Our Lord Jesus used many different comparisons for
us to understand what it means to be
a Christian.
The Christian life is so rich and so
full and so wonderful that the Lord compares
us to sheep and to branches in a
vine, and through the Apostle Paul he compares
us to stones and temples.
We're even compared to a bride.
But there are two comparisons that our Lord
uses in that famous section called the Sermon
on the Mount that I would like to
focus our attention on for this message.
Matthew chapter 5, reading verses 13 through 16.
Now, let me explain why we are looking
at these verses.
All of us are concerned about the future
of our nation and of the church, of
individual people to whom we're witnessing.
Sometimes we find it difficult to get a
handle for all of this.
I minister in the city of Chicago.
We are surrounded by some four million people,
and if you go out to the outskirts
you have twice that many.
And sometimes I say to myself, where in
the world do I get a handle to
do anything?
We have crime.
We have vice.
Every city does.
We have all sorts of problems on the
streets and off the streets.
And here is one pastor in one church
with a marvelous group of people, and I'm
saying to myself, what is the handle?
What is the thing we get a hold
of to be able to make some changes
and bring about some of the righteousness that's
needed in Chicago and Cook County and Illinois
and across the country and around the world?
I think our Lord has the answer to
this in Matthew 5, beginning at verse 13.
He speaks to us as believers over the
shoulders of his disciples, and he says, "...ye
are the salt of the earth, but if
the salt have lost its favor, with what
shall it be salted?
It is therefore 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
should not be hid.
Neither do men light a lamp and put
it under a bushel, but on a lampstand,
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 who is in heaven."
And now, Father, though this word was spoken
many years ago, it still speaks to us
if we have ears to hear.
And so our prayer just now is that
the Holy Spirit of God will illumine the
pages of the Word and will speak to
our hearts and instruct us, and then, Father,
enable us to practice it.
This we ask through Jesus Christ.
Amen.
To you and me today, salt and light
are not much of a problem, but they
were tremendously important commodities back in our Lord's
day.
We walk into a darkened room and we
flick a switch and on come the lights.
There was a tremendous power shortage a couple
of years ago.
I guess it still is here, but we're
not conscious of it.
A few years back, the East Coast went
into a complete blackout, and at that point,
people began to realize how important light really
is.
You never appreciate light until you lose it.
Salt is not much of a problem for
us.
We can go down to the store and
pick up containers of salt.
Back in our Lord's day, salt was a
very important commodity.
In fact, our word salary comes from the
Latin word which means salt money.
We've used the phrase, ah, she's not worth
her salt.
That comes from an old idea and the
old practice of years ago when salt was
a part of the salary.
In fact, the word salt and salary come
from the same basic word.
Salt was very important in our Lord's day.
Light was very important.
They had those little lamps with the oil
and the wicks, and light was a very
important commodity.
Our Lord used these two symbols of the
believer, and in using these two symbols, the
Lord is giving to me and to you
some very valuable insights into what it means
to be a Christian.
Now, I think from these verses we can
find four valuable insights that help me understand
what it means to be a Christian and
how I can do something about the world
in which I'm living.
Insight number one, our Lord gives us an
insight into our salvation.
Now, once again, salvation in the Bible is
compared to many different things.
It's compared to the finding of a lost
sheep.
It's compared to the finding of a lost
coin.
It's compared to birth.
It's compared to a runaway son coming back
home again.
It's compared to resurrection from the dead.
It's compared to the cleansing of a leopard.
It's compared to the washing of a body.
But in this particular instance, the Lord Jesus
is giving us two remarkable pictures of what
happened when you were saved.
Now, just take a good look at them.
When you were saved, clay became salt, and
when you were saved, darkness became light.
Ye are the salt of the earth, ye
are the light of the world.
Now, before I became a Christian, I was
just simply clay, and physically speaking, I'm still
clay.
When God made man, he just reached down
and took the dust of the earth, and
he made the first man.
I keep telling my congregation at the Moody
Church that the women are made out of
much better material than are the men, because
the women were made from the man.
We're made of dust.
We're made of clay.
Now, when I received Jesus Christ as my
Savior, a miracle of the chemistry of God's
grace took place, and a brand new ingredient
was added.
