and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Over the last nine weeks, all these lessons that we've done had to do with character. What you are as a Christian or better yet what we're supposed to be as a disciple of Jesus Christ When we are a beatitude Christian or a beatitude disciple Jesus says That we would be the proper character and have the proper quality to be the salt of the earth what we just read and the light of the world in fact Jesus said that If we are his disciples that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world Being salt and light is not optional in these verses. He says if you are a Christian if you're saved He's speaking to his audience of disciples. He says you are Salt and you are light. It's not optional at all. I What we're going to do is we're going to look at these two things one at a time. This week we're going to look at salt and next week we're going to look at light. And then that's actually going to conclude our series from the Beatitudes. Now to get started with salt, let me just say this that salt had a far greater value back then when Jesus is speaking than it does now. And no doubt in my mind as I'm reading this All of Christ's listeners are sitting there doing what I call the Baptist nod. Christ is saying, you are the salt, and everyone in front of him is going like this. They understood the metaphor. In my mind, it was exactly like what took place in Matthew chapter 16, verses 18, when Jesus said, upon this rock, I will build my church, and nobody said, wait, what? Church, what does that mean? Everyone understood That terminology, that was not a new term when he said church. And just like that occasion, when Jesus Christ called them to be salt, they go, I perfectly understand the metaphor. We understand what he is saying. Now, interestingly, sodium chloride, which is the chemical name for salt, was once regarded as more precious than gold. During this time of teaching, salt was a valued commodity that was even used as currency. Consider this for a second. For those of you in my Sunday school class on a normal routine basis, you know my high school foreign language was Latin. I like to, you know, I don't want to waste those three years. Salt in Latin is S-A-L, salt. That means Latin. One thing that you know if you've had three years of Latin is the Roman culture would put salt on their greens and that was called salad. S-A-L-A-D means salted. That's where that word comes from. Salted means to be put with salt. Another Latin term, salarium, S-A-L for salt, and then A-R-I-U-M, salarium. Salarium is Latin for allowance, but not only allowance, but it was money that was paid to soldiers so that they could buy salt, salarium. Interestingly enough, about a thousand years after that word became into existence, the French They had a similar word, S-A-L-A-R-I-E. I'm not even going to pronounce it, but S-A-L-A-R-I-E. That word meant to pay a reward. That evolved into the 13th century into English, the word salary, S-A-L-A-R-Y, which means compensation. That means payment. The word salt is so important in their culture that we get words like salad and salary from it today. I mean that's how ingrained it was in their society. So yes, soldiers were sometimes paid a solarium for salt, meaning they were paid with salt. And if a soldier was negligent, if a soldier was slothful, he wasn't worth his salt. You've heard that before. That guy's not worth his salt. Well, that's where this comes from, this usage of salt and this time period and time periods before this. That's where we get words like that. So salt, very important. and every man that was here listening to Jesus Christ. Remember, Christ is seated. We saw that earlier on in this Sunday School series. Christ is seated and He's teaching them and they're going, yeah, salt. We understand that. But for you and I tonight, we need to consider some of the usages of salt to really get our minds around what Christ is saying. So first, salt is a seasoning agent. And I would say that there's a conspiracy in the medical profession right now to take the joy out of eating. That's exactly true. And so they preach low salt, low sodium, no sodium, no salt. That's what they preach. They do that. And everyone knows that the flavor of food is enhanced. Buy salt. At Nakato's and other restaurants, a lot of times other Chinese restaurants, I'll have to walk in and my wife will say, where do you wanna sit? Now at Nakato's, we don't just sit at the hibachi tables, we like to sit at the sushi circle, what I call the sushi circle, and I'll walk around, there's like a dozen open chairs, and she's like, just pick one. And I'm walking around and I'm looking for one, and I'm looking for the one, she's like, what's your deal? And I'm looking for the one that has the soy sauce with the green lid. Not the red lid. I get to watch everyone else use the red lid and pour the soy sauce over their dish if they choose to use it. I have to use the green lid soy sauce. Discrimination, by the way. I feel awful. But I have to use it because it's low sodium soy sauce. It's a crime. It's terrible. It's awful. It's low seasoning is what it is. Popcorn, cashews. scrambled eggs, potatoes, french fries. They're all plain without salt. And so many other foods. I mean, it's a great season. Salt brings food to life. Salt brings food to life. You can take that idea and usage of salt and you can take this scripture that we read tonight and you can make the following application. You can say, we, let me just say this because I wanna get it right, because I'm just, during hard times right now, I think we need to get a hold of this. We could bring seasoning to people's lives. We could do that right now. