Thanks to Grant for sharing this with me.
Some of my favorite quotes:
TRANSCRIPT
you are the salt of the earth and the
light of the world
and in both cases that is not by saying
anything
or by doing anything but by being
something
salt affects its environment
simply by being what it is and light
affects its environment by being simply
what it is
not by saying or doing anything and if
we're going to be salt and light it's
not by
a lot of talk or even a lot of action
that we're going to be salt and light
it's by being
totally different from our environment
and so different that we affect it
and it is luke's gospel that tells us
what jesus
meant when he said you are the salt of
the earth matthew's gospel doesn't
define it
it just says you're the salt of the
earth and that
allows the preacher preaching from
matthew by itself
to put any meaning he likes into it and
unfortunately what we do
is we put our own experience of salt
into the meaning we think of salt as
either a flavoring or a preservative
and almost every sermon i've heard on
you are the salt of the earth talks
about flavoring or preservative
that somehow a little sprinkling of
christians makes the atmosphere sweeter
or somehow we manage to be the museum of
society
and in luke's gospel jesus defines what
he means
he says if the salt loses its saltness
it is no good either for the field
or the dunghill and this tells you what
salt was used for in the ancient world
it was scraped up from the shores of the
dead sea
which as you probably know is 28 salts
in solution
now it's not pure sodium chloride nacl
it is a mixture of various salts there
are all kinds of different salts there
and one of the main ones
is potassium chloride potash
if you're a gardener then you know that
every plant needs
three kinds of fertilizer it needs
phosphate
to develop the roots it needs nitrates
to develop the leaves and it needs
potash to develop the flowers and fruit
and a balanced fertilizer will include
all those three
and so the salt that was scraped up from
the dead sea was widely used as a
fertilizer
largely because of the potash in it
there were other things too magnesium
bromide there are all kinds of
major salts in the dead sea there is
also sodium
chloride quite a lot and that of course
was used in the kitchen but
jesus is thinking about its use as a
fertilizer he said on the soil
and the word soil there is exactly the
same as the word
earth in matthew the salt of the earth
the salt of the soil
the fertilizer that you put on the soil
to make good
things grow and then he mentioned the
dunghill
that was a reference the word there is a
word for
not animal manure but human manure
he's now into the backyard they simply
had a heap of dirt at the bottom of the
yard
you went and emptied your bowels at the
bottom of the yard and then
by the side of the dirt was a box full
of salt from the dead sea
and you put a handful of that on your
dirt
and that in fact was a disinfectant
a very simple disinfectant to stop the
spread of things you didn't want to grow
now those two put together give you a
negative and a positive
influence of salt that it promoted the
growth of good things that you wanted to
grow
and it inhibited the spread of bad
things that you didn't want to grow
it is a vivid picture and christians are
to be the salt of the soil
here you've got a very clear vivid
picture jesus was
always using very familiar pictures from
ordinary life
and using them to illustrate profound
truth
you are the salt of the soil you are the
people
who will stop bad things growing and
spreading
and who will promote the growth of good
things
that are wanted there now that's a vivid
picture
and you are that salt not by saying
anything
and not by doing anything but by being
totally different from the environment
and it's as simple as that in the
kitchen a sprinkling
will do a little salt in the soup and
that's enough
but as a fertilizer or a disinfectant
you need a considerable amount before
the effect shows
you need handfuls in both cases
a little sprinkling on the soil will not
do a thing
and therefore the very concept of being
salt in society demands
a certain proportion of that society
being christian being different being
salt
and the simple fact is we have not got
enough
salt it is as simple as that
and that is why social trends are going
the wrong way
and there's no way it can be reversed
until there is a sufficient
amount of salt to do the trick in other
words we might be
able to win an occasional battle by
lobbying and by protesting
but we will lose the war while there is
an insufficient amount of salt and you
can apply this in any situation
and while you read the papers and decry
what's happening in society
it all shrieks at me we no longer have
enough salt in this country we once had
but we no longer have and we can't
expect the trends to reverse until we do
now how much do we need
now this is where i've got some good
news for you that in fact
when in any community or society
there is five percent salt the social
trends reverse for the better
and it's not by anything that five
percent are saying or doing
but just by being five percent
until we are producing enough salt to
save a society we're going to
continue to work in a situation that's
going downhill
and where incidentally it becomes
increasingly difficult to be a christian
because the tide is running hard against
us at the moment and will continue to do
so
well now that's the quantitative
aspect of salt sprinkling is no good we
need shovelfuls
and we haven't got them the second
aspect is
the aspect not only of a mount but of
distribution
of distribution salt is no use in the
box or the salt cellar
it has got to be in direct contact with
the dirt before it
