(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen, so we were there in Matthew, chapter number 5, so we're looking at the Sermon of the Mount. This is all, if you have a red letter Bible, Matthew 5 is pretty much all red letters. It's all Jesus speaking here. A very famous sermon that Jesus gives up on this mountain. We're going to be looking at one verse, one statement that Jesus makes in Matthew, chapter number 5, and look through that and apply it to our lives this morning. It's the verse of the week in your bulletins. Verse number 13, where Jesus says this statement, right after where he says, blessed are all these things, as people call those the beatitudes. Verse number 13, he says this, he says, ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is then for good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under the foot of men. Jesus makes this comparison here, or he calls, he literally calls us, he says ye, remember, here's a King James Bible reading lesson for you, all right? The ye's, the y's are plural and the th's are singular. Now you can read the King James Bible, all right? That's how hard it is to understand the King James Bible. Well, he says, ye are the salt of the earth, saying to the disciples and all the people listening to him that ye are the salt of the earth. He literally says you are salt, all right? Now here's another Bible reading lesson for you. Jesus is using a metaphor here, all right? He's not talking, he's not literally saying that the people that are listening to him are salt, all right? Now a lot of people out there, you know, will say when we talk to them about, we're fundamental Baptists. What that means is that we believe the words of the Bible, all right? That's what fundamental means. It means that we believe that what the Bible says is the word of God. That's what God said to us, right? It's not that complicated, but you'll get a lot of people out there that will say to you, well, that's just symbolic. You don't take the Bible literally, do you? You know, a lot of people will say that, and look, once you say those types of words, you can literally make the Bible say anything. If you think that everything is symbolic in the Bible and that it doesn't really literally mean anything or literally mean the words that it says, you can make the Bible say anything that you want it to say or not say anything that you want it to say. Now just think about this for a second. I was thinking about this. Jacob and I went out fishing the last few days, and just think about how frustrating this would be for God, that just no one takes his word literally, all right? Just think about how frustrating. I've often told Jacob that when we're out doing things and we're working or if we're fishing or whatever, that he's my gopher. I've told him, you're my gopher. What does that mean? It means you go for this and you go for that. When I say I need something, you go get it and bring it to me. We're cleaning fish yesterday, and I told Jacob, I said, go get me a Walmart bag. He's a gopher. He's going to go get me a Walmart bag and bring it back. Imagine how frustrating it would be for a dad if he just stood there and didn't do anything. I'm like, why are you just standing there not doing anything? He's like, did you mean that literally? Did you mean literally go get a Walmart bag? I thought you were just being symbolic, dad. Imagine how frustrating to God it must be that he gives us his literal word and then people are just, they look at anything that they want in his word and they say, oh, well, that's not literal. The way you read the Bible is very simple, folks. It is all literal except in cases where it is obviously not literal, where God many times uses metaphors and similes. A metaphor, I mean, kids, if you remember, I know that most of the kids here are homeschooled, so you should know this. If a metaphor means, you know, it's like you're saying that something is something else. You're using an exact comparison. A simile is where, you know, you would say, well, this is like unto or like as, you know, Jesus used similes as well. He said, you are like as sheep amongst wolves. He's like, he's comparing us to sheep. It doesn't mean we're literally sheep, all right? But this is a metaphor where he literally just makes a direct comparison. A metaphor is like this. That guy is a couch potato. I don't think that that guy is a literal potato. I'm just using a comparison to an inanimate object laying on a couch to say that someone is lazy, to say that someone doesn't do, you know, life is a roller coaster. That doesn't mean that your entire life is spent on a roller coaster. How terrible would that be? And it means that life has ups and downs. So these are obvious metaphors that are being used and Jesus is using a metaphor here. He is saying, ye are the salt of the earth. It doesn't mean that you are literal salt, okay? Now, I mean, there is a situation in Genesis 19 where Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. Now that is a literal thing that happened. She literally looked back as God, you know, told her not to look back, told them not to look back and she became a pillar of salt. That's different. Jesus is using a metaphor here. So let's look at what he means by this metaphor. He says we are salt. What does that mean? Why would Jesus use this specific metaphor in the Bible to describe Christians? And let's see how we can apply that to us today. Turn to Colossians chapter number four. You can lose your place in Matthew chapter five. Just look at the front of your bulletin if we reference that verse again. And I want to give you four points this morning on why