Salt is Good

Introduction to a Difficult Passage and Interpretive Axioms

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, November 23rd, 1986, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Let's turn together to the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, Mark's Gospel, and the ninth chapter.

0:26 Those of you who have been with us for these consecutive expositions will know that we have come this morning to concentrate our attention on the last two verses of the ninth chapter. But I wish to read in your hearing something of the larger context. In verses 33 to 37, we have the record of the incident of the disciples disputing about who would be greatest in the kingdom, our Lord's lessons in humility connected with the presence of a child, the sensitizing of John's conscience after, after that discourse of our Lord, precipitating his confession about forbidding this unnamed disciple from casting out demons. And then our Lord's words, and here I pick up the reading in verse 42. And whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a great millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if your hand cause you to stumble, cut it off.

1:41 It is good for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. For it is good for you to enter into life halt, rather than having your two feet to be cast. Cast into hell.

2:07 And if your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out. It is good for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. For everyone shall be salted with fire. Salt is good.

2:37 But if the salt hath lost its saltness, wherewith will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another. Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer, asking God by the Spirit to open up his word to our understanding. Let us pray.

3:02 Our Father, we thank you for the glorious prospect of that day of which we have sung, when all the mists and the clouds and the darkness will be dissipated. And looking upon the face of our Savior, we shall then know, even as we are known. We acknowledge that we now see, but that we see through a glass darkly. And we confess the native darkness of our hearts, how much we need the ministry of the Spirit, to open to us the meaning of Scripture, and then to apply with close personal application and power the significance of that meaning to our own individual and corporate life. Come then by the Spirit and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. Open thou our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of your law, we plead through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

4:19 Now as I have already indicated, we will be concentrating this morning upon verses 50, 49, and 50 of the ninth chapter of Mark. The words of our Lord, for every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith? Wherewith will you season it?

4:51 Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another. Now as we come to examine these words this morning, two introductory concerns of necessity must be addressed. First of all, I must say a word concerning the universally acknowledged difficulties of interpreting this passage. One commentator has brought into short compass some of the statements of very learned evangelical commentators who, in attempting to interpret this passage, have written as follows. The passage, says a man by the name of Grimm, is exceedingly difficult. Another says it is exceedingly obscure, while another says it is exceedingly vexing. A man by the name of Bloomfield wrote,

5:59 There is perhaps no passage in the New Testament which has so defied all efforts to assign to it any certain interpretation. Bishop Ryle says it is one of those knots which are yet untied in the exposition, of Scripture. A man by the name of Grotius said, It is put to the rack, the ingenuity of many learned men. And then another, with very graphic imagery, says, It is one of those passages in which, because of their extraordinary obscurity, crosses seem to be fixed on which to torture expositors.

6:46 And then one other author says, Surely, if ever there is a passage, surely, if ever there is a passage, that fits the description of Peter, things hard to be understood, it is this passage. And you may well ask, why is it that there is this universal acknowledgement of the difficulties in conjunction with interpreting this passage? Well, the difficulties arise basically from three directions. First of all, there is the difficulty of determining the precise text or the actual words recorded by Mark.

7:24 Some of you may have a Bible in which verse 50 not only says, verse 49 not only says, For everyone shall be salted with fire, but also it adds this statement, And every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. And so in the whole matter of manuscript evidence, it is clear that even the copyist found difficult, and either the phrase, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt, so added to the confusion that some copyist deleted it, or some thinking that this Old Testament reference to the salting of a sacrifice would help illuminate the words of our Lord as recorded by Mark, added it. So a difficulty arises, first of all, from the fact that it is difficult to determine the precise words, the words that are actually written by Mark. And then the second source of difficulty is this. There is the difficulty arising from the brevity, the terseness of the statements.

8:32 As I sought to lay before you back a couple of years ago when we started in the Gospel of Mark, these sayings of our Lord are not verbatim, court-like transcriptions of His messages. What we have, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, in our study of Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost, is often a distillation of perhaps the main heads, or the main thrusts of the words of our Lord. Now that distillation, that summary, or just the main heads, are given to us by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And so this in no way affects our confidence in the plenary, that is full, verbal, that is extending to the very words, inspiration of the Word of God. But this may well be one of those passages as we find in other parts of the Gospel records, which after spoken by our Lord was followed by questions on the part of the disciples. And they may have said, Lord, what did you mean by those words? And He may have spent half an hour, ten minutes, or an hour explaining them, but He has chosen to give us by His own sovereign will and the inspiration of the Spirit, just this very brief, terse, perhaps, heading of this sermon on salt.