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, we ought to be a delight. to be around, especially right now. Not a bore, not a drag, not a sore, bitter pill to swallow. That should not be us right now. I find myself last week, in the last seven days, I've been to a grocery store four or five times. I'm not hoarding. It hasn't always been for myself, but I've gone to four or five different grocery stores, and every time we leave, my wife will say, Boy, they were chatty in there. I mean, the cashiers just want to talk. And I'm thinking, yeah, it's the face. Of course they do. Why wouldn't you? I mean, but we've noticed that. And I'm walking around like an idiot trying to smile at everybody. And everyone's scared. And everyone has got this look on their face. And I've tried to make, I go out of my way, not creepy, but go out of my way to make eye contact with everyone and smile. And I want my look to tell them, hey, we're all in this together. We're all walking that line between faith and fear. We don't really understand, but it will be okay. I want my face to say that. I don't know if you remember 12, 10, 12 years ago, brother David Gibbs was here and he said from this pulpit, your face is God's billboard. Be salt, be seasoning in their life. We could make that application. But another interesting use for salt, if you're Familiar with the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus. You don't have to turn there chapter 2 verse 13 Talks about that all the offerings that are being offered had to be offered with and seasoned with salt And that's that's a symbolizing the salt symbolized purity and wellness and so Moses taught the children of Israel that that's what they had to do and Again, we could take this scripture and we could take that application, and we can say, yes, yes, we are an agent of purity in the world, and we ought to be pure in our motives, and we ought to be pure in our business dealings, and we ought to be pure with our morals, and in our culture. You know, our culture has lost its purity, and we have to maintain that. You could apply this scripture to that use of salt. But fascinatingly, another use of salt is the fact that salt creates thirst. If you ever eat salty pizza, for hours afterwards, you're drinking gallons of water, it seems like. And everyone knows that pretzels make them thirsty. Everyone knows that. And in fact, interestingly enough, it's been noted that in desert places like the Middle East, the people who lived there would purposely eat salt because it would make them thirsty. And so to combat the thirst, they would drink water. If they didn't do that, and they just relied on their body to tell them they were thirsty, it was too late. They were already dehydrated. So they would travel and be in caravans purposely eating salt so that it would create thirst. Once again, We can take that use of salt and we can take this passage and we can make that application for Christians that the life of Jesus Christ's disciples ought to create thirst in the hearts and the minds of unbelievers all around us. No doubt about it. Those are all true. And I dare say that every single person listening who's had any kind of history in church whatsoever, whether it was a preaching service, a special service, a revival service, a ladies conference, you've heard a speaker use salt in one of those ways. Absolutely. And absolutely they can apply to the Christian life as I just showed you. However, the primary application of this text has to do with salt and it's preserving effect. It's preserving effect. Let me tell you, of anyone who has ever spoke to a group of people, Jesus Christ knew his audience more than anyone else ever could. Who's in his audience? Well, most of them are men that used to be fishermen. Fishermen, again, understood the use of salt. I mean, picture this. They didn't just go to the Sea of Galilee, fish all day, come off the boat, throw their fish in a cooler full of ice, get the ice in the back of a donkey cart and go 70 miles to Jerusalem and sell fresh fish. They did not do that. They did not have that luxury. In fact, they had to preserve the fish with salt. And, it just so happens, the technique that they used to preserve the fish with salt in ancient Galilee is still used in some primitive places today. I find this interesting. I want to throw this out there. From 1955 to 1964, there was a Dutch chemist. He was also a historian. His name is Robert James Ford, or his name was Robert James Ford. Robert James Ford, during the time from 1955 to 1964, wrote a series of books. In fact, it was nine volumes altogether. And the books were called Studies in Ancient Technology. Fascinating. Each volume dealt with an aspect of life in the ancient world. You get to volume three. Volume three of Studies in Ancient Technologies talks about food and food preservation. And he actually goes into great detail on how salt was used for the fishing industry. So let me just, I just want to share some of this with you so you get an idea of how salt was used. So first, the fish were gutted and washed in water. And then he says that coarse salt is rubbed into the gills, the mouth, and the scales. And then the fish are laid in alternate layers of salt and fish. So salt, fish, salt, fish, and they packed them together, and then they put drying