Chuck Colson recently gave an interesting scenario: “Imagine the following social experiment: You divide up (people) into two groups. Those who agreed to live by traditional moral values live in certain (locations). Those who reject traditional values take up residence in other (locations) that would allow them to do whatever they pleased, morally speaking. After 20 years, which (locations) would be better off—economically speaking? The traditional values locations would be far better off, because the (morally) liberal (locations) would be spending $500 billion dollars every year dealing with the economic costs of their moral decisions.
Jim DeMint and David Woodward outline those costs in their book, titled: Why We Whisper: Restoring Our Right to Say It’s Wrong. As the authors note, "As elected officials and judges continue to throw traditions overboard from the ship of state," conspicuously absent from the political debate "is the mounting cost in dollars [and] debt."
• They outline costs like treating sexually transmitted diseases yet alone secondary costs, like treating cervical cancer, infertility, birth defects, and brain damage. And yet, (public health authorities and educators) do little or nothing to discourage premarital sex. And then there are the huge costs of out-of-wedlock childbearing and welfare costs alone to single-parent families. We pay indirectly, as well, through costs associated with child abuse—much more common in single-parent homes—and in higher crime rates.
• Crime and incarceration rates are soaring. One of the leading causes of crime that the authors show are fatherless families, and the lack of moral training during the morally formative years.
• (Canadians) spend billions on abortions—mostly to single women—not counting the expense of treating post-abortion medical and psychological problems.
• We also pay huge economic bills associated with pornography and government-sponsored gambling. We pay for the easy availability of divorce and for the choice of many to cohabit instead of marry.
As DeMint and Woodward write, the quest for unfettered moral freedom has come at a very steep price—a price we all pay, whether we engage in these behaviors or not. And at the same time as we pay—more and more each year—we are being told (by media outlets, provincial human rights commissions and others, that (we are narrow-minded bigots if we speak out against the destructive behaviors that are causing the increased costs. (http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=7820)
Recent Ontario Human Rights commission rulings against Christian ministries come in a long line of active denegration of public faith in society.
In Matthew 5:13-16 the Lord summarizes the function of believers in the world. Reduced to one word, that function is influence. Whoever lives according to the Beatitudes is going to function in the world as salt and light. Christian character consciously or unconsciously affects other people for better or for worse.
• When we live the life of the Beatitudes some people will respond favorably and be saved, whereas others will ridicule and persecute us.
• Though Jesus was speaking before a great multitude of people on the hillside, His teaching about kingdom life was primarily for His disciples, for those who believed in Him.
o The principles He teaches here are appropriate only for believers, for they are impossible to follow apart from the power of God’s own Spirit.
o Here is a mandate for Christians to influence the world. The Beatitudes are not to be lived in isolation or only among fellow believers, but everywhere we go.
There are two poor reactions that we can come to in response to general moral corruption in society. We can be either surprised as to the persecution and we need to get our heads out of the sand. Or, we think there is nothing we can do, and bemoan the moral state of society. God doesn’t want either for His people. He calls us to be salt and light.
The figures of salt and light emphasize different characteristics of influence, but their basic purpose is the same. In Matthew 5:13-16 we are to have an impact on society and in this section of God’s word we can see the 1) Presupposition of the world’s corruption and darkness, the 2) Plan for believers’ godly dominion in the world, the 3) Problem of the danger of failure, and the 4) Purpose of glorifying God.
1) THE PRESUPPOSITION: CORRUPTION AND DARKNESS
The world needs salt because it is corrupt and it needs light because it is dark.
Quote: G. Campbell Morgan said, “Jesus, looking out over the multitudes of His day, saw the corruption, the disintegration of life at every point, its breakup, its spoilation; and, because of His love of the multitudes, He knew the thing that they needed most was salt in order that the corruption should be arrested. He saw them also wrapped in gloom, sitting in darkness, groping amid mists and fogs. He knew that they needed, above everything else, … light” (The Gospel According to Matthew [New York: Revell, 1929], p. 46).
The biblical world view is that the world is corrupted and decayed, that it is dark and darkening.
