Address—Bill Prost
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Well, I'd like to talk to this evening about something that I think pretty well everyone here can relate to. It's a subject that I've had before me lately in the scriptures, the subject of salt. Salt.
Did you know that salt is mentioned a good many times in the Bible? It is.
You know, we don't tend to think of salt too much.
Today, because in the world we live in, at least here in North America and in most of the rest of the world, salt is fairly easy to obtain and it's quite cheap and we just get so accustomed to it. But up until about, oh, I'd say less than 150 years ago, it was a very valuable commodity in the world.
And all kinds of wars were fought and alliances were formed and sometimes.
In extreme cases, empire stood or fell, and all kinds of things went on in economies and so on, all because of salt.
Very necessary thing, isn't it?
There is no life in salt, no life in salt, and yet there's no life without salt. You need salt in your body. I need salt in my body. Every animal that lives needs salt in some way or another. And as I said before, it was a valuable commodity. It was hard to obtain.
Sometimes they got it from sea water by boiling sea water and then what was leftover was salt, but that wasn't very much and.
Sometimes they'd find a mine where they could get salt just the way they mine many other things like gold and silver and nickel and iron ore and so on and coal and what have you. They would mine salt. But it was a very valuable thing. But what we are going to talk about tonight is particularly the meaning of it spiritually.
Spiritually, because salt in the Bible has a spiritual meaning for us.
And I'm going to try and speak in a way that I hope most here, if not all, can understand.
Salt is mentioned many times both in the Old and the New Testaments, and it has more of it has a little bit of a different emphasis in the Old Testament than in the New, although when we know the New Testament.
We can see some of the New Testament meaning in the illustrations in the Old Testament, so let's look at a few scriptures. Before we say exactly what salt means in the Bible, let's look at a few scriptures. The first one in Leviticus chapter 2.
Leviticus, chapter 2.
And we aren't going to have time to look at all the references to salt in the Bible and explain them. There are too many of them. But we'll look at some Leviticus chapter 2. And this is in connection with one of the offerings in the Old Testament that the children of Israel were permitted to make before the Lord.
And notice what it says here concerning.
What is called the meat offering, although that's really not a very good word because meat was an old English word just for having a meal, and there was actually no meat in the in this offering as we think of meat, it was merely flour and oil and so on. But notice what it says here in verse 13.
Leviticus 2 and 13, and every oblation of thy meat.
Meal offering maybe more accurately, shalt thou season with salt. Neither shalt thou suffer or allow the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering. With all thine offerings, thou shalt offer salt.
Salt. Why did God want them to put salt with the offerings?
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Well, in the Old Testament, salt had an emphasis on God's holiness, the holy nature of God. Now it has more than that in the New Testament. We'll get to that in a few minutes.
It emphasizes God's holiness, and it has that meaning in the New Testament too. But there's more than that to it. And that's why all of these offerings had to have SOAP connected with them, because it emphasized.
The holy nature of God. And of course, in the Old Testament, before they knew the work of Christ on the cross and they knew all their sins forgiven through the work of Christ, they had to offer sacrifices over and over again. And when they offered those sacrifices, they had to be reminded of the holiness of God.
But there's something else here.
Because it says.
In the middle of that verse 13 neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God.
And to see a little bit what that means, there's another reference. There are two other references to the Covenant of Salt. Return to one in Second Chronicles chapter 13.
And there we see a man by the name of.
Abijah using that expression and I believe in a right way. Second Chronicles 13.
And Abide just says there he's addressing Jeroboam, the king of Israel, the 10 tribes. And in chapter 13 and verse five he says.
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.
You know, salt is a wonderful preservative, isn't it? And before we had refrigeration and things like that, they would put things like meat and other things.
Barrels of salt water in order to preserve them. It is a wonderful preservative salt. And so here we have a covenant of salt. There's another reference to the covenant of salt. We will turn to it. I believe it's in numbers where the ties and the things that were given to Aaron and eventually to the Levites.
From the people were given to them by the Lord, once again by a covenant of salt.
And that means something that doesn't change. And so salt brings before us the fact that God's holy character does not change. And what God has to say and a covenant he makes or an agreement he makes does not change. So that's something else to remember.
About salt.
It preserves, it also speaks to us of God's holy character. But in connection with God's holy character, what else does salt do? You know, one time, a number of years ago, when we were in England, we went to visit.
