S.O.T.M. The Salt of the Earth [Matthew 5:13]

Stand for the reading of the word of God [Matthew 5:13]

Today we come to a new and fresh section in the sermon on the mount. In the beatitudes our Lord had been describing the Christians character, here he begins to move forward and applies the description to the Christians life. Having seen what a Christian is, now we come to consider how the Christian should manifest this or what a Christian should do. Or if you like, having realized what we are in Christ, now we must consider what we must be in Christ and our Lord begins with salt and light.

The Christian is not someone who lives in isolation. He is in the world, though he is not of the world; and he bears a relationship to that world. In the Scriptures you always find these two things going together. The Christian is told that he must be otherworldly in his mind and outlook; but that never means that he retires out of the world. That was the whole error of monasticism which taught that living the Christian life meant, of necessity, separating oneself from society and living a life of contemplation and separation.

Now that is something which is denied everywhere in the Scriptures, and nowhere more completely than in this verse which we are now studying, where our Lord draws out the implications of what He has already been saying. In the second chapter of his first Epistle, Peter does exactly the same thing. He says, ‘You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that you should show forth the praises of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.’

It is exactly the same here. We are poor in spirit, and merciful, and meek, and hungering and thirsting after righteousness in order, in a sense, that we may be ‘the salt of the earth’. We pass from the contemplation of the character of the Christian to a consideration of the function and purpose of the Christian in this world in the mind and the purpose of God. In other words, in these verses that immediately follow, we are told very clearly the relationship of the Christian to the world in general.

So the rest of the sermon of the mount that we will be looking at, and it’ll take us a while to get through it, is about this question of the function of the Christian in the world and we are given 153 of the most urgent matters confronting the Church and the individual Christian. Verses 13-16 should be read in the context of verses 11-12, Christians are to be salt in a world of decay, and light in a world of darkness and because of that we should expect some sort of persecution or resistance.

Taking a stand for Jesus will not always be applauded. As I thought on this passage earlier in the week, I woke early with the text on my mind one morning and our current situation in the world on my mind as well and I had the thought that right now we are being told by the world to stay away from other people for safety, but if life and death is what’s at stake then all the more reason we, as Christians, as the salt and light of the world, we should be engaging others with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Friends, Jesus is clear, the bible is clear, Christians, in relation to society or in relation to the world are not to be of the world, not to engage in sinful behaviors of the world, but we are in the world and therefore we are commissioned to influence the world for the kingdom of God. You can’t do that in hiding.

If I could reduce this section down to one word it would be influence. Our Lord is saying that the Christian who lives according to the Beatitudes is going to influence the world as salt and light.  In all that a person does and that a person is, or is not, the sum total of our character, consciously or otherwise, affects other people one way or another, if you live in fear your influence people to fear, if you live in faith you influence people for faith.  Philosophers have put it this way: "No man is an island." You influence people on a daily friends…how are you influencing them?

President Woodrow Wilson told this story.  He said, "I was in a very common place.  I was sitting in a barber chair when I became aware that a personality had entered the room.  A man had come quietly in upon the same errand as myself, to have his hair cut, and sat in the chair next to me.  Every word the man uttered, though it was not in the least didactic, showed a personal interest in the man who was serving him.  And before I got through with what was being done for me, I was aware that I had attended an evangelistic service, because Mr. D.L. Moody was in that chair.

“I purposely lingered in the room after he had left and noted the singular effect that his visit had brought upon the barber shop.  They talked in undertones. They didn't know his name, but they knew that something had elevated their thoughts.  And I felt that I left that place as I should have left the place of worship.  My admiration and esteem for Mr. Moody became very deep indeed." Influence. Influence. What message do you leave the world?  When you pass by, what are you saying?

Elihu Burritt wrote this, "No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity.  No one can detach himself from this connection.  There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of nonexistence to which he can retreat from his relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world.  Everywhere, his presence or absence will be felt.  Everywhere, he will have companions who will be better or worse because of him.” What message are you leaving the world?  When you pass by, what are you saying?

Our Lord is calling on us to influence the world we live in, just as He was those disciples gathered with Him as He preached to the multitude.

And it isn't easy, you know?  In fact, in many ways, it’s an almost impossible task.  Think about it this way. In a prayer to the Father, in John 17, our Lord once said, regarding those who believe and enter the kingdom, he said this, "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world." I’m not praying that you take them out of the world.  In the very next sentence, He said, "They are not of the world."  One verse later, He said, "So I have sent them into the world."  Later on, the Holy Spirit said to John, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." 

Now the sum of those verses goes like this.  "I want you in the world, but not of the world.  I've sent you to the world, but don't love the world." Now I don't know about you, but that feels like a thin line to me.  How can believers be in the world but not of the world? Sent to the world but not permitted to love it?  What a paradox.