operates in other words it operates by
presence and not absence and as long as
salt is locked up in a meeting like this
we cannot be salt of the earth this
morning
we just can't do it because we're out of
contact
with the dirt and therefore distribution
we need first of all
five percent but if that five percent
were all locked up in christian schools
and in suburban churches it would not be
salt
it's got to be in among the dirt it's
got to be in direct physical contact
if it's going to operate in a factory
where there's a 5 christian presence the
language changes
without anybody saying anything think of
your street or the place where you work
don't grumble because you're in direct
contact with the dirt that's precisely
where salt can act
but it does need a five percent presence
and there is a disturbing
attitude among christians to try and get
out of that dirt
and to get into a christian situation
but i remember a girl coming to me and
saying
isn't it wonderful she said i'm the only
christian in the office where i work and
she said it's so hard but she said i've
seen an advertisement
for a christian firm and they
they want someone and i'm qualified for
the job and
i've been accepted in a christian firm
she was looking forward to starting the
day with prayer and all the rest of it
you know and going to work in a firm
where
everybody was christian and she saw my
face and she said what's the matter
i said you just told me that you
were the only christian in the office
where you worked
and now they have no contact with jesus
i want that to be an encouragement to
some of you to stay right where you are
or to put it in bible terms to remain in
the vocation in which you were called
because god called you right there
because you wanted some salt right there
better to pray that more christians will
join you
in that situation until you get the five
percent
then run away and join a christian
outfit we need salt in national
government local government we need salt
in sport
distribution of salt is very very
important and the more we shrink back
into christian
ghettos the less that salt
can operate it can only operate in
direct contact
with the dirt the third
aspect of salt and perhaps the most
important for us is the aspect
of quality you see salt is needed in a
certain amount
in any given situation it is also needed
to be in direct
physical contact with the situation it's
going to influence
but thirdly it must be salty
and jesus talked about salt losing its
savor
now how can sodium chloride lose
its salt equality the answer is it
cannot it is a physical impossibility
and yet it must have happened in jesus
day for him to be able to talk about it
he said if the salt has lost its savior
it's no good for anything and men throw
it in the street
which is where they threw all that
rubbish and it was trodden under foot
trodden into the dirt that's what
happens
to dirt in the middle east or to rubbish
now how could salt lose its savor
a very simple way not by ceasing to be
sodium chloride
but by being adulterated with other
substances
and a clever salt dealer would scrape up
plenty of sand with the salt
from the dead sea shores and so
a lot of it was not salt at all that's
the only way in which salt can lose its
saltness
by having too much other stuff mixed in
with it
and so it loses its quality
and any housewife who bought adulterated
salt that was half
sand would throw it out of the door into
the street
and men would walk it back into the dirt
from which it came
now the lesson of that is pretty obvious
christians will only influence the world
if they're different from it
somebody said of the church the lifeboat
should be in the sea but when the sea
gets in the lifeboat you're in trouble
and in fact our real situation is is not
just that we don't have enough salt
but the salt we do have is losing its
saltness
very very rapidly by being adulterated
by
having too much of the humanist
secularist
society around us getting right in among
christians
because the pressure is enormous to
conform
well now it therefore can lose its saver
and jesus said if it does all it will do
will produce contempt
in men they will treat it with disgust
so we have the rather sad spectacle
of christians trying to be
to quote the archbishop of canterbury we
must be
credible to our contemporary generation
we called to be credible
are we called to be different that's the
real issue
the feeling we've got to be with it
we've got to be one of the boys we've
got to
go along with contemporary society or
will lose them
that is when the salt loses its saltness
and in fact it's not the way to save
society it's the way to follow it
we should be leading society into a
better way
not following their way 30 years after
them
and then jesus said something which i
don't think people have taken too
seriously he said
if the salt loses its saltness there's
no way it can be restored
wherewith shall it be salted again now
that's important
once you lose your saltness you can't
get it back again
once you've lost when an individual
christian
loses their reputation almost impossible
to get it back again once salt loses
souls
wherewith shall it be salted it's gone
for good
now then so what is saltness well we've
got to go back
to the beatitudes and when you read
those beatitudes properly they are the
exact
opposite of the attitudes of the world
in which we have to live and move
to be poor in spirit is to be despised
by the world
it means to lack self-confidence
to the point where you say god if you
don't help me i can't do it
now the world admires self-confidence
people who are proud in spirit
people who stand up for themselves
people say i can do this
the poor in spirit is the exact opposite
