I'm often asked by young men
who seem to have some aspiration and desire toward the work of
the ministry what they should do to prepare. And my encouragement
is always find yourself a man of proven faithfulness and usefulness
in the kingdom of God. serve God with him in a local
church. Get yourself in his hip pocket
and learn how to serve God under the teaching and instruction
of a faithful man. And I have good precedent for
that. Second Kings chapter 2. Second Kings chapter 2. Here is Elijah, God's prophet,
that mighty useful servant of God at the time when God is about
to take him out of this world in a whirlwind. That's a good
way to leave it. God took him out in a whirlwind,
in the height of his usefulness, in the height of his usefulness.
Not many prophets leave like that. Elisha, his servant, was
a man ordained of God to be his successor. And all the while,
Elisha served God with Elijah. He was just Elijah's water boy.
You read the scriptures. That's all they did. He just,
he was Elijah's servant. And he followed Elijah with great
honor, considering it his honor to be God's servant, serving
his prophet Elijah. Look at second Kings chapter
two. And it came to pass. when the Lord would take up Elijah
into heaven by a whirlwind. Elijah went with Elisha from
Gilgal. And Elijah said unto Elisha,
tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord has sent me to Bethel.
And Elisha said unto him, as the Lord liveth and as thy soul
liveth, I will not leave thee. So they went down to Bethel.
And the sons of the prophets that were at Bethel came forth
to Elisha and said unto him, knowest thou that the Lord will
take away thy master from thy head today? And he said, yea,
I know it. Hold your peace. And Elijah said
unto him, Elisha, tarry here, I pray thee, for the Lord has
sent me to Jericho. And he said, as the Lord liveth,
And as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. So they came
to Jericho. And the sons of the prophet that
were at Jericho came to Elijah and said unto him, knowest thou
that the Lord will take thy master from thy head today? And he answered,
yea, I know it. Hold your peace. And Elijah said
unto him, Terry, I pray thee here, for the Lord has sent me
to Jordan. And he said, as the Lord liveth,
and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they, too,
went on. And 50 men of the sons of the
prophet went and stood to view afar off. And they, too, stood
by Jordan. And Elijah took his mantle and
wrapped it together and smote the waters. And they were divided
hither and thither, so that they, too, went over on dry ground. And it came to pass, when they
were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall
do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said,
I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. Now some mistakenly had the idea
that Elijah said, Elisha, I want to be twice the prophet you were.
I want to have twice your power, twice your influence, do twice
as much as you did. That's not what he's saying.
A double portion was the portion given by God's law to the firstborn
in the house. A double portion is the portion
that recognized him as the head of the house. A double portion
is the portion given to him to distribute to the rest of the
house. All right, read on. Verse 10, and he said, thou hast
asked a hard thing. Nevertheless if thou see me when
I am taken from thee it shall be so unto thee But if not, it
shall not be so that is if you stay with me to the end You stay
with me to the end God's going to give you what you've asked
verse 11 and it came to pass as they still went on and taught
that behold there appeared a chariot of fire and and horses of fire,
and parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind
into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried,
my father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more, and he
took hold of his own clothes and ripped them in two pieces.
He was sorry for the loss of this man and his great influence.
but he continued to walk as he'd been taught. He took up also
the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and he went back and
stood by the bank of Jordan. And he took the mantle of Elijah
that fell from him and smote the waters and said, where is
the God of Elijah? And when he also had smitten
the waters, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went
over. And when the sons of the prophets,
which were to view at Jericho, saw him, they had been watching
this whole thing transpire. And God now demonstrates that
Elijah, Elisha is the prophet to succeed Elisha. They said,
the spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet
him and bowed themselves to the ground before him. And they said
unto him, behold now, There be with thy servants 50 strong men
Let them go we pray thee and seek thy master Thus per adventure
the spirit of the lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some
mountain or into some valley They didn't know what had happened.
Elijah did And he said you shall not sin And when they urged him
till he was ashamed that is till he was fed up He just fed up. All right, go ahead. All right,
he said sin And they sent therefore 50 men, 50 men who thought they
knew better than God's prophet. And they sought three days, but
found him not. Spent three days doing nothing
but walking around the mountains and the valleys in blindness.
