There is a street corner in the town
of Newburyport, Massachusetts that is significant.
Its significance lies in the fact that George
Whitefield often stood at that intersection to preach
in the open air before the white church
which now stands there was built for him
in 1765.
That spot also is noteworthy because Whitefield's remains
lie buried beneath the pulpit of that church
there in the Old South First Presbyterian Church.
One day before the church was built, Whitefield
was addressing his usual crowd on that street
corner in 1740, and the following story captures
the essence of his sermon that day.
An immense crowd is hurrying, at five or
six o'clock in the morning, to the
corner of High and Federal Street, and some
of them, men and women too, young and
old, have come, riding, or afoot, even from
Raleigh, for what strange thing, of all other
strange things, to hear a sermon.
But the preacher is George Whitefield.
He gives out his text.
Ye are the salt of the earth.
Then his voice rolls over the assembly as
he begins.
And whom does the apostle mean when he
says ye are?
Why you, ye saints of Newbury, but I
much fear ye have lost your savor.
I love that story, friends, about George Whitefield,
and we have an illustration here of the
salt as spoken by our Lord Jesus in
Luke's gospel.
In chapter 14, you can turn in your
Bibles there now, friends.
We'll be in verses 34 and 35.
In verse 34 we read, Salt is good,
but if the salt hath lost its savor,
wherewith shall it be seasoned?
Let me pause here, friends, to say, this
is what Whitefield was referring to.
Salt without savor represents the Christian without spiritual
vitality, and this deterioration into spiritual life can
lead to a dead formalism like that of
the deeply religious Pharisees, and it can lead
to a backslidden condition away from the heart
of God.
I say away from the heart of God
because if you are a backslider, then you
are folly yourself and do not know what
is on God's heart because you have lost
touch with Him.
In Proverbs it reads, the backslider is filled
with his own ways, and so it is,
friends, with the believer who has lost his
savor.
Let me put it this way.
Have you ever known someone who made you
more thirsty for Christ and the things of
eternal worth?
Every time I was around Adrian Rogers he
made me more thirsty for Jesus.
That was because Jesus was prominent in Adrian
Rogers.
When you make Christ preeminent in your daily
living, friend, then Christ will be prominent in
your life.
You will make others thirsty for Christ because
you are like salt that has not lost
its saltiness.
Unfortunately, we have in our churches today some
saltless Christians, and that's the title of my
message today, friends, the saltless Christian.
A saltless Christian will take up space, but
be good for nothing, nothing of any eternal
worth, and if a saltless Christian continues in
a spiritual state of further deterioration, then he
risks what we read in verse 35 of
our chapter here dealing with salt.
Listen to what Jesus says about the saltless
Christian.
It is neither fit for the land, nor
yet for the dunghill, but men cast it
out.
He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear.
What Jesus is saying here is a warning
to backsliders who remain in their condition of
spiritual declension because there comes the danger of
falling into apostasy.
I reckon it is here where a good
number of our churches rest, right on the
verge of apostasy.
They have for years slowly deteriorated bit by
bit by this compromise with the world and
by that conformity to sin, and slowly but
surely they gradually lost their savor.
The lost were no longer being impacted for
eternity in their midst, and the young people
of the church couldn't wait to get old
enough to move away from those saltless Christians.
I've known people in the church who will
stop you in the hallway and talk your
ear off with the most unimportant nonsense because
they have lost their savor years ago, and
now they're just boars.
Heaven help the ones who end up in
a Sunday school class under such a saltless
Christian.
Sitting in there is like eating cardboard.
No flavor and no nourishment.
I'm afraid to say there are some pastors
like that as well who have lost their
savor years ago, and folks attend on Sunday
out of duty and habit more than interest
and spiritual nourishment.
I long for the day, friends, where God
in his mercy will send us a powerful
revival that makes us all salty again, and
we'd be so full of savor that we
will have an effect on folks by just
spending time with them that they will leave
our presence more thirsty for Jesus, just like
the psalmist declared, as the heart paneth after
the water brooks, so paneth my soul after
thee, O God.
O great God, come visit your vine by
your presence, and touch us, O Lord, with
some of your power, by your spirit, and
make us salty Christians who make this world
thirsty for thee.
Amen.