it's to
say hey this is way beyond me it's the
opposite of self-confidence
it's got confidence but it's a lack of
self-confidence
to be mourning in a world that loves to
be happy and
jovial and joking to weep when others
laugh
to be meek the world i'm afraid is an
aggressive competitive meritocracy
and meat people are not going to get
very far people who can be pushed around
and then hunger and thirst for
righteousness
that means those whose top ambition is
to live right
not to live rich but to live right
that's their major ambition in life
that kind of person will be salt not the
person whose ambition it is to be famous
or powerful
or wealthy to be merciful in a
competitive
cruel opportunist world to be merciful
to give others a chance
to be pure in heart not only means to be
clean
in desires it means to be unmixed in
motives
not to have ulterior motives to be
motivated by
simple pure motives in what you do in
your career
and to be peacemakers rather than
fighters
now jesus was a realist and when he
outlined the character of salt in this
way
he realized he knew from his own
experience as well
that this was the surest way to be
persecuted which is why he
adds an extra beatitude blessed are you
when you are persecuted when people say
all kinds of bad things about you
and he knew that saying sticks and
stones hurt your bones but names don't
head at all
that's one of the most untrue proverbs
that's ever been coined
what people say does hurt hurts deeply
and jesus said blessed are you when
people
say all manner of evil against you
because if you're going to be assault in
your situation this is
certain to happen people will not
believe that you have unmixed motives
you can't believe you're doing it for
the right reasons they're
trying satan was ever the slanderer and
the accuser of the brethren
so jesus said if you're going to be salt
it's going to be tough
it will not pay in this world it will in
the next
great is your reward in heaven which
means you really have to have
faith to believe your rewards going to
be big because you're not going to see
it in this world
so you better accept that it's going to
be pretty big in the next
depends where you want your rewards for
jesus
the choice is contempt what a choice
contempt or hatred
you either are good salt in which case
you'll get contempt
sorry hatred or you're bad salt and you
lose your soul which case you get
contempt so
i tell you a christian loses every way
in this world but if you're real salt
there's a great reward for you in the
next
what about light light also has its
negative and its positive aspects
its negative aspect is to expose bad
ways
to show people up and that's not the way
to popularity either
but it also has a positive function in
exhibiting the right way the better way
so it's negative aspect is to show up
bad ways
the positive aspect is to exhibit a
better way neither way will be popular
again
now this is the only thing jesus ever
said about himself
and his disciples he said i am the light
of the world you are the light of the
world
he didn't say i am the salt of the earth
but he did say i am the light of the
world
and he said you are too and the occasion
on which he said it is fascinating
it is in the context of the woman taken
in adultery
a story which you probably have never
understood
it is a jewish story as the bible is a
jewish book
happy are you if you've a jewish friend
to teach you the scripture
because a jew understands it now you see
this is the situation they have caught a
woman in the very act of adultery so
they brought him to jesus
knowing that the law of moses said she
must be stoned
and knowing that jesus
if he said stone her would go against
the roman law which forbade
execution by jews or if he said
don't stone her then he was going
against the lord moses
in other words they trapped him between
the law of rome and the law of moses do
you see
it is perfectly true that the lord moses
said she must be stoned
so what did jesus do he wrote with his
finger in the dust
now to a jew that means one thing
that's a claim to be god it's a claim to
be the one who wrote the ten
commandments with his finger on the
stone
was jesus saying i wrote that law now
jews would come to that conclusion we
don't when we hear it read in church
because we're not jewish
a finger writing i hear preachers say
now what did jesus write that's not the
point
in a vivid act he's claiming to be
responsible for that law
as he did all the way through the sermon
on the mount incidentally
moses but i say unto you this is what i
meant when i gave that law
this was my intention behind it and then
jesus
reminded them of another law of moses
which they'd forgotten and that is
it's a very simple law it says nobody
can be a witness
in a criminal charge if they have ever
committed the same crime
so when jesus said he that is without
sin let him throw the first stone
he did not mean you've got to be 100
morally perfect before you can punish
anyone that's how most
gentiles take it but you see that would
rule out parents punishing children or
police
punish it would rule out all the law
courts because no judge
is without sin but he was re-quoting the
law that said
if you have never committed adultery you
can be a witness in this case
that's when they began to go away one by
one beginning with the oldest the young
ones tried to brazen it out but
even they had to admit that they'd done
it so in fact the witnesses were
dismissed on the basis of the law
you follow me then he looked up he said
where are your accusers where are the
witnesses
they're all gone yes they've all gone
now then
another point of the law was that there
had to be witnesses
two or three and of course the case had