And when they came again to him, for he tarried at Jericho, he
said unto them, I told you, I told you, God took him. Did I not
say unto you, go not? Verse 19. And the men of the
city said to Elisha, behold, I pray thee, the situation of
this city is pleasant. As my Lord seeth, it's a beautiful
place to live. It's a great town to live in.
But the water is not. We don't have any water. And
the ground barren. And he said, bring me a new cruise
and put salt therein. What? put salt in the crews to
make the water better. Strange way of doing things.
And they brought it to him, and he went forth unto the spring
of the waters and cast the salt in there and said, thus saith
the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from
thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were healed. unto this day according to the
saying of Elisha which he spake. Now, God has demonstrated Elisha
is his prophet, pretty manifest there. The sons of the prophet
saw God give him power to divide the Jordan. The sons of the prophets
heard him declare Elisha was taken up to glory by God in the
world when they said, they said God must have dropped him on
a hill somewhere or dropped him in a valley. And they came back
and Elijah said, I told you so. And now they've come and said,
men in the city, Elijah, this is a great place to live in.
This is beautiful country. We all love it here, but the
waters are useless. The waters here are so bitter,
so deathly that we don't have anything to drink. What can you
do? And he cast in salt. the most unlikely of ways to
cure the bitter waters of Myra, the bitter waters of that place.
And he cast in the salt and said, Thus saith the Lord, these waters
from henceforth will never harm anybody, but only bring forth
that which is good. The land will no more be barren,
but only fruitful and pleasant. And so God demonstrated this
is God's prophet. But things were so bad in Judah. The religion of Judah was so
corrupted that God's prophets were not held in very high esteem.
Mamas and daddies sat around the table and talked about the
prophets, mocked the prophets. I can just picture them picking
apart the points of the prophet's sermon. I like this, I didn't
like that. He's strong here, he's weak there.
He does this, he does that. So that the children despised
the prophets. And mamas and daddies sent the
children to hell. Let's see. And the men of the
city said unto Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, I'm sorry, verse
23. And he went up from thence to Bethel. And as he was going
up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city
and mocked him. And said unto him, Go up, thou
bald head! Go up, thou bald head! How could
you see him laughing and poking fun and having a big time? And
Elisha, God's prophet, turned back and looked on them and cursed
them. Now watch what it says. He cursed
them in the name of the Lord for Christ's sake, for the glory
of God. for the benefit of God's kingdom
and God's people. He cursed them as God's prophet
in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two she-bears
out of the wood, and tore forty and two children of them. And
they went from Thence to Mount Carmel, and from Thence returned
to Samaria. Now let's go back to chapter
2, verse 19. The men of the city said to Elisha,
behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as
my Lord seeth. But the water is not, and the
ground barren. And he said, bring me a new cruise,
and put salt therein. And they brought it to him, and
he went forth under the spring of the waters, and cast the salt
in there, and said, thus saith the Lord, I have healed these
waters, There shall not be from thence any more death or barren
land. So the waters were healed unto
this day, according to the saying of Elisha, which he spake. Without question, in healing
these dead waters, these deadly waters in Jericho, Elisha stands
before us as a marvelous picture and type of our Redeemer, the
Lord Jesus. who heals all our death, all our barrenness, all our maras,
all our bitter waters. It is Christ who is the healer
of our souls. Christ who by his grace heals
our death, heals our barrenness, heals every bitter experience. Elisha healed these deadly waters
by casting salt into them. Salt is here set before us as
an emblem of the gospel and of the grace of God proclaimed by
the gospel. I started preparing this message
probably six or eight weeks ago. I've been working on it a good
bit, and I don't generally look to anything on the internet,
try to find something with regard to a sermon. But one night late,
a couple of weeks ago, I decided to look up salt and its usefulness. It has 1,400 distinct usefulnesses. Now that's a long outline. But
I'm not here to talk to you about salt that you have sitting on
your table. I want to talk to you about the usefulness of salt. as is set before us in scripture.
