Salt and Light, Part 2

Review: The Christian's Nature and the World's Need

0:05 You turn, please, in your Bibles to the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew chapter 5, as we continue our series of studies in this Sermon of All Sermons recorded concerning the oral ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sermon on the Mount, and in particular verses 13 to 16. When I was with you two Lord's Days ago, we looked at some surface observations in this passage. We want to read that passage again this morning, take several minutes to review the basic thoughts that we laid before you, and then lay hold of some other principles found in this marvelous portion of God's Word. Our Lord Jesus is speaking, and He says to His disciples, Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its savor, or its saltiness, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men.

1:24 Ye are the light of the world. The city that is set on the hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel. But on the day of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

1:41 Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

1:55 Now in this passage, our Lord Jesus likens the effect of His own disciples, those who have come to Him in a way of faith. who have received Him as Savior and as Lord and are now seeking to follow Him. He likens their influence in the world under these two figures, the figure of salt and the figure of light. I confessed that for years I just took these figures in sort of a surface way, as though the Lord sort of pulled them out of a grab bag and used them haphazardly.

2:30 But it's not been until the past several weeks that the beauty and the marvelous balance of the Christian's life in the world has come to my own attention through the use of these two pictures. Two Sundays ago we said that this figure, the world, the Christian being as salt to the earth and light to the world, reveals several basic things about a Christian. The first thing it revealed about the Christian is that he's basically different from the Christian. He's different from other people.

3:02 Just as salt is different from that which it purifies or that which it preserves or that which it flavors, so the Christian is basically different from the rest of the world in which he lives. As the light, the lights in this building, are basically different from the Bible upon which they throw light and the pulpit and the flowers and the pews and your hat and your face, so the Christian is basically, is basically different from the world in which he lives as a luminary, as a light for the sake of Jesus Christ. And the second thing these two figures reveal is that though the Christian is different from the rest of the world, he's always in contact with that world. Salt does no good in a shaker. It's only when it's poured out and touches meat that it flavors it or preserves it or purifies it. Light does no good unless it illuminates something.

4:01 Light does no good unless it illuminates something. And then the third thing we saw about the Christian is that he's doing the world tremendous good, even though the world doesn't know it or appreciate it. Salt is checking the process of putrefaction and decay. So the Christian, by his presence in society, is a check upon the inherent tendencies of corruption.

4:23 He's a light concerning truth and God's standards of ethics, morality, and living. Then these, these two figures reveal something about the world. They're not very flattering. When Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth, he was saying that the world is a fallen, depraved, corrupting world.

4:43 If it weren't corrupted, it wouldn't need salt to check its corruption. If it weren't depraved, it wouldn't need salt to check its depravity. If it were not a flavorless world, it would not need salt to savor it. Secondly, it tells us that the world is spiritually dark and ignorant.

5:00 Jesus said, you are the light of the world. If the world were not in darkness, it would be its own light. But because it's a world enmeshed in spiritual darkness, Jesus said, my disciples are the light of that world. And then the third thing we found about the world is that it desperately needs the influence of true Christianity.

5:22 That meat that's about to putrefy desperately needs the influence of salt. The man stumbling about in darkness, about to fall over a precipice that will lead to his doom desperately needs light. Whether he knows it or wants it, he needs it. And so the world desperately needs more individual Christians.

5:44 This is the only basic solution to the race problem. This is the only basic solution to juvenile delinquency. This is the only basic solution to the moral decay in our generation is more individual Christians, men and women born of the spirit, filled with the spirit, being salt of the earth and being the light of the world. Now we move to consider some of the other thoughts of our Lord Jesus in this passage.

The Danger of Losing Saltiness

6:11 And we're done with our review and we're covering now new material. Let's look closely at verse 13. Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. And having stated it, he then assumes a situation that might arise.

6:27 Notice it. But if the salt has lost its saltiness, wherewith or with what shall it be salted? It is then smorth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Then he says you are the light of the world, but a light that is hid under a bushel does no good.