9:59 So that's our second difficulty. Then we have a third difficulty, and it's the difficulty of the imagery employed. Terminology is used which was very familiar in that culture. Salt had a markedly different dominant usage and connotation in that context, than it has in our own cultural or culinary context.

10:26 Furthermore, there is a bringing together of imagery that is unique to this passage. The bringing together of the imagery of salt and of fire, and of being salted by fire, it seems to be, on the surface, a rather irrational bringing together of images that do not mix. So we have that three-fold difficulty in approaching the passage. Now the second thing I want to say by way of introduction is this.

11:00 The only safe course to take in handling such unusually difficult passages is a course that respects these three axioms. It is universally acknowledged that this is an unusually difficult passage. Now there is a safe course to take whenever we encounter such a passage. And that course will always, without exception, respect these three axioms or rules of interpretation.

11:34 Number one. Adopt no interpretation which contradicts the general teaching of the Word of God. Adopt no interpretation which contradicts the general teaching of the Word of God. Now some have found the doctrine of purgatory in the words of Jesus, for everyone shall be salted with fire.

11:59 Did not Jesus just say, Gehenna is the place where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched? Ah, but it's not speaking of eternal torment, because everyone who goes there shall be ultimately purified and purified. And purged by the fire of Gehenna and be let out of hell. And therefore we have from the lips of our Lord at least an incipient doctrine of purgatory, a temporary period of punishment resulting in purgation, purification leading to release from suffering.

12:42 Well, you see, to teach a doctrine of purgatory from this text is to contradict, the universal teaching of Scripture embodied in the language of Hebrews 9.27. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this comes judgment. As death leaves you, judgment will find you.

13:06 And as judgment finds you, eternity will hold you. These shall go away into everlasting life. These shall go away into everlasting life. Punishment.

13:21 A second rule or axiom in interpreting a difficult passage is this. Adopt no interpretation which unnaturally strains the words of the text. Adopt no interpretation which unnaturally strains the words of the text. You'll remember that it is with reference particularly to difficult passages that Peter says in 2 Peter 3.18, that the unstable and ignorant rest, and that verb rest literally means to put on a torture rack and to stretch out of shape. And Peter speaks of those who take some of the things written by Paul that are hard to be understood. And it is particularly difficult passages which ignorant and unstable men twist, their own destruction. And I have actually read commentators who in other areas seem to be very evangelical, who twist these words into an unnatural meaning

14:34 and thereby open the door for incipient heresy. So we must never adopt an interpretation which contradicts the general teaching of Scripture. We must adopt no interpretation which unnaturally strains the words of the text. And thirdly, we must adopt a possible interpretation or interpretations with modesty, humility, and tentativeness.

15:06 When you come to a difficult passage over which equally competent, prayerful, spiritually-minded men have differed in the agony of seeking to know the mind of the Spirit, when you do, adopt a possible interpretation, do so with modesty, with humility, and with tentativeness. In other words, God may yet break forth more light which will cause us to understand more fully what is written. And it's that spirit that Bishop Ryle so beautifully exemplifies in the footnote of his commentary on the Gospel of Mark. I quote him, The last verse but one, he means verse 49, appears to baffle all the commentators. I allude, of course, to the words everyone shall be salted with fire. The true meaning of these words and their connection with the context are problems which seem not yet solved. At all events, not one of the many interpretations which have been hitherto proposed is entirely satisfactory.

16:19 We must confess that it is one of those knots which are yet untied in the exposition of Scripture. I offer no opinion and make no comment on any of the above views. He gives four main views of the text. The objections which might be made against every one of them are neither few nor small.

16:41 My own conviction is we must wait for more light and regard the text at present as one of the deep things of God. You see, there are some things in the Word of God concerning which we can say, if the words don't mean this, then we cannot know even our own names. If the words don't mean this, then God has given us no certain light on the most vital issues concerning our soul's salvation. And when we come to such passages, may God give us the grace to be, as dogmatic and as unflinching as the clear Word of God demands, to have the spirit of a Luther, here I stand, so help me God, I can do no other. But now for me to come forward with a possible interpretation of this passage and say I'm ready to spill blood for my interpretation would show at least a horrible imbalance of judgment and at worst, a fallacy, a fallacy, a fallacy, a frightening fanaticism. So I want to keep my own axiom this morning as I have adopted a possible interpretation but have done so, I trust, with modesty, humility, and tentativeness. Well, with those two words of introduction, conditioning,

