THE SALT OF THE EARTH

THE SALT OF THE EARTH
[Roger T. Forster]

"Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men" (Matthew 5:13).

"For every one shall be salted with fire. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another" (Mark 9:49-50).

"Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned? 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" (Luke 14:34-35).

CHRISTIANITY has a tang in it! It is a salty business. It is like the early morning spring breeze off the sea that bites into your face, or, perhaps, a thunderstorm, when you push your face out into the rain and it stings. Or like the aching in your legs and the beating of your heart when you get to the top of a mountain. There is something pungent, biting, about it; there is an edge in Christianity which the Lord Jesus says can be lost. In being Christians we can somehow lose the salt of the whole business, and there is no bite in us. We can be seasonless, insipid Christians.

In three places, one recorded in each of the first three Gospels, our Lord Jesus uses this simile for Christian living. If we lose that 'salt' we are still Christians, but Jesus says in Matthew 5:13 that we are 'good for nothings': "ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is henceforth good for nothing ." We are not even as much use to God as Nebuchadnezzar was, evil man though he could be, for at least he could be used as a chastening rod on God's people. We are not bad enough to be any good to God, and we are not good enough to be any good to God. We are just nothing, 'good for nothings', Christians who have lost their tang.

In Mark 9:49 the Lord Jesus says: "Everyone shall be salted with fire." If we have lost our saltness, we are not able to be consumed or to burn. We are just like clods. We cannot catch fire, there is no warmth in us, we are muddy and damp, and [57/58] there is not very much light coming from us. Amy Carmichael said:

"Let me not sink to be a clod;

Make me Thy fuel, flame of God."

Christians who lose their salt are but non-burnable clods in the Lord's eves.

In Luke 14 the Lord Jesus says that if we lose our seasoning we are neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill. We are not fit. We are out of condition. There is a middle-aged spiritual spread appearing, and we are not able to keep pressing on with the virility of what it means to be a Christian.

I wonder if, as we look at our own Christian lives, at ourselves as a church, and at the state of Christianity in the world, it would be unfair to call to mind these sayings of the Lord Jesus to test ourselves? Are we but 'good for nothings' as far as the Gospel is concerned? Are we but clods? Are we really not fit for this whole business of Christian living?

THE EFFECT OF CHRISTIANS IN THE WORLD

The first of these sayings has to do with the world. It was in the Sermon on the Mount, of course, that it was given, and as the multitudes gathered round the Lord Jesus He turned very deliberately to His disciples, not because He was unconcerned with the masses, who were like sheep without a shepherd -- for He "was moved with compassion toward them" (Mark 6:32) -- but because He purposed to affect the multitude through His people, who were going to be 'salt'.

"Ye are the salt of the earth", He says; and there is something about this biting edge in Christian living which is to do with our attitude to the world, to the multitudes who are without Christ in the earth, for if we have lost our saltness we are "cast out". We are "trodden under foot of men." The Lord Jesus is concerned, in this first application of the word 'salt', with our biting edge in relation to the world. Are we affecting the society in which we live? Are we infiltrating like salt into the infection to hinder society's corruption'? Is such an impact being made through our Christian living? If not, we are just going to be cast under the feet of men.

Concerning the recent publication of yet another book advocating a new, anaemic version of Christianity, certain non-Christians commented that if this is all that Christianity is, then it is about time that Christians gave the whole business up. They are throwing Christianity, as it were, under their feet, because it is such a world-accommodating, non-cutting, insipid affair, so watered down, that it has virtually nothing to say to a corrupting society.

Are we salt that has lost its savour? The Lord Jesus says in verses 11 and 12 of this chapter: 'Happy are ye if men revile you and persecute you', but the Church is not being persecuted in Western Europe. Men think so little of us that they say: 'Let us just walk over the top of them and ignore them'; and when the Church of Jesus Christ is being ignored in the world it is because the salt has gone. Otherwise there would be an antagonism. The Lord Jesus says so.