2 Timothy 3:13 [13]while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (ESV)
o The world cannot do anything but get worse, because it has no inherent goodness to build on, no inherent spiritual and moral life in which it can grow. Year after year the system of evil accumulates a deeper darkness.
o Man has increased in scientific, medical, historical, educational, psychological, and technological knowledge to an astounding degree. But he has not changed his own basic nature and he has not improved society. Man’s knowledge has greatly improved, but his morals have progressively degenerated. His confidence has increased, but his peace of mind has diminished. His accomplishments have increased, but his sense of purpose and meaning have all but disappeared. Instead of improving the moral and spiritual quality of his life, man’s discoveries and accomplishments have simply provided ways for him to express and promote his depravity faster and more destructively. Modern man has simply invented more ways to corrupt and destroy himself.
Please turn to John 3
o Man is infected with the deadly virus of sin, which has no cure apart from God. Yet unlike their attitude toward physical diseases, most men do not want their sin cured. They love their decadence and they hate God’s righteousness (cf. John 3:19–21).
John 3:19-21 [19]And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. [20]For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. [21]But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God." (ESV)
Just as every person is affected by the sin problem, every person also contributes to the sin problem.
We have seen: 1) THE PRESUPPOSITION: AND NOW:
2) THE PLAN: THE DOMINION OF HIS DISCIPLES: MATTHEW 5:13A, 14
Matthew 5:13-14 [13]"You are (the salt of the earth, but if 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. [14]"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden). (ESV)
In both verse 13 and verse 14 the pronoun you is emphatic. The idea is, “You are the only salt of the earth” and “You are the only light of the world.” The world’s corruption will not be retarded and its darkness will not be illumined unless God’s people are its salt and light. The very ones who are despised by the world and persecuted by the world are the world’s only hope.
• In an era of upcoming summer blockbuster movies it may sound like this is just the next trailer. But this is exactly what God is saying.
The grammatical structure however, gives a very important clue however on the condition:
The you in both verses is also plural. It is His whole body, the church, that is called to be the world’s salt and light. Each grain of salt has its limited influence, but it is only as the church collectively is scattered in the world that change will come. One ray of light will accomplish little, but when joined with other rays a great light is created.
Illustration: “Some years ago a magazine carried a series of pictures that graphically depicted a tragic story. The first picture was of a vast wheat field in western Kansas. The second showed a distressed mother sitting in a farmhouse in the center of the field of wheat. The accompanying story explained that her four-year-old son had wandered away from the house and into the field when she was not looking. The mother and father looked and looked all day but the little fellow was too short to see or be seen over the wheat. The third picture showed dozens of friends and neighbors who had heard of the boy’s plight and who had joined hands the next morning to make a long human chain as they walked through the field searching. The final picture was of the heartbroken father holding his lifeless son who had been found too late and had died of exposure. The caption underneath read, “O God, if only we had joined hands sooner.” (MacArthur, J. (1989). Matthew (237). Chicago: Moody Press.)
• The world is full of lost souls who cannot see their way above the distractions and barriers of the world and cannot find their way to the Father’s house until Christians join together as salt and light and sweep through the world in search of them. Our work is not simply as individual grains of salt or as individual rays of light but as the whole church of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 5:13 says that we Are which stresses being rather than doing. Jesus is stating a fact, not giving a command or request. Salt and light represent what genuine Christians are. The only question, as Jesus goes on to say, is whether or not we are tasteful salt and effective light. The very fact that genuine believers belong to Jesus Christ makes us His salt and light in the world.
Christ is the source of our savor and of our light. He is “the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:9). “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” He said (John 9:5). But now that He has physically left the world His light comes to the world through those whom He has enlightened. We shine forth the reflected light of Christ. “You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord,” Paul tells us; “walk as children of light” (Eph. 5:8). “For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son”(Col. 1:13).
We are God’s salt to retard corruption and His light to reveal truth. One function is negative, the other positive. One is silent, the other is verbal. By the indirect influence of the way we live we retard corruption, and by the direct influence of what we say we manifest light.
Humor: Salt and light are both metaphors. What are “met-o-phors”. Well, a meadow is for cattle to graze. But a metaphor is a representation of one thing for another.
Both salt and light are unlike that which they are to influence. God has changed us from being part of the corrupted and corrupting world to being salt that can help preserve it. He has changed us from our own darkness to be His agents of giving light to others. By definition, an influence must be different from that which it influences, and Christians therefore must be different from the world they are called to influence. We cannot influence the world for God when we are worldly ourselves. We cannot give light to the world if we revert to places and ways of darkness ourselves.
