Speaker argues the single Gospel, recorded in Matthew through John, mandates believers act as salt and light, scattering persecution to globalize faith. Citing Matthew Henry, he asserts unsalty salt preserves by removal, exemplified by Steve Lawson's public rebuke, while swift justice ends false accusations. He claims Christendom built modern civilization, contrasting developed nations with regions where missionaries were eaten, and defends Western heritage against progressive erasure. Ultimately, effective blessings inevitably threaten darkness-lovers, ensuring God receives glory rather than the doer. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Gospel As Permeating Salt00:07:44
I don't think I've said this yet throughout the course of our series, but it's worth noting.
It's the gospel according to Matthew, not the gospel of Matthew.
It's not Matthew's gospel, it's the gospel of God.
So the gospel belongs to God, and we don't have four gospels.
We don't have Matthew's gospel, Mark's gospel, Luke's gospel, and John's gospel.
We have the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So it's God's gospel, Christ's gospel, one gospel, but according to four different apostles, all four inspired by the Holy Spirit.
So we have one gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ.
According to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John.
So, not four gospels, but one, one gospel through four different lenses, four different perspectives, human perspectives, but all enshrined and protected by the divine author, that is the Holy Spirit.
So, four human perspectives of one divine gospel, and those four human perspectives beautified and perfected by the Holy Spirit as the divine author, so that we get the human perspective without getting any corruption.
Okay, let's stand for the reading of God's Word.
This is Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 16.
Our very own Michael Belch preached last week, and I don't think I've told you this yet, Michael, but my wife and I had a chance to listen to the sermon, and you did a wonderful job.
So he preached the Beatitudes, a wonderful sermon, and today we are continuing now beyond that text, verses 13 through 16, talking about Christians, disciples of Jesus, as salt.
And as light, I'll read the text in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say, This is the word of the Lord.
At which point, I would appreciate very much if you would be willing to respond by saying, Thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for today is Matthew chapter 5, verses 13 through 16.
The Bible says this 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.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor did people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
This is the word of the Lord.
All right, please be seated.
Let's go ahead and dive in.
We're going to divide the text into two primary portions today.
One, looking at Christians, little Christ, disciples of Jesus, as salt, and then looking at Christians as light.
Beginning with salt, I'm utilizing the late great Puritan Matthew Henry throughout the course of this series and his commentary on these texts.
I'll read what he says in terms of Christians as salt in regards to one specific strategy or one specific effect of salt, which is that salt has a permeating effect.
I'll say that again salt has a permeating effect.
That is, When we utilize certain spices, especially salt, we place it on meat or food or whatever it may be, it takes that food that was previously bland or tasteless, much more mild, and the salt actually permeates the meat.
It permeates the food to where the food itself becomes salted.
It becomes salty.
So there's a permeating effect of salt.
And as soon as we cover this with this quote that I'm about to read from Matthew Henry, then we'll look at one of the second effects of salt it not only permeates, But it also preserves.
Not only permeates, but it preserves.
And when we speak of salt and its preserving effect, I think that there are two, there are arguably more, but two primary ways of preserving.
And we'll look at that briefly here in just a moment.
So, Matthew Henry, in terms of salt having a permeating effect, he says the following The doctrine of the gospel is as salt, it is cleansing, it is relishing, and preserves from putrefaction.
What great blessings they are to the world, they being Jesus' disciples.
His immediate disciples, but this would go beyond that scope to you and I as well.
Christians, what great blessings Christians are to the world.
Mankind, the world at large, was lying in ignorance and wickedness.
It was vast, a vast heap of unsavory stuff, ready to putrefy.
But Christ sent forth his disciples as salt by their lives and doctrines to season the world with knowledge and grace, and so to render it acceptable to God, to the angels, and to all that relish.
Divine things, how they must expect to be disposed of.
They must not be laid on a heap, must not continue always together in Jerusalem, but must be scattered as salt upon the meat, here a grain and there a grain.
In short, what Matthew Henry is saying is that salt, in its first purpose, not preserving, which we'll get to here in just a moment, but permeating, salt making things salty, the first purpose.
Strategy, if you will, for making something salty is that the salt has to be evenly applied.
It can't just be in a heap on one portion of your food.
I'm sure you've had that experience where you're in a restaurant or maybe it's at home and through your own negligence you're trying to salt your food and the lid for the salt shaker it falls off, it wasn't screwed on all the way tight, and all of a sudden you have a giant pile of salt on one portion of your food.
And that's not exactly.
Pleasing.
It's not going to be a pleasurable meal.
If you're going to use salt and you're going to use it effectively in a way that is pleasant, you want to evenly distribute it across the entire dish.
You don't want to just heap up a pile of salt on one particular bite, one particular portion, but you want it to be evenly distributed.
So salt actually permeates and makes the food salty.
It makes it flavorable.
It makes it pleasant.
It makes it enjoyable.
But in order to do this effectively, You can't just place all of the seasoning, all the salt on one particular bite, but it needs to be evenly distributed across the whole meal.
And this gets to discipleship.
This gets to the topic of evangelism.
And God used persecution in large part for the Christians, the disciples in Jerusalem, in order to drive them out so that they weren't just clumped up, huddled up in one particular place, but so that the gospel as salt.
Permeating all the world, giving it flavor, making it pleasing, making it pleasant, so that all the world, not just one city, not just Jerusalem, but all the world would become salty.
God used in his providence not just commands to go into Jerusalem and then even further to Samaria or Judea and then Samaria and all the ends of the world.
That was the obligation, the moral obligation, the commandment that was issued.
But then God not only commanded his disciples to spread the salt throughout the earth, But he also then providentially ensured that it would happen by giving them immense persecution in Jerusalem.
Revelation Of Jesus Christ00:15:43
And for the record, the reason why it's like, well, but we'll be persecuted everywhere.
And that's true.
That was my call to worship this morning.
That was my pastoral prayer as we began our Lord's Day worship service.
It's saying that any Christian in any place, in any time, is going to have enemies.