6:52 Do you see what our Lord is doing in both of these instances? He says, as my followers, you are salt, but he said there's the terrible possibility that you may. Lose your capacity to flavor and preserve. You are the salt of the earth, he said, but should a situation arise by which the salt no longer has capacity to purify, to preserve or to flavor, it loses its saltiness.

7:27 Jesus said from that point on, it is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men. Now, where we can go down and buy, buy a box of Morton salt and have it sit on our shelf for 10 years and be as good at the end of the 10 years as it was when we bought it. It's hard for us to understand this, but remember the Lord was talking in a day when they did not have the mechanical processes which we now have in order to bring salt in its pure form to our table. And the salt was mine from certain areas where it was mingled with dirt and clay and forms of earth.

8:03 Then it would be stored in a certain place. Now, sometimes through the prolonged contact with the impurities which were mingled with the salt, the salt over a period of time would actually lose all of its savor, all of its saltiness. When it did, the man who had his salt pile could not take the salt out and use it for fertilizer. It would just ruin the ground.

8:31 He couldn't take it and use it for flavoring. He couldn't take it. It was good for absolutely nothing. But to find the path that went from his house out to his barn or something else, and to use the salt like we might use ashes, a place that was kind of muddy, we put it there to make it a bit more firm.

8:47 That's exactly the picture Christ uses. Salt, which through its prolonged contact with impurity, has gradually lost all of its capacity to function as salt. To me, this is one of the most horrible possibilities, but it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not.

9:07 It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not.

9:08 It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. It's not.

9:08 Which faces me as a Christian, which faces you as a Christian, which faces us as a church, the terrible possibility that through a gradual process, we can lose our capacity to purify, to preserve, and to flavor the society, the home, the shop, the school, the neighborhood in which we live. And so the Lord Jesus is saying, in essence, and I believe this is the thrust of it, as my people you must avoid all contact with that which is going to absorb your capacity to function as salt.

9:59 Don't do anything that's going to make you lose your capacity to be savory.

Lot: An Old Testament Warning Against Losing Saltiness

10:07 There's a very clear illustration of this in the Old Testament. We don't have time to look into it in detail, but most of you are familiar with the life of Lot. In 2 Peter chapter 2, Lot is called Righteous Lot. He was a saved man.

10:23 And had he been what he ought to have been when he went down into Sodom and Gomorrah, those wicked cities, he should have acted as salt. His life should have been a checking influence upon the wickedness all about him. His life should have whetted the appetites of those Sodomites for his God, Jehovah God of Israel.

10:45 But the sore story is a sadness. Lot, through this long period of association with the wickedness of his city, lost so much of his saltiness that when the time came for God to judge that city, and in answer to Abraham's prayers, God sent the angel to take Saul and his wife out of that city, it says that they were reluctant to leave it because they had gotten so accustomed to the filth and corruption and they'd learned to be sort of at home in it, and they were no longer able to be a preserving influence. And Lot's wife had such an attachment that you remember what happened to her as they were fleeing Sodom, she turned around and looked and God turned her into a pillar of salt.

11:41 You say, was this talking about a Christian being saved? Listen, don't read into it theological problems. This is a practical issue and multitudes of professors, including Christians and dozens of evangelical churches, are witnesses to the fact that it's possible through a long, subtle process to so absorb the climate of the society in which we live, to so adopt the ways of the world, the thought patterns of the world, the attitudes of the world, that we can no longer be a preserving influence in the world. For salt functions as salt only when it's qualitatively different, from that which it seeks to preserve and flavor.

12:27 Dear child of God, I trust you hear the warning of Christ tonight, this morning.

12:34 It's possible for you to come to the place where it's good for your good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden underfoot. Now how's that going to happen? The salt never loses its saltiness overnight. It's a slow, gradual process.

12:52 As it's mingling with the desert, and the clay there in that salt pile, there is a gradual seepage of its saltiness. I don't know the chemical process that would explain it until it no longer functions as salt.

