BE THE SALT!
Matthew
5:13
In
his book “Led by the Carpenter,” D. James Kennedy writes: A man walked
into a small mom-and-pop grocery store and asked, "Do you sell salt?”
"Ha!" said Pop, the proprietor. "Do we sell salt! Just look!"
And Pop showed the customer a whole wall of shelves filled with nothing but
salt: Morton salt, iodized salt, kosher salt, sea salt, rock salt, garlic salt,
seasoning salt, Epsom salts, and every kind of salt you can think of.
"Wow!"
said the customer.
"You
think that's something?" said Pop with a wave of his hand. "That’s
nothing! Come look.” And Pop led the customer to a back room filled with
shelves, bins, cartons, barrels, and boxes of salt. “Do we sell salt?” he said.
“Unbelievable!”
said the customer.
“You
think that’s something?” said Pop. “Come! I’ll show you salt!” And Pop led the
customer down some steps into a huge basement, five times as large as the
previous room, filled wall to wall and floor to ceiling with every imaginable
form, size, and shape of salt — even huge ten-pound salt licks for the cow
pasture. “Incredible!” said the customer. “You really do sell salt!” “No!” said
Pop. “That’s just the problem! We never sell salt! But that salt salesman – Oh
boy! Does he sell salt!” The moral of this story is that salt that
stays on the shelf does no good at all.”[1]
In
our series, “Words From The Mountain,” we reach a pivotal point where Jesus
shifts His focus from character growth to how Christians embody His Kingdom
values in everyday life. He moves from broad ideas to specific ones and from a
group perspective to a personal one. He employs two widely understood and
accessible metaphors, “Salt and Light,” to express His Kingdom mission, which
all His followers can and must carry out gracefully.
We
will examine Matthew 5:13, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt
loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for
anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” I titled this
message, BE THE SALT! What did Jesus mean by, ‘You are the salt of the
earth’? What is the biblical significance of salt? How can Christians be the
salt in a world that is broken and morally and spiritually deteriorating?
I. Biblical
Significance of Salt
Jesus did not say you are the honey of the earth;
instead, he said, you are the salt of the earth. Why did Jesus use that common,
simple table salt and make a bold declaration to His followers, saying, “You
are the salt of the earth’? What was the biblical significance of salt?
In the Old Testament, God used salt
symbolically in various ways to illustrate His nature and purpose, as well as
the positive and negative aspects of life for people. For example, turning Lot’s
wife, who couldn’t leave Sodom and Gomorrah behind, into a pillar of salt
reminds us not to look back in our pursuit of God. Genesis 19:26. God commanded
the use of salt as a covenant in all grain, sin, or guilt offerings to
demonstrate His faithful provision to the priests.
Leviticus
2:13, “Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the
covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your
offerings.” In Numbers 18:8-19, God instructed the use of salt so that the meat
would last longer and taste better for the priests and their families who
depended on it for their daily food.
On
one occasion, the people of the land complained to Elisha that their land was
unproductive and the water was bad. Salt was used to heal the waters. “Bring me a new bowl,” he said, “and put salt in it.” So they brought
it to him. Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it,
saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I
have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land
unproductive.” II Kings 2:20-21
Here, Elisha was a prototype of Yeshua, who would come
later and invite people to drink of the water He gives and live forever. John
4:13-14, Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I
give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In the Old Testament, salt was
used not only for healing and seasoning but also as a preservative.
Today,
salt is readily available in our culture, and we don’t need it as a
preservative because of refrigeration. But to the people of Jesus’ day, it was
an important and precious commodity. When Jesus told the disciples they were
the salt of the earth, He meant that believers were essential and valuable,
and that they had a mission to preserve the world from decay.
II.
The Fallen State Of The World.
Matthew 5:13, “You are the Salt Of the Earth.” This
bold proclamation of Jesus was not only a description and the function of the
individual follower of Christ, but also explained the state of the world. This
was how the Apostle Paul described the fallen nature of humanity in Rom 3:12-18,
“All have turned away, they have together become worthless.
There
is no one who does good, not even one." “Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit." “The poison of vipers is on their lips."
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." “Their feet are swift
to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they
do not know.” There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Martin Lloyd-Jones
accurately noted the world’s corruption in his 1959 book.
“Our Lord, when he says, ‘You are the salt of the
earth, it clearly implies rottenness in the earth; it implies a tendency to
pollution and to becoming foul and offensive. That is what the Bible has to say
about this world. It is fallen, sinful, and bad. Its tendency is toward evil
and war. It is like meat, which tends to putrefy and become polluted. It is
like something which can only be kept wholesome by means of a preservative or
antiseptic.”[2]
If
Lloyd Jones's assessment from sixty-seven years ago was correct, how should we
evaluate the world today? People who have spent their entire lives in this
country might observe and say that our nation is now much more corrupt and
godless than it was a hundred years ago. If our country is left to its own
vices, it will inevitably move toward destruction. Who can stop it? Who is the
remedy that will heal and protect our nation and the world from further decay?
III.
Individual Christians Are Called to Be the Salt of The Earth.
Jesus’ proclamation, "You are
the Salt of the Earth,” as Lloyd Jones notes, is often seen by many churches as
a church’s responsibility: to engage in politics, economics, and other
international affairs through legislation and, if necessary, through war. He
believes this is a serious misunderstanding. Instead, he sees it as a call for
individual Christians to be the salt of the earth.[3] How can an individual Christian
function as the salt of the earth?
Through
their personal life and character, by being the man or woman of God in every
area of influence they encounter. For example, at your workplace, several
people might be talking disrespectfully, cursing one another, and so on.
Suddenly, as a Christian, you walk in, and your presence makes an immediate
difference. You don’t have to say anything; people start cleaning up their
language. My personal experience of working in a homeless shelter.
Jesus doesn’t refer to the church as
a collective body to be the salt, so that we can take on the role of policing
the earth. Instead, he calls his individual followers, whose hearts were
transformed by his love, to go out into the world, interact with non-believers,
and Be The Salt.
It
is much more effective to change one heart at a time than to pass legislation
or wage war to alter human behavior. According
to one report, there are 373,000 congregations in the USA,[4] and they vary in size and
shape. I compare them to the “Salt Shakers,” and the congregants to the
salt. What good is it if they keep attending church services but never interact
with their friends, neighbors, or coworkers, and try to be the salt in their
circles of responsibility?
Are
you like the salt stuck in a shaker, needing a little crush to be released? Or
are you a free-flowing salt that easily mixes with the world, adding Christian
flavor and taste, and helping preserve it from further decay? As the salt of
the earth, let’s go out and impact our world. Amen!