And so it's true that the disciples would inevitably have enemies in opposition no matter where they went.
So then it begs the question well, why even consider leaving Jerusalem, right?
You're already there.
You already have certain resources and certain means, and you have a community, and you have all these different things.
Why leave Jerusalem if you're going to be persecuted everywhere?
And of course, the simple answer is that they would be persecuted everywhere, but not to the same degree.
The height of persecution would be in Satan's city.
And this is what the book of Revelation teaches.
When the book of Revelation, I know it's exciting for the dispensationalists to think about Apache helicopters and things like that, and Jesus is coming, and it's going to be in the next 15 minutes, and it's talking about this and it's talking about that.
Yeah, but also it's not.
You know, that's another option, it's just not, and you're wrong.
You know, so always consider that as a plausible scenario.
No, when the Bible, particularly the book of Revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ, is talking about a monstrous city and talking about the man of lawlessness, even, and these guys, it's talking about Jerusalem.
It's talking about Jerusalem.
When it's talking about Babylon, great Babylon, that's going to overthrow and do this and do that, Babylon is Jerusalem.
The argument that Jesus Christ, and remember, this is Jesus Christ speaking to the Apostle John to write it down because these are things that are soon.
This is the first chapter of Revelation.
These things are soon to come to pass, right?
And we all know when we say soon, that means, you know, 2,000 years.
Or soon, actually.
You know, you could consider that.
That's maybe another alternative reading of the text.
Is it actually meant soon?
The book of Revelation made perfect sense to its hearers.
John is exiled on the island of Patmos.
He's the only one of the apostles who didn't die, not for lack of trying.
They definitely tried.
They tried to boil him alive in oil, and it didn't work.
In part, probably because of God's supernatural grace, certainly his supernatural providence.
And also in part because I don't think it's just like kind of Daniel, or not Daniel, but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire, and they're unsinged.
I think John was singed.
I think John is living by himself in a cave on the island of Patmos, and he looks grotesque.
I think he was just.
Like the Apostle Paul, he's been shipwrecked and beaten by rods, and there's arguments for his eyesight not being very good.
Like some of these guys are just, their skin is like leather.
They're on their last leg, and just the supernatural promise of God causes them to just hobble along for another year, another decade, however long, until God's purpose is done.
The reality is this it's been said by some of the saints of old.
I forget which one.
I read it just the other day.
But essentially, you are, and this isn't just for radical apostles of Jesus.
Christ, like John or like Paul, but for you, Christian, this applies to all of us.
Do you know, did you know that you are invulnerable and literally invincible?
Invincible until God's purpose for your life is done.
Until God's purpose is done, He knows the number of hairs on your head, He has numbered your days.
Until He's done with you, neither death nor life, right?
It doesn't matter how many enemies, it doesn't matter how many weapons are formed against us, it doesn't matter.
What they do.
You are literally invincible.
On one hand, made from the dust, and he's merciful and compassionate and knows your frame.
So, a creature made from the dust, so weak and so delicate that the slightest breeze could cause you to crumble.
And yet, at the very same time, just as true to say, invincible, invulnerable until the Lord be done with you.
And so, who shall we fear?
If God be for us, who can be against us?
So, you know, John's like, they try to boil him alive, and here he is, you know, just.
Writing out another banger, you know, Holy Spirit inspired Jesus Christ book of the Bible, looking like a shriveled up slug, probably, that, you know, since we're talking about salt right now, like a slug.
Kids, you know, when you put salt on, that's John.
He looks like a slug that you put salt on, still breathing somehow, still writing somehow, in a cave alone and changing the course of human history.
Amazing.
Because until God's done with you, you can't be stopped.
You are invincible.
Not because you're awesome, but because God is awesome.
And that is just, that's an undeniable fact.
So John is doing this.
He's writing.
All of his hearers, though, back to the point, they're going to know exactly what he's talking about.
This is arguably, now I know that there's debate, and people, you know, people have good arguments and they make their case for, you know, in terms of dating, right?
The actual writing of different books of the Bible.
And some would say, well, I think Revelation was written in, you know, 8090.
You know, people have said that, 8090.
And they make their arguments, and we want to be charitable, and they're wrong.
You know, and that's, you know, I'm not being mean, but they're wrong.
And then there are others who would say, you know, that every single New Testament book of the Bible was written before AD 70.
And there are different terms for this position.
The label that I like to use is the right position.
So there's the right guys, and there's the wrong guys, and they're all Christians, and we love each other, but we're not relativists.
You can't have two contradictory opinions and both be right.
You can both be Christians.
You can both love each other, but you both can't be right.
I am of the persuasion, if you haven't picked it up by now, that I think every single New Testament book of the Bible was written pre 8070.
And the book of Revelation, particularly, just a year or two or three, right on the heels, right, or not on the heels, but right before 8070.
So these are things that are soon to come to pass.
And not a metaphorical proverbial soon, but a literal soon.
Not a 2,000 years later soon, but this is going to happen in the next 18 months.
Kind of situation.
And so John is writing about that, and he's talking about Babylon, the city of Babylon, and the man of lawlessness, and the beast, and all these different things.
And his hearers are going to understand that some of this pertains to the Romans, that Israel is underneath Roman occupation at this time.
But the strongest rebukes and the strongest language of monsters lurking in the deep and And a great city of Babylon that hates the Lord Jesus Christ and persecutes him and his followers at every turn.
This is not actually in reference to some future nation that would exist.
This isn't, you know, this isn't the book of Revelation talking about China or Russia or the United States.
It's not in reference to Ukraine.
It's not in reference to Israel and Palestine.
It's, and even at its own time, a lot of it is not in reference to Rome.
It's in reference to the most wicked city on the planet at that time.
Jerusalem.
Jerusalem.
Even Jesus said, We got to go back to Jerusalem because my time, I've been invincible.
You see so many accounts in the gospel narratives where it says that they picked up stones to stone him, and he just slipped through the crowds.
Because they couldn't lay a hand on him.
He was invincible, they could not touch him until it was his time.