God took the clay, and God said, I'm
going to put into that clay my own
divine nature.
And when God's divine nature, through the working
of the Holy Spirit, moved into me, clay
became salt.
Now, that's a miracle.
It means that Christians are different from other
people.
In some respects, we are better than other
people because we have a better life, and
we have a better love, and we have
a better future.
We don't compare ourselves with lost people in
terms of IQ.
There are many unsaved people who are much
more intelligent than some of us who are
Christians.
We don't compare ourselves with unsaved people on
the basis of economy or good looks.
God doesn't always choose, you know, the wise.
He sometimes chooses the foolish, and God doesn't
go by the outward appearance.
God goes by the heart.
But when you and I compare ourselves in
the light of God's Word with the unsaved
person, honestly, we can say this.
We are different.
We are different because a whole new ingredient
has been added to our lives, and clay
has become salt.
Now, this is why the world doesn't understand
us.
This is why when we speak, the world
can't hear us.
This is why when we sing, they don't
know what we're singing about.
This is why when we make decisions, they
think we're crazy.
You read straight through your Bible, and you'll
find Abraham was different because Abraham was salt,
and David was different, and Paul was different,
and you and I ought to be different
because a new ingredient has been added.
Clay has become salt.
Secondly, darkness has become light.
I used to tell unsaved people, you are
in the dark, but Paul makes it much
more vivid than that.
Over in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 8,
Paul says this, for ye were sometimes darkness.
Paul doesn't say, I was in the dark.
He says, I was darkness.
Just as the Christian is the light of
the world, so the unsaved person is the
darkness of the world.
That's why when you find sin being pictured
in the Bible, it's pictured by darkness.
And this is the condemnation, said Jesus, that
light has come into the world, and men
love darkness rather than light because their deeds
are evil.
Satan is called the prince of darkness.
Death, hell are identified with darkness.
Now, my friend, if you have been born
again, if you have trusted Jesus Christ as
your Savior, this new ingredient has been added
to your life, and clay has become salt,
and this new change has come into your
life, and darkness has become light.
Therefore, you and I have a tremendous privilege
and an awesome responsibility because we live in
a world that is different from us.
Now, this leads us to our second insight.
By comparing us to salt and to light,
Jesus gives us insight into our salvation.
Clay has become salt, darkness has become light,
and secondly, he gives us insight into the
world in which we are living.
If God has made me into salt, then
the world must be decaying, and if God
has made me into light, then the world
must be full of darkness.
God does not waste his grace.
God does not waste his miracles, and when
God saved you and me, he saved us
to live in a world that needs us.
Now, the believer's relationship to the world is
a difficult thing.
I just wish it were as easy as
some of the chapters in the books make
it.
Over in the bookstore just a few moments
ago, I was having the privilege of autographing
some books, and here came up one of
the ladies who had been a member of
my first church.
First church I pastored, and I said, my,
you look wonderful, and she did, and she
still does.
She said, I'm 85 years old.
I said, I just can't believe that.
She said, how are you?
I said, I'm a lot dumber than I
was when I was your pastor.
I thought she'd say you were pretty dumb
then, but she was very kind.
I said, you know, back in those days,
I knew so much, but the longer I
study God's word and the longer I live,
the more I see how difficult some of
these things are.
I used to have a lot of rules
and regulations that made it very easy for
me to be a good Christian, and then
as I began to grow and God began
to deal with me, I began to realize
that this business of being salt and light
is a difficult thing in a difficult world
because salt and light are no good unless
there's contact.
See, my rules and regulations kept my salt
in the salt shaker and kept my light
under a bushel, and I wasn't where I
was needed, but if I went where I
was needed, I was afraid something might happen
to me because I live in a difficult
world.
Now, by using these two symbols, Jesus is
telling me something about the world I'm living
in and the world you're living in.
He says, first of all, the world we
live in is a decaying world.
You see, salt is used, as you know,
among other things, for the prevention and the
restraint of decay.
Now, if you want to know what a
person's theology is, ask him what he thinks
of the world.
If he says, oh, the world is getting
better and better, just every day in every
way the world is getting better and better
until one of these days it's going to
be so wonderful you know something about his
theology.