Are we looking round with superior, patronising smiles at the decadence of our society, saying how very soon the end time must be, and this is really about as much as we can expect? Rather we should see it as an indictment upon our Christian living that the salt has gone and we are not hindering the corruption about us.

Men did not treat the early Church like this. They persecuted it, and tried to destroy it; but when we are so thoroughly ignored that we are hardly worth considering, then we are no longer the salt of the earth . Yet the earth has no other salt than the Church of Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus did not say that we could find the salt elsewhere. The only hindrance to mankind's final rundown in energy, moral and ethical, and in dignity and ability is the Church of Jesus Christ -- and that is you and I. We are called into this great calling.

THE PEACE OF GOD'S HOUSE

In Mark's Gospel, chapter 9, the emphasis upon the salt is different. The disciples had been arguing about who was the greatest -- and it is a very important thing to some in the Church of Jesus Christ as to who is No. 1 Apostle, No. 2 Apostle, No. 3 Apostle, etc. Everyone has to be in their right order!

After the disciples' arguments the Lord Jesus took a little child, put him in their midst and said: 'This is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven', and went on to explain that if we do not live in that sort of way, but go on living with our self-ambition, self-assertion and exalting of what we are, all we are going to create is war, but it will be a war amongst God's people. John had just confessed: 'You know, Lord, I met a man the other day, and he was casting out devils in Your name, so I said to him: "Don't do it! You are not with us."' It is that sort of officialdom, superiority, feeling that we are the 'in group', which creates all the disturbance and antagonism in the Church. So verse 49 says "Everyone shall be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if the salt have lost its saltness, wherewith will ye [58/59] season it? Have salt in yourselves , and be at peace one with another."

So the second reason for the necessity of salty Christianity is that it is the only way to preserve peace amongst God's people. By destroying that self-assertiveness whereby each of us strives for first place, we find peace with, and love for, one another. Can we apply this in our present context to-day? Do we really find a great deal of peace amongst God's people? Are we not still so concerned about arguing our pet point as to who is the first and who understands things the best, and everyone else is less than we are? We have such a great understanding, we are really the 'in crowd', we have the true appointment of God, and that man has not. And so there are divisions. We argue, we divide, and then some of us try to join together by signing bits of paper and dismissing our doctrines -- but that is not the way to solve the problem. The way is to get the salt of fire, the burning of the Holy Ghost. We need salt if we are going to live together in the peace of God's House, and we cannot do without it.




VALUE TO GOD

In Luke's Gospel, chapter 14, the emphasis is again slightly different, for the Lord Jesus uses it in this way. He says that when salt has lost its savour it is fit neither for the land (for the Jews used it as a fertilizer to stimulate the fruit of the earth), nor is it fit for the dunghill (for they also used it as an antiseptic to put on the rubbish heap to save it from contaminating). Here the Lord Jesus is saying: 'If you have not got salt in your life, then you are going to find that you are not bringing forth My purposes. You are too unhealthy to be My disciple.' Three times in this chapter the Lord Jesus says: 'Ye cannot be My disciple', and a man cannot be a disciple of Christ without salt. Without salt we are not contributing to the fruitfulness of the eternal purposes of God for humanity.

So this tang for Christian living has reference to the world ("Ye are the salt of the earth"); it has reference to the Church ("Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another"); and it has reference to God for His satisfaction, and the fulfilment of His eternal purpose for man ('You cannot be My disciple ... You cannot follow Me ... Unless there is salt you will have lost out.') The Lord Jesus goes on to tell the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. In this way He begins to explain what it means to have lost our savour. It is to be lost to the heart of God, and to His purpose. We can be Christians. and yet lose our salt.

WHAT ARE SALTY CHRISTIANS?

How are we going to salt the earth? In the third verse of Matthew 5 the Lord Jesus says: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Again He says (verse 10): "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Thus, having summed up the Christian and his blessings by saying that the Kingdom of heaven belongs to him, He continues: "Ye are the salt of the earth." It is the man who is truly heavenly-minded who begins to salt society and prevent its self-destruction. It is not the people who are falling over themselves to become earthly-minded who are going to preserve the earth from its corruption, but men and women who know how to live in heaven and its reign. These give savour to the insipid, boring life of humanity without Christ!