A Cryptic Affirmation: Everyone Shall Be Salted with Fire (Mark 9:49)

18:10 our approach to the text, let me set forth what I regard at present at least to be a possible and to my own judgment satisfying explanation of the intent of our Lord's words. And I have sought to break down the text under these three heads. Number one, first of all, what I've called a cryptic affirmation, verse 49, then a common observation, verse 50a, and then a constant obligation, verse 50b. First of all, then, a cryptic affirmation, verse 49, for every, everyone shall be salted with fire. Now, why do I call this a cryptic affirmation? Well, the word cryptic means obscure or ambiguous. Now, this affirmation, for everyone shall be salted with fire, is indeed obscure or ambiguous on the surface.

19:19 And it is so because of its strikingness of the verb salted and the noun fire. But if we attempt to put ourselves back in the setting in which they were originally spoken, to use the imagery of some months ago to put ourselves in the time capsule and be shot backwards 2,000 years, and to adopt the mindset and the cultural experience of these disciples, perhaps some of the obscure and the ambiguous will become plain. Now, the verb to salt would be the word commonly used in Palestine, not so much to describe what someone did in picking up a salt shaker and sprinkling it on his peas and carrots and on his potatoes and on everything else in front of him, thereby perhaps running the risk of some serious physical illness by an exception, excessive use of salt. That's just a little aside. We cannot discount all of the medical evidence indicating the relationship between the scourge of hypertension and the excessive sodium in our diets. But that's just a little aside.

20:38 But if you were to use then the word to salt something, back then you would not have thought primarily of the use of salt in the flavoring of food. But you would have thought of the kinds of things that Peter, James, and John and Andrew as fishermen would have immediately thought of. This was back before refrigerators and freezers. In a context and climate in which you couldn't even have a homemade icebox.

21:08 It was in a situation and in a culture in which the main way of preserving meat, particularly fish, was to salt the fish. If you were a fisherman and it sold your goods to someone and they were seeking to, preserve fish for future use after they had gutted it or cleaned it, to use a more acceptable term, and had laid it open or possibly filleted, they would then rub the fish with salt and lay it out before the open sun. Some of you have seen in your National Geographic magazines certain cultures where they salt their meat, they salt their fish, they will salt their seal meat, they will salt their land, their mutton, whatever it is that they are salting. So in the mindset of these disciples to use the verb everyone shall be salted would immediately have the connotation of the preserving influence of salt upon meat. The salt provides an uncongenial context for the growth of bacteria, dries out the meat, preserves and protects it. And as I was thinking of any contemporary illustration, the closest I could come up with is what we would think of when we talk about pickling something.

22:36 We have pickled beets, we have pickled herring, we have pickled pig's feet. And when we pickle something, what we do when we say we pickle it is we put it in a briny solution in order to preserve it. Now we may add some spices to flavor, but basically to pickle something is to preserve it. Now that's the connotation of the word to these disciples.

23:01 So when our Lord says, for everyone shall be salted, to be salted meant to them a method, a means, an instrument of preserving putrefaction would be brought to bear upon men. But now He says, shall be salted with fire. Well, I thought you salted things with salt. But our Lord says, shall be salted with fire.

23:31 Now if we use as a synonym for salted, preserved, purified, putrefaction checked, now you see the cryptic nature begins to be opened up. For everyone shall be preserved. Everyone shall have his putrefaction checked by fire. Now then, what did the term fire mean to those disciples?

24:03 Well, steeped in their Old Testament theology, steeped in the instruction of John the Baptist and of their Lord, fire would have to have them the three dominant connotations that it has in Scripture. Fire, first of all, speaks of the reality of the awesome, threatening, intimidating holiness and majesty of God's being.

24:33 Whenever God comes forth to display His holiness and His majesty, or often when He came forth, He did so in the context of fire to demonstrate that there was an awesomeness, a threateningness, an intimidating nature in God's holiness, and majesty. When He came down upon Sinai, it was amidst fire and thunder and lightning. When He appeared at the burning bush, it was in the midst of a bush that burned and was not consumed. And God is called in Hebrews 12.28 a consuming fire. So steeped in Old Testament thinking, immediately there is the connotation with fire, of this awesome, threatening, intimidating aspect of God's majesty and holiness. But then secondly, fire spoke in the Old Testament as well as in the New of the reality of the terrible, consuming, inescapable nature of God's wrath. All the way through the prophets, God spoke of the fire of His indignation in that great symbol of eternal justice, and judgment.