The usefulness of salt as it is set before us as a type of
God's grace and the gospel of God's grace by which the grace
of God and our Lord Jesus are proclaimed unto us. First, I
should tell you that salt is used in scripture as an instrument
of judgment. Salt is used in scripture as
an instrument of judgment. Just as surely as God's judgment
fell upon those children mocking his prophet who carried God's
word, salt is used in scripture as the grace of God is set before
us in scripture as an instrument of judgment. Turn to 2 Corinthians
chapter 2. I'll get there in a minute. The
first time we see This word salt used in the word of God is in
Genesis 14, where we read about the salt sea, probably the Dead
Sea. It was in a place called Siddam,
the place where Sodom and Gomorrah once stood. The next time we
see the word salt is in Genesis 19, where Lot's wife looked back
and the judgment of God fell upon her because she looked back. She had come out of the city.
She had entertained angels. She had had marvelous experiences.
But she looked back, contrary to the strict command of God.
And when she looked back, she was immediately turned to a pillar
of salt. a standing monument of God's
judgment. God killed the woman because
she looked back, away from God's grace, away from God's deliverance,
away from God's Son, looked back to Sodom where she had left her
heart, and there she perished under the judgment of God. Our
Lord Jesus warns us, remember Lot's wife. Ezekiel, Jeremiah,
and Zephaniah all tell us of God's judgment upon lands, making
them perpetually barren by giving them over to salt. David tells
us how that God sends judgment to the heart of those that he
will bring to himself. You see, God will either send
judgment to your heart in the experience of grace, He will
either send judgment to your heart, causing you to take sides
with himself against you in the experience of grace, or he will
send judgment to you in eternity, in everlasting damnation. David
says in Psalm 107, when he speaks of God bringing his people to
their wits, seeing that he may bring them to their desired haven,
the Lord turns the fruitful plain into barrenness. The word is
saltiness. He makes all your goodness to
wither. He makes all that you think you have good to commend
you to God to wither. Makes it all barrenness, saltiness. So salt is set before us in scripture
as an instrument of judgment. So too is the gospel. So too
is our Savior. Do you remember Simeon's words
when he held the Lord Jesus in his arms in the temple? He said,
Lord, now let us, thy servant, depart in peace, for mine eyes
have seen thy salvation. He said, this child shall be
great. And then he said to Mary, the Lord's mother, behold, this
child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel
and for a sign which shall be spoken against. The Lord Jesus
said to his disciples, I came not to send peace on the earth,
but a sword. He always divides men. He is
a God of justice and of mercy, of judgment and of salvation. Look at 2 Corinthians 2 now. Thanks be unto God, which always
causeth us to triumph in Christ. and maketh manifest the savour
of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a
sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved and in them that
perish. To the one we're a savour of
death unto death and to the other a savour of life unto life. and who is sufficient for these
things. If any preacher, if any preacher ever gets any
sense of what we've just read in 2 Corinthians 2, he would
tremble at the thought of preaching. If God speaks by me to you, the
word spoken to you, will either be an instrument of life or an
instrument of death. Is that what it says? And who is
sufficient for these things? I recall years ago, I got a note
from Brother Joe Terrell shortly after he'd gone to Rock Valley. Folks there, you remember watching
our videos, and they met Joe here at one of our conferences,
and some folks started to attend. And Joe said, I can't help but
to wonder, why did God send them? To save them or to damn them?
Like salt, the preaching of the gospel is either a means of life
or a means of judgment. It is the instrument of divine
judgment to many. Paul said, God will judge the
world by my gospel. He'll judge you who have heard
the gospel by the gospel you've heard. Now, come back to Leviticus
chapter 2. Leviticus chapter 2. Here in Leviticus 2.13, we see
the second use for salt. God required that every sacrifice
offered to him Every sacrifice offered to him was to be offered
with salt. Leviticus 2 verse 13. And 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. Three times in this one verse,
God said, now when you come to me and you bring your sacrifices
to me, you can't do it except you salt your sacrifice. The
salt of the sacrifice is the salt of God's covenant. It is
presumed, it is presumed that every true Israelite would bring
his oblations to God. Every true Israelite would be
found at God's altar offering God's sacrifice at the appointed
time of divine worship. It was just presumed that they
would do so. But the true Israelites also came to worship God in his
way. God requires that we worship
him according to his word. How is it that we're to come
to God? How is it that we're to bring our sacrifices to him?
