The lesson this morning is in
Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 17. This is a continuation
of the Lord's Sermon on the Mount, and it follows what we looked
at a couple weeks ago in our last study, the Beatitudes. And the Beatitudes, you may recall,
speak of the attitude and character formed in God's elect. They have a character, a man
who's converted to God, who's underwent the new birth, and
who has went through the convictions of the Holy Spirit, is a man
with an attitude different from the attitude and character of
this world. And that's what these Beatitudes speak of, and they
speak of the blessedness of that attitude, because it's not something
that you produced in yourself, but something that is the result
of this work of God in your heart. And this is sometimes what I
refer to in my preaching as the experience of grace. When I'm
talking about the experience of grace, I'm not talking about
a warm feeling or a or a dream, or a vision, or any of that type
of stuff. I'm talking about the results
of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in you. When He comes in and
convinces of sin, and convinces of truth, then that's truth to
you. What He convinces of is truth. All the world can argue. Paul
said, let every man be a liar, but God be true. Only a man convinced
of the Holy Spirit of God, of that truth, can say that from
his heart and believe that in his heart. And so that's what
these Beatitudes. It's a blessed thing. And that's
why he says, blessed are they that mourn. Blessed are they,
and so on, all the way through. These are blessed attitudes because
they're the result of the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. Now,
the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit is an experience. It is an experience, and the
Scriptures speak to it as you go through and read in the New
Testament epistles. And actually, I wrote this down,
no man can be pulled from the burning. He talks about plucking
us from the burning. No man can be pulled from the
burning, arrested from falling. He's falling. He's free-falling.
When the Holy Spirit comes into your heart, He teaches you that
by the Word of God through the Gospel. You're falling. And there's no one to catch you.
You can't catch yourself. There's nothing to arrest you
from this falling. You're going to fall right into
hell if God doesn't intervene. And that man's arrested. He's
arrested from that falling. He's been plucked from the burning. And he's been spared from the
gallows. I'll tell you, that's a real
experience of grace when God convicts you of sin and you stand
before God with no plea. When you stand before God with
nothing to offer up for you, nothing. You've got no counselor
there. You've got nothing there between
you and God. You just stand there in your
sins with nothing to plead. What will I plead? The Holy Spirit
of God has already convinced me that my best deeds are filthy
rags. My prayers are filthy. Everything's
filthy. All my righteousnesses are as
filthy rags. I've got nothing to plead. And
I stand there with my mouth shut. Shut up by the work of God. And
He spares us from the gallows. Now, I tell you, a man who's
experienced these things changes his attitude. Changes his attitude
altogether. It's not something you just sit
over there and you read, well, you know, Thou shalt not commit
adultery." Okay, so I write that down on a piece of paper, put
it in my pocket to remind me every now and then I take it
out. No, that's not it. That's not it. It's the experience
of grace in the heart. That's what dictates our walk. That's what dictates our attitude
and spirit before God. Conversion is a reformation by
creation. That's what it is. He reforms
us by making us a new creature in Christ Jesus. Now, you can
stand and you can tell an ungodly man all day long, dictate to
him how he's supposed to walk, what he's supposed to say, what
he's supposed to wear, and he'll do all those things and go right
on being as evil as he ever was. You can't touch the heart. Only
God can do that. And He takes away that stony
heart and gives us a heart for Christ. It's a reformation by
creation. We're new creatures in Christ.
And there's a passing away of old things and a revelation of
new things. There's a passing away of old
ideas. Old ideas about God. Old traditions
and ceremonies. Things that we found glory in. Things that we hoped in. Now,
Paul said he took all those things that he hoped in, where did he
take them? Out to the dung heap. Isn't that what he said? He'd
kill over those things and did. He loved those things. Those
things were real to him. Those things were his hope. And
he took that old hope and those old ceremonies and those old
righteousness that he clung to and he took them out there to
the dung heap and threw them on with the rest of the garbage. It's a revelation of new things,
new principles, new ideas. New understandings. And this
true Christianity, when we talk about Christianity, that's what
we're talking about. And true Christianity produces
a radical change in men. It arrests them in their walk.