But when it was his time, what did Jesus say?
Got to get back to Jerusalem.
You know, God forbid a prophet die somewhere else.
They all die in Jerusalem, right?
A rich heritage, right?
Different cities, you know, you've got like the Twin Towers, you know, or.
Or, you know, the city of angels, you know, and Jerusalem, right?
The city that hates Jesus and kills every prophet that follows God.
That's their heritage.
It's what they're known for.
That's Jerusalem.
And so, all that being said, John knows this.
This is what he's writing for.
And back to the Matthew Henry quote as salt, God in his providence used Jerusalem, hating Christ and hating his apostles, to push out that salt.
I'm sure that no one really appreciated it at the time.
If I was one of the apostles, if I'm an early. First century disciple of Jesus, a Christian, and I'm in Jerusalem, like most of them were, at least initially, I would not really like what's going on.
Just like you and I today, we don't always enjoy God's providence.
Now, in hindsight, right, hindsight's 20 20, we look back and we say, I wouldn't have ever done it any other way.
God is good.
Let God be true, and every man a liar.
It hurt like heck in the moment, but I wouldn't take it back.
God knew what he was doing.
It was all worth it.
Well, so too for the first century disciples and Christians in Jerusalem, they're not enjoying God's providence because what God's providence means for them on a daily basis is immense persecution.
They're being rounded up, they're being sued financially, they're being thrown in prison, they're being killed, they're being flogged, all these kinds of things.
And it's not just the Romans, it is predominantly the Jews.
And anything that the Romans do, That they actually are responsible for most of that, even.
Not all.
Nero is a bad guy, don't get me wrong.
But even a lot of that was instigated by the Jews who hated the Christians.
And so then they would use the Romans and say, well, we really like killing Christians, but we don't like to, you know, we just had our nails done and we don't want to get our hands dirty.
And so could you do it for us?
I mean, that is just read about the crucifixion.
That's what happened.
This is true.
This is the Bible.
And we have to be allowed to preach the Bible.
Okay, so God uses this in His providence to do what?
To make sure that the salt shaker doesn't have the lid fall off and there's a massive pile of salt in one little square mile radius in all the earth, and then the rest of the earth is bland and tasteless.
God uses immense persecution in His providence, in large part promulgated by Jews towards Christians in the city of Jerusalem, with a unique.
Putrid hatred of Jesus Christ in order to push out, drive out Christ's disciples to where they eventually go to all the earth.
And in the book of Acts, you basically see, you can almost kind of draw a line right in the middle of the book of Acts.
The first 15 chapters, the headquarters, HQ of Christianity, you know, Christianity Inc., in the book of Acts is the first 15 chapters, the first half of the book.
It's Peter, he's the guy.
It's Peter and the HQ, the headquarters, is Jerusalem.
Peter, Jerusalem.
Second half, all of a sudden, the whole thing switches.
And now instead of Peter and Jerusalem, it's Paul and Antioch.
So, that you can't even finish one particular book of the Bible without the literal geographic center and focal point of the Christian faith having shifted from a particular people and a particular place.
And this was God's design.
None of this by accident, none of this a mistake, all this good and merciful and kind, and it continues even to this day.
Even to this day, we see persecution will ramp up in one place, it'll drive Christians to another, and the salt goes forth.
It goes forth and continues and continues.
And the first purpose of salt, as we see in our text today, is that the salt makes other things around it salty.
It permeates.
That's what salt does.
It permeates.
And in order for this permeating strategy to work effectively, according to what Matthew Henry is saying, according more importantly to what the Bible teaches by descriptive text throughout all the New Testament and prescriptive text, where Jesus literally gives a command to go into all the earth, what we see is in the permeating strategy of salt.
If you want to permeate the world well, you got to disperse.
You got to spread out.
You can't put the whole salt shaker on one bite.
That's disgusting.
Instead, you sprinkle it across the whole dish.
Okay, so that's salt permeating, it makes other things salty.
Now, salt preserving.
So, two overarching categories.
Think of it like this our text today salt light.
Okay, category one salt.
Now, two subcategories with salt permeating, preserving.
We've done permeating, now we're doing preserving, two sub sub categories, even further with permeating.
There are two different ways, and arguably more, of course, but suffice it to say, for our purposes today, two primary ways that God uses Christians, His people, as salt to preserve.
Not just permeate, but preserve.
Utilizing Matthew Henry again, he says the following Salt is a remedy for unsavory meat, but there is no remedy for unsavory salt.
If you got a bland meal, you can add salt.
But if you got bland salt, then you just, you're kind of done.
You can't, you know, if the salt loses its saltiness, it cannot be made salty again.
You need, you don't say, okay, well, let's get more salt to make this salt salty.
No, you just, if you have unsalty salt, you throw it out.
It's no longer good.
It can be replaced, but it can't be fixed, if that makes sense.
If the salt loses its saltiness, it cannot be restored.
Cannot be restored, it can, and in the providence and mercy of God, it will be replaced.
You can replace bad salt.
You cannot restore bad salt.
So he goes on and says, Salt is a remedy for unsavory meat, but there's no remedy for unsavory 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.
So right now, Matthew Henry is describing a professing Christian.
Who has a profession of faith, but not a possession of faith?
Right?
He's a Christian in name only.
He professes the gospel, but he does not possess true saving faith.
So, in those kinds of scenarios, if a man can take up and continue the profession of it, that is Christianity, and yet remain flat and foolish, he doesn't actually possess true saving faith, and graceless and insipid, no other doctrine, if the gospel doesn't do it, Then no other doctrine can, no other means can be applied to make him savory.
If Christianity does not do it, nothing will.
True Saving Faith Defined00:04:44
Now, I've written in your notes the following to put a point on it, to make it even clearer, even more practical.
What does this look like?
I've written the following.
If a man should lose his saltiness, he is only good to be thrown out, as the text says, and trampled by men.
Remember that.
That's at the end of verse 13.
It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
Which we read that, let me pause for a moment.
