The Influential Christian

Copy of God's word, you don't own a Bible of your own, uh, please take that Bible with you at the close of the service.

Uh, we want you to have it, it is our gift to you, and so uh we'd encourage you to do that.

Luke chapter 14, verses 34 and 35.

Luke 14:34

Salt is good.

But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile.

It is thrown away.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

This is one of the hard sayings of Jesus as we continue through Luke's gospel.

We come upon this.

Jesus has been talking about the cost of discipleship.

We see in chapter 15.

We're going to see the heart of God and the heart of the Pharisees in regards to the lost.

And sandwiched in between these two passages is uh this saying of Jesus.

Now we don't know because Luke didn't always write chronologically if this was something that Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, placed here, or if this was uh the next things that Jesus had said.

We know he taught uh the same things in different locations at different times.

Um, but uh again it is noteworthy where this is placed in the context of the larger picture of the cost of discipleship, which we talked about last time, and then as we move forward looking at uh the heart of God towards the lost and the hardness of the Pharisees towards others.

We come here and there's a question that we need to ask right off the bat, and I want to begin by way of introduction with that is Jesus is talking about salt, and we need to ask ourselves what is the purpose of salt or how is salt used in uh the first century Israel?

Darryl Bach in his commentary on Luke lists four different ways that salt was used in uh Bible times.

He said, first of all, it's used as a preservative, uh, which would make sense that salt uh would, they would encase meat, they would pack it with salt because there was no refrigeration, and so uh meat left to itself would very quickly become rotten, uh, and so they would encase it in salt, or perhaps they would cure meat uh with salt, but they would uh use salt as a preservative uh to keep things from rotting because that would be the natural tendency for it to rot.

Uh secondly, and I think we all know this as well, that salt is used as a seasoning.

Uh perhaps when we think of salt, that's the most immediate way that we think about salt, is in the idea of seasoning food.

It uh has influence, makes subtle but significant changes uh to the flavor of food that we eat, and it permeates uh the entire uh meal as it's mixed in with what we're eating, uh, so it can be used as a seasoning.

Uh maybe less common to us, um, but it is still in part a part of fertilizer today, but it's used in fertilizer.

In fact, I went on some agricultural websites that were way over my head uh talking about uh salt and the mixture of fertilizer and debating how hard that is on the soil, but it's still uh today that is uh a component and different types of fertilizer, and it was used that way.

Uh salt uh gives uh it causes and helps things to grow, living things to grow.

It's an essential element.

Uh one that was uh interesting to me and one that I wasn't aware of, but it was also used as a catalyst for fire.

And uh Daryl Bach noted this in this commentary, and I did some research on this, and and uh they would sometimes take salt and they would have a manure pile and they would use salt, and although the salt wouldn't be uh uh chemically changed, but it would be a catalyst for the fire to increase the rate and the quickness of the uh the manure that would be used for fuel to burn.

And so he noted there that it was it was also a catalyst for fire.

In the first century, salt was not pure.

Um pure salt cannot lose its flavor or its effectiveness.

Um, sodium chloride is a very staple substance, and uh it's very unlikely for the chemical bond to break, or at least that's what the chemists I read have said that it is um in its pure form a very uh stable substance.

However, most of the salt taken from the Dead Sea was not pure salt.

Uh one commentary noted this.

It said most salt came from the Dead Sea and contained impurities, uh carnelite and gypsum.

If not processed properly, it would have a poor taste and would be worse than useless, being unsuitable for food and creating a disposal problem.

See, the problem wasn't with salt itself, it was with the mixture that uh often was a part of it.

Uh sometimes salt would be intentionally cut with fillers by unscrupulous merchants uh in order to make more money, but uh possibly the salt could have been impure when it was uh when it was taken from the ground and uh when it was when it was mined, and uh water, if water were to pour through that, uh the salt would be leached out of that, and what you would be left with is these other uh useless impurities.

It would look like salt, it may have the appearance of salt, uh, but it would not have uh the properties of salt because the salt had been uh leached away, it had been drawn away.

But this isn't a chemistry class, and there are some here, I'm sure, that can go into much greater detail uh than me, but I wanted to share a bit about what Jesus is talking about, and and uh especially those with uh more uh more of a background in this to give an idea of what the context was in the first century, um, because surely somebody is going to read this and say, well, Jesus was mistaken at this point.

He wasn't.

We have to understand the context of what uh Salt was in that day to understand uh more fully what Jesus is saying here.