Jesus uses the metaphor, this comparison of us being salt. I'm going to give you four characteristics of salt and apply them to us and use, you know, biblical references because the Bible references salt in many different ways all throughout the Word of God. But Jesus is using this material, this compound, I guess you could say, as a comparison to us. Let's look at Colossians chapter number four. So I'm going to give you four points. The first point is this. Salt is used to enhance taste, to enhance the taste of food, all right? Look at Colossians chapter number four and look at verse number six. The Bible says in Colossians four, six, it says, let your speech be all the way with grace, look at this, seasoned with salt that you may know how you ought to answer every man. So again, this comparison of salt is being used in a way of comparing it with how salt enhances taste, all right? So it's not saying go, you know, dump salt on someone's head every time you talk to them. It's saying, no, your speech, the things that you say should be seasoned with salt the same way that your speech should have grace to it, all right, that you may know how you ought to answer every man. Turn to Job chapter number 12, Job chapter number 12. Right after the book of Psalms, you'll see Proverbs and right before Psalms, you'll see the book of Job. Look at Job chapter 12, right towards the center of your Bible. Job chapter number 12, look at verse number 11. So the Bible in Colossians four is saying that your speech should be salty. Your speech, the things that you say should be salty. What does that mean? Does that mean I should use a bunch of profanity out there? I think that's what people think it means today. You know, when people say that, oh, you know, that's salty speech or that's probably what the world means, but that is not what the Bible means. The Bible means something very, very different. Look at Job chapter 12 and verse number 11. So it's using this comparison of taste, salt enhancing taste to the words that we say. Look at verse number 11 of Job chapter number 12. It says, does not the ear try words and the mouth taste his meat? This, how it makes this direct comparison, this is really a cool connection to Colossians chapter four, six here, because it's making the connection between the taste of something and how you hear things and the words that enter into your ears. It's making that direct connection that Colossians chapter four is talking about. So look, your speech should be salty, the Bible says. It should be filled with grace. What that means is turn to Leviticus chapter two, I mean, think about this, I mean, just think about Job chapter 12, verse number 11 for a second, talking about the comparison between the words that you hear and the food that you taste. Just think about this for a second. Think about going to a restaurant and the food was all bland and the food was just terrible. The Bible says that egg whites, you know, should be salted because it gives them taste. Here's the thing, nobody would go to a restaurant where the food just tastes terrible or the food just not even tastes terrible, has no taste. No one would go there. That restaurant would go out of business very quickly. I mean, back in COVID, I mean, to me, I mean, I'm not, you know, down on you if you got sick from COVID, but the worst thing for COVID for me was like I lost my taste as many people did for like three weeks. I'd never lost my taste for so long in my entire life. And I was just like, how, I even said this to my wife a few times, how terrible would this be if it just never came back because I think for some people, like, it went away for a very, very long time. How terrible would it be if you just couldn't taste anything? So think about this for a second, something that has no taste you wouldn't want to eat, something that has no salt or taste, words that have no salt in that same comparison, people will not want to hear. People will not listen to. So your words, your words should be meaningful. Your words should have meaning to them. They should be salty is what the Bible says. Well, you say, I don't have meaningful words. Well, guess what? You don't have to. All right. You don't have to have meaningful words. We'll get there in just a minute, but look at Leviticus chapter number two. We're looking at this idea of salt and taste. Look at what the Bible says in Leviticus chapter number two. Leviticus chapter number two, talking about salting things. It says, in every oblation of thy meat offering, thou shalt season with salt. Now we see another aspect here of, you know, salt being used other than just, you know, enhancing taste. It says, neither shall the offer suffer the salt of the covenant of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering with all thine offerings thou shalt offer salt. I'm going to cover this salt of the covenant here in just a few minutes. We're going to pass that for just a second, but it's talking about how the offerings, and many places in the Bible, Ezekiel 43 says the same thing in verse 24, I'll just read to you. It says, and thou shall offer them before the Lord and the priest shall cast salt upon them and they shall offer them up for a burnt offering unto the Lord. So here we're seeing a comparison of salt onto the offering as something that is symbolic in some way. Turn to second Corinthians chapter number nine. So all the offerings, all the meat offerings had salt put upon them. So offerings to the Lord were offered with salt, all right? Turn to second Corinthians chapter number nine, I'm going to show you what this means. What I'm talking about here is it's comparing, it's making