Practical Steps to Preserve Saltiness: What We Must Do

13:09 This can happen to us as God's people. And if you and I are determined by the grace of God that we'll not lose our saltiness, what will we do? May I be very practical today? If I'm determined that by God's grace I'll not lose my saltiness, what am I going to do?

13:26 Well, there's certain things I will do and certain things I won't do. Some of the things I will do, and I'll do it with consistency by the grace of God. I'm going to feed daily upon the word of God. Oh, you say, here you go, back to the ABCs.

13:41 That's right. That's right. For it's not the FGHs and the XYZs that trip us up as Christians, it's when we fail with our ABCs.

13:53 Now I want to ask you a question.

13:58 What's the first step toward beginning to understand, absorb the ways of the world so much that you lose your effectiveness as a Christian? What's the first step? Neglect of the word of God. Every Christian I've ever talked to who's gotten into a state where they've lost their saltiness, when I've been able to talk to them and they've come for counsel and we've tried to trace back where they began to lose their saltiness, almost invariably I pose this question, didn't it start when you began to, cut corners on your time in the word of God?

14:35 And again and again the answer comes back, yes. When I was too busy to read the word of God. For it's only as you and I feed upon the word of God that the Holy Spirit is able to expose those impurities which we've allowed into our lives. It's only then that He's able to weed out of our lives those wrong influences that will sap us of our saltiness.

15:01 That's what Jesus said. That's what Jesus meant when He said, Father, purify them or sanctify them through the word. Thy word is truth. Jesus said in John 15, they are clean through the word which I've spoken unto them.

15:16 I would remind you of something that I've said a number of times in different ways, that when you neglect the daily reading of the word of God, you are denying yourself the basic instrument which the Holy Spirit is going to use to keep you salty. Jesus prays, Father, keep them salty through the word. And when you're too busy for the word, then you're going to begin to absorb those impurities that are going to make you lose your saltiness. See?

15:56 The second thing that we must do if we would preserve our saltiness and not come into that terrible state where we're good for nothing as far as salt, but to be cast out and trodden underfoot of men, you and I, must spend time in the secret place with God. For the things that would rob me of my saltiness, those what we call little things that seem so insignificant in the bustle of life and in the pressure of responsibility, somehow when I get along with God and get on my knees, the little things no longer look little. And the Holy Spirit has an opportunity to put His finger upon those impurities of my life that are going to make me lose my saltiness. And the Holy Spirit has an opportunity to put His finger upon those impurities of my life that are going to make me lose my saltiness.

16:40 And the Holy Spirit has an opportunity to put His finger upon those impurities of my life that are going to make me lose my saltiness. That's why you've got to have some time. When you get along with God, not once a month when a big problem comes and you run to God in whimper and ask God to help you in your problem. No, no.

16:54 You've come to expose yourself to the blazing light of His holy countenance and to pray with the psalmist as he prayed in Psalm 139, search me, O God, know my heart, see if there be any, know my heart, see if there be any, know my heart, see if there be any, influenced, it's going to make me lose my saltiness and leave me in the way everlasting.

17:22 If you would preserve your saltiness, there must be the feeding upon the Word. There must be that time in the secret place. There must be obedience to the command of God. God forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is.

17:40 There must be that entering into the blessed influences of the communion of God's people. For it's as the salt is in contact with other pure salt that it maintains its purity. When that salt is too long in contact with those other impurities of mud and of earth and of clay, that it loses its capacity to be salt. And you and I are out in the midst of the mud and the clay at work and at the shop, at school and wherever we are.

18:13 This is why... This is why we need the assembling together with God's people that we might preserve our saltiness.

18:20 Thank God for the increase of attendance Sunday evenings. But some of you are members of this church. Some of you providentially hindered from being here Sunday night and Wednesday night. Others of you, you're not providentially hindered.

18:36 You're just hindered by your own indifference. When you joined this fellowship, you said, according to our Constitution, that you would endeavor to support the work of this church in every way possible. Thank you. By your attendance, your interest, your prayers, and your giving.

18:51 Have you gone back on that vow? No one forced you to join the church. You did of your own volition. And you said in every way possible.