If he says to you, oh, this world
is just getting worse and worse, it's decayed,
you know something about his theology.
Now, I'm not talking about the world God
made.
The heavens still declare the glory of God.
When there's no smog in Chicago and you
can look up and see the stars, they
still declare the glory of God.
You can look down and see your feet,
and the firmament still shows forth his handiwork.
Even the snow can be beautiful when it's
not on the streets.
I'm not talking about the world God made.
I'm talking about the civilization men have made,
and Jesus is comparing this civilization to a
rotting corpse.
Now, he doesn't do it only in Matthew
chapter 5.
Over in Luke chapter 17, our Lord makes
an interesting observation when his disciples ask him
a question.
He has just been talking about his coming
as it shall be as it was in
the days of Noah, Luke 17, 26, as
it was in the days of Lot, Luke
17, 28, verse 37, and they answered and
said unto him, Where, Lord?
And he said unto them, Wherever the body
is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
He says this civilization is just becoming a
decaying corpse, and when the end of the
age is reached, those carrion-eating birds are
going to be hovering around just waiting to
swoop down upon man's civilization.
John says the same thing over in the
book of Revelation when that final battle is
going to be fought.
He says, Come and eat the flesh of
kings, and the flesh of captains, and the
flesh of mighty men.
God looks upon this world as a decaying
world.
Now, Peter had the same idea.
Over in 2 Peter 1, verse 19, he
says this, We have also a more sure
word of prophecy, unto which ye do well
that ye take heed, as unto a light
that shineth in a dark place.
Now, the word that's translated dark here is
not the ordinary Greek word for dark.
It's the word that means murky.
Squalid.
It's the picture of a dry area that's
decaying.
And so Peter tells us, and Jesus tells
us, that this great civilization, with its neon
signs and its satellites, its great institutions, is
a decaying, rotting corpse.
Someone says, Pastor, you are very pessimistic.
No, I'm realistic.
There was a time in my ministry when
I was very idealistic.
Now, a realist is not someone who's lost
his vision.
A realist is someone who has sharpened his
vision, and this world today is still a
rotting, decaying corpse, and that's why you and
I are here as the salt.
I don't have to go into detail to
tell you how sordid things are.
There are times when I'm out visiting in
the city of Chicago when I see things
that I can't figure out why they're permitted
to be here, that they're here, and not
only Chicago, but any other city, any other
place.
I read about a Christian college that 100
years ago, it's an old school, 100 years
ago, wrote in its catalog, our campus is
located 40 miles away from any known sin.
Now, I never heard of a college being
organized for angels, but that one must have
been one.
How in the world could you organize anything
40 miles away from any known sin?
Wherever you go in this world, you're taking
with you sin, and this world today is
a rotting corpse.
It's rotting politically.
Daniel saw that centuries ago.
Daniel saw that image with gold, and then
silver, and then brass, and then iron, and
then clay.
It's rotting politically.
We have many politicians with very few statesmen.
We have many people out to promote a
party, but very few out to promote a
cause of righteousness.
It's rotting morally, you know this.
It's rotting religiously.
I'm sorry, I appreciated what Dr. Banks had
to say about the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and one doesn't have to go too far
away to find institutions that a few years
ago were standing for the gospel of Jesus
Christ, but today they laugh at it.
We're salt because this world is rotting, and
we're light because this world is a dark
world.
We're calling this an age of enlightenment.
It's wonderful to be so enlightened, and yet
Romans chapter 1 tells me that men have
rejected the light.
You and I who are here today who
believe the Bible, and the multitudes who share
in this conference by radio who believe the
Bible, are fat numbers.
We're oddballs.
We're square pegs and round holes because we
don't believe man is working his way up
to a glorious enlightenment.
We believe that for centuries man has been
sliding down, down, down, for when they knew
God, they weren't thankful, nor did they want
to keep God's truth, but they deliberately abandoned
the truth of God and believed the lie.
Now, inasmuch as the world is a decaying
world and a dark world, you and I
have a ministry which leads us to our
third insight.
When Jesus Christ called me salt and light,
he gave me insight into my salvation.
Clay turned to salt and darkness turned to
light, and he gave me insight into my
world, a decaying world and a dark world.