An old ship in the city of Portsmouth in England called the Victory, and it is a very old ship it would be.
Let me see now it would be about 200 and.
Plus years old now because it's the ship that Lord Horatio Nelson had as his flagship.
In the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 and it's still there.
Excuse me, I'm going to grab my wife.
And they pointed out to us that if a sailor on ship got a wound, just a little wound in his hand or his armor, something like that, there were little packets there, and in that packet was a little.
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Cube of salt and a bandage. Why did they put the cube of salt in there?
Disinfectant. Disinfectant. They didn't have antibiotics. They didn't know too much about how to prevent an infection, but they knew if you rub that salt into the wound, it would help it from getting infected. Then he put a bandage on it. What happens if you rub salt into a wound? Does it feel good? No. I see Ben kind of making a face. He's probably had it happen.
Yes, salt stings, doesn't it? Stings. And you know that also reminds us that.
When we have sinful natures and we come in contact with a holy God, it stings. And before we're saved it stings. And even after we're saved, if we're trying to go on with something in our lives that isn't according to the mind of God, and we come into contact with God's Word and God's holiness.
It's stings.
Well, let's go on because we mainly want to concentrate on the New Testament. So let's turn over now. There are so many scriptures we turn to, but let's go to Matthew 5. That'll do, for this verse is repeated several times and I'm sure this is a verse you have all heard.
Matthew 5.
I.
Matthew 5 and verse 13.
Now this is something different. You never find this exactly in the Old Testament, but here in the New Testament the Lord Jesus says Matthew 5 and 13, Ye are the salt of the earth.
But if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
Or season. It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. Now I'd like to read the same verse in Mark, because it's got a little addition to it. Mark 9.
Mark nine and verse 50. Last verse in the chat.
Same thing, salt is good, but if the salt had lost his saltness, wherewith will he season it? Then he says have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another.
Ye are the salt of the earth.
What does that mean? It simply means that you and I as believers are to represent God's character in this world. And if I may use a word which is so much bandied about today, it becomes a cliche. But I hope I use it in the right way.
That is an awesome responsibility.
To be here in this world, to represent God's character, but in the New Testament.
Salt reminds us, and this is the easiest definition of the what salt means salt means.
Holy Grace.
Holy Grace.
It means that the grace of God, which is the undeserved, unearned favor of God.
Is extended to you and me, but not at the expense of God's holiness.
And to see a picture of that, let's go back to the Old Testament Second Kings chapter 2.
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Second Kings Chapter 2 and he is a very interesting story that illustrates exactly what we're talking about.
And we don't have time to go into all the details of how and where but.
Elijah, in the earlier part of this chapter, had just been taken up by a whirlwind into heaven.
Remember that story? A chariot of fire appeared, separated Elijah from Elisha, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And after life should hear. And let's look at the first thing that Elisha did as far as working a miracle after Elijah was gone.
Verse 18.
Second, Kings 2 and 18, and when they that is the sons of the prophets.
Came again to him, that is, to Elisha, for he tarried at Jericho. He said unto them, Did I not say unto you, Go not? And the man of the city said unto Elijah, Behold, I pray thee, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord see it, but the water is not.
Darby translation, it's even more explicit. It says the water is bad and the ground bearing means it didn't grow anything. And he said bring me a new cruise. A cruise is just a container, a small container that you take a drink of.
Bring me a new cruise, and put salt there in. 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 fence anymore, or death, or barren land. So the waters were healed unto this day.
According to the saying of Elisha which he speak.
You all remember that when the city of Jericho was thoroughly destroyed when Israel entered into the land of Canaan way back in Joshua's time, Joshua put a curse on that city in the name of the Lord and said.
Cursed be the man that ever rebuilds this city.
And he said he will lay the foundation of it in his eldest son, and he'll set up the gates there of in his youngest son.
And hundreds of years later, we won't bother turning to the Scripture. A man by the name of Heal the Bethelite.
Rebuilt the city of Jericho and exactly what Joshua had said came to pass. And I believe the context of those verses is that he lost his youngest son and his eldest son over that whole business because of that curse that was on him.
And now they come to Elisha and they complain and they say, Elisha, look at this city, they're the water's bad and the ground doesn't grow anything.