25:58 God came sending hell out of heaven in the fire and brimstone that fell upon the cities of the plains which Jude says are a type and symbol of the fire of eternal wrath upon the wicked. And then you will remember that John the Baptist had predicted of Messiah that He would come like a winnower and the chaff He would burn up with unquenchable fire. And this is considered Consistent with further New Testament revelation, 2 Thessalonians 1.8, Christ will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the gospel.

26:40 So fire speaks again and again in Scripture of the awesome, threatening, intimidating nature of God's holiness and majesty, the terrible, consuming, inescapable nature of His wrath. But thirdly, it speaks of the reality of the gracious, powerful, purifying influences of God's grace. Fire is the great symbol of the gracious, powerful, purifying influences of God's grace. In one of the great messianic passages, two of them, turn to the Old Testament, Malachi chapter 3,

27:26 Malachi chapter 3, verses 2 and 3, But who can abide the day of His coming?

27:39 The messenger of the covenant will come, but who can abide the day of His coming? Who shall stand when He appears? For He is like, notice, a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap, and He will sit as a refiner and a purifier. He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them as gold and silver, and they shall offer unto the Lord offerings in righteousness, and they shall offer unto the Lord offerings in righteousness, then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord as in the days of old. You see, this is not a judgmental fire, but this is a gracious, purifying fire

28:44 that results in the people of God being able to offer up acceptable sacrifices unto the God of grace. Turn back to Zechariah, and you will see a similar emphasis. Chapter 13, verses 7, to 9, begins in what appears to be a purely judgmental setting. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow, says the Lord of hosts.

29:18 Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn my hand upon the little ones, and it shall come to pass that in all the land, says the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die, but the third shall be left therein, there's mercy in the midst of judgment, there is mercy, and I will bring the third part into the fire, to do what? Not to cut them off in judgment, no, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried, and they shall call on my name, and I will hear them, and I will say, it is my people, the very heart of the covenant, and they shall say, Jehovah is my God. You see the graciousness of this fire? It is fire that is gracious, powerful, and purifying. It is God in His fiery grace, purifying people that they may enter into covenant bonds with Him, that He will be the God who owns them as His own, and they will own Him as their God.

30:32 And then we must not overlook, that last prophet who stands between the two epochs, the winding down of the old, and the ushering in of the new, John the Baptist. And you remember one of the major strands of his emphasis, Matthew 3 and verse 11.

30:50 Matthew 3 and verse 11.

30:55 He says, I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance, but he that comes after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear. He shall baptize, baptize you in the Holy Spirit, and you'll notice in the old ASV, this word in is in italics, there is no preposition N translated in in the original, and it's a vital grammatical point. He does not have two baptisms, one Holy Spirit for His own, another in fire to the ungodly. No, He shall baptize you, the believing remnant, and those who embrace Him for who He is, in the Holy Spirit and fire, showing that the symbolism of fire is in the closest conjunction with His work of baptizing in the Holy Spirit. That is, He shall baptize you in the Spirit, whose influence will be like that of fire, to purify, to cleanse. And therefore, when that promise finds its fulfillment in its first, historical manifestation, what is the physical, visible manifestation of the coming of the Spirit? There is the audible, the sound as of a rushing mighty wind, but then there is what?

32:22 Cloven tongues of fire. Tongues of fire! The Spirit who comes internally and powerfully to fill the temple of their hearts and to constitute them corporately the living temple of God comes as the Spirit of burning, the Spirit of purifying, the Spirit of cleansing. Now then, can we look at this cryptic affirmation of our Lord with a little degree, at least a tentative conviction concerning what He meant.

33:00 He has just warned them that if they, through carelessness, through a narrow-hearted spirit, are the occasion, of causing a little believer, one very weak in faith and knowledge, to stumble, it were better that they undergo a gangland-style murder. And He has told them if their own hands, their own foot, their own eye would cause them to stumble, it were better to excise the offending member and go into life halt, maimed, or one-eyed than to spare the offending, member and sink into hell, whole in body but lost forever. Now at the conclusion of that, He says, for everyone, that is everyone who would escape the horrible judgment of going in a course of willful, deliberate, unmortified sin, everyone who would attain unto life and salvation shall be saved. Shall be salted. Shall be purified. Shall have his putrefaction checked and withheld and purged with fire the gracious, purifying, powerful influences of the grace of God through the gospel.