The great blessings emphasized in verses 3–12 lead to the great responsibilities of verses 13–16. The blessings of heaven, comfort, inheriting the earth, being filled with righteousness, being given mercy, being called God’s children, and being given heavenly reward bring the responsibility of being His salt and light in the world.
FIRST, IN BEING SALT
Matthew 5:13 [13]"You are the salt of the earth, but if 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. (ESV)
Salt has always been valuable in human society, often much more so than it is today. During a period of ancient Greek history it was called theon, which means divine. The Romans held that, except for the sun, nothing was more valuable than salt. Often Roman soldiers were paid in salt (it is from this that we derive the term “salary”), and it was from that practice that the expression “not worth his salt” originated.
In numerous ways Jesus’ hearers-whether Greek, Roman, or Jewish-would have understood salt of the earth to represent a valuable commodity.
• The are multiple reasons as to what Christ was referring to in this analogy. Christians are to be pure; they should add a certain attractiveness to the gospel; they should be true to God’s Word even when it stings; and their living should create a thirst for God in those who do not know Him.
• This reflects a life seasoned with the gospel, with the salt of grace; thoughts and affections, words and actions, all seasoned with grace
o Christianity is what brings spice and zest to life. The bland is made savory, and the unpalatable becomes a delight! Believers must be salty not only because they are righteous, but because life is alive. They ought to write the best books, be the most courteous, work the hardest, be the best musicians and artists and craftsmen and students (Hughes, R. K. (2001). The sermon on the mount : The message of the kingdom. Preaching the Word (80). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.)
In the outward manifestation of our speech: Colossians 4:6 [6]Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (ESV)
By the context, the primary characteristic Jesus emphasizes is that of preservation.
• There were no ice-making machines in those days. Refrigeration was beyond man’s wildest dreams. The only way to preserve meat then was to salt it down or soak it in a saline solution. In fact, this was common practice right into the twentieth century in remote areas. It was particularly the experience of pioneer missionaries. As one describes it:
Quote: “This was absolutely imperative. Under the high temperatures and hot weather of the region, decay and decomposition of meat was astonishingly rapid. We had no winter weather or cool, frosty nights to chill the flesh. Besides this, swarms of ubiquitous flies soon hovered over the butchered carcasses. The only way to prevent them from ruining the meat … was to soak the slabs of meat in a strong solution of salt” (W. Phillip Keller, Salt for Society (Waco, TX: Word, n.d.), p. 100.)
This suggests to us the function of the church: The church, as salt, functions as a retardant to decay and a preservative in a disintegrating world. Jesus was saying in effect, “Humanity without me is a dead body that is rotting and falling apart. And you, my followers, are the salt that must be rubbed into the flesh to halt the decomposition.” The church must be rubbed into the world—into its rotting flesh and wounds so that it might be preserved. This matter of being a preservative has a positive and a negative side.
• On the negative side, the presence of a salty Christian will retard decay simply because his or her life is a reproach to the sin of those they are around. We all know there are certain people in whose presence a filthy story is naturally told, and there are others before whom no one would think of telling such a story. The salty Christian is not self-righteous or condemning, but his or her life makes ungodly conversation seem shabby and inappropriate.
• Their mere presence reduces crime, restrains ethical corruption, promotes honesty, quickens the conscience, and elevates the general moral atmosphere. The presence of such people in the military, in business, in education, in a fraternity or sorority will amazingly elevate the level of living. And their absence will allow unbelievable depths of depravity. Believers, salty believers, are the world’s preservative. The question we must ask ourselves is, what happens when we get to know people without Christ? Does it make a difference in their lives? If not, we must ask ourselves are we (being) salt?
• There is also a positive aspect. Not only are our lives meant to reprove evil, but they are also meant to elicit the best from those around us. To live a life that is so salted that others are drawn to God and want to live lives like ours is indeed beautiful!. (Often the failure in our witness is first with the failure in our lives)
• (Hughes, R. K. (2001). The sermon on the mount : The message of the kingdom. Preaching the Word (78). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.)
As God’s children and as the temples of His Holy Spirit, Christians represent God’s presence as Matthew 5:13 says: of the earth. We are the salt that prevents the entire earth from degenerating even faster than it is.