We read that as kind of, we assume sometimes that it's hyperbolic language, it's hyperbole, an exaggeration, just a poetic, exaggerated way of essentially saying if salt loses its saltiness, it's trash.
It's not good for anything.
I don't actually think that is the correct exegesis, the correct way to read the text.
Because what the text is saying in the latter half of verse 13 is if it's Loses its saltiness, it's no longer good for anything except, so it actually is still good for something.
It's no longer good for its original purpose, which is to permeate and make other things flavorful, to make other things salty.
It's no longer good for that, and that is, I would argue, that's the first, the original design, the primary purpose.
So it's true that it's no longer good for that, but it is still good for something.
It's no longer good for anything, second half of verse 13, except there's something it is still good for.
What is that?
To be thrown out and trampled down.
By men.
Okay, so back to what I've written in your notes.
If a man should lose his saltiness, he is only good to be thrown out and trampled by other men.
And yet, even this has its divinely merciful purpose.
Even this is a grace to us by God.
When the roads and walkways are slick from snow and ice, which we have no knowledge of here, but I've heard that there are magical places somewhere in the world where there are actually seasons.
Where it's not just hot every single day, 365 days a year.
Now, I don't actually believe it.
I think it's just a rumor.
But I've been told by people who, you know, apparently are reliable that seasons are real and that there are places where you are not miserable every single day when you go and get the mail.
I don't know if it's true.
Somebody needs to search that.
Is it true, Jesse?
It's true?
There actually are places.
Oh, it's true.
John said it.
It's true.
There are places that are pleasant.
However, here's the deal.
You can't feed your kids.
So you got to, you know, it's like bad weather and bugs, like all the California, it's so funny.
You know, like you guys know, I was born in, let it be said, let the record state, I was born and raised in Texas.
Okay, those are my credentials.
I was not born in California.
Praise God.
But born and raised in Texas, Texas bred.
Thank you, Dad.
Thank you, Mom.
But I did go to California for a little while.
And I know that, you know, maybe not the wisest thing I've ever done in my life.
When I was there, though, the relationships and friends and wonderful people, But it was always funny.
People would literally, they would say, we can never live in Texas because of the weather and bugs.
And I'm like, I get it.
And it sounds like silly.
And then now we've been back for four years.
And I'm like, oh my good.
I like looking at my kids.
And I'm like, it looks like there are some days where it's like, do they have leprosy?
Like, what happened?
Like, do we need to go to the ER?
And then I remember, oh, we went outside for 15 minutes and used the swings in the backyard, and an entire swarm of insects came and ate half of my children.
Like that.
So it is true that the bugs are ridiculous, but the benefit of Texas, good old flyover country with blue collar America, is you got bugs, you got heat, but you can actually have more than 1.5 children and feed them.
Just something to consider for the California bros.
I know the weather's great, but your 1.5 kids won't leave quite the heritage and legacy that you're probably hoping for.
All right, here we go.
Back to what I've written.
The roads and walkways are slick with snow and ice.
It is a thing somewhere else, not here, but when it happens, you can throw out salt so that pedestrians don't trip and fall.
In parentheses, I gave a couple examples.
Rebuking Unsalty Elders00:07:40
Steve Lawson, and I don't want to go into a bunch of stuff.
I know some details, but it's really not my place to share.
Although I will say this, because it's worth saying.
He was a public figure, and the details do need to be made public, and it needs to be more specific than inappropriate relationship.
I think that there is a moral obligation on his elders to speak more clearly than that.
To guard against both sides of the equation.
On one side, if it really is just an inappropriate relationship, then you want to guard against a bunch of people thinking the worst possible thing that it could possibly be if that's not true.
It's not fair to him, to his wife, to that woman, all the.
If you're leaving room for people's imaginations to run wild and think that things are worse than they actually are.
And then on the other side of the equation, if it actually is, is bad, as you can imagine.
We're family integrated, so we don't need details, but adults in the room, if it's bad, as you can imagine, then you do need to kind of word some of that because you also don't need to minimize the sin and say, oh, it was just an inappropriate relationship.
You know, they were pen pals and they wrote letters to each other occasionally.
Far beyond that.
So, I won't get any more detail than what I just said.
There's my disclaimer.
But many of you know Steve Lawson was recently removed from public ministry in three different scenarios, three different contexts.
First and foremost, his local church as a preaching pastor there.
Also, with TMS, the Master's Seminary, because he was a longtime partner with John MacArthur and the Dean of a doctoral program there with a doctorate of preaching ministry.
There at the Masters Seminary, so he's been removed from that platform.
And then he, for a long time, has been a teaching fellow with Ligonier Ministries and removed there as well.
So, local church, Masters Seminary, John MacArthur, Ligonier, R.C. Sproul.
Removed from all three of those platforms.
And it is a great tragedy.
It is easily to utilize that for the enemies of God, to use that to bring shame to Jesus Christ and his church.
It brings reproach upon the gospel.
It is wicked.
It's a tragedy.
And it's a shame.
It's terrible.
So it is a net loss.
But here's the point as it pertains to our text today Not because of anything in Steve Lawson, but because of everything that is found in the heart of God.
Not because his sin isn't really sinful or it's not bad.
No, no, no.
It's not because our sin is not great.
It is because God's mercy and providence and infinite wisdom is greater.
It is only because of God, not because of man, but because of God, that even in worst case scenarios where you have these kinds of situations and people feel betrayed and they feel lied to and for good reason because they were, and there's reproach that is brought to the name of Christ and reproach that is brought to the gospel and to the church, even in these scenarios, because God, not man, but because God, despite the failures of man,
is so merciful and so wise in his providence, even then, The salt has purpose.
And what is the purpose of salt in these cases?
Well, the saltiness of this particular salt is not there, and so it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled by men.
And what does that do?
On a snowy day, salting the sidewalks, it makes sure that other men don't fall the same way.
Look to the scripture.
1 Timothy 5, verse 20.
This is in reference to elders.
It says, As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all.
So that what?
So that you just can pile on the guilt and condemnation for them?
No.