34:30 And if that is what our Lord was saying, then what He is doing is setting out the certainty of the preservation of the gospel. The preservation of each true disciple by the sanctifying influences of the grace of God. For everyone, that is everyone who heeds my counsel, who takes seriously my warnings and is found in the way of true discipleship, he shall be preserved. He shall be salted with fire.

35:06 There is a certain preservation of every true disciple. And though he must whack off his hands and cut off his feet and pluck out his eyes, he indeed shall be salted with fire. The certainty of the preserving work of God in grace. Well then, there follows and more briefly now, the cryptic affirmation, a common observation.

A Common Observation: Salt is Good, But If It Loses Its Saltness (Mark 9:50a)

35:38 Verse 58. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will you season it? Now, he drops all of the symbolic use of fire. And assuming that the words every sacrifice shall be salted are words that were not originally written by Mark, our Lord drops all use of the symbolism of fire, and now he focuses upon salt.

36:14 And he makes a common observation. This is the gist of what he said. Salt as a commodity is good. Its influence is beneficial as a preservative and as a flavoring agent.

36:31 But it is only good if it retains the quality that makes it good. That's simple. That's what the Lord, is saying. A common observation.

36:45 Now again, we don't grasp this as quickly as they do because the salt most of us use is salt that was manufactured chemically and is in that sense pure sodium chloride. But that isn't the way you got your salt. You didn't go and get a box of Morton's. The salt that would have been used in Palestine was salt that would have been cleaned from evaporated water, that had splashed up on the shores of the Dead Sea, sea water, and the salt that they would have gathered would have been mixed with what we would call today gypsum.

37:26 It wasn't pure salt. And so if the place you kept your salt happened to get too moist and the salt was diluted or washed away, what was left, you see, and was called your pile of salt in your salt cellar, was no longer possessed of the quality of saltiness. That which is the sodium chloride that we call the salt would have been gone. Now, if that's so, what do you do?

37:56 When you want to preserve some fish, do you go out and get some real salt and then put it on that stuff that used to be salt and is now nothing but tasteless gypsum? Well, why do you go through that process? You just take that stuff, throw it out the back door, and it becomes part of the beaten path out to the street. If you want to salt your fish, you don't take salt that no longer is salty and salt it.

38:19 You chuck that out. That's what Jesus said in Matthew 5, 13. Hear the salt of the earth. If the salt has lost its savor, it's good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot.

38:28 You don't even use it in your fields. But it does pack down hard and becomes helpful to give you a good beaten path out your door. So the Lord is simply making a common observation. Now, what then is the emphasis?

38:41 in this part of the text? Well, it appears to me, and again I offer it tentatively, that this is the emphasis. Our Lord has just underscored the certainty of the preserving influence of the Spirit in every single one who will escape the fires of Gehenna. All who have sinned so much that they are not willing to go to heaven inconvenienced.

39:11 They are not willing to go to heaven at the cost of self-denial. They shall know eternal fire where the worm dies not and the fire is never quenched. But every one of my true disciples will be salted, will be preserved with the purifying influence of the Spirit. He has just stated the certainty of the preserving influence of the Spirit.

39:37 Now he follows it up with a statement on the necessity of persevering in grace. And isn't that just like the Bible in many places? Everyone shall be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if it loses its capacity to do what it is good for, it is good for nothing.

40:00 I only say salt is good as long as salt functions as salt, remaining or retaining its quality as salt. So having stated the certainty of preserving grace, our Lord now says no presumption. You may appear to have preserving grace, and you may draw comfort from the knowledge that that grace will continue its purifying, sanctifying work, but if what appeared to be salt becomes savorless gypsum, it's worthless! And it is not the past indications of sanctifying grace that are the certain index of our standing before God. It is the present and continuous supplies of grace that are the certain index that we are His. So while he speaks of the certainty of preserving grace, he follows up in verse 50a with a word on the necessity of persevering in grace. And then he concludes with what I'm calling a constant obligation.

A Constant Obligation: Have Salt in Yourselves and Be at Peace (Mark 9:50b)

41:20 The cryptic affirmation, the common observation, now thirdly, a constant obligation, two imperatives, two present imperatives. The emphasis falls upon these as standing orders in Christ's church. Here they are. Have salt in yourselves, and a coordinating conjunction, joining together now these two imperatives, one under the imagery of salt, have salt in yourselves, and now all the imagery is dropped, and it's straightforward language, the easiest part to interpret, be at peace, one with another.