19:03 Some of you have lost your saltiness. Gotten too busy for Sunday night. Life's too comfortable Wednesday night, sitting home. You're going to lose your saltiness, dear one.

19:19 Jesus said, if the salt has lost its savor, good for nothing. Some of you have perhaps reached that place, where as far as being an instrument in God's hands, to preserve, to purify, and to flavor those lives that you touch, you're good for nothing. Because you've lost your saltiness by failure to be in contact with others of God's people. Or perhaps there's been the toleration of secret sin.

19:52 If you and I would maintain our saltiness, we must not only feed upon the word, meet God in the secret place, assemble with his people, but we must cultivate a sensitivity to sin. We must allow no secret impurity of thought or mind or motive. No bitterness, no unforgiveness, no sulking, no self-pity. Wherever we're aware of this, we should cry to God that he deal with it brutally and mercilessly, and cut it from our hearts.

20:25 Lest we allow a clay pile in our hearts, to sap away our saltiness.

Practical Steps to Preserve Saltiness: What We Must Refuse to Do

20:33 Jesus said, Ye are the salt of the world, salt of the earth, the terrible possibility of losing our saltiness. If we would not lose it, then we must do these things. If we would not lose our saltiness, there are certain things that we must refuse to do. We must avoid the defiling influences, which press in upon us from every side.

21:00 Listen carefully now.

21:03 If you're accustomed to sit down any evening of the week, or some evenings a week, and just as a pastime to lean back in your easy chair and flip your TV on and watch anything that comes and show no discrimination, you've lost your saltiness.

21:20 Indiscriminate use of the television can be one of the quickest ways to lead to a life that's lost its saving.

21:31 Now, somebody will go out and say, the preacher said, if you've got a television, you're not a Christian. Didn't say that. The preacher didn't. Didn't say that.

21:40 What the preacher said is that indiscriminate use of the TV, watching anything that comes as a pastime, throwing your mind into neutral, you're just putting your mind like a piece of supple clay in the hands of the devil and saying, shape it according to your will. You let your children indiscriminately watch the programs, the brutality, the bloodshed, all of the hardness that it's developing in us, our present generation. They're able to look upon somebody getting clogged with a blackjack and it doesn't shock them anymore.

22:17 It ought to be that when we see brutality, we still have the capacity to be shocked and horrified.

22:25 The TV is creating a generation of fellows and girls who are hardened to brutality.

22:34 As a child of God, your own son or daughter can lose his or her saltiness because of this. We must avoid the defilement, the defiling influences of the TV, of the reading matter, of what we allow to come into our home. I want to be practical this morning because these are the things that disturb and ruin our effectiveness. We must refuse to be absorbed into a materialistic philosophy that's gripped our nation, the craving after things, things and more things.

23:09 If I would maintain my saltiness, then I must do certain things and refuse others or come to that terrible state where I'm good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men.

23:26 Do you know what one of my constant prayers is? I don't pray it every day or every week, but periodically.

23:33 I pray, oh God, if ever I get to that place through the subtlety of my own flesh or the wiles of the devil, where I cease to be salt, don't let me cumber the ground. Take me home. Take me home. If I've got to be cut off in the midst of my years as a young man, Lord, don't let me become savorless salt,

24:00 just cumbering the ground, just occupying the place in a pulpit and in a home, but no capacity to preserve, to purify, to flavor. Would you dare to pray a prayer like that?

24:17 Some of you just cumbering the ground, lost all your capacity to bless, because through prolonged contact with impurity, you've lost your salt. Through long neglect of the word and the secret place and the assembly with God's people and by refusal to deal with sin and by throwing yourself open to the refiling influence of the world, its music, its thought patterns, its habits, your life has lost all of its saltiness.

The Balancing Truth: Being Light and Not Hiding It

24:52 Now, let's move hurriedly to the second figure, shall we? DR. ELIUS CURLAND. And here we see the marvelous contrast of our Lord, and I'm thrilled as I see this, as I've mentioned earlier, never saw the relationship before.

