Luk 14:34 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?

                            

Salt is good and there is no doubt about it. Salt renders food pleasant and palatable, and preserves from putrefaction (the process of decay or rotting). But if salt has lost its savour, that is, if it has become tasteless, or has lost its preserving properties, then it is good for nothing but to be thrown away (Matthew 5:13).

You may question: “Salt is salt. How can salt lose its saltiness?” When the Saviour talked about salt losing its savour, He was talking about what happens when salt is mixed with other substances: it becomes corrupted and therefore cannot be used in the accustomed ways.

If we go back and look at Matthew 5:13-16, we see Christ using salt and light to refer to the Christian influences. He said in verse 16: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” The good Christian life is the Christian’s influence to win the world for Christ. Therefore, we must keep ourselves pure and unstained by sin and worldly things and be rich in our Christian influences: “And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5-7).

When we fail in our duty to be good savours of men, we are as salt that has lost its savour. Yes, our influence is important: we either are influence for good or for evil. Peter mentioned that the unbelieving husband of the believing wife can be converted by the good influence of the believing wife: “Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives” (1 Peter 3:1, ESV).

What if the believing wife is a salt that has lost its savour? She is quarrelsome, disrespectful, and uncaring. Do you think she can win her husband to Christ?

God wants us to be a good driving force in society. People are won by the word of God and by the lives of good Christians: “and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16b).

                                                       

Christ said in Mark 9:50: “Have salt in yourselves.” God’s design for His children is we be distinct and different from the world in our love, life, language, and conduct. Titus 2:11, 12 reminds us that the grace of God that brings salvation to mankind calls for us to deny “ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”

And, a Christian who has lost his saltiness is one who gives in to worldly lusts and is not living a life of godliness, righteousness and soberness. The world has a way of wearing away the “saltiness” of Christians: “For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world” (2 Timothy 4:10). Demas is a salt that has been corrupted by the world; it has lost his savour.

Over time we can become more like the world and cease to stand apart as God calls us to do. And like salt that has lost its saltiness, we become worthless when we lose our Christian values, our teachings, our morals, our ethics, our character, our integrity, and so on - we are worthless to God. Only a salty Christian is useful in the kingdom of God: “If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21).

Our Lord warns us that if we do not serve the purpose God has intended for us, we will be thrown away, just like worthless salt! Therefore, have salt in us (Mark 9:50).

Jimmy Lau

Psa 119:97  Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.

Luk 15:29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.

Luke 15 contains three parables – The Parable of the Lost Sheep (vs 1-7), The Parable of the Lost Coin (vs 8-10), and The Parable of the Lost Son (vs 11-32).

The Parable of the Lost Son, often known as the Prodigal Son, should more accurately be called the Parable of the Lost Sons. There were two sons in this parable that were lost. The younger son was lost outside his father’s house, while the elder son was lost inside the house.

The parable begins with the younger son asking his father for his share of the estate. Upon receiving it, he travelled to a distant country and wasted all his money in extravagant living. A famine hit the land. He became desperately poor and was forced to take work as a swineherd. When he reached the point of envying the food of the pigs he was watching, he finally came to his senses. He realised his foolishness and decided to make his way home to his father.

He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran towards him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. He made a feast celebrating his son’s return.

The elder son, who was at work in the fields, heard the sound of celebration, was told that his younger brother had returned. He was not impressed. He was not happy. He was angry. He also had an earful for his father: "Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him." I find it interesting that the elder son is not as mad at his brother as he is with his father.

Why did Jesus tell this parable? The context shows the Pharisees and Scribes were accusing Jesus of welcoming and eating with the publicans and sinners (vs 2). The Pharisees and Scribes were not fond of Jesus. But the publicans and sinners were drawn to Jesus and were crowding around to listen to His teachings (vs 1).

Jesus was addressing the parable to the Pharisees and Scribes. The younger son represents the publicans and sinners who returned to God gladly. The elder son represents the Scribes and Pharisees who did not think they need repentance because they did not leave God.

The elder son serves as a warning against self-righteousness rooted in pride. He was consumed by anger when he saw his sibling being welcomed with love instead of being condemned. In his mind, his younger brother was a sinner and he deserved no mercy.

Christ never shunned the sinners. He dined with them. He embraced them. He forgave them. He loved them. He expects the same of us: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14, 15).

We often declare that we need to love the sinner and hate the sin. But when the sinner repents and asks for our forgiveness we are not that forgiving but continue to remember his past sins. When we withhold mercy, we sin against our Heavenly Father, just as the elder son sinned against his own father when he refused to forgive his brother. If we truly believe that no one is beyond redemption, then who are we to refuse our brother the opportunity for reconciliation? “And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:21).

Jimmy Lau

Psa 119:97  Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.

Looking and Living!

Did you hear the joke about the sad psychic? He said, "I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met." And then there was the man who asked, "Why do you need to make an appointment with a psychic? Don’t they already know you are coming?" I don’t recommend it, but millions turn to so-called psychics and all kinds of fortune-telling techniques to try and see into the future. All we have space to say here is that "you’d better watch out" – for, "... you do not konw what will happen tomorrow" (James 4:14a). The "you" in that verse applies to me, and you, and psychics, too! And if we can’t tell what will happen tomorrow, it’s a slam dunk we can’t know for certain what will happen in a week or a month or a year or a decade! Life’s highway is too full of twists and turns and curves and potholes for anybody to say with certainty all that is coming in the future.

Here’s something we do know with certainty. Jesus Christ is coming again! That announcement is made a number of times in the New Testament by Jesus and His inspired spokemen (see John 14:1-3, 1 Thessalonians, 4:13-18, and Hebrews 9:26-28 for especially clear statements). Jesus is coming again, and we don’t need a psychic to tell us that! What we don’t know and can’t know is exactly when He is coming. Jesus Himself left no wiggle-room on this point, saying in Mark 13:32: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (also Matthew 24:36). The Lord in that statement rendered useless the endless speculations that the Lord’s return is imminent and that we are seeing "the signs of the end of time." Let me say it again – we CAN know the Lord is coming back – but we CANNOT know when. Don’t forget Jesus’ words – "of that day and hour no one knows."

In Romans 13:11-14 the apostle Paul reminds us the future coming of Christ provides powerful incentive –not to obsess about when Christ will come, but rather to be faithful until He does, or until we die! "And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts." The most critical issue is not when Christ will come, but the fact that He will! Paul lived with an awareness that each passing day brings us closer to the day Jesus’ will return, whenever it is.



Robert G. Taylor told a story that gets to the point. During his 1960 presidential campaign, John Kennedy often closed his speeches with the story of Colonel Davenport, the speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. One day in 1789, the sky over Hartford darkened ominously, and some of the rep’s, glancing out the windows, feared the end of time was at hand. Quelling a clamor for immediate adjournment, Davenport rose and said, "The Day of Judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. Therefore I wish that candles be brought." We know Jesus is coming, but we don’t know when. It’s a good thing to look for His return (Titus 2:13). But even as we look, let us not fail to live for Him today!  Think about it.

  Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN