live from Buffalo Creek. Turn, if you would please, to Matthew chapter 5. I kind of did this out of order last week. We've been looking at the names and the titles of God's people. Last week we looked at Jesus calling us light. Well, the verse before that in Matthew chapter 5. He gives us another title, another name, another function, if you will. He said, Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out 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, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father. which is in heaven. So tonight we're going to consider God's people as salt. This, of course, in the same context as light in Christ's Sermon on the Mount. And I think it's important to understand the context here, the believers that he's talking to, the people who are in the Beatitudes there, We are blessed in so many ways. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. God brought us to a place where we recognize that we were poverty stricken beggars on the dung heap of our own depravity without anything to offer him and God humbled us and opened our eyes to see our need of Jesus. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. When God begins to humble you, He also moves you to mourn. All of God, everybody that's ever been saved has mourned during their repentance over their sins. And God comforts us in Christ. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. They submit themselves entirely to the King of kings and the Lord of lords. We do so with meekness like Saul of Tarsus did when he said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. People that have been brought to faith who have submitted themselves to Christ will have a desire, a hunger, a longing to grow, to know, to have more of God's Word and His truth guiding their life. And He says, when you hunger for God, He's going to fill you. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. God, when He saves people, He changes them so thoroughly that people who were once depraved, self-righteous, hateful, now become merciful, have a desire to reach out and be a help, a blessing, an encouragement to people. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. When God saves you and He puts a spirit in you, He gives you a new nature, and He purifies you, cleanses you, makes you whole, and you begin to see the Lord in all of His glory. I believe this verse, this is a great verse for a literal millennium. We're going to, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, and blessed are the uh... all the meek shall inherit the earth yes those are two that are really good i think uh... blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of god god's children want to make people want people to see the way of peace see all there's a there's a an order here in the beatitudes blessed are they which are once you start being a peacemaker, you would think everybody would say, we love you for doing that. You're doing such a great work. That's not the way it works. You know why? Because the world is in decay and in darkness. The people that they need the most to bring them salt and light are the very people that they want to persecute and hate. That's a manifestation of the depravity of man. He says, Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. That's a blessing? You see, God changes the whole view of things. The things that the natural man consider just terrible, Jesus says, you're blessed. Because God is going to work in you. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven. For so persecuted they, the prophets, which were before you. So He is talking to believers here. To be salt. To be light. Now, what is that passage verses 13 through 16? If you were to just bring it down to one word, what are salt and light called to do? to be an influence. Both of them are to be agents of change, salt and light. And why? Because Jesus is commenting on the condition of the world. He is telling us what this world system is all about. It is in a constant state of decay and depravity and rottenness and spoilage and it stinks. That's why we need salt. This world is in decay and it's also in the depths of darkness and degradation. The light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. He's calling us to be salt and light. Now, salt is valuable and profitable. Now, you say, what are you talking about? Yeah, I can go to Sam's and buy A few years ago, I thought that they were going to try to hoard up all the salt. So I bought five, five pound blocks in these blue boxes of salt. Still got them. Say, well, they're going to expire. Salt don't expire, man. Come on. I don't always believe in the expiration dates. Now, thankfully, they haven't tried to take away all the salt. Salt's cheap now, but in ancient times, it was a very valuable commodity. Roman soldiers were paid. Part of their pay was in salt. That's how valuable it was. It was important in trade and for purchasing things. If you ever, that's saying he's worth his salt. That means he's a hard worker. He's worthy of his pay. If he's not worth his salt, he's lousy. Get rid of him. Now, what does salt actually do? Salt preserves. It keeps meat from putrefying. Years ago, Now, I'm not straight on all this. These are what I've heard. Some of this may be anecdotal, but nobody had refrigeration, all right? When you killed a hog, you would pack it in salt, all right? And that would act as a preservative. Or and you would smoke it and some some people had smokers But salt was a it kept the meat from going to be putrefying and to be corrupt So in what sense then are we to be salt well our behavior our way of life our the way we live, the way we talk, the way we act. We realize this, genuine Christians, they bring blessings. It is the only thing preserving our world today other than the hand and grace of God and his people. Look what's going to happen when God, when Jesus comes in the rapture and takes believers out. This entire world is going to be given over to corruption and degradation. And when somebody does make a profession of faith in Christ, the darkness and the corruption are going to kill them. Because the world is getting worse. And Christians are to act as a preserving agent, an agent of good, to stem the tide of corruption and degradation and decay. Our behavior, wherever we are, people ought to know that we're salt. We're here to act as a preservative of the doctrines of the grace of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have been called to take those agents of change into all the world. Salt, what does it do when it comes in contact with meat? It preserves it. It influences it. for good. See? I love seasoning meat. I love meat. I am so thankful God has blessed every form of meat. It's a promise. It's in the Word of God. If you can say thanks over it, you can bless it. You can thank God for it. But you know, meat just in and of itself, it needs a little flavor. It needs something to influence it, to make it taste good. And that's what salt does for meat. Salt also keeps meat from spoiling and stinking. I used to work for a guy. Now, this is going to be terrible. He was an Italian guy at Bob and Carl's, where I work. And he was my meat manager. I loved him. He was a little Italian guy. And he was older than me, quite