to be dropped jesus said neither do i
condemn you not
just because he was not a witness and
there were no other witnesses
case dismissed neither do i condemn you
but he said don't do it again
i might not be around to defend you if
you get into trouble
do get jesus as your lawyer i mean it is
a brilliant
he was showing i know the law better
than you do
and i'm going to use the very law of
moses to sort out this situation
isn't it it's an amazing story but when
she'd gone
and noticed he said now don't do it
again because
mercy is not offered to us to go back
into sin
but to stop doing it he then said to the
crowd that had gathered
i am the light of the world he who
follows me won't walk in darkness
but he'll have the light of life now
that tells us
a profound truth about what light is
meant to be
it is not what we say or do it's what we
are what he's saying is that woman would
never have got
into that situation if she'd followed me
because that's a situation of darkness
moral darkness
and the man with her and all the men who
accused it they were all
living in darkness and if you follow me
you don't get into that kind of a mess
it's really a very simple situation but
he had actually shown them all up hadn't
he
he'd shown them all up exposed their bad
ways
and exhibited the better way don't do it
again don't sin anymore now then
the only action that we have to do is
light or put ourselves on a lampstand
in other words there is a responsibility
deliberately to put yourself
in public view now that's a difficult
thing for christians to do
because hiding your light is no use to
anybody else
you may be shining by yourself but
that's not going to help anyone else
now then what is it that we have to let
shine
the answer is christians are to be
seen for having a higher
standard of living than everybody else
but not in material ways
in moral ways a higher
moral standard of living is what jesus
meant
when he said let your light shine before
men that they may see
your good actions and by good he didn't
mean
doing good he meant being good
and he then proceeds to spell it out in
one sphere
after another and he raised moral
standards
higher than anybody has ever
dared to raise them there is no ethical
teacher in the whole of human history
dead to say what jesus said in the
sermon on the mount
and that is why many dismiss it as
impractical
and idealistic and they say it's
impossible for anyone
to live like that and it is
it is not natural for anyone to live
like this
it is supernatural which is why jesus
said let them
see how you live and glorify your father
in heaven
they will say that's not natural it's
not natural let me take one example from
the sermon on the mount
jesus for bad in fact he spent more time
on this sin than any other in the son of
a man
he forbade anybody in the kingdom to
worry and this is why you never see a
christian
worried
[Music]
now why is it why
is it that whenever i say that it's
treated as a joke
because jesus didn't mean it as a joke
we treat it like that because we are
laughing it off
but he said worry is forbidden in my
kingdom
because it is a liable on my heavenly
father
it is saying your father in heaven cares
more about his animals
his pets and his garden than he does
about his kids
he closed the lilies of the field and he
looks after the birds the air but me
i'm his child i have to worry now do you
see what a libel that is
why did he spend more time on that than
anything else than sermon on the mount
because he knows how natural it is to
worry it is supernatural not to
do you understand what an influence it
would be
if people said why is it christians
never worry
in a world that everybody's having to
worry about the mortgage and everything
else
why is it christians not worried boy
that would be an opener for a testimony
wouldn't it
why are you never worried well i don't
need to
jesus said that will be light in the
world that you of
all people as things get worse and
they're going to get worse
you're at peace my father's running this
world
and i'm his child and therefore he will
see
that i always have enough to eat enough
to wear that's the best welfare state in
the world
he will not see that i get everything i
want
but everything i need right on my dying
day
who wouldn't want to be in a welfare
state like that when the government is
scrapping every other bit of welfare
you see jesus fixed moral standards
higher than anybody else
but what he then did was he lifted
people
to the standard what the church in our
country is doing today is lowering the
standards to meet the people
now that's not going to be light or salt
do you follow me
and jesus was quite clear that being
light is going to be
terribly unpopular because he went on to
say i'm the light of the world he went
on to say and because i am you hate me
and you want to kill me
and he knew perfectly well that being
light is a very costly thing
and standing for what you know to be
right and true
will be painful and profoundly unpopular
and yet that is what it is to be light
in the world
of darkness but i hope i've left you
with a sense that salt and light
are not what you do or say but what you
are
and they only operate when you're in
direct physical contact with a world
that's in darkness
and dirt and we need a certain amount
if it's going to operate
and we need above all a quality of salt
and a quality of light
that is totally different from the
society in which god has placed us
i am alpha and omega the beginning and
the end saith the lord
which is and which was and which is to
come the almighty
he which testifieth these things saith
surely i come quickly amen
even so conquer lord jesus
Some of my favorite quotes:
- Are we called to be credible or called to be different?
