Luke 14:34-35

THE SALT

Luke 14:34-35. “ Therefore salt is good, but if indeed the salt may lose its savor, with what shall it be salted? It is neither fit for the land nor the manure-heap. They cast it out. Let the one having ears to hear, hear.” In the Sermon on the Mount, our Savior says, “ Ye are the salt of the earth,” speaking concretely of His disciples. Here we have the same, but abstractly considered. The Christian religion is the salt, put in this world to save it. The Holy Ghost is the savor of that salt. Therefore when, like Judaism, Romanism, and many dead, worldly, Protestant Churches, the Holy Ghost has been grieved away, that religion becomes savorless salt, the most worthless thing in the world. If you put it on the soil, it covers it up, and disqualifies you to cultivate it. If you put it in the washes, you annihilate all hope of restoring them to fertility and productiveness. Jesus says it is only fit “to be cast out, and trodden under foot;” i.e., make nice, comfortable walks, along which the deluded members of the fallen Churches travel blindfolded down to hell. This statement about hearing, if you have ears, is quite axiomatic with Jesus and His apostles, keeping us reminded of the distinction between physical and spiritual hearing. Unless the Holy Ghost open the spiritual ear, you can no more hear the voice of God than the deaf man can hear the human voice.