You're not trying to condemn them unnecessarily, but they are being rebuked because they deserve it.
They deserve it.
And so you're giving the necessary rebuke and correction and discipline that the Bible would require.
But beyond that, again, not because of the failures of men, but because of the infinite wisdom and mercy of God, not only.
Does public rebuke of elders not only is it used by God in order at times to bring that man in an individual sense to repentance, but it also, that public rebuke is used for all the other men in the room on the sidelines, a third party who's watching and listening, it's used to place in them the fear of God and to cause them a little fear,
a little trembling, to cause them to be that much more meticulous.
That much more vigilant in fighting against sin, so that they too would not fall and put Christ and His gospel and His church to shame.
So, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.
This is a preserving mechanism.
Salt that's no longer good for permeating because it's not salty.
It can't make other things salty because this salt itself is not salty.
And yet, even then, still in the providence of God, it has a purpose.
No longer to permeate, but still to preserve.
It can be thrown out on the ground, and other men who still are salty, who have not yet lost their saltiness, they can walk on this unsalty salt and be less likely to trip and to fall.
Unsalty salt can be used to put the fear of God in the hearts of men so that salty salt doesn't become later on unsalty.
And that is a mercy.
You see this with elders, that's 1 Timothy 5 20.
Steve Lawson would be an example.
You see it with church discipline, Matthew chapter 18.
You also see it even outside of the ecclesiastical realm, the church.
You also see it in a civil sense, even for those who are not regenerate Christians.
You can look at this not just in an ecclesiastical sense, but a national sense.
This is what justice is meant to do.
This is the purpose of the justice system.
So, looking at another text now, Deuteronomy chapter 19, verse 18 through 21.
This is no longer in reference to elders or leaders in the church or even members in the church with church discipline, but citizens of a nation state.
Deuteronomy 19, 18 through 21 says this The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him what he had meant, what he intended to do to his brother.
You shall purge the evil from your midst.
That is the evil, not just in an abstract, ethereal sense, but that evil person.
You purge the evil person from your midst, and the rest, everybody else, shall hear and fear.
And shall never again, what does it do?
It preserves all the rest of the people standing by who are watching.
They shall never again commit any such evil among you.
Your eyes shall not pity.
It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
In this scenario, in Israel, and this should be the law of the land in our country, in every country, still to this day, this is a timeless principle, a timeless universal truth.
Blind Justice Preserves Society00:05:46
If you perjure yourself by bearing false witness, Accusing somebody else, whatever the penalty would have been for that person, had they been found guilty, then that penalty should fall on your head for falsely accusing them.
So if you accuse in a court of law, falsely accuse someone of murder, and it turns out in the final analysis that that person is not guilty of murder, and neither are you, but you falsely accuse them of murder, and the penalty for murder should be capital punishment, life for life, then you, even though you have not committed murder, Because you falsely accused someone else for murder and the penalty for that crime would have been death, you should be put to death.
That's what the text is saying.
And if that were to occur and the just penalties were to be enforced, you, the false accuser, is now put to death, and that's a public death, it's a public sentence, publicly carried out, then the citizens of these United States of America, you know what they would do?
MeToo would end real fast.
How do you.
False accusing?
Playing the victim when you're actually not?
You know how to end that real fast?
All you have to do is publicly execute a few women who have lied.
That's all it takes.
Again, you've heard me say it.
We pray for the hearts for revival.
We need the stomachs.
Because even as I preach something like that, I can see some of you are like, ooh, did he say that?
All you need for the nation to change is to put a few women to death.
Oh, there's got to be a better way to say that.
There's got to be a better way to say that.
There are nicer ways to say that.
The reason I say things the way that I do is because I'm convinced there's not a better way to say it.
I think that's precisely the way to say it.
That's the way to say it where it hits the heart and it hurts.
And if it doesn't hurt, it didn't hit.
And we need the truth to hit.
Women sin.
Do men sin?
Absolutely.
But everybody knows that in the year of our Lord, 2024.
The thing that seems to be contested is whether or not women have ever committed any crime.
Everybody's happy to say, yeah, men are trash and men sin all the time and men are pigs and men are.
So, yeah, I don't feel as much of a pressure.
Like, I need to convince the members of Covenant Bible Church.
Did you know that men, apart from saving grace, which is found in Christ alone, are totally depraved and sinners?
Everyone, like, the eyes just literally roll back in your head.
You're like, duh.
Pagans know that, God haters know that.
I can go to the most Christ hating person on the planet and say, Men sometimes do terrible things.
And they'll be like, Did we just become best friends?
I wanted that on my tombstone when I died.
Men sometimes do too.
That's the gospel to me.
That's my mantra for all of life.
But if I say the same thing, women sometimes do terrible things.
And they picked up stones to stone him, would be what the narrator at that part of the film would say.
Right?
That's how you, when you're determined, what needs to be preached?
Well, what causes people to go red in the face and rage?
That's probably part of what needs to be addressed in your particular place, your particular time.
Nothing's an accident.
God placed us here and now for this reason.
So, all that being said, preserving, back to the point, salt preserves, it's preserved in the ecclesiastical realm, both with leaders like elders, 1 Timothy 5 20, the rest stand in fear.
This salt lost its saltiness, but it can be thrown out so that other salty salts don't lose their saltiness.
Preserving leaders, also preserving members, Matthew 18, 1 Corinthians 5, but also even beyond the ecclesiastical sphere in a nation state as a whole.
There's still this preserving fashion.
When people receive swiftly and proportionally and without favoritism, your eye shall not pity.
So, without favoritism, without delay, you do your vigilance, your due diligence.
You don't want to ever falsely accuse.
But if you do your due diligence, the person is actually guilty of a particular sin, and that sin also happens to be a crime.
And when that happens, justice that is swift, it's without delay, it is proportional, meaning it's not life for a tooth.
But it's tooth for a tooth, life for a life.
So it's proportional and it's without bias.
Right?
Lady Justice is supposed to be blind for a reason.
So it's without bias, without preference, without showing favoritism.