I wonder sometimes if I ought not to live in heaven as well as my little son does! There was one occasion when we were staying in a friend's home, and in one room they had a lovely orange carpet. We dropped a bottle of ink on it, and tried everything we could think of to get the ink out of the carpet, but to no avail. My wife went to the ironmonger, and he recommended something. We came back with it, and the first thing my little boy did was to drop on to his knees to look at the spot on the carpet, and say: 'Dear Lord Jesus, please help us to get this spot out!' Then he grabbed the bottle which, fortunately, was not undone, poured something which did not come out on to his piece of rag, and began to rub the spot ("faith without works is dead!"). Of course, the spot did come out! Two days ago he was due to go to a party but the little girl was ill, so there was no party. That night my little boy prayed, perhaps not altogether from altruistic motives: 'Dear Lord Jesus, help Lucy to be better to-morrow so that we can have the party', and then he added as an afterthought: 'and help her Mummy to see that she is better!' Of course, the mother appeared on the doorstep the next morning to say the party was that afternoon!

Seriously, that is what moving in heaven means. It is taking heaven seriously. It is there, all round about us. God is there. Our Father is in heaven, and as we take him seriously things happen. The earth is affected and we become the sort of men and women about whom, as we move in society, people recognize another dimension. Perhaps it will take a practical outworking. It may be that we shall be those who went to the Aucas from an Illinois college, and were martyred on an Auca beach by head-hunters. It may be that, as others did from [59/60]that same college, we shall go into a Chicago Rehabilitation Scheme, whereby Christians have begun to make some mark in the middle of that great city on its crime and sin. Or perhaps as a British business man who finds that with his profits he can begin to build a halfway house for prisoners coming out of prison, so that they may be 'salted' to some degree. Or perhaps it may be a Literacy Campaign in the middle of Africa whereby, after Christians have taught men and women to read and write, they say: 'We learned this from Jesus', because they found Christ in the men who were teaching them.

But it may not necessarily be in some scheme, a Lord Shaftesbury or a George Muller to meet the problems of their day, or a Martin Luther King, or involvement with our social functions. It may or may not, but it must be men or women who bear heaven with them because they are living there, and the reality of the Kingdom of heaven is theirs who will be the salt of the earth. They have got it! There is a rule going on in their lives that comes from heaven itself These are the men and women who are going to prevent the corruption and disease of man who is running down without God.

"Ye are the salt of the earth." Whether we see men and women turning to Christ or not does not matter so much as whether we are fulfilling Christ's assertions when He says: 'Ye are the salt of the earth. If you have lost your savour, then men will throw you out and walk over you. They will think nothing of you.' But if you are being salty, He says in verse 12: "Rejoice and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." 'Happy are ye, when men revile you, persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My name's sake.' There is an antagonism to society, but it is that very antagonism of salt getting in and biting in the situation which prevents the world running fast away from God.

LEARNING TO BE SALT AMONGST CHRISTIANS

Then we have to learn to be salt amongst each other. "Have salt in yourselves" (Mark 9:50). We noticed earlier how this matter came up in Mark's Gospel. The disciples had been arguing amongst themselves as to who was the greatest, a little child had been taken into their midst, and the Lord Jesus had taught them in that beautiful way He has, without shaming us. He could have turned round to those disciples and said: 'Now what was it you were talking about in the road? Ah, yes, I thought so! Who is the greatest? Now, look, how many times have I told you fellows that it is about time you realized that you do not just get to the top like that?' That is the way we would have done it. We would have given a terrific sermon so that everyone felt terribly small afterwards. But Christ does not teach in that way. He teaches us in such a delightfully artless way that we never forget, and we can feel ashamed in our own corner, and not in front of other people. On this occasion Peter was probably coughing and loosening his collar, and trickles were going up and down John's spine as Jesus took the little child and said: 'This is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven.' You know, we do not really believe it! They did not. It takes a very long time to learn that, and perhaps we shall only do so just before we go to meet Him, but it is really true, for Christ said it. That which is greatest in the Kingdom of heaven is a little child -- not the great evangelist, nor the great theologians but the one who is childlike, artlessly simple, trusting his Lord.