How can we influence it, then?  How are we to influence this world?  How can we be in it and not of it?  How can we be sent to it and not love it?  The solution comes in verses 13-16.  We have to be salt and light.  Salt, in order to be effective, has to be mingled with the substance it's affecting, and yet salt is distinct from that substance it’s mixed with.  Light, in order to dispel darkness, must shine upon the darkness, and yet is distinct from the darkness.

So today we’re going to focus just on salt, next week we’ll look at light. Today we’ll ask three questions to get a better understanding of the words of our Lord, it’s always good to ask questions when studying a text, we learn more when we are inquisitive. The first question is...

What does this text imply about the earth?

First, this texts implies that the world is fallen, sinful, and bad. The world’s tendency is toward evil, sin, wars, rebellions. The world is a lot like meat, it may taste good for a moment, but it’s not long and it’s decaying and rotting and bad. And the only way to keep it from decaying and rotting is for something to preserve it or provide healing for it. The purpose of salt, to keep from decaying.

The world is in a sinful state and as a result of sin and the fall the world is in a putrid state. The bible is full of illustrations of this. It didn't take very long from Genesis 1, when God created man, to Genesis 6, until God looked at man and said, "All I see is only evil continually." Right? And God said there's only one thing to do: Save eight righteous souls and drown the whole rest of humanity.  And He did.  He locked up eight of them with a bunch of animals in a big boat, and the rest of them drowned.  God made a perfect world; sin entered in; evil, polluting influence took over, and God had to destroy the entire world by the 6th chapter of Genesis.  He had a new start, gave them a new start.

By 19th chapter of Genesis, one part  of the world at least, one area of the world called Sodom and Gomorrah had become so rotten, and so vile, and so corrupted that God had to come in and destroy everybody in that place by fire and brimstone.  And the time is coming in the future, according to 2 Peter, chapter 3, when God again is going to rain fire out of heaven and destroy the world in a holocaust of fire like men have never dreamed.

You see, it's the same old tale told again.  It's the same old story.  Man just gets worse and worse and worse. Instead of life on earth getting better it seems to be getting worse. He is infected with the germ of sin.  There is no antidote apart from God, and he will not have God because he loves his darkness rather than light.  He loves his decadence and does not want purity, and this germ affects the whole body of humanity, brings universally disease of sin, and the world continues to descend on the scale of immorality to the place where God eventually will simply bring final judgment. Second question.

What does this text have to say about the Christian?

In light of what it says about the world I think obvious the importance of salt and light in a world of decay and darkness. It tells us that the Christian is salt. “You are the salt of the earth...” “you” is emphatic in the original text, which implies you and only you. You and only you are the salt of the earth, there’s no one else friends. No one else is going to slow the decay of the world, no one else is going to shine in the darkness. It’s not you will be, you can be…it’s you ARE the salt of the salt of the earth…you are today, right now the salt of the earth…and your it! I don’t know about you but as I studied this text, I felt an extreme level of responsibility upon my shoulders.

In a senses the Lord really pressed this in on my heart, and I know it and we say it all the time…but it was really heavy on me this week. This was on my mind, people around me are dying and going to hell and I have the message to stop that from happening. We have the words of eternal life is not just some fancy Christian slogan…it’s the good news of the gospel, it’s the hope that is within us because of what Christ has done for us…why are we then so hesitant to share that message? Friends, not to overload you with a heavy burden but the words of our Lord to the Christian is this…you are the only hope anyone has in the world to escape destruction and you will stand before Christ one day and give an account of your life. If that doesn’t affect you, I don’t know what will.

This text tells us that the Christian is unlike the world. This is obvious and we’ve seen it many times, we are in the world but not of the world, but even though we are essentially different from the world it also tells us that the Christian is mixed into the world around him. Salt when mixed with meat doesn’t become meat…it’s distinct from the meat but it’s purpose is for the meat. Salt is doing the meat no good sitting in a bottle on the shelf while the meat sits and rots away. The Christian is doing the world no good keeping to himself and having nothing to do with anyone who is not a Christian.

A pastor/evangelist friend of mine held a revival service for a small church that was having a hard time getting anyone in the doors of the church. After the first night when it was only a few of the church members that had showed up he told them to invite their lost friends to come to the revival, to which they replied…we don’t have any lost friends. Friends, we may shake our heads at that, but how many of us are just as guilty of this? When was the last time you invited someone to church? When was the last time you shared the gospel with one of your coworkers, or lost family members?

Friends salt is only good as long as it maintains its integrity. i.e. if it’s not doing what it’s intended to do it’s useless. In the ancient world salt was susceptible to becoming contaminated and it could lose it’s taste and it could not be restored. Now that’s not to say we lose our salvation if we’re not being salt in the earth…no our Christian witness is compromised if we’re not being salt in the earth. You see it when Christian’s fall into sin and compromise their witness, their witness for the kingdom is thus ineffective.

If we are to be effective for the kingdom, we must be in the world but not of the world, we must be going to the world but not loving the world. Lord help us, by your grace to be salt to a decaying world. So then the last question...