What would you and I have said? What would you and I have said? I better not refer to you. But I know what I would have said. I would have said, well, it serves you right. It serves you right. There was a curse on this place and you're living in a cursed city. No wonder the ground doesn't grow. Anything in the water so bad.
That is the grace of God, is it? That's the way you and I were before we were saved.
No matter how pleasant things are in this world, this world can be pleasant. God is preserved from the full effects of the fall. We enjoy nice sunshine, we enjoy pleasant rain, we enjoy warm relationships, we enjoy good food and all those things. And it's all on account of the goodness of God. But is there any fruit for God down here among unsaved man? No Can the.
Man produce anything for God. No, there's no spiritual refreshment here. The ground doesn't produce anything for God, which it means you and me.
What is what Elijah did bring in? Oh, I believe the new crews of water speaks of new life in Christ and the salt speaks of the holiness of God, but in grace. And Elisha doesn't give them any back talk. He doesn't say, well, it serves you right. And do you remember the curse that a a Joshua put on this place or anything like that? He simply says.
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Oh, everything had to start again.
There had to be a new cruise, and that's what happened when you and I got saved. God, as it were, gave that new cruise of fresh water, the water of life. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That's the third chapter of John. Of course, the Lord speaking to Nicodemus. And in your life and mind, any fruit for God.
Must involve those things, new life in Christ and the stop, the stop. And we'll say a little more about that salt in our lives a little bit down the road. And so we get the Lord saying ye are the salt of the earth, you and I having new life in Christ and having that salt connected with us.
Are able, by the grace of God, to represent God's character in this world.
Do we do that? Do we do that? I asked the question.
But then going back to Matthew 5 now for a moment.
It says, But if the salt had lost his Sabre, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. You know salt. Excuse me.
Salt has another character, and that is probably most of you know this, But if salt gets onto the land on which you want to grow food.
Grow crops. It makes it so that it doesn't grow. It doesn't grow anything.
In India, they sometimes have what they call cyclones, mostly on the east side of the country, and if that sea water washes over rice paddies and farmland there, that land is infertile for a year.
Going back a number of years to Roman times, if people under Roman domination rebelled against Rome when Rome came with their armies and put down the rebellion.
They sold their fields with salt. Ouch.
Because that rendered those fields in fertile for three years and the message was allowed and clear. Don't rebel against Rome. It does not pay. That's what happened. And that's why it says here the salt that has lost his savior. You can't re salt salt. You can't salt salt. It doesn't work. What can you do with it?
Throw it out if I could. I grew up on a farm.
Can you throw it out on the manure pile? Oh no, you wouldn't do that. Otherwise, when you spread that manure on the land, the salt would go with it and it would only inhibit the growth of good crops. What do men do with it? Cast it out? And you know the Christian that is unfaithful to the Lord and fails to represent God's character here in this world from in the context of this verse.
Isn't happy anywhere.
The Lord says good for nothing. Well, a true Christian in that sense is not good for nothing because he can't lose his salvation. But in the sense of testimony, what good is he? Put him out in the world and he has a bad conscience about things out there. And the world recognizes perhaps that he's a Christian and throws it up to him. And what are you doing this for?
And if he goes amongst faithful Christians, there's conscience fathers of them. He doesn't feel comfortable there.
He's not comfortable anywhere.
But then when we turn to Mark, it said.
Mark 9.
Have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another.
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You know, salt sometimes, as I said a few minutes ago, stings us.
And salt sometimes isn't very unpleasant if my old sinful self wants to get in the get the upper hand.
But if there's going to be peace and blessing among believers, and I believe this is the practical side of it, it's not peace with God here, it's peace one with another, then the salt has to be there. It has to be there.
God's holiness has to be maintained, but does it take away from the grace of God? Oh, not one little bit. No, no, no.
The Lord Jesus, when he came into this world, it could be said of him. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. One doesn't cancel out the other. In John's first epistle, we get that blessed truth in the first chapter. God is light.
But then the rest of the epistle developed those wonderful words.
Excuse me, God is love and I love the fact that in the 4th chapter of John's epistle, his first epistle, God is love is mentioned twice and there is much said about the love of God and the enjoyment of it. Does that negate the fact that God is light? Not at all.
But God wants us to enjoy His love and His grace.