this connection between salting and taste and then salting the offerings to salt having to do with symbolizing the zeal of the offering. Look at second Corinthians chapter number nine and verse number seven. The Bible says in second Corinthians nine, seven, it says every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give not grudgingly or of necessity for God loveth a cheerful giver. God is saying here that the offerings that we give in the New Testament, just as the offerings were seasoned with salt, your offering should have zeal to it. Look, it's not just talking about offerings of money, it's just talking about anything that you offer, whether it be your time, your efforts, whatever it is in the Christian life should have salt behind it, should have zeal behind it. God doesn't want it otherwise. God doesn't want a grudging, you know, oh, I got to go help out with this thing at the church. God would rather you just stay home. God wants offerings done with zeal, with salt, all right? So look, you shouldn't be phoning in the Christian life is what this is saying. The Christian life should have some zeal behind it. Just imagine if I got up here and I preached and I was just like, turn your Bibles to, I don't know, let's go to Matthew five this week. I mean, I don't know, we've read Matthew five like a million times, let's go there again. No, imagine if I was phoning it in from up here. Look, that would affect everybody, that would affect everybody in the church, and I've talked about how you could be an encouragement or a discouragement to people in your Christian life, but the point is, the salty Christian life is a Christian life that is filled with zeal, that is filled with, you know, cheerfully wanting to serve the Lord with your life. That's a salty Christian life right there, and look, salt can't stop becoming salt, but you can stop having zeal as a Christian, and that's part of the things that Jesus is getting at in Matthew five, 13. Here's the second thing I want you to know. Let's go to Numbers chapter 18. Now let's look at these salt covenants in the Bible, all right? So the first thing is, it's talking about taste, or that symbolizes our zeal for the Christian life. Nobody should be phoning in the Christian life. Phoning in the Christian life is going to end up with people just dropping out of the Christian life. Just like you wouldn't go to a restaurant where the food didn't taste like anything, if you don't have zeal in your Christian life, you're eventually going to stop, you know, participating in the Christian life. You're not going to stop being saved, but you can stop being profitable in the Christian life. Happens all the time. Look at Numbers chapter 18. So here's the second characteristic of salt that I want to point out. Salt is used to preserve things. Salt is literally used to preserve things. A lot of people don't realize this today, because you know we don't really need it for preservation, but salt is used to preserve things. Look at Numbers chapter 18 and verse number 19. There was something in the Bible called a salt covenant. Look at verse number 19 of Numbers 18. All the heave offerings of the holy things with the children of Israel offer unto the Lord have I given thee and thy sons and thy daughters with thee by a statute forever. Notice those two words forever there. This is talking about the Levites. The Levites didn't get land. So he's saying that what you're going to get is you're going to get a portion of the offerings. All right? For how long? By a statute forever. It is the covenant of salt forever before the Lord unto thee and to thy seed with thee. The covenant of salt means this is a lasting covenant. It means this covenant is forever. All right? Go to 2 Chronicles chapter number 13. 2 Chronicles chapter number 13. You're going to see some things that are similar here with a covenant of salt every single time and it's this idea that a covenant of salt lasts forever. All right? Look at 2 Chronicles chapter 13. Look at verse number 5. This is talking about the messianic promise given to David that Christ would come from his line. Look at verse number 5. It says ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David for how long? Forever. Even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt. This is talking about how, and this is why Judah was always, the kings of Judah were always sons of David. The kingdom of northern, the northern kingdom of Israel was a disaster. It was many different families, but as far as Judah was concerned, even when they were doing evil and they were not doing what the Lord wanted, it was always a son of David because this promise was a covenant of salt, meaning what? It was a lasting promise. Just picturing salt as preserving, having preserving power. And look, salt is literally something that is used to preserve. I mean salt has been used for preserving food for thousands of years. I mean we don't think about that today because we have, you know, I mean look, minus refrigeration folks, you would all know exactly what salt was used for. You probably don't think about this when you go to the gas station and you get your Jack Links, you know, jerky stick or whatever it is, but the reason that that can be sitting out in non-refrigerated space is because of salt. I mean we would make jerky all the time and it was like if you didn't have salt, you couldn't make it because the meat would rot. It literally keeps meat from rotting. It would be the only way to preserve actual meat is if you had salt. That's the key to everything, all right? I mean electricity, when you think about it, when you think about refrigeration, electricity