That's the point. We should all, like the Apostle
Paul, when God smote him on the Damascus road, cry continually,
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? What wilt thou have me
to do? I recall as a young believer,
not quite 17 years old, begging God, show me what he had me to
do. I'd made a mess in my life. I've made about as much mess
of it as a man can make at 16 years old. I've ruined everything
I ever touched. And I cried, God, what would
you have me to do? And I soon found myself asking another question.
I continually to this day ask God, what would you have me to
do? But there's another question
of equal importance. How would you have me do it?
How would you have me do it? The fact is, will worship is
not acceptable by God. God will not be worshipped and
God will not be served as you see fit, as I see fit. God will not be worshipped. God
will not be served as we please. That's nothing but will worship
as the apostle calls it. If we would worship God, we will
worship God as God prescribes with that which God requires,
giving him that which he demands. If we don't, we won't worship
him. You see, God is jealous of his
honor. In Leviticus 2.13, again I repeat,
three times it is expressly commanded that in all our offerings we
are to offer them by salt or with salt to the Lord. Does God,
the God of heaven, surely Surely, well, he's not
interested in salt. Oh, read the book. He speaks
with distinct clarity about something as insignificant in our thinking
as salt, as salt. Does he condescend to minute
details in his service, right down to a handful of salt, declaring
that you cannot approach him and be accepted by him if you
leave out just a handful of salt? Does the holy Lord God assert
that the presence of a little salt is absolutely essential
to any sacrifice received by him? He does indeed. And again,
we see here that salt is an emblem of grace and an emblem of Christ. Bill Raleigh, God won't have
you outside Christ. You can't come to God without
Christ. You can't worship God without
Christ. Only the blood and righteousness and mediation, only the person
and work of Christ our mediator will give us acceptance with
God. You can't come to God without grace. You can't serve him. You can't offer God anything
until first your soul has been healed by the salt of his grace.
If you read the entire chapter, you'll see that other things
were required as well in connection with the sacrifices at God's
altar. The sacrifices men brought were imperfect. Even as types,
they were imperfect. There was no perfect sacrifice
that could be found. And so the sacrifices had to
be offered with frankincense as they were offered as sacrifice
to God. God did not smell the sweet savor in the bullock or
in the lamb unless certain spices were mixed with the sacrifice.
The fact is the best performance of our hands must never appear
before God, before his throne, without the merit of Christ's
righteousness and his blood. There must be a mixture of myrrh
and aloes and cassia with the garments of our prince, by which
his garments are perfumed to make our sacrifices a sweet savor
to God. They also had to bring oil with
their sacrifices, oil a picture used throughout the scripture
of God the Holy Spirit. What is a sermon if there's no
unction in it? What is a prayer without God's
anointing? What are our songs of praise
if they're just muttered words with the best voice we have without
the unction of God? And what is the unction except
God the Holy Spirit? We come here and I try to lead
you in prayer. These men try to lead you in
prayer. Ledger leads us in praise and worshiping God. And we keep
praying. God, give us your spirit. And
enable us to worship you. The Savior said, without me,
ye can do nothing. Nothing. And we prove it often,
don't we? Oh, how often I've stood in this
place and give you the result of many hours work to the very
best of my ability with all diligence, thorough preparation, and just
gave you so many words, because I lacked something. I lacked
the unction of God upon me. I lacked the fresh anointing
of God's Spirit upon me. Ah, but then when God speaks,
things are different. When we sing, how often we sing,
how often we sing, and I know you've got to experience this.
We can sing it all the time. And you just sing. And you might as well be singing
Jailhouse Rock for all that's in it. In fact,
you could probably sing it with a little more enthusiasm. And
then sometimes, oh, how blessed we are in singing God's praise
when he gives his spirit upon us. Sometimes you folks who sing
specials, you sing. And you prepare. You ought to.