Well, Jesus, we saw, had challenged the disciples, he challenged the disciples to understand what it meant to be a true disciple.

Uh there were those who were uh followers of Christ, but they were uh external followers, their heart was not with him, and we saw that in John chapter 6 that when hard sayings came in, uh they walked away and followed Christ no more.

John 6 · chapter mention

And the text in John said it was because uh they did not believe, they were not believers.

And so there was a warning here that a true disciple we saw last time recognizes the value of Jesus, the relative value of Jesus, that he's greater than, even the good things that we have in this life.

And we saw Jesus challenge uh those who would be his disciples to recognize that there was a decisive dying to uh the old way of life of what it meant to come to Christ, to count the cost and follow him.

And he challenged uh those who would-be disciples to count the cost, uh, to what it means to follow Christ, to reckon seriously uh the offer of the gospel and what it means uh to turn to Christ in faith, but also to realize the consequences of not making peace with God.

Uh that to not decide is to make a decision.

The reality is that there is judgment coming, and to stay an indecision, ultimately uh ultimately you will face the consequences of your indecision.

And so Jesus uh gives this uh warning and he says and he ends there anyone who of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

And so it's significant that now Jesus, and in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Luke puts this here following that passage.

Because Jesus is expanding the ideas and the call that his hearers would have understood.

This isn't the only place that Jesus uses this analogy, and let me just read for you two other places that Jesus does and says very similar things.

Matthew chapter 5, verse 13.

Matthew 5:13

Jesus says, You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.

In Mark chapter 9, verse 50, Jesus says, Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again?

Mark 9:50

Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.

Well, what are the applications that Jesus has here as he brings this uh this analogy, this illustration to the forefront of our minds?

What is he uh to uh referring to?

Which properties or uses of salt is he referring to?

And I don't think that we have to uh limit it to one of those that we had mentioned, whether talking about a fertilizer or seasoning or a catalyst, um I don't think we have to uh limit it to one thing.

Uh we as believers, as what Jesus is saying here, that um that we, if we have come to genuine faith in Christ, our lives are going to have an influence uh in the world around us.

More than that, a person who has genuinely come to faith in Christ is now walking with him, and he's going to have an impact.

So Jesus says here, salt is good.

That's his comment here.

And so we we see the nature of salt, uh, the nature of good salt.

That if you're genuinely born again, if you have the life of God in you through a relationship with Jesus Christ, if you have his abiding presence in your life, if you are in his word in prayer, if you're striving to love God and enjoy him, and striving after holiness, striving to please him, you cannot help but being an influence to those around you.

And so Jesus here says salt is good.

The very nature of God in you through a relationship with Christ is a positive good in this world.

We preserve the world from rotting.

Christianity has a great influence for good in society.

You know, this concept has fallen on hard times in recent years, and oftentimes we talk about all the things that Christians are against, and Christians are castigated and marginalized, and their influence in this world is minimized or ignored or unseen.

But even a casual view of history will see that it was Christians who were in the forefront, those who loved God the most, who made the most practical difference in this world throughout history.

If you look in history, even in the history of our country, it was believers who believed in the dignity of man who believed that all men were created in the image of God who were in the forefront of fighting against slavery.

And even in our day, there are those who believe in the image of God bearing on all human beings that are fighting for life from the moment of conception to the last dying breath, that all life is valuable and precious in God's sight, and that we have no right to extinguish life.

Life is from God, and God is the one who has uh is the Lord over life.

You look at caring for orphans, standing against human trafficking, caring for the poor, those, you know, for all of the arguments against Christianity and homosexuality, if you go back in the 1980s when people were living in fear of AIDS because it was so unknown.

It was believers who loved God and loved people who were at the forefront of ministering to those who were afflicted with AIDS.

Christians have a great influence in society.

And we preserve it from rotting by our understanding of morality and truth and what is right, and knowing that there are absolutes, that there is a standard of right and wrong, and it is not by a majority opinion that there is a God, and he has spoken.

That in many ways we have been used by God providentially, sovereignly, to help people to recognize right and wrong.

So we have been used by God to preserve the world from its natural tendency towards rotting.

We have been a catalyst for change in many ways related to what we've already talked about, but oftentimes the presence of Christians there in different circumstances and situations have been a catalyst for God to move people to begin to take action, and our influence is impactful in bringing about change, even by our very presence.

We in very subtle ways have a pervasive and positive influence seasoning this world with the truth of God's word as we live the gospel out all around us.

Jesus says salt is good.

But then he warns us here, and this is a hard saying.