25:05 Notice the contrast now in verse 14. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Here's the emphasis, the word hid.

25:16 Now notice. 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. So let your light shine before men, or literally in the face of men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Here on the one hand, with the figure of salt, Jesus said it's possible for the Christian, by becoming so absorbed into the climate and atmosphere of the world about him, to lose all his saltiness.

25:54 So he says, you must remain distinct from that world in which you live, in your attitudes, your patterns of thought, in all of your life. Don't become absorbed into that world. You must be separate from it. For salt does no good unless it's different from that which it would flavor.

26:12 Now lest we move to an extreme of saying, all right, then let's run clear from the world. Since we don't want to be defiled, let's not touch it. Jesus brings the balancing illustration and says, ye are the light of the world. A city on a hill, it can't be hid.

26:27 When you light a candle, what do you do? Jesus said, you don't put it under a bushel basket, but you hold it up so that all can see it. So the whole emphasis here is that light does not do any good unless it's seen, unless it can be observed, unless it is out where it can shed its beams upon others. So here's the balancing truth.

26:50 I must remain by the grace of God but undefiled by the world in which I live. Separate from it, but I must remain in contact with it in order to give light. I must not put myself under the bushel of mere Christian associations so afraid of the world that I'll be defiled, that I never get out of my bushel of Christian fellowship out into the house of unsaved associations where I can shed light. See the balancing truth here?

Motive Matters: Glorifying God, Not Self

27:22 Now notice in somewhat of detail what Jesus Christ says. He says, Let your light so shine literally before the face of men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Now immediately I know some have a problem. They say, wait a minute, Pastor.

27:43 Doesn't Jesus say somewhere in the Bible that we're not to do our works to be seen of men? That's right. It's the next chapter. Notice what he says in chapter 6 of Matthew.

27:53 Take heed that you do not your arms before men. All right, we've got a contradiction. He says in one thing, let your light shine before men. Now he says, don't let it shine before men.

28:06 What's he mean? Now let's read on. Notice chapter 6, verse 1. Take heed that you do not your arms before men to be seen of them, otherwise you have no reward of your Father who is in heaven.

28:17 Now notice verse 2. Therefore when thou doest thine arms, do not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have no reward. Therefore when thou doest thine arms, that they may have glory of men. Now get the phrase.

28:32 That they may have glory of men. Jesus says in Matthew 5 that they may glorify your love. Father. See the difference?

28:43 It's the difference of motive. I can remember in high school after God saved me and a few other fellows and girls, we began to carry our Bibles. We had big Thompson chain reference Bibles. We wanted to make sure if anyone was short-sighted they wouldn't miss them.

28:56 They were big like big pulpit Bibles. And we carried those things under our arms down to the cafeteria wherever we went, into the study halls and marvelous opportunity. Many times I'd dump my lunch down and spend the rest of the time with a group of four or five, six kids about me telling them about the Lord and what He'd done for me and turning the cafeteria into a pulpit. We had wonderful times.

29:15 Marvelous times. If the kids can gather around the tables and tell dirty jokes, why couldn't we gather around and tell them about Jesus?

29:23 Hmm?

29:24 Any rule against that? So we had a wonderful time. Then the principal called us down one day. Assistant principal.

29:31 And he was a cynic.

29:35 A kind of a fellow who couldn't look you straight in the eye. He was awfully shifty-eyed.

29:40 And he kind of scratched his face and says, Well, fellas, it seems to me I've read in the Bible about you're not to do things to be seen of man and here you carry your Bibles around talking about your religion. Jesus taught our religions to be a private thing.

29:56 See? He even quoted Scripture to prove it. Now, what was wrong? He failed to see exactly what Jesus was talking about here.

30:06 If we were merely carrying our Bibles that men might glorify us. But that's the thing that doesn't happen. Any high school today, you carry a Bible and let people know you're a Christian. They're not going to glorify you.