- We should be leading society into a better way not following society
TRANSCRIPT
you are the salt of the earth and the
light of the world
and in both cases that is not by saying
anything
or by doing anything but by being
something
salt affects its environment
simply by being what it is and light
affects its environment by being simply
what it is
not by saying or doing anything and if
we're going to be salt and light it's
not by
a lot of talk or even a lot of action
that we're going to be salt and light
it's by being
totally different from our environment
and so different that we affect it
and it is luke's gospel that tells us
what jesus
meant when he said you are the salt of
the earth matthew's gospel doesn't
define it
it just says you're the salt of the
earth and that
allows the preacher preaching from
matthew by itself
to put any meaning he likes into it and
unfortunately what we do
is we put our own experience of salt
into the meaning we think of salt as
either a flavoring or a preservative
and almost every sermon i've heard on
you are the salt of the earth talks
about flavoring or preservative
that somehow a little sprinkling of
christians makes the atmosphere sweeter
or somehow we manage to be the museum of
society
and in luke's gospel jesus defines what
he means
he says if the salt loses its saltness
it is no good either for the field
or the dunghill and this tells you what
salt was used for in the ancient world
it was scraped up from the shores of the
dead sea
which as you probably know is 28 salts
in solution
now it's not pure sodium chloride nacl
it is a mixture of various salts there
are all kinds of different salts there
and one of the main ones
is potassium chloride potash
if you're a gardener then you know that
every plant needs
three kinds of fertilizer it needs
phosphate
to develop the roots it needs nitrates
to develop the leaves and it needs
potash to develop the flowers and fruit
and a balanced fertilizer will include
all those three
and so the salt that was scraped up from
the dead sea was widely used as a
fertilizer
largely because of the potash in it
there were other things too magnesium
bromide there are all kinds of
major salts in the dead sea there is
also sodium
chloride quite a lot and that of course
was used in the kitchen but
jesus is thinking about its use as a
fertilizer he said on the soil
and the word soil there is exactly the
same as the word
earth in matthew the salt of the earth
the salt of the soil
the fertilizer that you put on the soil
to make good
things grow and then he mentioned the
dunghill
that was a reference the word there is a
word for
not animal manure but human manure
he's now into the backyard they simply
had a heap of dirt at the bottom of the
yard
you went and emptied your bowels at the
bottom of the yard and then
by the side of the dirt was a box full
of salt from the dead sea
and you put a handful of that on your
dirt
and that in fact was a disinfectant
a very simple disinfectant to stop the
spread of things you didn't want to grow
now those two put together give you a
negative and a positive
influence of salt that it promoted the
growth of good things that you wanted to
grow
and it inhibited the spread of bad
things that you didn't want to grow
it is a vivid picture and christians are
to be the salt of the soil
here you've got a very clear vivid
picture jesus was
always using very familiar pictures from
ordinary life
and using them to illustrate profound
truth
you are the salt of the soil you are the
people
who will stop bad things growing and
spreading
and who will promote the growth of good
things
that are wanted there now that's a vivid
picture
and you are that salt not by saying
anything
and not by doing anything but by being
totally different from the environment
and it's as simple as that in the
kitchen a sprinkling
will do a little salt in the soup and
that's enough
but as a fertilizer or a disinfectant
you need a considerable amount before
the effect shows
you need handfuls in both cases
a little sprinkling on the soil will not
do a thing
and therefore the very concept of being
salt in society demands
a certain proportion of that society
being christian being different being
salt
and the simple fact is we have not got
enough
salt it is as simple as that
and that is why social trends are going
the wrong way
and there's no way it can be reversed
until there is a sufficient
amount of salt to do the trick in other
words we might be
able to win an occasional battle by
lobbying and by protesting
but we will lose the war while there is
an insufficient amount of salt and you
can apply this in any situation
and while you read the papers and decry
what's happening in society
it all shrieks at me we no longer have
enough salt in this country we once had
but we no longer have and we can't
expect the trends to reverse until we do
now how much do we need
now this is where i've got some good
news for you that in fact
when in any community or society
there is five percent salt the social
trends reverse for the better
and it's not by anything that five
percent are saying or doing
but just by being five percent
until we are producing enough salt to
save a society we're going to
continue to work in a situation that's
going downhill
and where incidentally it becomes
increasingly difficult to be a christian
because the tide is running hard against
us at the moment and will continue to do
so
well now that's the quantitative
aspect of salt sprinkling is no good we
need shovelfuls
and we haven't got them the second
aspect is
the aspect not only of a mount but of
distribution
of distribution salt is no use in the
box or the salt cellar
it has got to be in direct contact with