He says, if salt has lost its taste, there is a danger here of tasteless salt.

He says, if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

We've already seen that true salt does not lose its saltiness, but because of the impurities that are there, that uh the true salt can be leached out, and so that what you have is no salt at all.

And I believe what Jesus is saying here, he's talking about the life of people uh and for us to look at and see the reality of our own faith.

Uh in fact, I think it's related to what we saw earlier when we were looking in Luke.

If you remember in Luke chapter 8, uh, Jesus using a different analogy talked about the soils, and he talked about four soils.

Luke 8 · chapter mention

And he gave this analogy, he gave this parable, and the people there uh were listening to it.

He said, uh, a great crowd was gat was gathered, and people from town after town came to him, and he said in a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed, and as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot, and the birds of the air devoured it.

Some fell on rocks, and it grew up, it withered away because it had no moisture.

Some fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew up with it, and it choked it, and some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.

And he said these things, he called out, He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

And his disciples begin to ask him, What does this mean?

What's the purpose of this?

And he he gives this warning that there is a judicial hardening, those who have hardened their hearts and have stopped up their ears, even the very things that they hear are going to cause a hardness of heart because of where they are and their resistance to the things of God.

And so in verse 11 he says this.

Now the parable is this the seed is the word of God.

The one along the path are those who have heard, then the devil comes to take away the word from their heart, so they may not believe and be saved.

So it doesn't even it doesn't even have an initial impact on that person.

And then he goes on, he says, and the one on the rock, the one on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy, but these have no root.

They believe for a while, but it's a superficial, external belief, and in time of testing they fall away.

And then he says, as for those who fell among the thorns, they are those who hear.

They hear, but they go on their way.

They are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.

And then he says, There's good soil.

This is, and he says, As for that, in the good soil, there are those who are who hearing the word hold fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience.

Now, Jesus says that there are some who may have an appearance, especially the second and third soil, that they have an appearance of faith, but there is no genuine faith.

The reality of it, when testing comes or times of pleasures come, the proof of the reality of their lack of faith comes out.

What makes the difference between the soils?

What makes the difference between true salt and the worthless salt?

And we need to be careful in understanding what Jesus is saying here in verse in chapter 14.

There's a danger in hearing these words and completely misinterpreting them and saying, Well, is Jesus saying I have to work harder?

We're so performance-oriented in our thinking that we begin to hear things like this and saying, Oh, well, I have to work harder to prove that I'm somehow a Christian.

And that isn't the point of what Jesus is saying here.

Those are only external indicators of the true reality of your heart, the true nature of your faith.

In Hebrews chapter 4, verse 2, it says, For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

Hebrews 4:2

Genuine faith is a living faith, it is an act of faith, it is reliance upon God, it is the beginning of a relationship with God that has an ongoing influence in our own lives.

That God is the one who preserves us so that he enables us to persevere.

And for the person who's come to faith in Christ, who's genuinely accepted Christ, he cannot lose that new nature or identity that he has in Christ.

That if one has come to faith in Christ, he is a new creature, he is born again, he is a child of God, and he will forever be a child of God.

And so we need to be careful when we look at passages like this that we're not saying, or we don't misunderstand and think that this is saying that somebody could fall away and lose his salvation and end up separated from God for eternity.

But there is a warning here to those who hear the gospel.

There is a warning for those who come into the hearing of the gospel.

Maybe even have heard it and acknowledge its truth, but then they fall away.

And let me explain what Jesus is saying here.

There is, he says here, there uh the implicit in this is there is an impossibility of restoring salt.

There is an impossibility here at one level.

There's a question that Jesus asks.

He says, How shall its saltiness be restored?

And let me explain this, and this is again, this is a hard saying of Jesus, of what he's saying here.

Um there is a general tendency, there is a general tendency in here, and I'll explain the extreme and final form of that general tendency that we see, and that's and it that will result in not being able to be restored.

Jesus asked the question: if salt has lost its saltiness, how shall its saltiness be restored if it's lost its taste?

Now, on a purely human level, the answer is it's impossible.

Um it is it is on a human level, the answer is that would be impossible.

And what we talked about the nature of salt.

Um but we need to understand more than that of what God's saying here.

Think of the story of the rich young ruler in Matthew chapter 19.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

If you remember the story, this man had come uh to Jesus, he said, What must I do to inherit eternal life?

And uh Jesus begins to talk to him, and Jesus points out the law, he points out God's standards, and the the effect was supposed to be that this man would see God's standards of righteousness, realize he could never meet that standard in his own good works, and cast himself upon the mercy of God and ask for grace.