But thirdly, he gave me insight into my
ministry.
What is my ministry?
To be salt and to be light.
Now, Jesus didn't say I should be, he
said I am.
People come to me and say, Pastor, pray
that I'll be a witness.
I say, Friend, you are a witness, either
for or against.
Now, I'm to be salt.
There are two forces at work in the
world today, the force of decay and the
force of preventing decay.
There's leaven and there's salt.
Now, leaven, in the word of God, is
a picture of sin, and salt is a
picture of righteousness.
The solution to the decay problem in the
world today is not to shoot the unsaved
people.
It's not to get a hold of a
bulldozer and take all these wretched institutions and
push them into the lake.
No sooner will you have cleared the land
than something else is going to crop up.
The solution is to turn more clay into
salt.
The solution is to turn more darkness into
light.
Our job as Christians is to be the
salt of the earth and seek in every
way we can to prevent decay.
Now, someone says, but Pastor, I'm only one
person.
That's our usual argument.
We are so caught up in this slide
rule mentality, this computer mentality that says, no
individual can do anything unless you have a
committee or an organization.
Don't you believe it?
My Bible tells me in several places that
God was running around looking for a man,
not a committee.
Now, I'm not against committees, most of them.
A committee is a group of people who
individually can do nothing and collectively decide nothing
can be done.
But God isn't looking for a committee.
God's looking for a man.
He said through Ezekiel, I'm looking for a
man to stand in the gap, to hold
the wall up.
Isaiah, he said, I'm looking for a man
to be an intercessor, a man.
A few years ago, God got a hold
of a man, a shoe salesman, and he
shook the world with him.
Still is.
God's looking for one person like Daniel who
would dare to be salt in a corrupt
society, a Joseph who would dare to be
salt in a corrupt society.
Salt not only prevents corruption, salt seasons.
You know, the unfaithful crowd doesn't realize what
we Christians put into the good things of
this world.
I see people going down to our lovely
Art Institute.
They don't realize that much of that great
art has its beginning in the Bible.
And people at Christmastime listen to great music,
all of which goes back to the Word
of God.
We have seasoned things, but they don't realize
it.
They won't realize it till we're gone.
Then it's going to be too late.
As salt, we not only hinder corruption and
season, but we sting.
Now, some Christians like that ministry.
There are some Christians who, instead of being
witnesses, are prosecuting attorneys, and they run around
with a revolver in their pocket, looking for
someone they can disarm.
Now, God never meant for us to go
around like that, but whether you like it
or not, wherever you find a wound, and
this body of society is wounded and decaying,
wherever you find a wound, when the salt
gets in there, it hurts.
Just a few weeks ago, one of the
members of the Moody Church took a registration
card and phoned a man who had visited
the church, and that man told him in
no uncertain terms, don't you ever call me,
I'm never going to come back, and I'm
not interested, and boom, he slammed up the
phone.
The fellow was completely demoralized by it.
But that's the way it happens.
When the wounds come in contact with the
salt, it stings, it hurts, and the thing
they don't realize is we have the answer.
As salt, we're supposed to create thirst.
It's an interesting thing that Jesus attracted sinners.
Did you ever notice that?
Now, the religious sinners he repelled, they hated
him and crucified him, but the publicans and
the sinners flocked to hear the Lord Jesus.
Luke 15 starts, and the publicans and sinners
drew near to hear him, and the Pharisees
said, look, he's the friend of publicans and
sinners.
I can't think of a greater compliment.
You know, we have the idea that the
more we become like Jesus Christ, the farther
away unsaved people want to stay from us.
Where do we ever get that idea?
The Lord Jesus Christ attracted these people.
You know why?
They saw something in him for which they
were thirsty.
Now, it should be this way with me.
You say, yes, you're a pastor, you're pretty
well secluded, to some degree.
I was telling a young man recently I
was grateful for the three years I worked
for the Rockwell Manufacturing Company in an office
where I could be lied about and cussed
at and abused and persecuted.
My boss, one of them, was an outspoken
agnostic, and those three years taught me that
it's possible by the power of the Holy
Spirit to have a certain quality that attracts
people.
Oh, there are those who will be repelled,
but salt makes people thirsty.