the dirt before it
operates in other words it operates by
presence and not absence and as long as
salt is locked up in a meeting like this
we cannot be salt of the earth this
morning
we just can't do it because we're out of
contact
with the dirt and therefore distribution
we need first of all
five percent but if that five percent
were all locked up in christian schools
and in suburban churches it would not be
salt
it's got to be in among the dirt it's
got to be in direct physical contact
if it's going to operate in a factory
where there's a 5 christian presence the
language changes
without anybody saying anything think of
your street or the place where you work
don't grumble because you're in direct
contact with the dirt that's precisely
where salt can act
but it does need a five percent presence
and there is a disturbing
attitude among christians to try and get
out of that dirt
and to get into a christian situation
but i remember a girl coming to me and
saying
isn't it wonderful she said i'm the only
christian in the office where i work and
she said it's so hard but she said i've
seen an advertisement
for a christian firm and they
they want someone and i'm qualified for
the job and
i've been accepted in a christian firm
she was looking forward to starting the
day with prayer and all the rest of it
you know and going to work in a firm
where
everybody was christian and she saw my
face and she said what's the matter
i said you just told me that you
were the only christian in the office
where you worked
and now they have no contact with jesus
i want that to be an encouragement to
some of you to stay right where you are
or to put it in bible terms to remain in
the vocation in which you were called
because god called you right there
because you wanted some salt right there
better to pray that more christians will
join you
in that situation until you get the five
percent
then run away and join a christian
outfit we need salt in national
government local government we need salt
in sport
distribution of salt is very very
important and the more we shrink back
into christian
ghettos the less that salt
can operate it can only operate in
direct contact
with the dirt the third
aspect of salt and perhaps the most
important for us is the aspect
of quality you see salt is needed in a
certain amount
in any given situation it is also needed
to be in direct
physical contact with the situation it's
going to influence
but thirdly it must be salty
and jesus talked about salt losing its
savor
now how can sodium chloride lose
its salt equality the answer is it
cannot it is a physical impossibility
and yet it must have happened in jesus
day for him to be able to talk about it
he said if the salt has lost its savior
it's no good for anything and men throw
it in the street
which is where they threw all that
rubbish and it was trodden under foot
trodden into the dirt that's what
happens
to dirt in the middle east or to rubbish
now how could salt lose its savor
a very simple way not by ceasing to be
sodium chloride
but by being adulterated with other
substances
and a clever salt dealer would scrape up
plenty of sand with the salt
from the dead sea shores and so
a lot of it was not salt at all that's
the only way in which salt can lose its
saltness
by having too much other stuff mixed in
with it
and so it loses its quality
and any housewife who bought adulterated
salt that was half
sand would throw it out of the door into
the street
and men would walk it back into the dirt
from which it came
now the lesson of that is pretty obvious
christians will only influence the world
if they're different from it
somebody said of the church the lifeboat
should be in the sea but when the sea
gets in the lifeboat you're in trouble
and in fact our real situation is is not
just that we don't have enough salt
but the salt we do have is losing its
saltness
very very rapidly by being adulterated
by
having too much of the humanist
secularist
society around us getting right in among
christians
because the pressure is enormous to
conform
well now it therefore can lose its saver
and jesus said if it does all it will do
will produce contempt
in men they will treat it with disgust
so we have the rather sad spectacle
of christians trying to be
to quote the archbishop of canterbury we
must be
credible to our contemporary generation
we called to be credible
are we called to be different that's the
real issue
the feeling we've got to be with it
we've got to be one of the boys we've
got to
go along with contemporary society or
will lose them
that is when the salt loses its saltness
and in fact it's not the way to save
society it's the way to follow it
we should be leading society into a
better way
not following their way 30 years after
them
and then jesus said something which i
don't think people have taken too
seriously he said
if the salt loses its saltness there's
no way it can be restored
wherewith shall it be salted again now
that's important
once you lose your saltness you can't
get it back again
once you've lost when an individual
christian
loses their reputation almost impossible
to get it back again once salt loses
souls
wherewith shall it be salted it's gone
for good
now then so what is saltness well we've
got to go back
to the beatitudes and when you read
those beatitudes properly they are the
exact
opposite of the attitudes of the world
in which we have to live and move
to be poor in spirit is to be despised
by the world
it means to lack self-confidence
to the point where you say god if you
don't help me i can't do it
now the world admires self-confidence
people who are proud in spirit
people who stand up for themselves
people say i can do this