God said that's far enough. And He stops you. And then by
the convincing and the sweet experience of grace, He turns
that man. Not all at once. He doesn't just
go out there and turn him around. begins to turn that man. Something
that man couldn't do for himself, John. He turns him. And that
man starts to walk in a different direction. And he keeps right
on turning him. And he turns him until he takes
him into glory. It produces a radical change
in us. It rests us in that downward
course and causes us to turn. It illuminates us with the truth.
shuts our mouths and brings us guilty before God, and we sit
there a guilty sinner. You know what a guilty sinner
is? He's an object of mercy. That's right. He said, think
not that I come to call the righteous. I came to call sinners. Sinners. Until a man is convinced of sin,
he's not a sinner. He might be a sinner under the
law of God and under the condemnation of God, but he's no sinner to
himself. When he becomes a sinner to himself, understands all that
there is about sin, understands that and applies that to himself,
and sits before God, now he's an object of mercy. And that's
where God brings us. And as we lie before the Lord
like that leper of old, Lord, if you will, if you will, you
can make me clean. You know that. You've done been
down that road of trying to make yourself clean. You've done been
down that road of profession. You've done been down that road
of reformation. Now you see yourself hopeless
before God, exiled outside the camp, covered with wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores. And you look to him and you say,
Lord, if you will, because he's the only one who can. He's the
only one who can. You can make me clean. And then
God causes him to hear the willing, loving, merciful voice of Christ
in the gospel. And I can't explain to you why
hundreds hear the same gospel, but they're not affected, and
one hears whose whole life is radically changed, except to
say this, by grace are you saved through faith. That's it. I've
got no other explanation. By grace. There was a house full
of people the day I heard the gospel. And I think I was the
only one in there affected. I was the only one in there.
It shook me up, turned me upside down. Why didn't it affect everybody
that way? Because everybody didn't hear. Everybody didn't hear. As God
the Holy Spirit convinces us of sin and righteousness and
judgment, we respond and we react and we become partakers of His
sovereign grace. And as we receive the love and
mercy and grace of God, so we ourselves become loving and merciful
and gracious. And we do this in proportion
to our experience of these things. And our whole life, in proportion,
as we experience these things, begins to show those things.
It begins to show those things. Having defined the attitude and
blessedness of those who have it, he moves on now to tell us
what effect it has on this world. God leaves us in this world.
He's changed our attitude. He's given us the spirit of grace.
Why? And what effect does that have
on this world? Well, the believer's attitude
and conduct are likened here to two things. which nearly anybody
can understand and identify with. It's universal in its application.
You can just salt and light. Who doesn't know about that?
Huh? My little grandkids, I can say,
you want some salt on there? They'll say yes or no. They know
what salt is. They know what it is. And you
know what it is. I know what it is. And then he talks about
light. And all of us know what that
is. Now, let's consider these. two things one at a time and
see if we can learn something of value about the necessity
of the Christian attitude in this world. God has a purpose
in our attitude and spirit. There's a purpose to it. Now
let's look first of all at salt. He said, ye are the salt of the
earth. See it there in verse 13? Ye
are the salt of the earth. Now, there's three things about
salt that teach us something of the value of a good attitude
and spirit in this world. First of all is its composition.
You know, I look at a salt shaker. It's white. I look at it. I put
a little bit on my food, and I taste it. I know what it is.
But I don't understand its composition until I study it, until I look
at it. And that's the same way with
our attitude and spirit. We don't know a whole lot about
it. until we study God's Word and look into it and see what
it is. Do you know what the composition of salt is? It's chlorine and
sodium. Chlorine and sodium. Either one
by themselves is deadly. But together, they make up salt. Salt. And so the first thing
I want you to see here is that this is in its composition is
that it's a union of elements. And when you look at the the
attitude and spirit of the believer, surely you must know because
there was a time when there was just you. And you couldn't change. And you couldn't walk. You couldn't
understand. You couldn't see. You couldn't
cleanse yourself. Why? Because you was all alone,
helpless, hopeless. But God the Holy Spirit takes
up His abode in us. He comes in us and works in us. It let every man work out his
own salvation in fear and trembling, for it's God who worketh in you. You see how that spirit and attitude
came about? It's a union. It's a union. And it talks, first of all, about
our union with Christ. We couldn't do anything, go anywhere,
produce any kind of a change apart from that union of Christ. It's Christ in us, the hope of
glory. It's Christ for us in the heavenlies. It's Christ for us in His appearance
in this world as a man. In the work He accomplished,
it's Christ for us. There's a union there. He's a
representative man. When He came, all that He did,
He did as a representative. You see that? And so there is,
when the Holy Spirit comes into the heart, He takes those things
of Christ and reveals them to you. Who Christ is. What He did.
Why He came? Where He's at? What He's doing?
And shows us that perfection of character in Him that expresses
the express image of God is revealed in Him. This is God in a man. You want to know what godliness
is? Study Christ. Study Christ. So it speaks first
and foremost of our union with Christ. And where there is no
real union with Christ, there is no abiding of the Holy Ghost,
and therefore no real fruit of the Spirit. Nothing but a hollow
shell of religion, and we've all been there. In John chapter
15, Christ tells us about this union. He taught his disciples
about it. He said, I am the vine. He said,
ye are the branches. Every man who abideth in Me,
he produces fruit. He has life. He has everything
that he needs because the Heavenly Father grafted him into the vine.
There's a union. So you see that union of Christ.