But there's something else here in Mark that I want to dwell on for a moment, and that is the previous verse, verse 49.
Mark 9 and 49.
For everyone shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. What does that mean?
What does it mean to be salted with fire?
That means let's talk about the first phrase. Everyone shall be assaulted with fire.
That simply means that every one of us, at one time or another in our lifetime or when we leave this world, is going to be brought face to face with the holiness of God.
And the consequences of sin. Fire speaks of judgment, and being salted with fire simply means the judgment that is according to God's holiness.
Now this is mainly a warning, I believe to unbelievers because they will indeed be salted with fire. They will be brought in a coming day to realize the awful truth that not only is God love, but God.
Is light I was talking to one of my neighbors a few days ago in our little survey there aren't a lot of people living and we all pretty much know one another and we.
Kind of actually have a bit of a.
A paper that we circulate among us and we have our all each other's phone numbers and e-mail addresses so that we can keep in touch with if we want and so on and people borrow ladders from one another and.
Sometimes borrow the man to use the ladder too, so that's just fine. So I knew this man and I knew his wife had been sick, so I went down there just to chat with him and had a little bottle of George Koval's Maple syrup to give him as a bit of a gift and so on. And I talked to him about the things of the Lord. And you know, it was sad to listen to him because he started telling me how good a man he had been in his life and how he'd never done anything wrong.
People and how he always been a help to people and everything.
Well, I hope what I said to him was right. I said, Sir, I grew up in a Christian home. And I suppose as far as the kinds of things you're talking about that are so serious, I've probably never done them either. But I said, you know what bothers me more than anything? It's not the things I've done, It's the things I thought of doing and never did. I said those are the things that tell me what I was in nature.
Set them back a little and I said, you know what it says in the word of God, it is appointed and a man wants to die. But after this, the judgment, oh, I said I don't believe that. I don't believe that. And that's as far as we could get.
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What an awful awakening some are going to get when they end up being salted with fire.
Have you and I in one sense been salted with fire tube? Yes, we have.
But it happened at the cross. Someone else was assaulted with fire for you and me, so that now the fire is behind us, not ahead of us.
But there is the thought of being salted with salt. Here it says every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. And I don't know whether those who listened to this sermon, so-called of the Lord Jesus, really understood exactly what he meant. No doubt they probably referred back to the Old Testament sacrifices and they knew.
As we've already read that all of them were to be salted with salt, salt wasn't to be missing from any sacrifice.
This is different. I believe it brings before you and me that in our lives down here and in our service for the Lord and in what we do for Him, they that sacrifice too is to be salted with salt.
In Romans 12, reread that we are to present our bodies a living sacrifice. What's the first word?
Holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. That's the sacrifice, being Sultan with salt, and you, a dear brother once who wanted to serve the Lord and who said a lot about his service for the Lord, but there were serious things going on in his life.
That he didn't want to deal with. He didn't want to judge before the Lord in the Lord's presence. And I knew him well. I wrote to him. I said, brother, before you start talking about serving the Lord and doing things for him, I said we can't serve the Lord with open sin that we're well aware of on our conscience that we refuse to judge. So there is a warning here, isn't there?
Holy grapes.
You know when the Lord calls us to walk in holiness before Him.
He doesn't hold a club over our heads and say, Thou shalt and thou shalt not. Yes, there is a government in the House of God. And if I carry on in serious sin, that verse in Galatians 6 still applies to the believer. Whatsoever a man silver, that shall he also reap.
But it is not God's preferred way to hold you and me in with the reins of government. How does the Lord want to lead us along? By His grace. And grace, properly understood, is the strongest force to keep you and me from sin. And in that sense.
Salt speaks of holy grace.
Isn't that beautiful holy grace? And when that salt is brought into the picture, it doesn't take away from the effect of grace, but it reminds us that grace is totally on the basis of holiness. God did not compromise His holy nature one bit in order to save you and me.
No, he didn't. Mercy and truth are met together.
Justness and peace have kissed each other, and how wonderful that is to realize that and to realize that in your life and mine. Now it is the grace of God that brings us to that point. To see that, let's turn to the book of Titus. It doesn't mention salt there.
But it's a good verse to remember.
Titus.
Two and verse 11.
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For the grace of God.
And I'll read it the way it's more accurate in the Derby that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared. And then what does grace do for the believer, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world?