• The disciples were not to be in a heap, always together at Jerusalem, but must be scattered across the whole earth.
• Since Jesus Christ spoke these words early in his ministry, when he only had a few poor, uneducated followers, his words no doubt appeared to some as presumptuous and even absurd. “You, you alone, are the salt of the earth—not just of Palestine, but of the whole earth.” The Lord was saying that his disciples would perform a vast universal task that would affect all mankind.
• Salt can sit for years in the saltshaker, but it will never do any good until it is poured forth. In Jesus’ time its effect was maximized when it was poured upon and rubbed into the meat. We must allow God to rub us into the world, without our becoming like the world. (Hughes, R. K. (2001). The sermon on the mount : The message of the kingdom. Preaching the Word (77). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.)
• Just as salt became useless when it was diluted with external compounds, we become useless when we become diluted with the worldly ways. We loose our saltiness when we are under the mistaken impress that we have to become like the rot of the world in order to attract them. When we try to, we only end up with a bad imitation. The only way for us to be salt to the world is to have a pure, flavorful, antiseptic, preservative witness, one that the Holy Spirit uses to create a thirst in people where they ask us for a reason for the Hope that is in Us (1 Pt. 2:15).
Illustration: “Helen Ewing was saved as a young girl in Scotland and gave her life completely to the lordship of Christ. When she died at the age of 22 it is said that all Scotland wept. She had expected to serve God as a missionary in Europe and had become fluent in the Russian language. But she was not able to fulfill that dream. She had no obvious gifts such as speaking or writing, and she had never traveled far from home. Yet by the time she died she had been used by God to win hundreds of people to Jesus Christ. Countless missionaries mourned her death because they knew that a great channel of their spiritual strength was gone. She had risen every morning at five in order to study God’s Word and to pray. Her diary revealed that she regularly prayed for over three hundred missionaries by name. Everywhere she went the atmosphere was changed. If someone was telling a dirty story; he would stop if he saw her coming. If people were complaining, they would become ashamed of it in her presence. An acquaintance reported that while she was at Glasgow University she left the fragrance of Christ wherever she went. In everything she said and did she was God’s salt. .(MacArthur, J. (1989). Matthew (237). Chicago: Moody Press.)
BEING LIGHT
Matthew 5:14 [14]"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. (ESV)
Jesus also calls us to be light. You are the light of the world.
Whereas salt is hidden, light is obvious. Salt works secretly, while light works openly. Salt works from within, light from without. Salt is more the indirect influence of the gospel, while light is more its direct communication. Salt works primarily through our living, while light works primarily through what we teach and preach. Salt is largely negative. It can retard corruption, but it cannot change corruption into incorruption. Light is more positive. It not only reveals what is wrong and false but helps produce what is righteous and true.
David wrote, “For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light we see light” (Ps. 36:9). “God is light,” (1 John 1:5–7). Light is not given simply to have but to live by. “Thy word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path,” the psalmist tells us (Ps. 119:105). God’s light is to walk by and to live by. In its fullest sense, God’s light is the full revelation of His Word-the written Word of Scripture and the living Word of Jesus Christ.
God’s people are to proclaim God’s light in a world engulfed in darkness, just as their Lord came “to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death” (Luke 1:79). Christ is the true light, and we are His reflections. We bear His light in a secondary or derived sense. He is the Sun, and we are His moons. An electric bulb does not emit light in itself, but only when electric current runs through it.
• As we remain in living contact with the original light (Christ) we are a light to others (Jn. 15:4-5: Abiding in Christ).
• We now can enlighten men only because we can give them knowledge of the glory of God as we have seen it in the face of Jesus Christ.” God sheds His light on the world through those who have received His light through Jesus Christ.
Quote: Flowing from the Beatitudes, “when the norms of the kingdom, worked out in the lives of the heirs of the kingdom, constitute the witness of the kingdom it has changed this world”. (D.A. Carson. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Global Christian Publishers. 1999. P. 33).
o We can see it in the Christian impact in prison reform, medical care, trade unions, control of harmful substances, abolition of slavery, child labor, establishment of orphanages, penal reform, education and many other spheres of Christian salt and light in a society.