And He's not one of the vines. He's not a vine. He's the vine. So this union, is our union with
Christ. And then secondly, this union,
as he's talking about our attitude and conduct, is talking about
our faith. And there's a union in faith
of works and faith. Huh? Read the book of James. See if I ain't telling you the
truth. There's a union there. And faith without works, James
said, is dead. It's dead. I don't want dead
faith. Dead faith ain't going to do
me any good. And this faith being given of God, it's the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should vote. We're His creation. We're His workmanship created
in Christ Jesus unto good works. Isn't that what He said? Which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. And I
tell you this, what God has foreordained is going to come to pass. And
so if you have faith and have no work, No works. You had no
comfort. You had no joy. You got no fruit
of the Holy Spirit. You got dead faith, what you
have. You got a false profession. This faith is talking about a
union here. A union. And also, I believe
he's incorporating in this a union of love and faith. I don't want
a faith that doesn't care. Do you? I've got no use for a
faith who just, it's dead and I don't care what goes on around
you. You're just totally unaffected by it. I don't weep over my sins. I don't weep over your sins.
I don't struggle. I don't, you see what I'm saying?
I don't need a faith like that. And when God reveals faith, you
can't have, I mean, you're a sinner guilty before God. You're a leper
covered from head to toe, and there's no one between you and
eternity but Christ. No reason for Him to show mercy
except His love. And He does. I kind of think that's going
to leave you with a little love, don't you? We love Him because
He first loved us. And so I see faith and love. And then salt is a preservative.
Spurgeon said this years ago. He said, there's a preserving
force in the character of the believer that keeps the rest
of society from utter corruption. It's a secret something, which
is the key to the believer's power. And that something is
savor, savor. Salt has a savor. It's not easy
to define, yet it's absolutely essential to his usefulness to
this end. He's of no use. If salt, that's
what our Lord said here in verse 13. He said, you are the salt
of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its savor, wherewith
shall it be salted? It's thenceforth good for nothing
but to be cashed out and trodden underfoot by men. If salt doesn't
have a savor, no count. No count. And this salt, this
savor in salt, and grace is what gives the savor to the believer. That's what gives him his savor.
It's grace. Back under the ceremonial law,
salt was to be offered with all the sacrifices. Did you know
that? In Leviticus 2, verse 13, it says, 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
the meat offering. With all thine offerings, thou
shalt offer salt." Salt. The salt of the covenant. The
grace of God. And it's the grace of Christ
in us that has this preserving effect on those around us. This
attitude and spirit that God puts in you. Now, I know we're
sinners, too. We're not perfect yet. Paul said,
I haven't arrived. I'm not what I want to be. I'm not what I expect to be by
faith. But I am what I am by the grace
of God. And that work of God in you will
have a preserving effect on those around you. They see something
in you that they can't explain. They see something in you that
they can't mock. They see something in you that
they can't attain on their own. It has a preserving, it has a
constraining effect on men. Keeps men from being as evil
as they could be. And then thirdly, he said, salt
is a seasoning. It makes things taste better.
Makes them taste better. And I guarantee you, my wife
can identify with this. When that doctor came in the
other night, And we were expecting, I don't know what we were expecting,
we were expecting an aneurysm or a small growth or something.
I don't know what we were expecting, but we were standing there and
he comes in and he's got his hands like this, talking about
a tumor. And I guarantee you, that was
tough. But it went down a whole lot
better with salt. You see what I'm talking about?
The salt of that grace and good hope before God makes even things
like that taste better. Can you imagine Nathan getting
the news you got, not having any hope before God? It would
have slayed you, absolutely slayed you. And you go through these
things, and that salt, I don't care what it is, it could be
suffering, it could be death, it could be all kinds of things.
But when the world hears that kind, oh, they're done. I mean, they're destroyed. And yet the child of God, he
takes those things with a grain of salt. Ain't that what the
old saying? Take it with a grain of salt. Well, that's what he's
talking about, this grace of God in Christ. It makes things
edible. Sure it does. It makes things
edible. Oh, I tell you, conviction of
sin apart from grace be hard to eat. Huh? Be hard to eat. All of those things, they're
hard to swallow, but they're not by the grace of God. They're
good things. And David, I understand David
Edmondson brought this lesson to you last week where David
said that he was blessed because God afflicted him. He was blessed. And that's how we count it. We've
been blessed. This world and all of its chaos
and trouble would be a bitter place if it wasn't for a little
salt. Ye are the salt of the earth. And then he said, but
if the salt had lost its savor. Now he's not saying that salt
can lose its savor. He's saying think about what
would happen if it did. Now there's a difficult verse
over in the book of Hebrews chapter 6, in verses 1 through 6. It's a difficult verse to understand. Maybe one day when we're dealing
with it. But basically what it's teaching
you is this. It's teaching you that if the
saber of grace could be lost, it could never again be restored.