Grace does that and an appreciation of the grace of God in your soul and life.
Will be the strongest force to keep us from sin.
Let me use a very quick illustration.
Supposing I got very deeply into debt, so deep that I was hopelessly in debt where I could not possibly pay it off. I could not possibly pay it off.
And I don't know what to do. I have nowhere to turn. I don't know what to do. And I'll just pick somebody and we'll pick on my brother Steve here. Steve comes along and says, Bill, I'd like to help you out if you got those bills somewhere.
Oh, yes, they say. Tell me about it. I've got them. All right, we'll bring them in. Bring them in to me. So I go over to Steve's and hand in the bills. I don't want to look at them. I can't bear to look at them.
The next day Steve comes to me and says, well, maybe not The next day, let's say in a few weeks, he comes to me and says Bill, there are all those bills and they're all stamp paid. It's all settled, every single one of them.
Oh, I am so thankful and I go home.
And after a while I say, I wonder, wonder how much those bills were. Anyway, I have a bit of a.
My dear, in my head I think I know how much they were and I kind of have it a bit in my head. But now when they're all paid, I can bring myself to go and look at them. So I get out my calculator and I start going over them and the total goes up and up and up and up.
I thought maybe they were in the area of $100,000.
To my horror and surprise, the total is $1,000,000 or more.
I go over to Steve and I say, Steve, how did you do it?
Well, Bill, it wasn't easy. I cleaned my bank account out and everything I had, and I actually had to mortgage my house and everything. It wasn't easy, but I loved you that much. I did it.
What would you think if a few months later I said well.
Slates wiped clean Now I guess it's not too big of a problem if I go and I'm a little careless with my funds again and get into debt again, because after all, you know, Steve, Steve will probably bail me out again if I have, if I need it. Oh, you'd say, What is wrong with that man? Where is his sense of gratitude?
That's the way it ought to be with you and me when we realize.
The grace of God that has saved us.
But our time is going and there's one more scripture I'd really like to refer to Colossians 4, and there are so many more we could turn to.
One of the main ones, which I'll just mention, that is over and over again mentioned in Scripture to me, it's one of the most solemn warnings. Is the so-called salt sea still over there? I've never been to the land of Israel. I've never seen it, but I've talked to those that have been there.
The salt sea, and I don't believe it was there before the judgment of God on Sodom and Gomorrah, but now it's there as a perpetual reminder. And over and over again, the Word of God reminds people of that salt sea, that salt sea, that salt sea, and most of the water that comes from the surrounding territory, including the Jordan River, and coming from the country of Jordan, across the board and otherwise.
It all flows down into that salt sea. Can't get rid of it because there's no output to it.
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Very interesting place, all kinds of wonderful minerals in it, but it's a solemn, solemn reminder of the judgment of God that was affected nearly well, probably getting close to 3800 years ago now, or more than that, I guess 3900 years ago.
And yet man still goes on and doesn't pretend to pay any attention. But let's turn to Colossians 4 to see.
Another responsibility.
That I believe the Lord would place on us Colossians 4, and we'll read verses 5:00 and 6:00.
Walk in wisdom toward them that are without redeeming the time. And here it is. Let your speech be always, with all the way, with grace.
Seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Seasoned with salt.
Every cook here knows what seasoning the salt means.
My wife, I don't mind boasting about it in her absence and I don't think she's on the call tonight. She's an excellent cook and I have seen her many times dip a clean spoon and something and little more salt or something like that.
And they know just the right amount to put in.
To make the particular dish just right, seasoned with salt. And it's different for different things that you prepare. Some need more salt, some need less seasoned with salt. And all of you know, I suppose, from at least one experience or more maybe in your life when somehow something happened and too much salt got into the food.
It's awful, isn't it?
Awful to have to taste food that's been overly salted, but what about if there's not enough?
Sometimes when I was in practice and we had to put somebody in hospital with severe congestive heart failure, we had to put them on as low a salt diet as we could, 400 milligrams of salt per day.
Oh, they heated it. They just hated it.
They knew it was for their own good, and they knew very well that it was necessary, but they couldn't wait until things got a little better and they could get up to a little more than that and have enough that at least somehow that bland food would have something in it that could flavor it a bit. And Joe, way back in his day.
Could recognize that I can't quote the verse accurately, but he.