the poor in spirit is the exact opposite
it's to
say hey this is way beyond me it's the
opposite of self-confidence
it's got confidence but it's a lack of
self-confidence
to be mourning in a world that loves to
be happy and
jovial and joking to weep when others
laugh
to be meek the world i'm afraid is an
aggressive competitive meritocracy
and meat people are not going to get
very far people who can be pushed around
and then hunger and thirst for
righteousness
that means those whose top ambition is
to live right
not to live rich but to live right
that's their major ambition in life
that kind of person will be salt not the
person whose ambition it is to be famous
or powerful
or wealthy to be merciful in a
competitive
cruel opportunist world to be merciful
to give others a chance
to be pure in heart not only means to be
clean
in desires it means to be unmixed in
motives
not to have ulterior motives to be
motivated by
simple pure motives in what you do in
your career
and to be peacemakers rather than
fighters
now jesus was a realist and when he
outlined the character of salt in this
way
he realized he knew from his own
experience as well
that this was the surest way to be
persecuted which is why he
adds an extra beatitude blessed are you
when you are persecuted when people say
all kinds of bad things about you
and he knew that saying sticks and
stones hurt your bones but names don't
head at all
that's one of the most untrue proverbs
that's ever been coined
what people say does hurt hurts deeply
and jesus said blessed are you when
people
say all manner of evil against you
because if you're going to be assault in
your situation this is
certain to happen people will not
believe that you have unmixed motives
you can't believe you're doing it for
the right reasons they're
trying satan was ever the slanderer and
the accuser of the brethren
so jesus said if you're going to be salt
it's going to be tough
it will not pay in this world it will in
the next
great is your reward in heaven which
means you really have to have
faith to believe your rewards going to
be big because you're not going to see
it in this world
so you better accept that it's going to
be pretty big in the next
depends where you want your rewards for
jesus
the choice is contempt what a choice
contempt or hatred
you either are good salt in which case
you'll get contempt
sorry hatred or you're bad salt and you
lose your soul which case you get
contempt so
i tell you a christian loses every way
in this world but if you're real salt
there's a great reward for you in the
next
what about light light also has its
negative and its positive aspects
its negative aspect is to expose bad
ways
to show people up and that's not the way
to popularity either
but it also has a positive function in
exhibiting the right way the better way
so it's negative aspect is to show up
bad ways
the positive aspect is to exhibit a
better way neither way will be popular
again
now this is the only thing jesus ever
said about himself
and his disciples he said i am the light
of the world you are the light of the
world
he didn't say i am the salt of the earth
but he did say i am the light of the
world
and he said you are too and the occasion
on which he said it is fascinating
it is in the context of the woman taken
in adultery
a story which you probably have never
understood
it is a jewish story as the bible is a
jewish book
happy are you if you've a jewish friend
to teach you the scripture
because a jew understands it now you see
this is the situation they have caught a
woman in the very act of adultery so
they brought him to jesus
knowing that the law of moses said she
must be stoned
and knowing that jesus
if he said stone her would go against
the roman law which forbade
execution by jews or if he said
don't stone her then he was going
against the lord moses
in other words they trapped him between
the law of rome and the law of moses do
you see
it is perfectly true that the lord moses
said she must be stoned
so what did jesus do he wrote with his
finger in the dust
now to a jew that means one thing
that's a claim to be god it's a claim to
be the one who wrote the ten
commandments with his finger on the
stone
was jesus saying i wrote that law now
jews would come to that conclusion we
don't when we hear it read in church
because we're not jewish
a finger writing i hear preachers say
now what did jesus write that's not the
point
in a vivid act he's claiming to be
responsible for that law
as he did all the way through the sermon
on the mount incidentally
moses but i say unto you this is what i
meant when i gave that law
this was my intention behind it and then
jesus
reminded them of another law of moses
which they'd forgotten and that is
it's a very simple law it says nobody
can be a witness
in a criminal charge if they have ever
committed the same crime
so when jesus said he that is without
sin let him throw the first stone
he did not mean you've got to be 100
morally perfect before you can punish
anyone that's how most
gentiles take it but you see that would
rule out parents punishing children or
police
punish it would rule out all the law
courts because no judge
is without sin but he was re-quoting the
law that said
if you have never committed adultery you
can be a witness in this case
that's when they began to go away one by
one beginning with the oldest the young
ones tried to brazen it out but
even they had to admit that they'd done
it so in fact the witnesses were
dismissed on the basis of the law
you follow me then he looked up he said
where are your accusers where are the
witnesses
they're all gone yes they've all gone
now then
another point of the law was that there
had to be witnesses