30:17 They're going to think you're crazy. But in our Lord's day, the position of a Pharisee was such that he was admired as a great religious leader. And Jesus said, these Pharisees, they go about and they make sure that everyone's watching them and then they take out their roll of bills and they place it very meticulously and carefully with all the action of an actor and drop it in the plate. Then they walk away piously as though they're doing it as unto God.

30:41 And Jesus said, down and meet. The only reason they did it was that men might see them and say, boy, aren't those Pharisees wonderful people? Jesus said, when they go out into the marketplaces, they have somebody blow a trumpet and they would stand right in the marketplaces and they'd pray and they'd look up to heaven and sound so pious and spiritual. Jesus said, down in their heart they had only one motive to get glory unto themselves.

31:06 They do it, He said, to receive glory from men. Ah, but now what's the desire of a real Christian? Jesus said, you let your light shine before men. You let them know that you're a Christian.

31:20 Do the things that a Christian does. Let your light shine not in the accents of men, but in the very presence before the face of men. And He said, what's your motive? That as they see the change in your life and the difference in your life, they'll not glorify you.

31:37 But they'll acknowledge that the God in heaven who's your Father has made this change in your life. See? Beloved, if you and I are saved, God's got some light in us that deserves to be radiating to others. And so don't let anyone come to you and say, oh look, if you followed the teaching of Jesus, you wouldn't be talking about Him out at work.

31:59 You'd let your religion be a quiet thing. No, no, Jesus said, let your light shine before men, in the presence of men. The difference lies not in the activity, but in the motive. Daniel's a wonderful illustration of this.

32:13 Here Daniel went down into that heathen society in Babylon, filled with its sensuous practices and with its wickedness. And there Daniel lived for the Lord Jesus. And every day he went to his place of prayer as that window opened to Jerusalem, and there he knelt and he prayed. What did he do it for?

32:33 He did it because he loved God and wanted men to know that he belonged to Jehovah, God of Israel. And so the decree went out, look, anybody who does this is going to die. It doesn't bother Daniel. He goes right back and kneels by the open window and lifts his heart up to God.

Practical Application: Don't Isolate from Unsaved People

32:50 He knew that people could see him, that he didn't care. He was willing to let his light shine before men. See? Some of you may be bothered this way.

32:58 You say, well, if I bow and thank God for my food at my place of work, people will think I'm trying to show off. No, let your light shine before men. Show them that you've got, at least the gratitude that a dog has when he barks if his master drops him a piece of bread. You're going to have grace enough to bow your head and thank the Lord for your food.

33:17 Even when you know people are looking. Why are you doing it? Not that they'll think you're something wonderful, but that they'll see that the Father in Heaven is so worked in your heart that you're not ashamed to let Him know and others know that you're grateful for His provision. Never be embarrassed to bow your head to pray at a lunch counter, in a restaurant, at a stand.

33:38 Never be embarrassed Now, you don't need to go to the extreme that a certain preacher that I heard about, he was with a group of men who gathered at a certain place for a luncheon. They were all professing Christians and most of them did what I call the face-wiping prayer. They just go, that's it, see? They want to get over it real quick.

33:55 They don't want anybody to know that they're praying. So they just kind of go like this, see? So they wanted to have a face-wiping prayer and he saw it and he said, these fellows need to learn a few things. So he got right out on his knees right there in the restaurant.

34:06 He began to pray out loud. Oh, Lord, you bless this food. Well, we don't need to go to that extreme, but the principle's there. The principle's there.

34:17 The principle's there.

34:21 When the businessman takes his associates out for a lunch, they're not ashamed to sit there and sip their cocktails and tell their dirty jokes and roar with laughter.

34:31 They're not ashamed to talk business.

34:34 Why should we be ashamed to bow in prayer and thank God for our food and talk about the Savior? Let your light shine where men are before you. Before the face of men. That's what Jesus is talking about.

34:47 As salt, we must never be so absorbed into the society of lost men that we lose our saltiness. But as lights, we must never remain aloof from men so that we fail to illuminate them. We are to be lights in the world. May I apply this in several very practical ways in closing this morning?