You're not showing favoritism to the rich or to the poor.
You're not showing favoritism to the minority or to the majority, whether that be economically or whether that be skin pigment, regardless.
And you're also not showing favoritism to women and not men.
So, not by ethnicity, not by gender, not by economic class or status.
In no way are you showing favoritism.
So, it's a blind justice, a swift justice, a proportional justice.
When you get justice like that, do you know what happens in a society, a nation state?
You get less crime.
Shocker.
You get less crime.
And when you get less crime, do you know what you have?
You have the preservation of society.
So, you have salt.
Preserving.
Wickedness Hides In Darkness00:08:25
So even saltless salt in the province of God still has a purpose, not only in the church, but even in the world as a whole.
And all of this is only cause for us not to boast in man, but to boast in God.
His wise strategy, His merciful purposes.
That's salt.
Okay, light.
Let's look at light, and I will go quickly.
Utilizing Matthew Henry again, here we go.
As the lights of the world, they, that is Christians, disciples of Jesus, are illustrious and conspicuous, meaning you can't miss it.
You can't miss it.
And have many eyes upon them.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.
All their neighbors have an eye upon them.
Some admire them, commend them, rejoice in them, and study to imitate them.
Others envy them, hate them, censure them, and study to blast them.
They are concerned, therefore, to walk circumspectly.
Because of their observers, they are as spectacles to the world.
Essentially, what Matthew and Henry are saying is this.
In reference to what Jesus says, you're the light of the world, you're like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.
It is worth noting that that city on a hill that cannot be hidden, what's not in question is the conspicuous nature of light, meaning that light is seen.
That's the main point that Jesus is expressing as it pertains to our text today.
That's without question.
So it's not sometimes light can be seen and sometimes it can't.
No, the point that Jesus is making is that if you're light, you will be seen.
If you're light, you will be seen.
The point that Henry is bringing up in exegeting and commentating on the words of Christ is just not disagreeing with the point of Jesus, but then just simply expanding it, saying, okay, so first and foremost, there's no debate to be had.
Light will always be seen.
But then once light is seen, there are two different responses.
Or reactions from those who witness, who see the light.
And one response is that those who see the light come to the light.
They see the light, they love the light, they appreciate the light, they admire the light, and they come and draw near to the light.
And then, by the grace of God, if He would be so kind, the Holy Spirit works in regeneration, giving them new hearts, causing them to become new creatures in Christ Jesus with the gifts of faith and repentance, to turn from sin and to turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they too themselves now become light.
That is one response that happens when people see light.
And it has happened ever since the beginning of the world.
God saves people.
Praise God.
There is a second reaction.
The second reaction, I think, is best illustrated in the words of Jesus himself in the Gospel according to John, chapter 3, verses 19 through 21.
And this is the judgment.
The light has come into the world.
And men.
Loved the darkness.
They hated the light and loved the darkness because their works were evil.
For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his work should be exposed.
But whoever does what is true comes to the light so that what?
The guy who's doing what is true.
And notice, just before it's the ones who are doing what is wicked, that is, those things which are immoral, they hate the light and want to stay in the shadows like cockroaches.
Right?
And then those who do what is, you would think, well, what's the opposite of wicked?
Those who do what is wicked, they stay in the shadows.
Those who do what is righteous.
But here's the thing that which is the good thing, the moral thing, the righteous thing, is also that which is true.
Good, true, and beautiful.
A triple braided cord.
All together.
The right thing, the morally right thing, is the true thing.
Just as easily you could reverse and say, those who do what is false remain in the darkness and do not come to the light, for they hate the light.
And the light exposes darkness.
Their falsehoods.
But those who do what is good will come to the light.
So you could say, false shadows, good approaching the light.
Or, as the text does say, wicked, immoral shadows, true come to the light.
But the last part that I don't want you to miss in verse 21 is this Whoever does what is true comes to the light, but here.
Why?
Because you would think the ones who stay away from the light are the ones who are doing wicked things and they stay in the darkness because they don't want their wickednesses to be exposed.
They don't want credit for their evil deeds.
They want these evil deeds to continue to be perpetrated and promulgated throughout the world in back rooms and shadows and black markets and here and there and everywhere, but they don't want to actually own it.
They want to profit and benefit off of evil without ever being held accountable and without ever being responsible, viewed as the ones who are promulgating that evil.
So, what do they do?
Stay out of the light.
They stay in the shadows so they can love evil, do evil, benefit from evil, but without getting the credit for that evil.
And so then you would think on the flip side of the equation, those who do what is true, as the text says, come to the light.
The guys doing bad things stay out of the light because they don't want credit for evil.
The guys doing good things are going to come to the light because they, you would think, want credit for doing good, right?
No.
And that's where there's the hook in the text, which I love.
No, those who do that which is truly good, not just outwardly good, aligning with God's moral will, but truly good.
That is, doing something from faith.
As Romans chapter 14 says, that apart from faith, anything that does not proceed from faith is sin.
The only way to do a truly good work that is not just outwardly aligning with God's moral will, but it's truly good, good outwardly and good inwardly, a good deed, but also with good motives, is to do it from the heart.
And the only way to do a truly good deed from the heart is to do it with a heart of faith.
And the Christian has no faith.
Romans 3, there is no fear of God before their eyes.
Faith is a gift, it only belongs to those with new hearts.
So, those who do good, in other words, and the true exegetical sense of this particular context, this text, are Christians.
Only the Christian is capable of doing that which is truly good.
But here's the heart of the Christian the Christian comes to the light so that their good deeds can be seen by men, so that they get the credit.
No, so that God.
Gets the glory.
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.
So even in his coming to the light, the wicked shrink back into the shadows so that they don't get the credit for evil.
The righteous come forth into the light so that God gets the glory for their good.
A city on a hill that cannot be hidden.
Light of the world.
Everyone sees light.
That's not in question.
What always is really the only question to be asked is how will men respond?
Some will love the light, come to the light, and become lights themselves.
And this is because in the sovereign election of God, He chooses in His mercy to draw many to repentance and salvation.