And if you and I are the salt
of the earth, people are going to come
and say, you know, I don't understand you,
and I don't totally agree with all this
Bible stuff you've got, but I want you
to know something.
There's something about you that's different, and I
like it.
Now, what is it?
Salt makes people thirsty, and salt penetrates.
I want to deal with that a little
later on.
I'll just drop that into your heart now.
My ministry is salt, and my ministry is
light.
There's a beautiful balance here.
Salt is hidden.
There are things you do that only God
sees.
Light is open.
Let your light so shine before men that
they may see your good works.
Now, we don't do our good works just
so men can see them and come and
say, oh, you're such a good person.
You got your reward.
The Pharisees were this way.
The Pharisees prayed and fasted.
You could always tell when a Pharisee was
fasting.
He looked like a cheerleader for an accident.
He'd be walking down the street.
And some Christians are this way.
No, our Lord is not saying you deliberately
try to please men.
He says, do your good works for the
glory of God, and men will see your
good works, and they'll glorify God.
That's the difference between good works that I
do to glorify me and good works I
do to glorify God.
They'll see God.
The light has to do with my character,
while the salt has to do with my
character, while the light has to do with
my conduct.
The two go together.
You can't separate character and conduct.
If my character is one thing and my
conduct is something else, there's a word for
this.
Hypocrisy.
Both of them have to give of themselves.
You can't burn a light without it costing
something.
You can't have salt without it costing something.
As light, I'm serving.
As light, I'm busy.
As light, we are to be doing good
works.
Now, we evangelicals are so anxious that people
understand that we're saved by grace and not
by good works that we forget that the
grace we're saved by leads to good works.
And he didn't say passing out trash.
Nothing wrong with that.
He didn't even say preaching sermons.
Nothing wrong with that.
He said doing good works, which simply means
finding out what my unsaved neighbor needs and
trying to help him.
You know, we Christians are sometimes locked in
and programmed to a certain kind of conduct,
and we'll talk to our neighbor if we
want to invite him to church, but we
won't talk to him until the next church
meeting.
This is terrible.
We don't find out if somebody's sick and
I bring you a bowl of soup, or
who's going to take care of the washing,
who's going to mow the lawn.
These are the good works that our Lord's
talking about, and we Christians need to be
involved in things like this, because to a
Christian there's no such thing as secular and
sacred.
I will now go do a religious act
for my neighbor.
No, everything we do ought to be to
the glory of God.
So, what is my ministry?
My ministry is to prevent decay, to bring
seasoning, to create thirst that people might be
saved.
What is my ministry?
To let my light shine, let people see
that the good works come from the love
of God, and whether it be giving someone
a ride to the doctor, or carrying a
bag of groceries for somebody who can't do
that, this is done in the name of
the Lord.
Now, you may not lead that person to
Christ immediately, but you're a part of a
chain reaction that ultimately could bring a person
to Christ, which leads us to our fourth
insight.
Our Lord has given us insight into our
salvation.
He's given us insight into our ministry, into
what the world is like.
Finally, he gives us insight into the dangers
that are involved.
Danger number one, the salt could lose its
flavor.
Now, immediately our chemists jump up and say,
hold it, the salt we have doesn't lose
its flavor.
Our Lord was talking to people back in
his day, and the unrefined, impure salt they
had did lose its flavor if it came
in contact with the earth.
I was reading that classic work, which I
hope you have in your library, The Land
and the Book by William Thompson, a marvelous,
marvelous old work, but a good work.
He tells the interesting story about a merchant
who had a big find of salt, and
he wanted to store it, and so he
rented four or five houses, empty houses, and
he just threw his salt through the front
door, just filled the houses with salt.
When he came back to get his salt
to sell it, he found out that much
of it had lost its flavor.
It had come into contact with the dirt
floor and lost its flavor.
And so, when Jesus said if the salt
has lost its savor, its saltiness, the people
knew what he was talking about.
You see, here's the problem we face.
I face the problem of the salt having
to come in contact with the world I'm
trying to reach without the world tearing me
down.
That is the problem.
Now, people have solved this problem in several
ways.