a bit older than me. But if something was going bad in the case, like chicken, I'm going to tell you something about chicken. Okay, that's the meat you don't mess with. If it smells, And it's going back, there ain't nothing you can do about chicken when it goes bad. Throw it away. Alright? He'd take that chicken that was, you could smell it, it was turning, man. And he'd take it back there and wash it up. And there were times that he'd put a little Clorox in the water. Wash it up real good. take it back out there and sell it. But he would mark it down. To be fair, he would mark it down. You can have this rotten meat at a cheaper price. That's basically what he was saying. That's what happens if you leave meat alone. It's going to putrefy. It's going to corrupt. Now beef, it can age and cure. And it won't hurt you, you just got to shave the hair off of it when it gets a little edgy. But you don't do that with chicken. But salt keeps meat from spoiling and stinking. Our testimony ought to be pure and gracious to counteract the debauchery, the stench of a depraved world. Think about the example of one man in Egypt. God put Joseph there and used him in prison. Wherever he was, God was with him and he was the agent of change. He was the salt in a corrupt, idol-loving nation. God put him there. He's a type of Christ. They had to go to Joseph in Egypt in order to be saved, really, their lives to be saved. He had to corn in Egypt, and they had to go to him. We ought to be remembering every day, we have a responsibility to this world that is decaying. to be agents of change and purity and preservation of what's good and what's right and what's holy. This is why we ought to be careful to maintain good works, Titus chapter 3. This is why we ought to walk in such a way that we do not become part of the putrefaction part of the debauchery. Yes, we have to mingle in this world, but we should be people that preserve the truth as it is in Jesus. Salt makes meat tasty, and I believe godly Christians ought to be a pleasant influence permeating the world with the glory of Christ. You know the Bible talks about it in Colossians chapter 4 and verse 6. This is another aspect that deals with our speech. Colossians 4 and verse 6, let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt that ye may know how you ought to answer every man. Salt changes what it comes in contact with. It flavors it, and we ought to be committed. Everywhere we go, we ought to want to see people changed by the power of God. And I'm going to tell you something. Jesus, he doesn't say that you're going to be politicians, that you're going to be lawyers, that you're going to make your way through the courts in order to make a change. He's telling us to interact with lost people in such a way that they recognize we are a preserving agent with the gospel and we want to expose darkness. And that's the very reason why we will be met with opposition. Because the world doesn't want, they want to go on in their decay. They want to go on in their putrefaction. and their corruption and their darkness. And you know, I think part of this too is I think the more grains of salt you have working, the more of an influence you're going to have. If you were to just take one grain of salt, put it on your steak, It wouldn't really make that much difference. But when you have several grains together, and as God's people, we ought to be united in our effort to taking the gospel out in this world. Now, another thing that's interesting is salt can sometimes be painful and irritating, especially when it comes in contact with a sore. or a wound. And that's why our gospel and our doctrines are unpleasant to the world. And we should not apologize for that. I think we have, our culture is so stinking effeminate, it sickens me. everything. Oh, let's just go along to get along. Listen, if you're preaching the gospel, if you're telling men you're in sin, you need to be saved. You need to repent of your ways. That's wickedness. Jesus is the answer. Trust him now or you're going to die in your sins and go to hell. Now you think about it, what that little presentation right there is basically what they did in the book of Acts. They went everywhere. Did everybody pat him on the back? Say, oh, you're just the nicest, sweetest Christians. I don't think they were wanting to kill him. I don't think we should apologize for the truth we believe. this month, it sickens me that our culture throughout this world would literally celebrate something God calls an abomination. This shows you how dark and putrefying this world is to celebrate that kind of sin. I mean, think about this. This is how decayed and depraved Adam's sin in the Garden of Eden. I don't know how long it was from the fall and the curse of the earth to the flood. I don't know how many years it was exactly. But I don't think it was too long before everybody on the entire earth was given over to wickedness. that only the thoughts of their heart was only evil continually, and God killed everybody in judgment, justly, in the flood. They'd get off the boat, and it wasn't long before cities became overrun with perversion. It wasn't long after that. They come off the boat, Noah and his sons, be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth. And it wasn't long before you find cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, given over to perversion. And what did God do? He said it was so wicked that He was going to eliminate everybody in Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham kept praying for them. You know, just 40, 30, 10, just 10! And what it came down to was only one, really, lot. And he was a rotten Christian. He was saved because the Bible calls him righteous in the book of 2 Peter. One guy out of Sodom and Gomorrah. God destroyed the whole the whole cities, all the cities. Rain down fire and brimstone. This is decay. It's what happens. It's what sin does. And we're to act as salt. And it's unpleasant to the world. And salt creates thirst. Our life, our deportment, our testimony, When people see us responding to trials, setbacks, sickness, trouble in our lives by trusting the Lord, walking in faith, that ought to make the world say, you know, whatever they got, I need to find out more about it. Be salt, be light. Now, he does give a warning on this. But if the salt have lost its savor, its ability to season, to be an agent of change, wherewith shall it be salted? It is sinceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of men. Now, this could mean a false professor, but it could mean that Christian people have become so ineffective, and instead of them being agents of change in the world, the world is changing them and taking away their saltiness through worldliness. what happens, your testimony becomes worthless. It's good for nothing. I don't want to be that way. Do you? May God help us to be salt and light, to influence a world that is corrupt and decaying and getting worse and is in darkness. And the way to do it is through Christ. It's through the Word of God. It's through godly living. It's through doing right and serving the Lord and not being like the world. And sadly, I fear that churches are being far more influenced by the world than they are influencing the world.