35:12 As a Christian, don't, don't withdraw into isolation from unsaved people.

35:19 Some of us, in our desire to heed the first warning, don't lose your saltiness. We have so withdrawn from the company of unsaved people that we've put our life under the bushel of Christian fellowship. And all our associations and all our contacts and all our social life is bushelled in by Christian associations.

35:45 We'd never think, of calling up the unsaved neighbor that we know goes out to bowling once a week and say, Lord, maybe through that bowling ball I can reach him, offer to take him bowling.

35:57 Or maybe that friend at work, not a Christian, but you know that he's got an interest in stamps and you do invite him over for supper with a view to talking about stamps for the evening. And the first evening, that may be all you're going to talk about. But your home, if it's a Christian home, is a light. Let him come into a home that's free from the stench of tobacco.

36:17 And free from the polluting influence of so much of our popular literature that's just dressed up pornography. Let him come into a home where there's real love between a husband and wife. And where a family gathers around a table and thanks God for the food and has its family devotions. You may never say a word to him about the Lord in a direct witness, but let the light of your Christian home shine upon that poor man in darkness.

36:44 Invite him into your home. Have him over for supper. You're not going to go headlong into the world because you had an unsaved man and his family for supper. You're just being a light in the world.

Christ's Example: Engaging Sinners with Compassion

36:58 Don't isolate yourself from unsaved people. They need the light of our lives, beloved. And unless we get next to them, we're not going to radiate. And our Lord is the perfect example of this.

37:11 And the Bible says if we abide in Him, we ought to walk as He walked. Remember what our Lord did? He used the normal social contacts. He stopped at a well one time for a drink of water and a woman came for water and so He began to talk about water.

37:27 He knew what she was. He knew what kind of woman she was. He knew what she was like. Later on, He began to tell her, yeah, you don't have a husband.

37:34 That's right. He whom you're living with now is not your husband. But the Lord didn't run from her simply because she was an immoral woman. Most of us would have.

37:43 Now, if you're so weak that talking with her is going to make you fall with her, you better run. That's what Joseph did. He didn't try to witness to Potiphar's wife. When she made her intentions known and grabbed hold of him, he took off and that's what you better do.

37:58 If you have any doubts about your ability to stand in Christ, then don't you associate. But if you're walking with Him in the power of His Spirit and your heart is filled with compassion for that sinner, you're not going to be defiled because you talk to a fallen woman, a fallen man. I know as Christians, it's hard. If we get with a man who takes the Lord's name in vain, every other breath who's sour and churlish, something is breathed within us.

38:25 But dear ones, unless we get close enough to gain His confidence, we're never going to let our light shine before Him. God has given some wonderful opportunities of witness here in the home where Mr. Blair is staying up there at the Hilltop Home in West Caldwell. There's a man there who's very open to spiritual counsel and witness.

38:45 And I don't delight to stand there sometimes and hear him talk for 15 and 20 minutes and pour out the spirit of bitterness in his heart. I feel unclean when I come away. Bitterness to his wife and bitterness to the people there and bitterness, bitterness, bitterness. I'd like to just run away from it.

39:02 But oh dear ones, I cannot be light to that man unless I let him pour out his bitterness and show him an interest and then begin to preach Christ to him. Sure, you're disgusted by that fact that that neighbor that you'll have over is going to stink up your house for the next week with his stogies. Let him stink it up! If it means you're going to have an opportunity to bear witness,

39:29 the smell of smoke in your home is not going to defile it. For Jesus said, not that which enters in from without can defile, but that which comes from within. See?

39:40 Oh, how we need to learn this lesson.

39:45 Not absorbed into the world so we lose our saltiness, but not aloof from that world so we can do it no good. Use social contacts. Jesus is the perfect example. The woman at the well.

39:57 Then when he went into the home of Matthew, Matthew got saved in Matthew 9. We read about it. And then Jesus went to his house for a banquet. And when the Pharisees and publicans saw it, the Pharisees and the scribes, they said, look at that.