'Lord, how can I be saved from this continual, aggravating, self-aggrandizement, this self-assertion, this wanting to be in the No. I place? Lord how can it be solved?' Well, you have to be salted with fire. Just as salt is antagonistic to corruption, so fire is destructive to pollution.

The Lord Jesus went on to speak about hurting these little ones, and how much better it would be if a millstone were put about our necks and we were cast into the midst of the sea. It is as serious as that. Our self-assertion hurts little ones such as the man who was casting out demons in the name of the Lord, when we stopped him and said: 'Brother, you are not with us.' It hurts little ones who have just put their faith out, like the centurion at the Cross who said: 'Well, that was a Son of God, at least', and have not got much further than that. The Lord Jesus said that, rather than hurt, it would be better if we never did anything. It would be better to be cut right off with a millstone round our necks and be cast into the sea. It would be better to cut off our hand, he continues in Mark 9, than to be thrown into Gehenna, where the fire burns. It would be better to pluck out our eye, or cut off our own foot than to do damage, to maim or hurt another person.

'Lord Jesus, how can I love like that? I hurt my children, my wife, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and my neighbours. How can a man love without hurting?' We have to be salted with fire, and unless we learn to be salted with fire we hurt our companies of Christians.

Do you see what the fire is? Just outside Jerusalem there was the Valley of Tophet, or Gehenna, [60/61] and at one time Solomon had built there a worshipping shrine to Molech, and later child sacrifice was made by Manasseh and Ahaz. Josiah, in his reformation, decided that that valley should become the refuse pit for all the filth and rubbish of Jerusalem. So there the fires were kept burning to disinfect the rubbish that poured out of the city life. We all live in the world's city and cannot help but pour out pollution to some degree, but we can have a fire that prevents its infection, and its hurting and diseasing of other people, especially the little ones. Everyone must be salted with fire; it is not an option. The pollution must be hindered by the fire of God in our lives burning strongly to give the first place to the Lord Jesus.

'Have peace amongst yourselves by being salted with fire.' Do you know the fire of the Holy Ghost consuming and burning within, or has the fire gone out? Is there as much desire burning in your soul to-day as there was when you began the Christian experience, to say "Not I, but Christ", to ensure that your life is not hurting others? There is just as much need for it to-day as there was when you first began, and perhaps even more, because contacts get wider, personal involvements get stronger, and it means we hurt one another more easily. There is perhaps more need for the fire of the Spirit of God to consume that assertiveness in our lives than ever there was.

Look at John in this story. As soon as the Lord Jesus took the little child and put him in the midst, and said: 'This is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven', John did not immediately jump up and say: 'Well, Lord, I think I was quite right in telling that fellow not to preach and cast out demons!' In effect he confesses and says: 'Well, Lord, I am sorry. I got it all wrong really.' It is the man or woman who is confessing what God shows in his life that finds the fire of the Spirit consuming it. If we are not praying, then there will be no heaven about us. If we are not being honest about the things that pour into our experience, and confessing them to the Lord, they will not be consumed be the Holy Ghost, the fire of the Spirit will seem to burn very low, and there will be no salting. We shall lose our salt, for the salt and the fire are the same thing. The fire of the Holy Ghost burns in our experience on confession -- not unhealthy introspective confession -- but a glad confession: 'Lord, I have made that mistake again! Lord, I have done that wrong again, and I have seen that it has hurt somebody. Please, Lord, help me not to hurt again.' And the fire of God's Spirit begins to burn. We cease to be clods.

If we all lived like this we would all be at peace. It would be like a glass of water, when every little molecule tries to get to the bottom -- it is quite calm. But when you start to heat it up all the little molecules want to jump out of the glass. Everybody is trying to be on top and there is a lot of disturbance. "Have salt in yourselves" so that God's work can be done instead of our spending half our time fighting one another. Does not the world despise us, with our bickerings and bitings? Does it not count us as nothing because of such things? "Have salt in your selves, and be at peace one with another."

