Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Salt of the earth vs sugar candy

"You are the salt of the earth, not the sugar candy."
~ Charles Spurgeon

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?
It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.'
~ Jesus in Matthew 5:13


"Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned?
~ Jesus in Luke 14:34

Salt preserves from corruption. The disciples of Christ preserve the world from general corruption. Whatever becomes utterly corrupted is doomed to be destroyed. Salt is worthless if it has lost its qualities. It preserves no longer. It is fit only to be cast out and trodden under foot. So, too, if those who are the salt of the earth cease to communicate saving power, they are fit only to be cast out, and Christ will cast such out of His mouth. See Re 3:16.
~ People's New Testament

While there is an emphasis in the utilization of salt in God's prescription of worship and service, we find that today's worship is more often like colorful sugar candy treats. While candy is pleasing to the eye and to the tongue, it is not nutritional. Sugar often causes us to crave more of the same. It can also take away our appetite for nutritional food. What kind of spiritual food is being offered at your church?

Here are some interesting scriptures about the importance of salt & the prohibition against leaven and honey, followed with an excellent commentary by Matthew Henry. There are some amazing correlations to today's 'worship'. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Together for Life & Eternity,
Patte Smith
Sanctuary Ministries


'No grain offering, which you bring to the LORD, shall be made with leaven,
for you shall not offer up in smoke any leaven or any honey as an offering by fire to the LORD...
Every grain offering of yours, moreover, you shall season with salt,
so that the salt of the covenant of your God shall not be lacking from your grain offering;
with all your offerings you shall offer salt.'
Leviticus 2:11,13

Leaven and honey are forbidden to be put in any of their meat-offerings: No leaven, nor any honey, in any offering made by fire.

1. ..The New Testament comparing pride and hypocrisy to leaven because they swell like leaven, comparing also malice and wickedness to leaven because they sour like leaven, we are to understand and improve this as a caution to take heed of those sins which will certainly spoil the acceptableness of our spiritual sacrifices. Pure hands must be lifted up without wrath, and all our gospel feasts kept with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

2. Honey was forbidden, though Canaan flowed with it, because to eat much honey is not good (Prov. 25:16, 27); it turns to choler and bitterness in the stomach, though luscious to the taste. Some think the chief reason why those two things, leaven and honey, were forbidden, was because the Gentiles used them very much in their sacrifices, and God's people must not learn or use the way of the heathen, but His services must be the reverse of their idolatrous services; see Deu. 12:30, 31. Some make this application of this double prohibition: leaven signifies grief and sadness of spirit (Ps. 73:21), My heart was leavened; honey signifies sensual pleasure and mirth. In our service of God both these must be avoided, and a mean observed between those extremes; for the sorrow of the world worketh death, and a love to the delights of sense is a great enemy to holy love.

II. Salt is REQUIRED in all their offerings, vs 13. ... there was a chamber in the court of the temple called the chamber of salt, in which they laid it up. Can that which is unsavoury be eaten without salt? God would hereby intimate to them that their sacrifices in themselves were unsavoury. The saints, who are living sacrifices to God, must have salt in themselves, for every sacrifice must be salted with salt (Mk. 9:49, 50), and our speech must be always with grace (Col. 4:6), so must all our religious performances be seasoned with that salt. Christianity is the salt of the earth.

Excerpted from Matthew Henry's commentary on Leviticus 2
http://biblebrowser.com/leviticus/2-11.htm

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