is basically a temporary salt. I mean salt, I mean once you salt meats, that meat will last for months, even years. But electricity, you have to have it every single day. If you lose that electricity for two days, your meat and everything in your fridge will start to decompose, it will start to rot. But if you had salted it, if you had salted it, if you had tanned that hide with salt and things like that, it literally will last for years and years and years. So electricity is kind of a temporary salt when you think about it that way. So I guess the first application here is are you a salty Christian or are you an electric one? I hate to bash on electricity, you know how much I like electricity, but Jesus is literally comparing us to salt here, which means we should not be temporary in this Christian life. It's our Christian life, and look, we are here to be salt to preserve others, but the first step of that is preserving your Christian life. You're not going to be able to preserve anybody if you can't be preserved yourself. If you can't keep that zeal, will you last in this Christian life? I don't know how many pastors I've heard that say the church will look different every five years, every six years, every seven years. Why is that? The reason that the church will look different is because some people come into the Christian life and then they leave after a couple of years, and then more people come into the Christian life and then they leave after a couple of years. Look, it's not that their salvation goes away, your salvation is eternal. If you've believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, you're sealed by the Holy Spirit, nothing will ever change that, but you can drop out of this Christian life. You can stop. You cannot be preserved in the Christian life, and guess what? Since we are the salt, that means that we are going to go out and do preserving ourselves. How are you going to preserve if you can't keep yourself preserved? Turn to John chapter 17. You say, well, I don't know. I don't know how to do salty speech. I don't know how I could preserve anybody. I don't know how that I could do this. Well, guess what? You don't have to use your words because your words won't preserve anyone anyway. Look at John chapter 17 and verse number 17. It is through our salty speech that we preserve others, that speech that is seasoned with grace. No matter how many nice words I come up with, I can't season my own words with grace. Grace comes from God. Grace comes from the word of God. Through that word, we preserve truth. Let me tell you something. Truth needs preserving today. Truth of all kinds is being attacked and destroyed today. It is through the word of God and people preaching and telling others about the word of God that we preserve truth in this world. Look, I'm not just talking about the truth of the gospel. I'm talking about the truth of a man marrying a woman is the only natural thing. That's what I'm talking about. That's truth. That's the truth of God's word. I'm talking about the truth of a man will never become a woman ever. It's impossible. I don't care what you make up in your mind, what you come up with, but look, that's the truth and that's God's word. Look at John chapter 17 verse number 17. Look, the gospel is the truth. I don't care if you say you can get to heaven, if you pray five times a day, if you go to church two times a week, if you are a good person or whatever, that's not true and nothing will ever make it true. You will only go to heaven by taking all that trust on whatever those works are that you're trusting in and taking them off yourself and putting them on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. There's only two religions. There's religions where people are trusting in themselves and there's religions where people are trusting. There's the religion, the truth where people put all that trust on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's the truth. Look at verse number 17 where Jesus says this. He says, Jesus is about to leave. We just studied through this. Jesus is about to go to heaven. He says, I've given them thy word. You don't have to have seasoned words yourself, folks. Jesus is saying to God the Father, I gave them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Verse 15, I pray that thou shouldest take them, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil. They're not of the world even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth, God's truth. Thy word is truth. What's true? This is true. Is there truth? What is truth? Pontius Pilate says, oh, that's your interpretation of truth. No, there's one interpretation of truth and it can be found out and it is in the Bible sitting right in front of you. Thy word is truth. God's word is truth. As thou has sent me into the world even so I've also sent them into the world. To do what? To preserve the truth in the world. That's why we go out today at two o'clock. Why? Because there are people out there in Fresno, in Clovis, in our communities here, there are people out there that when you ask them do you want to know what the Bible says about how you can know that you're going to go to heaven, there are people out there that say yes, I want to know. And we will show them. And you know what? We will show them not using our words, we will show them straight out of the word of God. We will show them using the words of God because it's God's word that has power, not my words. I'm not going to go give some fancy explanations of what I think the Bible, you know, how I'm not going to reword the perfect words of God. I'm going to use the truth that God has given