If the grace of God in Christ could be unaffectual, There'd
be no bringing it back. There'd be no hope for anyone. Now salt, if you salt meat, it'll
preserve it. But you can't salt salt. You
see what I'm saying? And if salt could lose its savor,
it'd be good for nothing. There'd be no point to it. There'd
be no point in adding it to your sacrifices. There'd be no point
in adding this to our trials and afflictions if salt could
lose its savor. But it can't. It can't. Thank
God for His grace that will never lose its savor, but it's sufficient
to accomplish all it's been given to do. This savor then is of a divine
origin. It comes from God. It's of a
divine purpose, and it's by divine power. We live in a day where
there's no miracles openly performed as there was in the day of when
the Lord walked upon the earth. Yet every believer is a miracle
in himself once God gives you eyes to see and you know what
you're looking for. It's a miracle of grace. It's
a miracle of grace. He knows what none other in this
world can know. He is what none other in this
world can make himself to be. And he has what only God can
give, eternal life. And He is, our Lord said, the
salt of the earth by God's own hand. And then secondly, in Matthew
5.14, He said, ye are the light of the world. Ye are the light
of the world. Now, light has to do with knowing,
perceiving, understanding. It has to do with seeing. We're
the light, John. We see. We see. And as we see,
we also produce light. That light that God puts in you
is a light. That work of God in you is a
light to this world. And he said it's a light set
on a hill. You can't hide it. That's what
Brother Barnes, somebody told him one time, well, don't you
think I need to give a testimony? He said, I kind of think it'll
leak out on you. That's what he was talking about,
this light. If God puts the light in you, folks will see it. Believe
me, they'll see it. It's a light, and it's the light
of the world. But I tell you, to tell the truth
and to show the truth, the truth must first be taught. It must
first be taught. You're going to have to hear.
You're going to have to have that revelation of God in your
heart. You can't tell what you don't
know. You can't just turn this light on. You can't create that
light in you. God puts that light in you. The preaching I preached, I read
in the scriptures, were preachings like an under-preaching to dead,
dry bones. But it's God who gives them life,
isn't it? Makes the sinews come upon the bones and raises up
a great army to Himself. And I don't think there can be
any doubt, as you read through these two things of salt and
light, I don't think there can be any doubt that the first application
here is to His disciples who were preaching. But it has an
application throughout to the whole church. The whole church. And if this world is to see life,
they're going to have to see it in the living. They're going
to have to see it in the living. It's the only place it can be
seen. Now you can see religion anywhere you want. Anywhere you
want. You can go down to the bar. They'll
sit in the bar and argue about religion. You can see religion
anywhere. The only place you can see light
is in God's people, because they're the only ones who have it. You
remember back in Goshen when the plagues were being poured
out on Egypt and God set that darkness, but in every house
in Israel there was a light. Do you see it? There was a light. The light of God in that house.
And so it is in the house of God. And there's light to everybody
in the house. Everybody in the house can see
this light. He said, we don't light a candle
and stick it under a bushel. That's not what a candle's for. Take that candle and set it up
here and light the whole house. If it lights the whole house,
everybody in the house can see. You don't have to be lord of
the manor to see the light. You can be the lowliest servant
in the house. You've still got light. You've still got light.
And he gives us light. Now, he said, let your light,
your light, it's yours. God gave it to you. Now watch
this. Let your light so shine before
men that they see your good works. But now watch this. They don't
glorify you. Huh? Men see your light. They see
your works. But they don't glorify you. They
glorify your Father. Why? Because you can't produce
that light. And the way it shines takes away
all possibility of you ever producing it. It's the gift of God. And
you see it, and you glorify God. Occasionally, when I stand up
here and preach a message, and the Lord blesses your heart with
it, who do you glorify? Huh? You don't say, well, boy,
that man's gifted. No. No. You say, God give that
to him. God give that to him. And you
glorify God. And it's the same in your spirit
and attitude in this world, the spirit and attitude of grace.
Men can tell the difference between that and self-righteous. Now,
they can tell the difference. They can tell the difference
between sincerity and a phony. When a man comes and wishes you
well, and he's really wishing he was somewhere else, rather
than wishing... Folks can see that. They know that. But they
know sincerity, too. They know it. And they glorify
God when they see it. That's of God. God's really done
a work in that man. He really has. Our Father, we
thank You for the lesson this morning. How quick we read through the
things of God, But we don't sit and contemplate on them. We don't
ask God to come into our hearts and reveal them to us and do
the work in us. Father, we're thankful this morning.
And we ask that very thing that you put that light in us in such
a way as we can communicate that light to all around us. And that
all who see it will glorify you. We ask you for Christ's sake.
Amen.