40:11 Came to the disciples and said, why is your master always hobnobbing with the riffraff, the publicans, those crooked men who sold out to Rome and who cheat us, publicans and sinners. What's he always hobnobbing with that crowd for?

40:26 Well, you know the answer. He said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

40:34 The Lord Jesus didn't have a home, so he had to go to other people's homes. But I'm sure if he had one, that home would have been open all the time, not just to the disciples, but to sinners. Anybody who'd come, that they might see the light of the world in that home. Dear ones, our homes ought to be open, not just to the saints.

40:55 Sure, it's much more convenient to have our home open to the saints. We have common interests and common joys and common standards. But we ought to open our homes to sinners and let them see the light of a Christian home. Let them see the light of a life transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.

Overcoming Selfishness in Fellowship and Reaching Out

41:14 If the Lord Jesus had a home, I know that home would have been open to anybody who would come,

41:20 that they might behold the light of the world.

41:25 Some of you ought to take your Saturday that you've planned to go off with the family and spend a nice day at the lake or the beach or the shore. You ought to go into New York with that home. You ought to go to that neighbor and go to a ball game with him. You don't like ball, but he does, so go with him anyway that you might be able to get close enough to tell him about Jesus.

41:43 Beloved, we can be selfish about Christian fellowship. We can be selfish. We can be selfish. And for the sheer joy of being with Christians, we put our right under a bushel and we don't get close enough to sinners to do them good.

42:00 Now, don't take my second point without my first. You be with God's saints Sunday morning, Sunday night, and we'll see you next time. We'll see you Wednesday night and you'll keep your saltiness if you're in the Word of God and with His people. Then as you keep your saltiness, you go out as a light to get within what I like to call radiating distance to the world.

42:18 Some of us, we're just out of radiating distance. We're so far removed from these practical contacts that there's very little light falling upon the hearts of those that we touch. So I lay before you these words of our Lord Jesus, so wonderful in their balance, aren't they? Your salt don't be polluted by intimate absorption of the world's standards.

42:44 You must be different from that world, separate from it.

42:49 But then Jesus said, don't get so far removed from it that you make a bushel, that you're the light of the world. Let your light shine before the very face of men, that seeing your good works, they may glorify your Father, that they may ask the reason of the hope that is in you. May I let you in on a little secret? Maybe it's not a secret.

43:12 You have no idea the tremendous impact an evening in a thoroughly Christian home can make upon the heart and life of an unsaved person.

43:27 Dear ones, the world is filled with homes that know nothing but wrangling and haggling from morning till night. No discipline, no control, no standards. And for a man and woman, a man and woman, and their children come into a home where Christ is head in reality, just the impress of that home can jar them to the foundations to say, what is it that makes everything different?

43:58 You don't believe it, you just begin to pray about some of those neighbors that may be off to have over. Some of those real dark, black, dyed-in-the-wool sinners that you work with.

44:12 If you're in touch with the Lord, you won't get defiled, by getting close enough to be a light. Who knows, seeing Christ in you may be the first step to drawing them to a personal experience of His saving grace. Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt hath lost its saltiness, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot of men.

44:42 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 they set it upon a stand that it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Even so let your light so shine in the face of men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

45:08 Wouldn't it be wonderful if God would make us a church of people who were salt, not defiled by unwholesome absorption into the world, separate from it, but at the same time lights in vital contact with sinners who need our witness. May God bring it to pass in your heart and life and in mine for His glory. Shall we pray. O Father, how we praise Thee for the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the marvelous balance of His truth.

45:47 We pray for grace to receive into our hearts these words of exhortation and instruction. Make of us salt that is indeed salty. Lord, don't let any of us come to that place where we're good for nothing but to be cast out. O God, don't let us come to that place.

46:14 And then wherein we have failed by putting our light under the bushel of Christian fellowship and Christian associations, and have failed to shine before the face of unsaved men. O God, speak to us and help us to take those practical steps that will lead to our becoming lights to a darkened world. For Thy dear name's sake we ask. Amen.