But this man in his own foolishness says, Well, all of that I've kept from my youth.

He made a poor self assessment.

He said, No, I've gotten pretty good.

I've kept the law.

And so Jesus begins by uh pointing out uh the first.

Commandment and he begins to ask him that.

And he asks him to sell all of his possessions.

But the reality was that this man, his possessions were his God.

And so this man turns away sadly after he hears what Jesus says.

And if you remember the story there in Matthew chapter 19, Jesus then says, Truly I say to you, it's only with difficulty that a rich person enters the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew 19 · chapter mention

This would have shocked his hearers, because his hearers assume this.

If you are rich, that means God has blessed you.

And if God has blessed you, that means you must be extra close to God.

And so for Jesus to say that it's that with difficulty a rich person enters the kingdom of heaven, they begin to think to themselves, well, if a rich person who we assumed is closer to God because he's being blessed by God, he must be, then what about us?

And Jesus goes on, he says, Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God.

And so, and literally he's talking about a needle, a sewing needle.

There's some mythological needle into the gate with the camels kneeling, and that's not what's in view here.

Jesus is talking about the impossibility, the impossibility of somebody coming to faith like that.

The disciples ask the question: who then can be saved?

And Jesus answers, with man, that's impossible.

Left to himself, no one can save himself.

It doesn't matter your status, it doesn't matter your background, it doesn't matter how good you've been, it doesn't matter how religious you've been, no one can save himself.

With man, that is impossible.

And then he says, but with God all things are possible.

And so with what I want to say next, I don't want us to misunderstand and overapply what I believe Jesus is saying here, but I do want us to hear the next point that I'm going to make.

And that is this someone can be born to believing parents, hear the gospel in Sunday school and church, attend VBS in Iwana, and grow up hearing the gospel and never coming to true faith in Christ.

That person then goes off to college or leaves home and goes into the workforce.

And because his faith was never his own, he now as an adult rejects the gospel.

And it is often harder to reach the person who has grown up under the influence of the gospel message and has rejected that message than somebody who has never heard the gospel.

That in some way the very hearing of the gospel over and over again and it not being mingled with faith hardens the heart and insulates the person from receiving the message.

And I do believe that there are rare instances, and hear my words, rare instances where someone has so rejected the gospel over and over again and has hardened his heart over and over again to the point where it becomes impossible for that person to repent.

He cannot repent because he will not repent, because he has so hardened his heart and rejected the work of the Holy Spirit.

And in essence, God has brought final judgment on that individual, even though he has not yet died.

In fact, that is my understanding of what is talked about in that often discussed and debated passage in Hebrews chapter 6, verses 4 through 6.

Hebrews 6:4–6

And turn there for a moment and let me show you where I land on this.

And I know many have different opinions.

This is an often debated passage, very difficult to interpret, and I acknowledge that, but I think maybe you'll see where I'm coming from in my understanding of this passage, how it ties into Luke's passage.

Notice what it says here in Hebrews chapter 6, verse 4.

Hebrews 6:4

He says, For it is impossible, for it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, have shared in the Holy Spirit, have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the power of the age to come, and then have fallen away to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

Now, some read this passage and they say, well, this passage is teaching that a genuine believer can lose his salvation.

And I remember when I was in college, there were people there in Georgia and other churches that I had visited and friends I had talked to, and they'd say, Well, yeah, you know, people lose their salvation.

In fact, some went so far as to say, I remember hearing this conversation, oh yeah, so-and-so used to be a Christian, but they're not a Christian anymore.

They need to get resaved.

Well, and they they pointed to this passage, and I and I thought to myself, and I've talked to people since then, and I've said to them, Well, if this passage is saying you can lose your salvation, then it's saying more than you want it to say.

Because this is saying if somebody has lost his salvation, it's impossible for that person to repent and come back to Christ.

And so don't even try to bring that person back.

Don't even try to convince that person to repent, because if this is saying you can lose your salvation, it's also saying that that person who's lost his salvation is worse off than an unbeliever, because at least an unbeliever has the possibility of coming to Christ, this person would have no possibility of coming to Christ.

And so for those who uh my Arminian friends who say that this is what this passage is saying, I would say then if that were the case, there are entailments there that go beyond what they want the passage to say, because that person could never uh come back, and all of those who backslid then uh you would just leave alone because uh if that's what this passage is saying.

And I don't think it is what this passage is saying.