But there will also be many others who will shrink back.
Hate the light and hate you.
They will hate you because you expose their evil and they don't want to be exposed.
Some Hate The Light00:11:06
And all the things, here's the irony that I found personally in my own life all the things that the wicked are actually guilty of themselves, they'll accuse you of.
I mean, the irony is so thick you could choke.
He's a fascist.
And he wants to rule with an iron scepter and force people to do this and do that.
But aren't you the guys who told everyone they couldn't come out of their homes for two years?
And that by law, they had to inject themselves with a foreign substance that hadn't been treated any longer than six months because nobody had had it for more than six months?
Aren't you the group that's advocating in the state of California for giving $150,000 for each illegal immigrant to help towards a down payment on their house, meanwhile, your native citizens?
Can't even fill up their car with gasoline?
I think the lady does protest too much.
Fascism?
Really?
That's what we're worried about?
That's what we're worried about right now.
Fascism?
How about communism?
How about you?
You, oh wicked man, the real threat, the person right now actually committing incredible atrocities and wickedness against men.
But that's what men who love the darkness do.
They stab and they cut and they slice and they wound and they kill and they steal and destroy.
And all the while they say, why did Jesus do this?
Why did Christian?
I can't believe Christians did this.
Can you believe conservatives did this?
You did it.
I saw you do it.
You did it five seconds ago.
How could you be so brazen?
How could you?
Where does the audacity?
I don't even.
I'm not, by the grace of God, not because of me, but by the grace of God, I'm not even capable of working up the levels and degrees of audacity required to utter the phrase that men in our country would utter.
Killing someone in cold blood and then literally pointing the person who just said, Hey, maybe we shouldn't kill people in cold blood, and then saying, Why did you kill him in cold blood?
While still holding the gun, it's literally smoking.
How could people do that?
Who would do that?
Democrats, of course, but who would do that?
How can you do that?
Because there is no fear of God before their eyes.
Because men love the darkness rather than the light because their works are evil.
They know they're evil.
They know they're evil.
They're not confused, they're not deceived.
They're not just, you know, lost sheep wandering and just need to be found and need to be loved.
No, they're wicked.
We're talking about wicked people who know exactly what they're doing and they don't care.
And if you are the light of the world, what they will do is they will see you and hate you because men love the darkness.
And such were all of you, apart from the grace and mercy of God that caused you to love the light.
Left to yourself, apart from a new nature, apart from saving grace, we all love darkness and hate light.
And when we become light by his incredible saving grace, we will be hated by men.
Men love darkness because their works are evil.
If we are individually, as families and corporately, as a church, if we are to be in Georgetown, Williamson County, Texas, if we are to be a city on a hill, Then, guys, you just, you gotta buckle up right now.
And you can't afford to be bushy tailed and bright eyed characters in Bambi, just totally caught off guard, so naive, so gullible.
It's like, I heard that there are people in our town that don't really appreciate our church.
I can't, what's going on?
Of course they don't.
Sitting on a hill cannot be hidden.
You will see light, some will love it and come, others will hate it because their works are evil.
The only way to be loved by everyone is to stand for nothing, is to be so bland, so dull, so ineffective that you're not a blessing to anyone and you're not a threat to anyone.
But if you want to be a blessing to some, then the very edge that makes you a blessing to one group makes you a threat to another.
If we are to be potent, if we're to be effective, if we're to be faithful to the Lord Jesus and look like Him, then we will have His reputation.
Loved by many, hated by many.
Buckle up.
That's what it means to be light.
Ending with this quote from Matthew Henry For what end our light must shine?
That those who see your good works, like I used in John chapter 3, the last verse that I read, verse 21, so that people would see our good works, but they would glorify our Father in heaven, that they would see that all that we have done that is truly good and beautiful, that it has been carried out in God, that it is God in His sovereignty, His mercy.
That caused these things to come to pass, and no strength in ourselves.
So, Henry says, That those who see what's the end of being light, the end, the chief aim that those who see your good works may be brought not to glorify you, which was the things that the Pharisees aimed at, and it spoiled all their performances, but rather that they might glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Note the glory of God is the great thing that we must aim at in everything that we do in religion.
Let them see your good works, and I added this, Christendom.
As an example, that they may be convinced of the truth and excellency of the Christian religion, that is, Christianity.
All this works at a micro level.
You, your wife, your kids, your marriage, your home, your charity, your love, your hard work, your sense of justice and being an outstanding law abiding citizen.
All these things civility, courtesy, the fruits of the Spirit in an individual basis let men see your good works and then turn their gaze.
As they're drawn to the light that is in you by the grace of God, immediately divert their gaze to God Himself, to Christ, and say, I'm actually just a mirror.
I'm just reflecting the true light that comes from the one true source that is God.
Let them see your good works, but glorify your Father in heaven.
That works on a micro level, but it also works on a macro level.
Corporately, as a church, and beyond that, not just our church, but the church, capital C church, and then it also works even more.
Pulling back in time and in history and a worldwide international level and historic level, stretching across centuries.
One great example, as I kind of worked into that quote, one great example of the good works of men that should avert our gaze to God as the source of all that is good is Christendom.
I am a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, first and foremost.
Because God gave me eyes to see and ears to hear and gave me a new heart.
He made me a Christian.
That is the ultimate true answer.
Secondarily, so gave the disclaimer.
Secondarily, there are other things that give evidence to the truth of the gospel and the superiority of the Christian faith against all other ideologies and worldviews and world religions.
One of them is Christendom that Christians built the world, and that every developed nation on the planet.
That you follow with all their innovations and all their inventions, from the introduction of hospitals for the sick to cathedrals and towers and case law system with judicial processes and all these different things, from sanitation and sewers, every single thing that has made the world great.
You know how you can follow it?
You know how you can track it historically?
You can track innovation on the one hand, or you could also just track the Reformation.
You just track the Christian faith.
Where did it go?
Where was it received?
Where did it prosper?
Oh, and that also just, you know, just coincidentally also happens to be every first world country on the planet.