mats on top of them. So it was saltfish, saltfish this way and saltfish, saltfish this way. Then they stayed in these like a pallet for three to five days. And then after three or five days later, they would flip the whole thing over and they would wait another three to five days. And that's how they would preserve the fish. And during this drying time, the body fluids, they would drain away and the salt solution would permeate the fish. And then after they were drying, they were firm and hard, similar to beef jerky, but actually much harder. Now I looked and looked and I don't know, I don't have the answer to this, but it is not known, you know, how long the fish could keep after they were preserved with salt. But I do know this, I did find this, that there were some ancient records indicating that there were fish that could be preserved in Egypt and sold in Syria. And so that tells me, if you look at those two locations, on a globe and just the mode of transportation and shipping back then, it could probably last a really long time to preserve the fish with salt. Obviously, the same was done with beef and lamb chops and certainly in other cultures, but not necessarily this one. It was done with pork as well. That's why we get bacon. Listen very carefully. Salt packed on food prevented decay and ruin and spoilage. And Christ says, ye are the salt of the earth. And that's why all the disciples went, hmm. Yeah, all his listeners there were going, ah, we get it. Now if Christ is saying that, that we are salt to prevent decay, I think we have to come to the conclusion then that the world is in a state of decay. Now it's very easy to see just going out the window and looking at the world or going on the internet and looking at the world. You can see that things don't get better, but actually if you take the time, and we're not going to go into it and deep dive tonight, but I encourage you to do it on your own. Daniel chapter 2, it's a lengthy chapter, 40 some verses, but in Daniel chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he's looking and he's searching for interpreters of the dream, finally gets to Daniel, Daniel is told the dream, Daniel prays about, Daniel then has revealed the answer to the dream, but Nebuchadnezzar had this dream about this image. Daniel then goes to Nebuchadnezzar and he tells him, he says, that image, that giant image represents human government. And he says that it will represent all of human government. I'm just paraphrasing here. He'll represent all of human government, until the end time when the Prince of Peace and the King of Kings will finally reign. That's what Daniel basically tells Nebuchadnezzar. And he tells him that human government will improve. No, that's not what he says at all. Here's what he says. He says, Nebuchadnezzar, human government is not going to improve. In fact, he says that it's going to start with a head of gold. And then Daniel is going to work down the body image that Nebuchadnezzar dreams, and he's going to say that that head of gold is going to deteriorate into arms and chest of silver. And those arms and chest and silver are going to deteriorate to a belly and thigh of brass. And then those two things are going to deteriorate to legs and feet of clay and iron. So what Daniel is saying is that human government is going to decay over time. That's basically what he's saying, that we are in a decaying mode. Okay? Now, on your own, equal to that, I encourage you to read Romans 1. You can read Romans 1, I would start in verse 18. You can read Romans 1, starting in verse 18, all the way to the end of Romans 1, and here's what you're going to find. Human civilization is in a decaying mode. In a big way. That's what you're going to find. And no Bible passage, in my opinion, makes it more clear than in Romans 1 that we are in a decaying society. So in this decaying society, Jesus says to his beatitude disciples in our text tonight again, ye are the salt of the earth. He says, you are the preservers. That's what he's saying. You are the preservers. He's saying in a roundabout way, education is not the preserver. Science without God is not the preserver. He's saying liberal politics, liberal politics will certainly not preserve civilization. You are the preservers. You are the ones that are gonna prevent decay, ruin and spoilage. It is my disciples, he is saying. just like Noah walked with God and preserved the human race, and just like Moses was salt to Israel, you, I, ye, we, us, we are the salt. We are the preservers. Our job is to help prevent the decay. That's our job. Well, how is a Christian salt? Salt has this very distinct quality so that upon contact with the world, there's an influence. It's amazing that there's this influence that takes place and it prevents society from this wholesale decay and corruption. You'll notice that when you go to work. Or you'll notice that when you go into society and you go into town. You know, the world doesn't know it. And we learn about this when preachers preaching through the book of Revelation. But the world doesn't know it. But it owes its very preservation to the presence of the disciples of Jesus Christ on this earth right now. The world doesn't recognize that. They call you weird and awkward remember we talked about that last week the world doesn't recognize you as the salt but just your presence as being salt is Saving them from decay We What our text is about is the very reason this one statement from Jesus Christ is the very reason the true disciples