And do as good as you can. But you just sing. And then sometimes
you sing. What's the difference? It's the
oil required in the sacrifice. We come to serve God, to do something
for God, to worship God. You can bank on it. Nothing is
done by these hands. Nothing is done by our lives. Nothing is done, no matter how
diligent, no matter how sacrificial, no matter how purposeful we are,
of benefit to men's souls and God's glory, unless God the Holy
Spirit works by us for the glory of Christ. Then there's a third
requisite, salt. If you read the preceding verses,
You'll see that the Lord makes a strange requirement. He requires salt, but he forbids
honey. I was talking to Shelby about
this. We were having coffee this afternoon. God requires salt
for the sacrifices, but he forbids honey. Listen to this. No meat
offering which you shall bring unto the Lord shall be made with
leaven, for you shall burn no leaven nor any honey in any offering
of the Lord made by fire. As for the oblation of the firstfruits,
you shall offer them unto the Lord, but they shall not be burnt
on the altar for sweet savor. God doesn't request or require
or accept sweetness. He asked for salt. Not honey,
salt. Now, there are a good many things
could be said concerning that. And I don't know exactly how
to say this, but it must be said. Before God heals, Baba, he always
wounds. You're not going to come to Christ
till you need him. You're not going to seek grace till you
need it. And he makes you know the need by rubbing in the salt. Salt. All of you have had salt
in a wound. Man, a lively painful. Oh, painful. But nothing more immediately
healing. He brings you to brokenness of
heart, contrition of soul, weary and heavy laden, and then heals
you with salts. That's how sinners come to God. He makes them willing in the
day of his power by turning their fruitful land into saltiness. And there's another application
I can't omit. I really wish some of our brethren
who are overdone with honey would read Leviticus chapter 2. There
is a syrupy, sugar-sweet, molasses godliness that I simply can't
endure. People like to pretend and put
on a show when it comes to religion. Everybody likes to show that
they're godly. Everybody likes to show that
they love the Lord. Everybody likes to show that
they're heavenly minded. And whenever it's a show, it
ain't so. You can bog it down. You call
somebody on the telephone and you get one of those answering
machines. And they'll start off quoting scripture or quoting
a verse or saying something religious, religious cliches. And you call
somebody, you talk to them, well, Brother Bob, how are you? Oh,
much better than I deserve. And that's intended to impress.
It does. Because the fellows who use those cliches never mean
what they say. Never. Religious talk, pious
talk. I'm so blessed. I'm so blessed. Religious stuff. Sugary, syrupy,
showy religion is contemptible to God. Don't come to God's altar
as a hypocrite with honey. Come to God with honesty and
sincerity. You read the Psalms and hear David cry, God, have you forgotten to be
gracious? My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Is your mercy clean gone forever? And you hear a man coming to
God with the honesty of salt in his soul. With honesty. God won't accept anything else. He requires salt. The bitter
salt of a broken contrite heart. Third, salt is spoken of in Leviticus
2 verse 13, again, as salt of the covenant. Twice again, in
the scriptures, we read of God's covenant of salt. God's covenant
with Aaron, we're told in Numbers 18, was a covenant of salt. God's covenant with David was
a covenant of salt, we're told in 2 Chronicles 13. Blessed be
God. We have acceptance with Him in
Christ by a covenant of salt. an everlasting, immutable covenant
of salt. We come to God not upon the footing
of works, but upon the footing of an everlasting covenant of
salt. The covenant of salt is curing
salt. I found it interesting. Robert
Hawker suggested in his article on salt that we use salt for
curing meats. We get salt-cured country ham.