me to speak to other people. That's how you're salty folks. That's how any of us are salty. That's how your speech is salty because you're speaking words that God gave you to speak. It's very simple. Speaking the truth with grace and you will remain salty. Turn to 2 Kings chapter number 2. So salt means you have zeal. Salt means you speak with the words of God, with grace, and you have zeal doing it. Salt means that you are helping preserve truth. You're out there with the gospel. That's what it means when the Bible says we are ambassadors. Ambassadors don't carry their own message. Ambassadors are there to speak for some leader. We are out there speaking God's words for him. That's what we are doing. That's our calling. Look at 2 Kings chapter number 2 and verse number 21. Here's the third thing that salt, third characteristic of salt that applies to what Jesus is talking about in Matthew chapter number 5. Salt has a cleansing characteristic to it. Look at verse number 21 of 2 Kings chapter number 2. And he went forth under the spring of waters and cast salt in there and said, Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters. There shall not be from thence any more death or barren land. So I mean obviously this was a miracle but he cast salt in meaning that it was a picture of the cleansing of the waters. Now here's what's ironic. Salt is used in all sorts of cleaning. All sorts of cleaning applications from just soap to like skin treatments to eye treatments to literally salt is used to make chlorine for people's pools. I mean if you ever heard of somebody having a salt water pool, the reason that the salt is there is because they just apply electrolysis to it and salt for you kids it's NaCl and it just breaks off the Na and basically makes a chlorine ion. And so it creates chlorine in the pool to do what? To kill bacteria and to make the water safe to swim in. Alright? And here's what's interesting. Here's what's interesting. I didn't really think about this until, I think I had thought about this years ago, but I thought about this again for this sermon and this probably won't interest anyone but I want to tell this story anyway. In 2015, when I was in the environmental sciences field, we had to meet an EPA rule for power plants that was removing mercury from the power plant. And we used a very specific, we ended up developing an application that used a specific chemical to remove mercury from the flue gas of a coal-fired power plant. But what was interesting is this chemical would not remove the mercury from the flue gas unless we sprayed a saline solution into the boiler. So we literally sprayed salt into the boiler and that allowed us to capture this harmful material that was in the gas coming out of the stacks of the plant. I don't know. It helped us clean it. Just another application of salt. And it's interesting because the only salt that would work was salt from the Dead Sea. There was literally a company in Israel that sold this bromide salt that we bought to use for this application in the United States. But anyway, the point is, salt has literal cleaning applications everywhere. And that is the characteristic of salt that also we are being compared to. Because guess what? God's word and salty speech will cleanse. Look at John chapter 15, just go a couple chapters back in the book of John. Look, God's word, speaking God's word, reading God's word will cleanse you. People that hear God's word will be cleansed. Look at what the Bible says in John 15 verse number 3. It says, now ye, again, ye, everyone listening to this, ye are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. God's word will clean you. Turn to Romans chapter number 7, Romans chapter number 7. You see, what do you mean God's word will clean me, will clean me, will make me, will cleanse me? Well guess what? God's word has a very specific power on the people that hear God's word. Turn to Romans chapter 7, Romans chapter 7. One of my favorite applications in the Bible here in Romans chapter 7 with regard to what God's word will do to you. Now I'm talking, I'm talking literally, like what God's word will do to you. God's word will change you. Look, hopefully you've, everyone here within the sound of my voice is saved and you've been, you've trusted on Jesus and you're saved. But God's word, hearing it, reading it, studying it, learning it, look just because you're saved doesn't, you don't get saved and all of a sudden you know the whole Bible. If you don't know any word of the Bible and then somebody preaches the gospel to you and you get saved, you still don't know most of the Bible. God has hundreds of commandments, do this, don't do that in the Bible. There's hundreds of things, thousands, infinite amounts of things that you can learn in the Bible. You'll read the Bible again and again and again and again and every single time you read it, you will learn something new. Every single time you read Matthew chapter 5, you will pick up something new from it. It's this infinite book of wisdom. You just keep learning and learning and learning. But as you learn more and more of God's word, meaning you'll never master it. So don't tell me, oh I've read the Bible, I know what it says. First of all, most people that say they've read the Bible have not. Second of all, you will never learn everything in the Bible because God, his word is infinite. But as you learn more and more of the Bible, it will change you. It will change who you are. It will change your character. A lot of people say that your character is set by the time you're 30. Your personality is set. Look, that may be true for most people, but if you read the Bible