They have solved the problem by isolation, and
so they're way over here, and they're going
through the motions of religion, but the people
that need them are way over here, and
some of our churches have become citadels where
once a week or twice a week the
army marches around inside the citadel and has
bayonet practice and so forth, but they never
come into contact with the enemy.
It's the salt kept in the salt shaker
and never coming and being applied where it's
needed.
That is one of the biggest problems we
face today.
Now, others have solved the problem by saying
it makes no difference where you go and
what you do, become a part of what
you're trying to reach, and that has its
problems.
I marvel at the Lord Jesus Christ when
Dr. Banks was talking about the glory of
his person.
Don't you marvel that Jesus Christ was the
friend of publicans and sinners, and yet he
was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners?
How do you do this?
Only through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Now, some of you are so afraid of
being contaminated, you've kept yourself off in the
canister someplace, and you've missed the joy of
contact that can lead to conversion.
We're so afraid of being polluted.
Now, we have to watch out for danger.
We must.
You and I dare not isolate ourselves and
insulate ourselves, but there's a danger here.
It's the danger that in coming in contact
with this decaying body, we start to lose
our flavor.
That's what happened to Lot.
Now, Lot was a believer, and Lot got
into Sodom.
He shouldn't have been there, but he got
into Sodom, and then Sodom got into Lot.
Now, I used to read the story of
Sodom and Gomorrah and cheer, and when the
fire and brimstone come down, hooray!
That terrible wound, that awful, festering sore is
wiped out.
Praise the Lord!
Then it dawned on me one day that
thousands of people went to hell.
You can't rejoice over that, and if Lot
had just one, his own family, and two
of his neighbors, he would have spared that
city from being destroyed.
You see, there was Lot.
He was a believer.
There was Mrs. Lot.
I'm not sure about her.
He had two unmarried daughters, and he had
two married daughters, so we've got ...
and he had two sons-in-law, so
he had eight people.
There were eight people in Lot's immediate family.
If he had won his family, and the
mailman and the milkman, those thousands of people
wouldn't have gone to hell.
I have to watch myself as I ride
through the city and say, oh, those godless
people, they should be wiped out.
Oh, but they'd go to hell.
We don't want our nation to go to
hell.
Had Lot been salt, if he had made
contact without contamination, he would have spared those
people.
It is God promised Abraham, if I find
ten righteous people, I'll spare the city.
If Lot had been light, but he wasn't,
when you get to Genesis chapters 18 and
19, it's darkness, darkness, darkness.
Oh, God comes to Abraham at noon because
Abraham's walking in the light, but the angels
come down to Sodom at evening because Lot's
walking in darkness.
I think the finest thing I can do
as a Christian citizen is to be salt
and to be light and try to win
people to Jesus Christ, and I've got to
watch out for the danger of the salt
losing its tang and the light being put
under a bushel.
If I'm not careful, I can't have any
ministry.
And so, what's Jesus saying?
He's saying, I'm not looking for an organization,
I'm thankful for them.
I'm not looking for a committee, I'm thankful
for them.
I'm looking for one person, somebody over in
this block and someone in that little town
and somebody in this church, just looking for
somebody who'll be salt and who will be
light, who has learned through the Holy Spirit
to have involvement without contamination, who can be
holy and harmless and undefiled and separate from
sinners and yet have contact with sinners and
lead them to Christ.
Our nation wouldn't be where it is if
we had more salt and more light, and
you can't blame the unsaved people for that.
You've got to blame ourselves.
And so, I'd like for us, I'm speaking
to my own heart, it'd be nice for
us, it'd be good for us to realize
how wonderful it is to be a Christian.
The clay has turned to salt and the
darkness has turned to light.
What a marvelous ministry we have.
What a marvelous opportunity we have.
And from this day on, just in our
own quiet way, to the glory of God,
start touching lives.
And if enough of us do this, God
could spare the judgment.
If enough of us do this, we may
have that one thing that so many have
been praying for for so long, revival.
Heavenly Father, forgive us.
Forgive us, O God.
We've been so afraid to get involved.
We've been so afraid to make contact.
I pray, Father, help us each one.
You have already told us what we are.
Now help us by faith to apply it.
Help me to do it.
Help each one of us to do it.
And have the joy of touching the lives
of others and leading them to Christ.
For Jesus' sake, amen.