We are:
Philippians 2:15 [15]that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, (ESV)
• We must first be salt before we can be light. Unless our lives first reflect the glory of the Holiness of God, our word will not shine in righteousness, but be outshaun by our sin.
Quote: Martyn Lloyd-Jones said: “Out lives should always be the first things to speak; and if our lips speak more than our lives it will avail very little. So often the tragedy has been that people proclaim the gospel in words, but their whole life and demeanor has been a denial of it. The world does not pay much attention to them. …We are something before we begin to act as something”. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971],P. 143).
By its nature and by definition light must be visible in order to illuminate. Christians must be more than the largely indirect influence of salt; they must also be the direct and noticeable instruments of light.
Both in the daytime and at night, a city set on a hill cannot be hidden. It is exposed for all to see. By day its houses and buildings stand out on the landscape, and at night the many lights shining out of its windows make it impossible to miss. A secret Christian is as incongruous as a hidden light. Lights are to illuminate, not to be hidden; to be displayed, not to be covered. Christians are to be both subtle salt and conspicuous light.
God did not give the gospel of His Son to be the secret, hidden treasure of a few but to enlighten every person (John 1:9). Many reject the light and reject those who bring it, but just as God offers His light to the whole world, so must His church. It is not our gospel but God’s, and He gives it to us not only for our own sakes but the entire world’s. True believers are salt and light, and must fulfill that identity.
God does not want people to remain in the dark and He has given us a task:
1 Peter 2:9 [9]But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (ESV)
We have seen: 1) THE PRESUPPOSITION: 2) THE PLAN: AND NOW:
3) THE PROBLEM: DANGER OF FAILURE: MATTHEW 5:13B, 15
Matthew 5:13b [13]"You are the salt of the earth, but if 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. (ESV)
Matthew 5:15 [15]Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. (ESV)
Much salt in Palestine, such as that found on the shores of the Dead Sea, is contaminated with gypsum and other minerals that make it taste flat and even repulsive. When a batch of such contaminated salt would find its way into a household and be discovered, it was thrown out. People would be careful not to throw it on a garden or field, because it would kill whatever was planted. Instead it would be thrown onto a path or road, where it would gradually be ground into the dirt and disappear.
There is a sense in which salt cannot really become unsalty. But contamination can cause it to lose its value as salt. Its saltiness can no longer function.
Jesus is not speaking of losing salvation. (John 10:27). Christians cannot lose their salvation, just as salt cannot lose its inherent saltiness.
But Christians can lose their value and effectiveness in the kingdom when sin and worldliness contaminate their lives, just as salt can have lost its taste when contaminated by other minerals.
Quote: “Salt is a remedy for unsavoury meat, but there is no remedy for unsavoury salt. Christianity will give a man a relish; but if a man can take up and continue the profession of it, and yet remain flat and foolish, and graceless and insipid, no other doctrine, no other means, can be applied, to make him savoury. If Christianity do not do it, nothing will” (Henry, M. (1996, c1991). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible : Complete and unabridged in one volume (Mt 5:13). Peabody: Hendrickson.).
With great responsibility there is often great danger. We cannot be an influence for purity in the world if we have compromised our own purity. We cannot sting the world’s conscience if we continually go against our own. We cannot stimulate thirst for righteousness if we have lost our own. We cannot be used of God to retard the corruption of sin in the world if our own lives become corrupted by sin. To lose our saltiness is not to lose our salvation, but it is to lose our effectiveness and to become disqualified for service. That is why Paul was so careful and he said:
1 Corinthians 9:27 [27]But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. (ESV)
Pure salt does not lose its saltiness, that which makes it valuable and effective. Christians who are pure in heart do not become tasteless, ineffective, and useless in the kingdom of God.
Luke 14:34-35: [34]"Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? [35]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." (ESV)
Light, too, is in danger of becoming useless. Like salt, it cannot lose its essential nature. A hidden light is still light, but it is useless light.
Matthew 5:15 [15]Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. (ESV)
The exemplary woman praised in Proverbs 31 does not let her lamp go out at night (v. 18). There was always illumination for anyone in the household who had to get up or find his way home during the night. A light that is hidden under a basket cannot even be used to read by; it helps neither the person who hides it nor anyone else.
We hide our light by:
• being quiet when we should speak
• going along with the crowd
• letting sin dim our witness for Christ
• not explaining the truth to others
(Barton, B. B. (1996). Matthew. Life application Bible commentary (85). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers.)