of Jesus are to live a distinctly different, savory, salty life. To prevent decay. That's your job. That's my job. We're not here to be influenced and to blend into the culture, but to influence and to preserve. How? How? What's the best way to preserve? Number one, not particular order. Dress salty. Just how you look. Dress salty and you will preserve. How about speak salty? I'm around construction workers most of the time in meetings and other places. And I'm telling you what, you'd be surprised on a conference call what you hear until you make yourself known that you're on the call. And then they're like, because I want to speak salty. I want to dress salty. I want to have salty music in my life. I want salty friends. I want to work a salty way. When I'm on someone else's dime and someone's hired me to do something, I want to work salty. I want to have a salty attitude. Whether I'm at work or at Walmart, I want to be salty. It's funny, I was on a call today with a guy, and he's like, oh, he's talking about something. He said, my girlfriend's going to be really salty about this. And I'm thinking, that's the wrong definition. Salty doesn't mean mad. She might be something else. I want to be salty. But see, our society even has messed that up. But you need to have a salty attitude. And on and on it goes. Our essence as a child of God is to be salty, to preserve, to stop decay. Well, how am I supposed to do that? Live the last eight lessons in your Sunday school class. the Christian Constitution, as our pastor calls, the Beatitudes. Live these every single day and you, you will certainly have a distinct quality of saltiness. That's what we're supposed to do. It's amazing. I've said several times, you are the salt of the earth, but the rest of the verse is a warning. The rest of the verse says, But if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. The danger, according to Jesus Christ here, the danger is that salt can lose that distinct quality that gives them the ability to preserve. You can lose that. The word savor actually means the quality which renders a thing valuable. A lot of people say, well, savor means flavor. You can lose the flavor. You can lose the distinct quality that makes something invaluable. You can lose that. That's what Jesus Christ is saying. If measures are not taken to preserve the savor, to preserve that distinct quality, then the salt is influenced and impure and loses the ability to preserve. We have been placed in this world, but we are not of this world. I think we understand that. And the miracle of salvation, listen to me, has made us partakers of the divine nature. It is a miracle that makes us be able to separate and to be unlike the rest of the world. That's what has happened. The popular philosophy is that to be, you want to win the world, you got to be like the world. That's what they say. That's what people say. If you want to do it wrong, no, no, no. Let me use an earlier application if I can. But if we taste like the world, how can we also taste like salt? It just doesn't work. If salt has lost its tang, that bite that salt has, if it is leached out and is no more salty, then it cannot be effective in preserving the society from becoming putrid or decayed. Well, how does salt lose its saltiness? I mean, I've had salt in a box up in the top shelf of the cabinet for years. How does it lose its saltiness? Again, when Christ said this, everyone who is listening goes, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And here's why. Here's why. During these times there were these men who were dishonest merchants. I want you to listen very carefully to see if you can catch where I'm going. But these dishonest merchants would add fillers and they would add impurities to the salt. You think you're buying a pound of salt, you might be buying a half a pound of salt, and the rest is just other white coarse stuff that looks like salt, but it's not salt. This would increase the volume of salt with actually adding, you know, not adding more real salt to it, and make the person who buys the salt, now think about it, the person who bought the salt paid the full price expecting all the salt. Crooks. They didn't get all the salt. They got a little bit of salt and the fillers. And so what would happen is since the fillers were added to the salt, it was no longer good. It was no longer good. It wouldn't preserve like you would think it would. You buy a pound of salt, you think it's gonna preserve like a pound of salt, but it doesn't do that. And this caused it to be useless. It caused it to be good for nothing. So then it would be thrown out. Every person I imagine in my mind every person who was listening to Jesus as he's sitting there telling them that Was like yeah, I know that happened to my neighbor That happened to me. I've heard of that someone doing that I've experienced that thought I was buying the whole thing didn't Salt is a preserver. They understood it We have to research this and we can't just naturally read this and think about that kind of stuff. They understood it They were like, yeah Yeah, let me make an application. Disciples who are baptized and are coveted together make up churches. That's what happens. Now this is sad, but some churches have lost their testimony when they let modernism come in. And churches who were once filled with salty Christians sought to be relevant. It's like I'm telling a bedtime story here, but this is what happened. And then rather than change the world, they began to conform to