Lasting Flavor

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing all right? Well, you know it’s a busy few seconds before I come on the air because I’mmy own production man. We originate these broadcasts right here in my home. Coreen and I live right near Tannersville, Pennsylvania out in the Pocono Mountains, a beautiful setting, and very calm and beautiful. We can see the mountains around us and watch the skiers coming down Camelback Mountain. I often joke and say. “We can look out the window and see the skiers breaking their legs”. The ambulance goes up that mountain about once or twice every day, I do declare. Well, all right, I’ll let somebody else do the skiing. So, here we are, you and I, and I’m so grateful beloved, that you’re there on the listening end. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I wanted to finish up our comment on Mark chapter 9 verse 50, about salt and saltiness. You want just to share that with me for a few moments? “Salt is good”, Jesus said, “but if the salt have lost his saltiness, wherewith with will ye season it. Have salt in yourselves, have peace one with another”. Over in Matthew the fifth chapter, our Lord Jesus said, “Ye are the salt of the earth”. He had said, “Ye are the light of the world”, and He also adds, “Ye are the salt of the earth”, but said He, “If the salt have lost his savor”, that’s flavor we would say and then in the Mark 9 passage, it’s called saltiness, savor, flavor, “wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men”. And then you have a parallel passage in Luke where Luke says, “If the salt loses its flavor”, then he says, “it’s good for nothing”, you can’t even, you can’t even that use it for paving or anything else, you can’t use it for fertilizer, it’s useless and there you are. Nothing can be done about it,

Alright, there is the background then of what our Lord was saying. Salt is good if the salt now, here is the dreadful possibility that you and I want to think about, about which we want to be warned and prepared, so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen to us. He’s says, “If the salt have lost his saltiness”, lost his flavor, lost his quality of seasoning things.

Now what is He getting at there? A Christian, a believer whole is in dwelt as we know by the Holy Spirit of God, and who now by faith has yielded himself or herself completely to that blessed, indwelling Spirit so that He can fill every room in the heart house, so to say, that person whenever he or she enters into a human situation, provides a certain flavor.

Now, you know people, who when they come into a room fill that room with the sense of God’s presence. You know that, don’t you? Not everyone does, but there are people like that. The norm, the normal condition of a Christian is that he or she provides a certain flavor to life, simply because they’re there, and because by being there they’ve brought the presence of God into the situation. Now that is normal, that isn’t something you put on or try to achieve, that’s normal. It’s like breathing and blessed be the person who realizes that this is part of the birthright of the Christian. Jesus said, “Ye are”, not can be, or ought to be, or to try to be, He said, “Ye are”. So, there, “Ye are the light of the world”.
Now, salt could lose its flavor and a candle or a lamp can be hidden and put under a bushel basket or under a bed. The Lord Jesus used those forms of speech to reminder us that business can get in the way of your light shining, and laziness can get in the way of your light shining out to others. But, he says, “Salt, salt could lose its flavor”, said He.

What about it? What are the things, my beloved friend, what are the things that cause us to lose our Christian flavor? Let’s get at it from the positive side. What gives you, what gives you a Christian impact in the life, in the lives of others around you? It’s the presence of the Spirit of God, and that presence of the indwelling Spirit of God is made real and palpable by your daily contact with God in His word. Isn’t that true? So, what gives you the reality of the Spirit of God? Number one; to be born from above through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His”. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in your life when you’re saved.

Number two; by faith to open every room in your heart house to the Holy Spirit of God, so that you can fulfill the command in Ephesians 5:18, “Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit”. You do this by faith. You open your heart and life to the blessed Spirit of God and you let Him into those rooms which here to for may well have been closed to the touch of God.

And then number three; you maintain that relationship by a daily walk with your Lord, Enoch walked with God we read, and to walk together except they be agreed, you agree with your Lord concerning His purposes in your life, you meet Him daily in His Word and you let the Spirit of God apply the Word of God to you, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto”, the psalmist says, “according to thy Word”. So, it’s a daily meeting with God and His Word, a daily yielding of yourself to the indwelling Holy Spirit that He might fill every part of all of your life, a daily obeying of God’s will as you understand it, so that you will not grieve the Spirit of God by disobedience. These things provide the ongoing flavor, if we can use that figure of speech now, they provide the ongoing flavor of a salty Christian. You follow that?

Well then, He says, “If the salt have lost his saltiness”. It is dreadfully possible, my dear friends, to lose the salty flavor, the impact that you under God could make upon the lives of people around you. How does this occur? Number one; by carelessness. You neglect your blessed Lord, you neglect the meeting with Him, day by day, in the early morning hours. You neglect to seek His face, “Drawn nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you”. God is waiting for you to come His way, “The father seeketh”, Jesus said, “the father seeketh such to worship Him”. God is out looking for people who will come His way and worship Him and love Him and adore Him and the Holy Spirit. So, carelessness can cut the effectiveness of your life. Disobedience, where the Holy Spirit of God is grieved to because you’ve disobeyed God’s will in some way. Yes, we can go back and say, Lord forgive me, but the fact is that a continual disobeying of God in matters, tends to blunt the keen edge of your enjoyment of His presence and tends to diminish the impact of God through your life, and although you may be going through the same motions, there isn’t the impact there that there once was. Carelessness and disobedience.

Then, our Lord Jesus pointed out in the parable of the seed, that that the cares of this world and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the Word and become unfruitful. You lose your effectiveness, often times, simply by being preoccupied with things around you and desires having to do with either, your own satisfaction or your success. Now, it’s not wrong to want things, it’s not wrong to want to enjoy life, it certainly is not wrong to want to succeed. All of these things are mentioned in the Bible at different places as being good in themselves. “Blessed be the Lord which daily load with us with benefits”. You know, the blessings of God, good things, good experiences and good success is part of God’s plan for His children. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth but thou shall meditate therein day and night, that thou may observe to do according to all that is written therein, for then shalt thou make that way prosperous”, that means profit, “and then shalt thou have good success’, God said to Joshua.

Alright, having established the fact that God wants you to succeed and God wants you to have things that you can enjoy, that they’re not wrong in themselves, then what? When success and things become the goal of your life, beloved, watch out because you will then be losing your heavenly impact on people. Success and things and blessings and situations to enjoy, always have to be byproducts of obeying God. Put God first, Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you”. God first, then things. God first, then success. God first, then happy relationships in life. You follow that? What is it then that causes the salt to lose its flavor? Carelessness, disobedience, and the distraction of other things that become goals in your life.

It’s sad really, to see someone who, in other days was greatly used, but who has changed the goals of his or her life. You talk to persons like that, you find that their conversation immediately zeroes in on the things or the relationships or the possessions that have now become the chief interest in their life. I know some people who will not talk to you for five minutes, but that they’re talking about money. And I know other people who won’t talk to for five minutes, but that they’re talking about influence and prestige and position and accomplishment. This has become for them the goal of their life. It’s a pity because in so doing, they have sacrificed the effectiveness that could be theirs as a person who is putting God first in things. Can you learn that lesson with me? I have to relearn it all the time and I must confess being a human being, that God has to remind me again and again, that He wants to be first in my life, so that the salt will really still have its flavor.

Dear Father today, may we be careful not to lose the sense of Thy presence and the flavor of God’s power in our life, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!