healed.
And you know what? For the believer, it's going
to have to do that over and over and over again. A few years ago,
our daughter called me on the way home from a Wednesday night
service in Lexington. And I could tell the sound of
her voice. She was, oh, she was happy. And she said, boy, I got
a spanking tonight. And she said, I'm so glad. She
said, I heard the message of grace. And she said, that just
made me quit looking at myself. Quit looking at my circumstances
and made me look to Christ. Now I got the right perspective
on everything. And she said, I'm so happy. I feel so settled. Well, the next day, the next
morning, I called her pastor, Brother Todd, and told him what
Holly had said. I spanked him last night. Todd
was horrified. I mean, he just, oh, he just,
he said, no, that wasn't supposed to be a spanking at all. That
was supposed to be a message of comfort. He was really upset.
He said, I wanted to preach a message of comfort to God's people. It
wasn't supposed to be that. I said, but Todd, it was. It
was a message of comfort. And it made me so thankful. Oh,
so thankful. Sometimes God will use the salt. of grace to correct us, fix our
wagon, and He doesn't always use the rod. Aren't you thankful? Oh, when you think of it that
way, you think, oh, pour salt in the window. That's what we
think. You think of it that way. I did a little bit of research
on salt. Pretty much all I know about salt is it tastes good
and somehow preserves food. But I looked this up. Salt's
a whole lot more useful than I realized it was. Salt reduces
acid in the body. Salt detoxifies your skin. They use salt water to flush
out wounds. Salt to help muscle cramps, relieve
muscle cramps. You can gargle with warm salt
water and help your throat. And you can soak in warm salt
water and help aching bones and joints and muscles. Well, God's
grace is a whole lot more useful than the natural man ever realizes. And I would encourage all of
us to daily take a long soak. Janet has a big old, well, we
have it, but Janet uses a big old bathtub. And it's hard, she's
soaking that thing two, three times a day if she could. Let's
daily take a long soak in a tub of God's grace. Let's daily take
doses of God's grace, just drink it in, to keep that spiritual
man healthy and balanced and strong. If we'll do that, it'll
preserve us. And it'll make us useful to others.
And I like both of those things. I like for God, that's my prayer
daily. God, preserve me. God, keep me. And make me useful to others.
Don't you want to be useful to others? I'll tell you how we
do it. It's by shaking our salt shaker. That's how. Ye are the
salt of the earth. All right, don't go over my stuff.