42:01 So what is the constant obligation? The constant obligation is twofold. Two present imperatives joined by a coordinating conjunction. And the first is the obligation to maintain the vigor of internal grace.

42:17 You see the balance now in the passage? Every one of my own shall certainly be preserved with the grace of the Spirit. Salt is good as long as it retains saltiness. Don't be presumptuous.

42:36 If what appears to be salt is no longer salt, it's good for nothing. What will you then do with it? How will you then flavor it? How will you then season it?

42:46 And now he brings home to their hearts the obligation. In the light of the certainty of preserving grace in all of God's elect, in the light of the frightening possibility of the loss of what appeared to be grace, here is the obligation. Have salt in yourselves. That is, be continually committed to a course of life in which grace is active in your own being.

43:21 You must do all you can to make sure that grace is at work in you really, internally, efficaciously. Now obviously our Lord does not address in this passage the source of that grace or the method of that grace. He'll do that later on. He'll say, without me you can do nothing.

43:45 Your relationship to me is like a vine in a branch. You must abide in me. Draw all of your strength for sanctification from me. Without me you can do nothing.

43:57 In Him I can do all things. The text does not address the whole question of the source of that grace, the method by which that grace is sustained, but it does emphasize one thing, that it is the duty of every single disciple throughout the pilgrimage to be sure, that is, to be determined, that sanctifying, purifying grace is presently, powerfully, and pervasively active in my own soul. I must not be content with what appeared to be grace active in me a week ago. I must not be content to be propped up with what appears to be the influences of grace upon me from others. I am under strict obligation to have salt in myself.

45:07 Do you see it in the text? Be continually having salt in yourself. But you say, I can't in myself. No, that's right, you can't.

45:17 I can only get it from Christ. That's right. But it's still your responsibility to have salt in yourself. If not, then Jesus should never have uttered those words.

45:27 And when Jesus is pressing responsibility, don't you get a pious fraud and try to hide behind it. Don't you find a desire to magnify grace? There's enough in the Bible that puts all the credit for any grace you'll ever have where it belongs, at the feet of a sovereign God and a gracious Savior and an almighty Spirit. But don't you run from the imperatives of Jesus under the guise of being more spiritually minded than the Son of God.

45:58 He's told us who teach in His name to teach you to observe whatever He commanded. He has commanded to have salt in yourself. That's what your Bible says. That's what your Bible means.

46:11 That's the first obligation. The obligation to maintain the vigor of internal grace. But then there's a second. And it's this, the obligation to maintain corporate peace as the primary fruit of that grace.

46:31 You see it? Have salt in yourselves as the primary and present urgent manifestation of that grace. Be at peace one with another. And you see what our Lord was doing?

46:49 He's rounding out this whole incident. It all began with this discussion somewhere between Capernaum and the northern part of Galilee about who's going to be number one. And they're jockeying for position. And the peace of that little group was disturbed by carnal ambition.

47:10 By carnal pushing forward of oneself above another. Trampling over brethren in order to promote ourselves. That's what had happened in their little circle. And so the Lord now turns and says have salt, true, internal, purifying grace operative in yourselves and as the primary fruit of it here and now in this context.

47:35 Let that grace, Peter, James, Andrew, all of you, let that grace operate. Let the power of the salt of grace go to work on the horrible bacteria of self-seeking, insensitivity, grudge-holding and all the other things that would disrupt your peace. Have salt in yourselves. Salt that is burning and consuming that bacteria that is fracturing and ruining your unity.

48:11 That's its immediate application to them. But it's interesting that this word gets repeated three times in the epistles. Not verbatim in one case. You have a participle in the other.

48:24 You have standard verbs. Romans 12.18, 2 Corinthians 13.11 and 1 Thessalonians 5.13.

48:32 Three times in the corpus of New Testament epistles. This word is picked up and forced graciously upon the thinking and the feeling and the perspectives of God's people. Now, I offer that as a tentative exposition of the passage. I've tried to respect my three rules.

Application: Comfort for Trembling Saints

48:56 I've not taught anything contrary to the whole teaching of the Bible. So if what I've said is in this passage isn't there, I haven't taught you error. It's taught elsewhere. I haven't put a strain on the words.