two or three and of course the case had
to be dropped jesus said neither do i
condemn you not
just because he was not a witness and
there were no other witnesses
case dismissed neither do i condemn you
but he said don't do it again
i might not be around to defend you if
you get into trouble
do get jesus as your lawyer i mean it is
a brilliant
he was showing i know the law better
than you do
and i'm going to use the very law of
moses to sort out this situation
isn't it it's an amazing story but when
she'd gone
and noticed he said now don't do it
again because
mercy is not offered to us to go back
into sin
but to stop doing it he then said to the
crowd that had gathered
i am the light of the world he who
follows me won't walk in darkness
but he'll have the light of life now
that tells us
a profound truth about what light is
meant to be
it is not what we say or do it's what we
are what he's saying is that woman would
never have got
into that situation if she'd followed me
because that's a situation of darkness
moral darkness
and the man with her and all the men who
accused it they were all
living in darkness and if you follow me
you don't get into that kind of a mess
it's really a very simple situation but
he had actually shown them all up hadn't
he
he'd shown them all up exposed their bad
ways
and exhibited the better way don't do it
again don't sin anymore now then
the only action that we have to do is
light or put ourselves on a lampstand
in other words there is a responsibility
deliberately to put yourself
in public view now that's a difficult
thing for christians to do
because hiding your light is no use to
anybody else
you may be shining by yourself but
that's not going to help anyone else
now then what is it that we have to let
shine
the answer is christians are to be
seen for having a higher
standard of living than everybody else
but not in material ways
in moral ways a higher
moral standard of living is what jesus
meant
when he said let your light shine before
men that they may see
your good actions and by good he didn't
mean
doing good he meant being good
and he then proceeds to spell it out in
one sphere
after another and he raised moral
standards
higher than anybody has ever
dared to raise them there is no ethical
teacher in the whole of human history
dead to say what jesus said in the
sermon on the mount
and that is why many dismiss it as
impractical
and idealistic and they say it's
impossible for anyone
to live like that and it is
it is not natural for anyone to live
like this
it is supernatural which is why jesus
said let them
see how you live and glorify your father
in heaven
they will say that's not natural it's
not natural let me take one example from
the sermon on the mount
jesus for bad in fact he spent more time
on this sin than any other in the son of
a man
he forbade anybody in the kingdom to
worry and this is why you never see a
christian
worried
[Music]
now why is it why
is it that whenever i say that it's
treated as a joke
because jesus didn't mean it as a joke
we treat it like that because we are
laughing it off
but he said worry is forbidden in my
kingdom
because it is a liable on my heavenly
father
it is saying your father in heaven cares
more about his animals
his pets and his garden than he does
about his kids
he closed the lilies of the field and he
looks after the birds the air but me
i'm his child i have to worry now do you
see what a libel that is
why did he spend more time on that than
anything else than sermon on the mount
because he knows how natural it is to
worry it is supernatural not to
do you understand what an influence it
would be
if people said why is it christians
never worry
in a world that everybody's having to
worry about the mortgage and everything
else
why is it christians not worried boy
that would be an opener for a testimony
wouldn't it
why are you never worried well i don't
need to
jesus said that will be light in the
world that you of
all people as things get worse and
they're going to get worse
you're at peace my father's running this
world
and i'm his child and therefore he will
see
that i always have enough to eat enough
to wear that's the best welfare state in
the world
he will not see that i get everything i
want
but everything i need right on my dying
day
who wouldn't want to be in a welfare
state like that when the government is
scrapping every other bit of welfare
you see jesus fixed moral standards
higher than anybody else
but what he then did was he lifted
people
to the standard what the church in our
country is doing today is lowering the
standards to meet the people
now that's not going to be light or salt
do you follow me
and jesus was quite clear that being
light is going to be
terribly unpopular because he went on to
say i'm the light of the world he went
on to say and because i am you hate me
and you want to kill me
and he knew perfectly well that being
light is a very costly thing
and standing for what you know to be
right and true
will be painful and profoundly unpopular
and yet that is what it is to be light
in the world
of darkness but i hope i've left you
with a sense that salt and light
are not what you do or say but what you
are
and they only operate when you're in
direct physical contact with a world
that's in darkness
and dirt and we need a certain amount
if it's going to operate
and we need above all a quality of salt
and a quality of light
that is totally different from the
society in which god has placed us
i am alpha and omega the beginning and
the end saith the lord
which is and which was and which is to
come the almighty
he which testifieth these things saith
surely i come quickly amen
even so conquer lord jesus