Now I know in this day when folks like to eat grass raw, that's
not very interesting, but I like salt-cured country ham. Salt-cured
country ham. It's a southern delicacy for
folks who hear this who don't know. If you weren't raised on
it, you're not going to like it because it's salty. Shelby's
daddy used to take a ham. And he didn't have a smokehouse
like my granddaddy did, but he had a salt box, a big salt box. It was right near the size of
that communion table. And he'd take the hams off the
hogs. And we'd go down there and slaughter
them on Thanksgiving Day. And after we got done cutting
things up, he'd set those hams down in the salt. I mean, just
stick them down right in the middle of that box. And when
they got done, he'd hang them up. and go out and cut your piece
off. As long as there was any ham
left, you got to cut your piece off. It wasn't going to go bad
because it had been cured. Mr. Hawker suggests the idea
of curing salt comes from just this right here. God's salt is
curing salt. It cures the soul, cures the
heart, cures our needs. The salt of the covenant is purifying
salt. It justifies and sanctifies the
salt of the covenant. Like salt curing the ham preserves
it, the salt of the covenant keeps us. We're his priests,
his kings in Christ Jesus by covenant of salt. This I didn't
know before. Salt in ancient times was shared
between men who were friends. Once a man took a little salt
from another man and ate it in his presence. He was a committed
friend forever. Salt is an emblem of communion. We serve God by the salt of his
grace in union with Christ. And we serve God in fellowship
with him, seeking his will and his glory. And we serve God in
fellowship with his people. Serving him in spirit, by the
spirit of his grace, in harmony with God himself, as committed
friends. As he is committed to our soul's
good by covenant of salt. We, in the experience of his
grace, are continually constrained to commit ourselves to his glory. Here's the fifth thing about
salt. Salt, like grace, is God's provision. Not something produced by man. Hear me now. God only accepts
what God gives. He only accepts what he provides. In Genesis chapter 22, Abraham
took Isaac up to Mount Moriah to worship God. And when the
Lord God provided the ram caught in a thicket who was sacrificed
in Isaac's stead, Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh,
the Lord will provide. Isaac said, Lord, Father, how
are we going to worship the Lord? We don't have a lamb for a burnt
offering. And Abraham said, hang on, son. God will provide what
God requires. God will provide what God requires. God requires righteousness. He
gives it in his son. God requires atonement, He gives
it in His Son. God requires an acceptable intercessor,
He gives it in His Son. God requires grace, He gives
it in His Son. All our hope before God is in
His Son, the provision of God our Savior. Salt heals, preserves,
and saves from corruption. It cleanses and purifies. Salt
was never to be admitted in the offerings of God. Grace is the
salt of the covenant of thy God. The salt figuratively setting
forth our Lord Jesus and the grace of God in him. The salt
of God, Christ crucified, is salt to be sprinkled in God's
house unsparingly all the time. The house of God ought always
to be filled with the sweet savor of Jesus Christ and him crucified. Job asked, can that which is
unsavory be eaten without salt? Our poor sinful souls, our poor sinful attempts at righteousness,
Our poor, sinful efforts at holiness, our poor, sinful efforts at consecration
to God can never be accepted of God except in, with, and by
Christ Jesus, our Savior, the salt of God's covenant. Now,
look at one more text over the book of Ezra, and I'll be done. Ezra chapter 2. Ezra is a ready scribe and he's
come out of Babylon and art of Xerxes and he is Reestablishing
the worship of God in Judah and art of Xerxes sent out a letter
look at verse 22 This is the king's order unto a hundred talents
of silver and to a hundred measures of wheat and to a hundred baths
of wine and to a hundred bales of oil and salt without prescribing
how much. The king of Babylon said give
Ezra all the salt he wants. Give him all the salt he wants. If he runs out and comes back
and asks for more, give him some more. Salt without prescribing
how much. Oh, what a picture that is of
our great king. That's just the way God gives
grace to his people. Where sin abounded, grace did
much more abound. James, he gives salt without
prescribing how much. Come to the throne of grace as
you need salt and have all you want. Have all you want. The children of Israel were sent
out to gather manna. And the man who gathered much
could gather much. The man who gathered little gathered
little. Folks could gather all they wanted
and eat all they could eat every day. The manna being God's provision. So it is with God's grace. As
God gave manna day by day, so as your days demand, God's grace
is supplied. Ask what thou wilt and it shall
be given you. Come to the throne of grace,
seeking God's grace for whatever you need, whatever the occasion,
and God gives His grace. Salt without prescribing how
much. The salt of His covenant, the
salt of His grace to heal, to cure, to preserve, to make savory
every sacrifice. Amen.