49:08 That's why I took enough time to explain the meaning of words, demonstrate that Scripture is its own interpreter, and I have sought to offer it as a tentative exposition. Now, if that's what the passage teaches, then what does it say to us sitting here this morning as we come to a concluding word or words of application? Well, dear people, certainly it says this to us. As some of us have sat in recent weeks and sought to expose our hearts to the words of Jesus, particularly in verses 42 to 48, we have felt our spirits tremble before those words.

49:53 I have felt my spirit tremble before them. That grotesque, that gruesome imagery. Better that the big millstone the size of a tractor wheel be hung around our necks and we be thrown alive and kicking into the depths of the deepest sea and there sink to the bottom and remain until the barracuda and the sharks pluck our flesh from our bones. Better opposed of than cause one little believer to stumble into sin.

50:29 What horrible words. And if there is a pattern of life, an ambition, a possession, a relationship, a desire, an attitude, anything as near and dear and as much a part of me as hand and foot and eye which keeps me from holiness, far better to go through life inconvenience by cutting off that relationship, looked upon as a bit odd by refusing that diversion which is legitimate for others but always an occasion of sin to me. Far better I must be holy or I'll burn in hell and I must be holy at any cost to myself. I tell you, dear people, those are words to cause trembling if you take them seriously. But oh, how our Lord knows to comfort. It's those who tremble at his word upon whom he looks with favor, does he not, Isaiah 66? To this man will I look, even to him who is a poor and contrite spirit and who trembles at my word.

51:37 Have you trembled at those words? Or have you sat there and said, man, you know, what's been your attitude? Have you trembled at them? Have you said, oh God, I know my heart enough to know when push comes to shove, I fear that I'll spare the hand of that relationship.

51:58 I'll spare the eye of that diversion, of that ambition, of that possession. Lord, I don't know if I have the spiritual fortitude to pluck, to hack, to hew. Dear child of God, listen to the words of Jesus. For everyone, everyone, that is, every true disciple who escapes the fires of Gehenna, based, of course, ultimately on the blood and righteousness of Christ, but in this passage, as one who's found in the way of persevering holiness, take comfort from the words of Jesus.

52:40 Everyone shall be salt with fire. Why is it you tremble before those passages? Because the Holy Spirit has stripped you of your native pride. The Holy Ghost has humbled you and taken you down off your high horse.

52:57 The Holy Ghost has convinced you without holiness no man shall see the Lord. The Holy Ghost has shown you how weak and vulnerable you are. That's why you tremble before those words. Now suck comfort from the words of Jesus.

53:11 Everyone shall be salt with fire. Go to the Lord with that promise and say, Lord, you said every one of your own who are determined to pluck and cut and hack and hew, who are determined so to live that they aren't on occasion of stumbling, you would salt them with the fire of your Spirit. They shall be salted. Lord, I don't have the power to salt myself.

53:38 You salt me. Fill me with your Spirit. Shower your grace upon me. I welcome the Spirit as the Spirit of burning, gracious burning.

53:49 You see, we'll either know gracious burning now in life or horrible burning in eternal death, but the burning we shall know. Go with that promise and plead it. That's my first word of application, a word of comfort and encouragement to God struggling. God, God's doubting, God's trembling saints.

Application: Caution for Presumptuous Professors

54:18 But then I would give a word of caution to some of you who have taken the glorious doctrine of the certain preservation of the saints and you've begun to make that a bed on which you lie in carnal ease. My friend, listen to me. The first steps to apostasy rarely have anything to do with the sins that actually precipitate the final turning away. The first steps to apostasy are usually sins of the heart such as presuming upon grace.

54:55 You know what you need? You need verse 58. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltness, with what will you season it? If through carelessness and trifling with grace there is a removal of whatever measure of grace you may presently have or think you have, what then will you do?

55:20 Read Hebrews 6 and tremble. For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come if they fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves afresh the Son of God. Oh, my presumptuous, careless, professing Christian member of Trinity Church, hear the word of Jesus. Salt is good as long as it's doing the thing which makes it good.