And all the third world countries that eat cats, and it is real, and worse than that, eat people, cannibalism, and as a national religion, participate in voodoo and worship demons.
Well, those places that are underdeveloped.
And third world hellholes.
Turns out that those places didn't have historically for centuries and centuries the gospel.
And when they did receive missionaries, in many cases, they ate them.
There are two different kinds of countries countries that received missionaries and have hospitals, and then there are countries that eat missionaries.
And now they have to eat cats.
The correlation between the Christian faith and remarkable feats of civilization, those two dots couldn't be closer together.
That's a straight line.
That connection remains undefeated.
Here's the deal, though let men see your good works, even your ancient fathers and ancestors' good works, even throughout history, but then divert their gaze to your Father in heaven.
As the one who ultimately is responsible for all of it.
Good Works Point To God00:06:50
Let him get the glory.
That it won't just be look at Christendom, look at civilization, and look at my superior ancestors.
Look at what's possible with a particular type of person.
No, it's look what's possible with the triune God as he worked through these people.
God should be honored.
And glorified, first and foremost.
And because we honor and glorify Him first, we then, from honoring God, we do also honor our human fathers.
I think of it's natural affections, it's the order of morals.
It's basic Christianity.
We have to be able to understand this without immediately hurdling the insult towards someone you're a racist.
Which, by the way, when someone calls you a racist, it just doesn't mean anything.
So we have to be able to look.
This is what Paul says.
I'll use scripture Romans chapter 9.
The whole argument that he makes is that it's not about circumcision of the flesh.
It's about circumcision of the heart.
It's not about being a Jew ethnically, but ultimately it's about being born again.
And so he's making this whole argument.
He's made it in Ephesians.
He's made it in Galatians.
He's made it here.
He's made it there.
He gets to Romans 9, and it's almost like he now has to clarify a little bit, like walk it back.
Not entirely, but just a step back and bring a little bit of clarification because he's like, man, I've been going hard in the paint against the whole Jew thing and certain bloodlines being superior and this and that and the other, and saying it's not ethnic.
It's not.
It's Christ and it's His gospel.
It's spiritual.
And I've made that argument so, so pervasively that I need to probably clarify a little bit because I made it seem like race doesn't even exist and that it doesn't matter.
And actually, as an apostle, Jesus Christ, the apostle Paul, it does.
And then he makes his point.
He says, So if all these things are true and it's about the heart and it's about the spirit and it's about the gospel and it's not about this, then what benefit is there in being a Jew?
And you would think that he's been building the whole argument over not just the book of Romans, but like half of the New Testament.
You'd think he's been building the whole argument to say, then what, if all this is true spiritually, and that's the crux, then what benefit is there physically, ethnically?
And you expect him to say, none whatsoever.
1945, post war consensus, boomers, let's go.
But that's not what he says, actually.
That's what every Christian theologian has said for the last 60 to 80 years.
But believe it or not, there used to be intelligent Christian men.
They're used to.
And you can read them.
It's not even that hard to find them.
You just have to read them.
But you can't go to conferences with present day men who tell you their interpretation of what the dead men said.
You actually have to read the dead men for yourselves.
And you'll find out that those guys actually radically disagree with everybody over the last 60 to 80 years.
And that something actually did get off track.
So this is what Paul says instead.
He doesn't say, So then what benefit is there to being a Jew?
None whatsoever.
No, instead, what he says, Much in every way.
For theirs are the prophets, theirs comes the law.
Theirs comes Jesus, the seed of Abraham.
There's much benefit.
There is a heritage.
It's rich, it's beautiful, and it is to be admired, commended, appreciated, and treasured.
And you can do all of that and be proud in a righteous sense, do all of that without hating other groups of people.
Crazy.
You can walk and chew gum at the same time.
You can.
You actually can.
And so, with Christendom, let men see your good works over centuries.
Over oceans and continents and avert their gaze first and foremost, not to a particular race, not to a particular people, but to God in heaven who gave the growth.
And at the same time, you can also say, as Paul says, what benefit is there to being an Israelite?
Well, much in every way.
This, this, this.
I can also say, well, then what benefit is there to being a Westerner?
And in my case, particularly a white Westerner.
Well, much in every way.
For theirs are the reformers, theirs are the Puritans, theirs is Calvin, theirs is Knox.
And I can be proud of that.
I can say, this is my heritage.
It's a good heritage.
And it's such a good heritage, I want it for myself, for my children, my wife, my great grandchildren, for my nation.
And I actually would like to see it be everyone's heritage.
I would like to see other nationalities and other peoples come into this heritage and enjoy it too, because it built the world.
And the source of all this greatness is not men, and not a particular race of men, or even a particular nation, but God.
Let men see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
So, I can glorify the Father, first and foremost, but also glorify earthly fathers and say, No, I'm not ashamed.
I'm not ashamed of the founders.
But the founders had slaves, uh huh, and they were better men than people today.
And that doesn't mean that there were no sins and no injustices committed.
But it does mean that the founders would be rolling over in their graves if they knew that we had abolished slavery, but were transing kids and murdering babies by the millions.
Okay?
Okay.
I will not be taught by progressives to hate my ancestors, to hate my fathers, because the Father commands me in the fifth commandment to honor thy father and mother.
God gives the growth, God gives the blessing, and we should share that blessing with the world.
But you can't share a blessing with the world when you've been taught and persuaded into thinking that it's not a blessing, but it's actually just a pressure.
Then everything stops.
And what we've been doing is not progressing, we've been regressing.
For arguably 130 years, definitely for 60 to 80 years.
And you know who it's hurt?
It hasn't just hurt Western countries, it's hurt the whole world.
The whole world.
You want to love your neighbor?
Then honor your father.
And honor your heritage.
And take all of it, recognize that the good, all the good, comes from God.
And then don't apologize for it.
And just keep pushing.
And let people call you whatever they're going to call you.
And say, okay, have a blessed day.
And keep on going.
Let's pray.
Lord, bless your word to your people for your glory.