Uh I think what is helpful is in going back to uh earlier in the book of Hebrews, because there's an analogy that the writer to Hebrews is giving related to the Israelites of the Old Testament.

And in Hebrews chapter 3, uh chapters 3 and 4, uh, the writer to Hebrews is talking about this hardness of heart that happens among uh the visible people of God in the Old Testament, God's chosen people, uh the Israelites.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

And in in verse 7 of Hebrews chapter 3, he says, Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion on the day of testing in the wilderness.

Hebrews 3 · chapter mention

You see, in the Old Testament, they hardened their hearts, it says.

It says, Where are your fathers?

Verse 9, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for 40 years.

They put God to the test, having seen God's work for 40 years.

They they think about it, they saw the ten plagues, they saw the Passover, they crossed through uh the Red Sea, they saw the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night, they ate manna in the wilderness, they ate quail, they saw water come from the rock, they were were a part of the blessings of God.

Their clothes didn't wear out for 40 years, and God led them.

He says, Therefore I will provoke, I was provoked with that generation and said, and notice what he says here, they always, they always go astray in their hearts.

Notice that word always.

He doesn't say they sometimes go astray, they always go astray in their hearts.

This is the continual direction of their hearts, is to always go astray.

And then what he says, they have not known my way.

They always go astray in their heart, they have not known my way.

They have not, even though for 40 years they saw God at work in their midst, and they saw God provide for them and deliver them.

They never, never put their faith in God.

And this is why God says, as I swore my wrath, they shall not enter my rest.

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But it's not that you lost your salvation, you fell away from the visible community because you had an unbelieving, evil heart.

And so he gives them a warning to exhort one another and encourage one another.

He says in verse 15, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.

And then look at chapter 4, verse 2, and we we will need to move on from there.

But he says this.

He's talking about comparing the Israelites.

He says, For the good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them.

Why?

Why did the message they heard, why did the gospel, the good news that they heard, not benefit them?

It says, Because they were not united by faith with those who listened.

So when we come to Hebrews chapter 6 and we ask this and we say, for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted of the heavenly gift, have shared in the Holy Spirit, have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the age to come, there are those who can be apart.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

They have Christian parents, and God is blessing the family because uh God because the parents know Christ, and so the entire family is blessed by virtue of God's blessing the parents.

They come to church and and and they're they're under the hearing of the gospel and they hear moral, uh moral teaching uh as they hear the gospel, and so they have a better understanding.

Their conscience has been sensitized to certain things, and they may be nice, good people.

They may do right and not wrong oftentimes.

They may even have uh a kind heart, but they've never placed their faith in Christ, and there's a danger.

The reason why they fell away was because they were never true believers in the first place.

Even though they had been around all of the blessings of God for all of those years.

And so there's there is a there is a danger, there is a warning that there could be the unreality of our faith.

That we think we have something we don't have.

We've never truly been converted, we've never truly understood the gospel and seen the beauty of the cross, and come to a genuine faith in Christ and sincere trust in him and repentance.

So, what's the destiny, does Jesus say?

He says it is of no use, it is useless.

This kind of salt is in salt.

It may have the appearance of salt, it may look like salt, but it is not salt.

It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile.

For fertilizer, for catalyst, for fire, it is useless.

It has no value, it is thrown away.

Jesus said this in Matthew 13.

Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.

It says, You will indeed hear but never understand, you will indeed see but never perceive.

For this people's heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them.

And so Jesus ends this warning by saying, He who has an ear to hear, let him hear.

Do you hear God's voice speaking to you?

Do you sense the Holy Spirit stirring in you as you evaluate your life, as you look at your life, do you sense, do you sense here God's work, or are you becoming dull of hearing?

Are you willfully rejecting, willfully turning away, willfully closing your eyes?

And there is a judicial hardening of God.

The very hearing of the gospel with a hardened heart causes us to become more hardened because of our rejection of God over and over and over again.

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

Come to Jesus.

Come to Jesus.

Come to Jesus.

Hear his voice.

Let's pray.

Father.

Maybe we have deceived ourselves.

Maybe we have convinced ourselves that we have something that we don't really have.

We're passive because there's no life.

Because there's no reality.

We go through the motions sitting here week by week, aloof, unengaged, detached, coming for appearance, not for profit, not for worship.

We honor you with our lips, but our hearts are far from you.

Holy Spirit, soften our hearts.

Open our eyes.

Unclog our ears.

Incline our hearts.

And may we hear, and may we respond in faith and pray in Christ's name.

Amen.