the world. I want you to understand this. And with the hope, they're like, we've got to change these things because they wanted to be popular with the world, okay? And then, so what happens next? Well, the doctrines of sin and atonement were watered down to be more acceptable by the world. This is what's happening. And within the churches came voices questioning the accuracy. Okay, the accuracy and the inspiration of the scriptures. And then there became this denial of the virgin birth into the church. It sounds like a story, but this is non-fiction here. And then many Sunday school curriculums were then produced to teach evolution and to look at Adam and Eve as fables. And so these churches started doing that. And they said, well, it's not necessary to take the Bible literally. We don't want to do that. But the stories, although they're false, still would teach good points. Fillers were added to the salt. That's what happened. The salt was what it was, but then it got filled in with other impurities. And so now what was once salty is no longer salty. They lost its savor. They lost their distinct quality. So you go on from that, and there is today a great move still for churches to become relevant. It's called seeker-friendly. in a lot of places. And then they go ahead and eliminate words like sin and guilt and hell and they seek to appeal to the worldly mind and the fleshly mind and they create an environment where people don't even realize they actually went to a church. That's what they do. And they talk of psychology and they talk about personal relationships. But not personal relationships between a sinner and God. No, personal relationships with each other. That's what they want to teach at these churches. And they tell people, well, you can be healthy, and you can be wealthy and prosperous, and you can have all that you desire if you follow certain principles that happen to be laid out in Scripture. Even though Scripture is not inspired, and even though it's false, these things do line up because it's still a good reference. This happens. I talked to someone just two weeks ago in an airport in New York. I know, it's scary. But I was in an airport in New York two weeks ago talking to someone about the Word of God, and he said, it's good reference, he said, Jesus was a good guy, a good teacher, and that's what these churches are doing. And so what's the consequence for losing your saver? Let me tell you, Berean Baptist Church, the consequence is this. so-called ministers, are performing marriages for people who aren't even qualified biblically to be married. And not only that, another thing that happens is many pulpits are being filled by pastors, male or female, who aren't even qualified for the office. And then on top of that, like the church in Corinth, now listen to me, like the church in Corinth, there's this sort of spiritual pride that happens when these so-called churches, they're kind and loving, and they embrace those courageous worshipers with sexual deviant behavior. And they have pride in the fact that they're doing that. They're not salty, they've lost their savor. They're good for nothing. They're good for nothing. And Jesus Christ said they're gonna be cast out and trodden under the foot of man. Brilliant Baptist Church, listen. If we are not fulfilling the purpose of our existence, then it will not be long until we cease to exist. We are to be preservers. We are to stop the decay. We're to stop the spoil and the ruin the best we can with the time we have and the opportunities we have in this culture. You know, back to history here, during this time period, you know, again, salt would sometimes become unsuitable. Like I said, they would purchase it from dishonest merchants. They would get the salt. The salt would not be what they thought they had purchased. They paid the full price. It was not what they thought it was. Do you know what they did with it? They took it and they cast it out onto their walking paths. And here's why. When it would rain, the rain would still dissolve the sodium chloride that was in that mixture of impurities, and the sodium chloride would still then kill the weeds and vegetation that they walked on. What did Christ say? And again, when they heard that, they say, yeah, That's what, yeah, we had to take it to the driveway. That's what they said. We put the salt we bought on the driveway and it killed the grass because there was some sodium chloride in it. And when it rained, it dissolved, but mostly it was just filling other trash. But yeah, you just walk on it, it kills the grass. Everything Jesus Christ said, they perfectly understood. They perfectly got it. Now executing it obviously is a totally different thing, but they understood the value of salt and they understood the worthlessness of salt that's lost its savor. Jesus Christ is saying, look, my disciples are to be the salt of the earth. If they are not the salt of the earth, they are good for nothing and they will be trampled under the foot of man. And so, When Jesus says you are the salt, it's not a challenge. It's an ultimatum. It's a direction. He's saying, if you are saved, you are salt. Just what kind of salt are you though? Are you salt with savor? Are you salt that's lost its savor? Are you salt that's toying with losing your savor? If you're saved, if you're my disciple, ye are salt. Stay salty. Don't lose your savor. Wow, what another sobering message from the Beatitudes and it is the constitution of Christianity and we are to be the salt and we