• Inconsistent living and unconfessed sin in the life of the believer will become a basket-like covering which hides the light of God.
• God provides the light and it continues to shine, but as believers we must keep our lives clean before the Lord in order not to cover up the light which He has placed within us. (KJV Bible commentary. 1997, c1994 (1886). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.)
We have seen: 1) THE PRESUPPOSITION, 2) THE PLAN, 3) THE PROBLEM, AND FINALLY:
4) THE PURPOSE: TO GLORIFY GOD: Matthew 5:16
Matthew 5:16 [16]In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (ESV)
The word (kalos) for good that Jesus uses here does not so much emphasize quality-though that obviously is important-as it does attractiveness, beautiful appearance. Letting our light shine before others allows them to see our good works, the beauty the Lord has worked in us. To see good works by us is to see Christ in us. That is why Jesus says, let your light shine. It is not something we create or make up, but something we allow the Lord to do through us. It is God’s light; our choice is whether to hide it or let it shine
The purpose of letting our light shine and reveal our good works is not to bring attention or praise to ourselves but to God. Our intent should be that, in what we are and in what we do, others may see God in order that they may give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven. Jesus’ speaking of the Father emphasizes God’s tenderness and intimacy, and speaking of His being in heaven emphasizes His majesty and holiness, as He is pictured dwelling in the splendor of His eternal holy home. Our good works are therefore to magnify God’s grace and power. This is the supreme calling of life: glorifying God. Everything we do is to cause others to give praise to the God who is the source of all that is good. The way we live should lead those around us to give glory (doxazô, from which we get doxology) the heavenly Father.
We are to be at being what we are so that people will know what they should be as we are.
Christ’s actions were always done to give Glory to His Father in Heaven (Mt. 9.8,15.31). The concept for us is following what God has always expected:
Isaiah 49:3 [3]And he said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified."
And as Peter said:
1 Peter 2:12 [12]Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (ESV)
• This contrasts with the thinking of the hypocrites who Jesus frequently denounced, who perform their religious duties to receive praise from people (Mt. 6.2).
• The casting under foot of the useless salt is a physical foreshadowing of that day of visitation (Mt. 25). Empty old Church buildings from Cathedrals to old country Churches are the memorials to once thriving ministries. They are testimonies to salt that lost it saltiness and been cast under foot.
o How did they become this? In order to be less stinging to the rotting world and fear that the light might hurt some eyes, we have barely noticed the stench as we sit in the dark. Only when we get back to truly being the salt and light that we are in Christ Jesus, will we have the impact on lives that God has called us to.
Illustration: It is said of Robert Murray McCheyne, a godly Scottish minister of the last century, that his face carried such a hallowed expression that people were known to fall on their knees and accept Jesus Christ as Savior when they looked at him. Others were so attracted by the self-giving beauty and holiness of his life that they found his Master irresistible.
Illustration: It was also said of the French pietist Francois Fenelon that his communion with God was such that his face shined with divine radiance. A religious skeptic who was compelled to spend the night in an inn with Fenelon, hurried away the next morning, saying, “If I spend another night with that man I’ll be a Christian in spite of myself.”
• That is the kind of salt and light God wants His kingdom people to be.
• There must be the condition (salt) in order to fulfill the mission (light) to the world (which we shall see in two weeks).
Quote: I believe Martyn Lloyd-Jones said it best: “Christian people, you and I are living in the midst of men and women who are in a state of gross darkness. They will never have any light anywhere in this world except from you and from me and the gospel we believe and teach. They are watching us. Do they see something different about us? Are out lives a silent rebuke to them? Do we so live as to lead them to come and ask us, “why do you always look so peaceful? How it it you are so balanced? How can you stand up to things as you do? Why is it you are not dependent upon (drugs and alcohol) as we are? What is this thing that you have got? If they do we can then tell them that wondrous, amazing , but tragically neglected news, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and to give (people) a new nature and a new live and to make them children of God. Christian people alone are the light of the world today. Let us live and function as (salt) and as Children of light. ”. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Studies in the Sermon on the Mount [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971],P. 147).
(Format Note: Outline and some content from: MacArthur, J. (1989). Matthew (237). Chicago: Moody Press.)