and you do what the Bible says and you follow in the word of God, it will change your character. It will change who you are and this is how it does it. Look at verse number 13 of Romans chapter number 7, because the more you read the Bible, the more you are going to start to see the truth. The more things, the more, let's just read what verse 13 says, it says, but then that which is good, he's talking about the law. He's saying what's the purpose of the law in this chapter? Like the law can't kill me anymore. If I'm saved, the law has no power over me. What's the point of the law then? What's the point of the Bible? Was then that which has made good death unto me? God forbid. It's talking about what is the law for? If it can't kill me, what's it for? It says, but sin that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment, you know what that means? Sin by the Bible. Everything by the Bible might become exceedingly sinful. So you're 40 years old and you go out and you get saved and then you start reading the Bible, you know what's going to happen to you? All the things that you've been taught since up to the point where you're 40 years old, you're going to start to realize that everything that you've been taught was a lie. I've said that many times from the pulpit up here that just if you're saved now, especially if you got saved later in life, you better just realize everything you've been taught is a lie. Just take the Bible for what it says, literally take the words of God and apply them to your life. Yeah, but I've thought this way for 20 years. It doesn't matter. It's just going to keep popping things out. The more you read the Bible, the more you learn the Bible, these things that you were used to, these things that you got ... See, because what happens is, this is what Hollywood's all about. This is what all the media that's shoved into your home is all about. It's all about desensitizing you to sin. It's all about throwing sin in your face. I mean, haven't you ever watched a movie or even a kid's movie, like a kid's movie or a cartoon and you've seen some kid's movie and you're like, why did they have to put that in there? That didn't have anything to do with the movie. Why did they have to put, you know, those two characters that seemed like they were both guys, why were they holding hands on that one, that had nothing to do with it? Because they're trying to throw sin in your face so you get used to it. What Paul is saying in Romans 7, 13 is that the Bible will do the opposite. The Bible will undo all that. The Bible, on the contrary, will shine a spotlight on sin and the more you learn the Bible, the more you hear the Bible preached, you're gonna start to look at your life and you're gonna start to say, oh, I didn't even know that was wrong. I've been desensitized to all this stuff I didn't even know was wrong. I mean, all these things that the world says is okay, drunkenness, fornication, just to name a few, that are completely accepted today, I mean, the Bible will shine a light on all this and it will just make it exceedingly sinful, it will pop out to you. Why? Because you can't change who you are. So you can fix yourself going forward, not to be saved, to become more salty, to become more profitable in your Christian life. It exposes sin, the word of God, by showing you what? The truth. You know what? I've always been that way. I would rather know what's true. There's a lot of people out there, folks, that just, they don't want to have their apple cart upset, they're just like, hey, this is the way I was taught, don't mess that up for me. There's a lot of people like that. But I've always wanted to know, I just want to know what's true. And that's what the Bible will show you. It will preserve the truth. And guess what? If you're gonna go out there and you're gonna preserve other people, you need to be able to preserve the truth for yourself. So look, when you hear something preached, that's why I'm telling you, turn to this verse. Turn to this verse. I'm not up here trying to make up a bunch of stuff. Be like me. I'm telling you, turn to this verse. This is what it says. This is God's word, not mine. When you hear something, you're like, ah, that hurts, ah, that's me. Fix it. That's it. It's God's word. It's not mine. Every single Christian that's gonna grow in this Christian life, that's gonna continue with zeal and be able to speak salty and be seasoned with grace, with the words that come out of their mind. They all have to continue hitting those points where they're like, oh, that hit me. I gotta change that. But it's the point where you read God's word and you hit something that you don't want to change and you're like, yeah, I know what God's word says and I'm not gonna change that. That's when the Christian life is in trouble at that point. Just knock down walls. It's easy. Christian life, it may not, look, the Christian life is very simple. If it's in the Bible, just do it. That's why we're turning to all these verses. That's why we ask you if you need a Bible. Don't take my word for it. It's in the Bible. Let's look at the fourth thing. The fourth thing. The fourth thing kind of wraps everything up here. But because of all these uses of salt, these three uses that I pointed out so far, salt, and this is really what Jesus is getting at here, salt is something that has always had extreme amounts of value to it. Salt was literally used, I mean, the word salary came from this idea of being able to go out and purchase salt. Like in the Roman times, they would gauge how much soldiers would get paid on how much salt they could go buy because it's basically like buying