What is the function of salt?

In the ancient world salt had several functions. Salt is very valuable. It always has been valuable in human society.  Today it's not like it used to be, but do you know that in the Greeks’ day, salt was considered to be divine.  In fact, they called it theon. They called it divine.  Salt was very important.  The Romans said nothing was more valuable than sun and salt, Roman soldiers were paid with salt. Did you know that?  And if you were a lousy soldier, you weren't worth your salt. And that's where that phrase came from. In a day without refrigeration, the only way they could preserve meat was to salt it.  And they would literally rub the salt in. Salt is a preservative.

Salt was used in covenants, in 2 Chronicles 13:5, God speaks of a covenant of salt that He made with David.  It was common in that time of the world to add salt to a covenant.  There wasn't any notary public, you know, there wasn't somebody to put his little stamp on it. So when you wanted to authenticate the legality of a document, the two men who entered into the agreement would eat salt in the face of witnesses. And when the witnesses saw them eating salt, they said, "The covenant is binding."

Salt provides flavor to foods. Just try having a no-salt diet…it’s terrible right, salt makes things taste better. We had a salt/no salt taste test with the youth group last time we met and the consensus was that salt makes things taste better. Take a boiled egg and try to eat it without salt…it’s ruff. I wouldn’t suggest it. Food is bland without salt.

Salt is used for healing as well. In Ezekiel 16:4 you have the birth of a baby, "And as for thy nativity,” or the birth of a baby “in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut,” in other words you were still connected with the umbilical cord “neither wast thou washed in water to cleanse thee; thou wast not salted at all.”

You say, "Now wait a minute!  Are they going to eat this baby?"  No, you know what they used to do?  After a baby was born the first thing they'd do wash the baby, and the second thing they’d do would be to rub salt all over the baby. You say why?  In the process of birth, there may have been some nicks, or scratches, or wounds that occurred to the baby, and this would act as a healing agency.  And so they would rub salt all over the baby.  And so he is simply saying, "You weren't salted."  And then, of course, they were swaddled, which meant they were wrapped in some kind of a cloth.  So it was used for healing value; newborn babies were even washed with salt.

Salt is also used to create thirst. College football players used to use salt tablets to keep their thirst up so they wouldn’t get dehydrated. Salt was also used with destructive purposes, you'd just salt someone’s field; that would do it.  In fact, in Judges, chapter 9 verse 45, Abimelech, when he captured Shechem, wanted to show his displeasure with them, and so he salted their fields as a punishment.  Salt became a symbol, then, of something that was sterile and something that was barren.  Salt could be something virtuous, something valuable, as the commodity used in a salt covenant, something savoury or even something destructive. So many ideas could have came up in the minds of Jesus’ listeners about this statement…so what’s the main idea…yes we are to be pure in the world, provide flavor to the world, bring healing to the world, create thirst in the world and those are all good and right ideas, but I think Jesus had something singular in mind and that is influence.

The Christian is to influence the world around them for the kingdom of God. Listen this is important…the individual Christian plays a major part in the world. The purpose of the church is to preach the gospel and to bring the message of salvation to the lost by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ve got this a little messed up today, the church doesn’t exist primarily to serve you, it’s primary purpose is to preach the gospel and bring the message of salvation to the lost. The role of the individual Christian is to serve the church and influence the world.

Christians influence society just by being Christian. Christians were first called Christians in Acts by non-Christians who said, ‘they look like little Christs.’ By their influence on society they were labeled little Christs, ‘Christians’. Could society say that about us? Could society say they look like Christ? Or do we look more like the world. I’m afraid much of the church today looks more like the world than they do like Christ.

Read the book of Acts, society was influenced greatly when Christians acted like Christians, Stephen’s death influenced the young Saul who became Paul the greatest missionary the world has ever known. Read about the reformation in the 15th century when individual Christian men took up the mantle to be Christians and changed society. Read the stories of great revivals that have taken place through history they all have the same beginning, individual Christians being Christian…being salt in a world of decay and light in a world of darkness.

The main trouble in the world today is far too few Christian people are behaving like Christians, there is not enough Christians being salt in the world. And let me just note this…it doesn’t take much salt to add a lot of flavor to a steak. Just a little amount of salt can affect a great mass. You might think, as a Christian what can I do to change society? You can start by being salt to those you’re around. You’ll be surprised how much difference there will be. It’s the husband who serves his wife, it’s the son or daughter who obeys their parents, it’s the employ who goes above and beyond because they ultimately work for the Lord, it’s one who doesn’t get involved with the gossip of others but who stands up against it…the list goes on. Friends we all influence people on a daily…how are we influencing?

Paul Gilbert wrote this poem about the Christians life,

“You are writing a Gospel, A chapter each day, By deeds that you do, By words that you say. Men read what you write, Whether faithless or true; Say, what is the Gospel According to you?”