55:55 And whatever deposit of grace you claim to have, if it isn't keeping you actively pursuing a life of holiness, it'll never take you to heaven. And then I would say thirdly, by way of application, dear people of God, do you see why we so treasure and labor to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace in this place? All things being equal, follow me closely now in this last word of application, all things being equal, the most accurate test of how full of the Spirit you are is not found in your prayer closet, in your praise closet, it's not found when we're singing praises together, no, the most accurate test of how full of the Spirit you are, the Spirit who acts as salt, making a climate in the heart in which the bacteria of jealousy and envy and ill will and suspicion and hypersensitivity and insensitivity and grudge bearing, all the things that fracture unity, He is most full of the Spirit in whose heart that bacteria is most powerfully checked and who dwells in peace

Application: Peace as the Test of Spiritual Fullness

57:21 with his brethren. You see, many of you would be super saints if we could ship you to an island with no one but you, the monkeys and the birds. And you say, I could be so holy if it just wasn't for my wife. I mean, if I just had a different wife, I could be so holy, but I could be so holy if I just had a different husband.

57:49 And boy, if we just had different elders, if we just had ones that were all nice and soft spoken, if we just had ones that weren't so intense, or if we, if we just, you see, you're always saying, the problem is out there. Jesus says, no, have salt in your souls and be at peace one with another. No, the measure of your spirituality is not the tingles up and down your spine in the closet. It's not the length of your prayer list.

58:24 It's not anything else by which you may deceive yourself into thinking you're spiritual, but it's to be measured as Paul does in Ephesians 5. Isn't it amazing? Interesting. He says, be filled with the Spirit, and then he moves into a whole relational passage, speaking one to another, psalms in spiritual songs, submitting one to another in the fear of Christ, wives submissive to husbands, husbands loving wives, children relating to their parents, masters to servants, servants to masters.

58:59 That's where the emphasis falls, upon interpersonal relationships of the most intimate kind. That's the Spirit-filled life that the Bible talks about. And dear people of God, if we ever move into any other kind of spirituality, God have mercy on us. If you begin to measure where you are spiritually by how much you feel the nearness of God when five or six hundred other people are singing the praises of God with you, if that's the only standard, you're open to deception.

59:35 Feel all the tingles you want and enjoy them, but let me ask you, what happens when you leave this place and go home for lunch? Are you thoughtful, considerate with your wife, your children? Does your conduct in the home negate all that you felt and thought you were while here? Oh, may God help us to take this sermon in salt and lay it to heart.

Conclusion: The Need for Salt in Ourselves and for the Unconverted

60:01 It begins with its cryptic statement. It moves on to the commonality, on to the common observation, and then comes to its culmination in this two-fold obligation. And may we be determined as a people to have salt in ourselves, to be as full of the Spirit as God can make redeemed sinners, and then to see as the primary outworking of that state of saltiness, living in peace one with another. I may explain to some of you why you have such a difficult time getting along with anyone.

60:44 It's not true of all unconverted people, but it is true of many. You say, I just can't get along with people. My friend, you need salt. You've got in your heart, you see, all of the bacteria of pride and self-will and selfishness and insensitivity, all of that infectious bacteria that ruins relationships.

61:05 You need the salt of grace, and there's only one place to get it, and that's from a crucified but now exalted Savior. Go to Him, my unconverted friend, man, woman, boy or girl, and say, Lord Jesus, do in me what I cannot do for myself. Take away my sins on the basis of your death for sinners upon the cross. Then, Lord Jesus, by your Spirit, come and apply the salt to the burning, purifying influence of the grace of the Spirit to this needy heart of mine.

61:41 Oh, may you go to Him and go to Him now, and may we as God's people continue to go to the only salt cellar where saved sinners are continually replenished, and that's the Lord Jesus Himself. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank You for Your Holy Word, and we do confess in Your presence how much we need the influence of Your Spirit as salt upon all of the bacteria producing remnants of sin yet within us. We confess that we do embrace Your Word, and we do desire to be obedient to this mandate to have salt in ourselves. But, Lord, we do not have it of ourselves, and therefore we come to You and ask You to work it in us. No matter how much it may sting, we know that it's Your own nail-pierced hand that rubs the salt into those areas of our heart where the putrefaction is most evident to Your eye.

62:59 But come, Lord, with the spirit of judgment and of burning, purify us as a refiner that we may offer sacrifices in righteousness. O Lord Jesus, have mercy upon us as we now seek to embrace and obey Your Word. Give us that strength which is not in us by nature. Thank You again for Your Word.

63:25 May the Spirit Himself enable each one of Your children to see its application to His own particular areas of need. And for those that know not Your grace, Lord Jesus, take Your own Word, and make it a Word of life and of saving power. Hear us in this our prayer for Your own name's sake. Amen.