groceries. Like you needed salt as much as you needed actual food itself because it had so much value. You ever heard the phrase, that guy's worth his salt? What that means is that guy has extreme, that guy's very valuable. That guy's very good at what he does. He's very valuable to have in whatever that scenario is. Salt is so valuable that for hundreds of years, thousands of years, wars have been fought over salt. Literally there has been city states and countries where there's just like, there's this one place that has a huge salt mine and they just go to war with each other because they want to be able to control that valuable commodity. In the Civil War, in the Civil War, I mean, salt played a key role for the Confederacy, I mean, for both. I mean, the Union had tons of resources, but the Confederacy, they made a forced 36 hour march to go control, to control Saltville, Virginia because they needed to control, have access to salt to sustain their entire army. That's how important salt is. Like, if you don't have it, you can't, it's extremely valuable. It always has been. So the Bible is saying here that, go back to Matthew Chapter 5 or just look at the front of your bulletin. Matthew Chapter 5, look at verse number 13 or just look at the front of your bulletin. I mean, a lot of people that, I'm not sure why people are confused by this verse. People really read too much into this. Jesus is using a metaphor to compare us to something that has extreme value. And for the reasons that I listed to you at the beginning of this sermon, but Jesus says, you're the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? So a lot of people would be like, what, can salt not become salt? No, he's comparing us to salt. He is saying that the things, the characteristics that I've listed that salt has, you can lose. You can lose your zeal. You can lose your sight of the truth. You can lose your, you know, your preserving power in your Christian life. You can, you can backslide out of the Christian life. You're not going to lose your salvation, but you can lose your value to others in the Christian life. This is James chapter number 2. Faith without works will have no profit is what James 2 is talking about. Faith, if you don't have works with your faith, you're not going to be salty, you're not going to be valuable to those around you. You will not be able to preserve those around you. You can lose your savor is what Jesus is saying in Matthew chapter 5. You can lose your zeal. You can lose your preserving power. Look, if you can't preserve your own Christian life, you have no chance of preserving someone else through the Word of God. No chance. And guess what? I've thought of this so many times when people just throw away their Christian lives. I've thought of this. I've thought of why people don't understand that much more is on the line than just you. You're saved. It's not about you at this point. It's about others who are not saved, including family members of yours, including your children. I mean, people don't realize how important preserving their Christian life is. I mean, one of the things I've always wondered, like, why don't people think if I get out of church, I'm going to stop soul winning? I mean, why don't they think of the impact that that is going to have on other people? It's like people are playing a high stakes game, and they don't know it's high stakes. It's the strangest thing. But this is what Jesus is explaining. He says, turn to John 18. He says, you are the salt of the earth, the entire earth. What he's saying is the kingdom of heaven is depending on us remaining salty. John 18. There is no other hope. Look at John 18, verse 36. John 18, 36, Jesus answered, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from hence, meaning not from here. He's saying, he's explaining why there's not some big war to stop him from dying. He's like, that's not the point. He's explaining why the disciples, even though Peter did pull out a sword and chop the guy's ear off, he's explaining why the disciples are not here to fight a physical war. It's not about this world. It's about the kingdom of heaven, folks. You're a Christian. Somebody just asked me this a few weeks ago. We were talking about a lot of end time stuff. Somebody asked me, when will we fight? When will we fight? When will we physically fight? The answer is never. Even at the end times when Jesus comes back, the battle of Armageddon, we're coming with him. But he does all the fighting. He just takes care of everything. Sword comes out of his mouth and just wipes everybody out. We're just watching. And then we rule and reign with him. So when will we fight? Never. We're fighting now. We're fighting a spiritual battle now. That's what he's saying. Be salty. Be out there with my word. That is the battle. There's no need for swords and staves and all these things. It's a spiritual battle for the kingdom of heaven. That's what it's all about and that's why the salt is needed. It's to profit that kingdom, not this kingdom. Jesus doesn't need our help. When he comes back and sets up the millennial reign, he doesn't need me to be able to bench press 250 pounds or whatever. That's not what is needed from us. What is needed from us is to be salty and to use God's word. That's what will expand and that's the whole point of Jesus and everything that he said throughout the gospels. Everything was all about the kingdom of heaven. All profit is depending on us being salty, period. Salt can't stop being salt. But you can stop your Christian life from being profitable and that's exactly what he was talking about. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.