He said something like that, which is without.
Maybe someone else can supply it, but can that which is a without flavor be eaten without salt? And is there any?
Taste in the white of an egg. You remember that scripture? I'd have to look it up. I don't recall exactly where it is. It's in Job. But anyway, he recognized the need for salt.
What's the application here? That your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, and notice the order.
It doesn't say let your speech be all we assault seasoned with grace very often. If I can say it to my own heart, I'm liable to apply it that way. Let's make sure there's plenty of salt and we'll tip a little grace in me, you know, with grace, season with salt. That's the holy grace that's bringing the grace of God.
Into our conversation.
But seasoned with salt. And you and I have all seen both sides of that, haven't we?
I was not there at the time.
But I was told about it, how a man who was a believer, he was a brother in Christ.
And I knew him, although I was not there to see the thing happen.
Caused a rather.
Serious accident with his car and he was clearly at fault. Nobody was hurt, but there was pretty significant damage to both cars and he had caused it. And while they were waiting for the police to arrive to settle the whole issue, he evidently went at the other driver. As we would say hammer and tongues with the gospel and how God allowed these things for a purpose and.
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Did this man know where he was going to spend eternity? And there was very little grace with it. It was just, if we could say the word, Hellfire and brimstone.
That other driver didn't appreciate it. His attitude was, look, Mr. you caused this accident and look at my car, and now you start laying into me as to where I'm going when I leave this world.
It wasn't wrong for him to bring the gospel before that man.
But there should have been a lot more grace and a lot less salt, shouldn't there?
The other hand, I knew another brother who handled it very differently, and some of you might know who I'm talking about.
And somebody rear-ended him with her car and he was driving a truck at the time. And I had this happen to me when I was driving my wife's Jeep Cherokee in some years gone by because I had the same thing happen to me.
A small car rear-ended him is it rear-ended me and didn't do any damage to his vehicle at all nor did it do any damage to my Jeep Cherokee because it had an ugly trailer hitch on the back and but it didn't didn't do the front end of her car any good.
And I didn't do what this brother did. But anyway, she was so upset. She just her eyes filled with tears and she was just heartbroken she had.
Anticipated the police coming and the getting ticketed for rear ending someone and then the repairs to her car maybe getting sued for a whiplash injury and everything that goes into it. Instead, the brother saw a flower shop across the way. He ran over the flower shop, bought a bouquet of flowers and said here, here's a bouquet of flowers. And he said here's my business card.
You bring that card in my Body Shop tomorrow and we're going to.
We're going to fix it for you and there there aren't going to be any police involved and I haven't got a whiplash and this is the end of the matter. Do you think she listened to and he preached the gospel to her? Indeed she did. Indeed she did. I don't think he even charged her for fixing her car. But the point is.
Seasoned with salt.
I have seen both sides. I have seen some who didn't put any salt in, remember being with a brother one time many years ago, going around with him to visit different businesses and that everybody loved them. He was extremely popular. I knew him very, very well. He was a very nice individual.
At a winning personality, very friendly, open, easy to get along with, do anything for anyone.
But you know, as I listened to him interact with all those people.
They never saw any salt at all. None at all.
That's partly why they liked him so well. There was no salt. He never rubbed anybody the wrong way. It was never any sting or anything, he said. There was never any reminder of the seriousness of going on without Christ, never any reminder of the fact that we're lost, guilty sinners before God. Does the world like that kind of a Christian? Sure they do.
Honesty, uprightness, hard working, friendly, obliging and all that. Oh yeah, the world will take all of that from you. But don't talk about Christ.
And that's where we need to be on guard because the danger is either no salt at all or too much salt. How do we know just the right amount to put in? I can only say that there's one way, and that is to be walking in. Fellowship with the Lord and with the Spirit of God is operative. He will tell you and me how much salt to put in to the situation.
And the world needs that salt today. You and I are the salt of the earth. We still are, despite the sad way that this world is going on, despite the way that.
00:50:00
Sin is on the ascendancy and now we find that open sin is being legislated right into the legal structure of the countries, North America here and in Europe as well, and so on, and.
We sometimes throw up our hands and say, how can we be the salt of the earth?
I only say to you and to my own soul that salt is more needed than ever. That salt is more needed than ever.
Well, our time is gone. Perhaps we'll just close in prayer.