THE SALT OF LOVE

There is a salt which is for God, and we find this in Luke's Gospel. There was a whole mass of people who had been following the Lord Jesus in a rather dilettantish sort of fashion, but they were not really committed. He turned on that crowd and said "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). You will know, of course, how the Hebrews used the 'hate' and 'love' similes, but in Matthew's Gospel it is put more simply for Westerners to understand: "He that loveth father and mother more than me ..." (10:37). 'Lord, is that possible? Is that what it is going to mean for me to be for You, to have a tang in my life which is to Your taste, which delights You when You taste Your children so that You just love to taste them the more? If I have to give You that sort of love, Lord, I just cannot do it.' But Jesus says: 'Unless you do, you cannot be My disciple.' Can you do it? I remember a moment in my life when I said to God: 'I cannot love You more than my wife, Lord, it is impossible.' And then your children -- can you do it? I thought I could when I first began the Christian experience. I did not love anyone enough, so I could easily love God more than them; for it is those who do not love anyone who find it such an easy thing to say: 'Oh, of course I love the Lord most of all.' But as time goes on I find I cannot.

But I can tell the Lord so, so that is why the first statement in verse 27 is "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." 'Lord, I cannot die for You, so I do not love You more than anyone else; but I can at least pick up that cross.' You know what that meant in Roman days: you were going out to be executed. I cannot execute myself and say: 'Lord, I love You more than anyone else. I will die for You!', as Peter said at the Last Supper and could not do it [61/62] either. But I can take my cross, and Peter was trying to do that. He was saying: 'Lord, I will try to bear my cross. I have got hold of it and I am going to come after You.' "Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple."

'Now,' says the Lord Jesus, 'if you are going to be for Me, and if you are going to build My purposes, count the cost, for any man who builds a tower has to see whether he has enough to finish it; and any man going out to war to defeat the satanic powers of evil must see whether he has the armies. When you decide you have not enough to build the tower, then don't start; and when you decide you have not enough men to defeat the army, send out messengers of peace.' So Christ sums up these parables with the words: "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."

Forsake your resources to build the tower, forsake your resources to defeat the enemy, take up your cross, acknowledging: 'I cannot do it, Lord. I cannot be for You, I cannot bring satisfaction and taste to Your heart, but I am coming after You', and the Lord will say: 'All right, I will look after the salt', because He is our resources. He is our salt, and that is how God gets a taste out of our lives. It is by Christ in us who, bit by bit, begins to wean our hearts so that in the moment of the crunch God does come first in our relationships. When the time comes, maybe for martyrdom, we think we cannot go that way, but in the crisis the Lord is there. It can be accomplished.

It is the Lord Jesus who is the salt which gives a taste in man for God, when we are prepared to forsake all that we have and say: 'Lord, I cannot do it.' It is just by coming to Him in worship and thankfulness, thanking Him that, though I cannot, He can. It is a life of thankfulness, for when we are thanking Him we are saying: 'I could not do that myself. You have done it for me.' We are sour in our lives because we are not thankful to God -- and the first sin of Romans 1 was "and they became unthankful." Not that they became proud, nor adulterers, nor murderers, but they became unthankful -- and that is where it all begins. It is the thanking, praising, worshipping Christian that is no longer losing his savour, because, like the prodigal, he has found his Father again. He has come back to his Father's house, he has brought salt back to the table, so there is feasting, dancing and music.

Have we lost our tang? If so, we are no good to man, nor to the Church, nor to Christ. We are 'good for nothings', not fit, clods. But the savour of Christianity is preserved by men who live in heaven by prayer and find that Kingdom at work, men who are exposed to their failures and are prepared to confess them. The Spirit burns in hearts like that. There is fuel for the flame of God. It is preserved by men who learn how to give themselves to worship, to live in that 'foundness' -- 'I have been found of God. He is there and I have all the resources needful to satisfy His heart and to fulfil His purposes in Christ.' - R. T. F.
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