The Salted Sacrifice 2
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III. But now, to come to our next point, not only is the sacrifice to be salted with fire, but the SACRIFICE also is to be salted with salt. Are not these the Lord's own words, "For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt." There is an allusion here to the command of God given by Moses, that with all their offering they should offer salt. (Lev. 2:15.) There was an express prohibition of two things to be offered under the law—leaven and honey, at least, in the offerings which were made by fire (Lev. 2:11); and no doubt there was a spiritual significancy in this prohibition, for "leaven" typically signifies malice and wickedness as well as hypocrisy; and "honey" is a symbol of sin and sinful pleasures. Neither, then, of these was to be offered in any offering of the Lord made by fire, though honey might be offered among the first fruits; but salt never was to be lacking. I have already shown you the typical and figurative meaning of salt—that it preserves from corruption; gives food savour and flavour; is an emblem of a perpetual covenant; and is a figure of friendship and peace. With salt, then, as emblematic of these fruits of the Spirit, was every sacrifice to be seasoned. But now let us look at the various SACRIFICES which the salted sacrifice has to offer–
A. Which is the first? Himself. Does not the apostle say, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service?" (Rom. 12:1.) But in presenting his body, the sacrifice has to present with it his soul; for he might give his body to be burned and yet unless there were love in his heart it would profit him nothing. (1 Cor. 13:3.) It is to be also "a living sacrifice," that it may be "holy and acceptable unto God;" and if it be a living sacrifice, there must surely be life in the soul of the sacrifice. When, then, and how does he present this living sacrifice? When he sacrifices his lusts, his passions, his inclinations, his darling projects, and all his most cherished schemes of worldly happiness and pleasure, and lays them down at Christ's feet as immolated, so to speak, by his own hand. The grace, which enables him to make these sacrifices, salts them, puts savour into them, preserves them from the 'stench of self', and makes them acceptable to God.
Here we trace the connection between the salted sacrifice and the salted sacrifice. The Lord says, "If your eye, or your hand, or your foot offends you, cut it off." "But, Lord," you say, "can I make such a sacrifice? Can I sacrifice my hand, or my foot, or my eye, or," to come to things more intelligible, "my darling lusts? Can I sacrifice my fond inclinations, my ambitious projects, my darling schemes of rising in the world, and all that my carnal heart desires, and all this with my own hand? Must I do with them, and to them all as you bid me—cut them off and cast them from me? I cannot do it! It is a task beyond my power." But when the sacrifice has been salted with fire; when he knows something of a fiery law burning up his creature righteousness; something of the fiery trial that separates the dross from the tin; something of the fire of temptation inflaming all the combustible material of his carnal mind; something of the fire of God's word trying him to the very quick; and, above all, something of the love of God descending from heaven as a holy fire into his bosom, then he can make the sacrifice, yes, any sacrifice. We see, therefore, that the sacrifice cannot offer the sacrifice until he himself has been salted with fire; for, until then, he has neither will nor power. But his being salted with fire enables him to offer the sacrifice; for the fire purifies him from the corruptions of self, and endues him with spiritual strength.
But there is one point which I wish here most particularly to insist upon, lest my meaning be misapprehended. The ground of acceptance is one thing; the state of acceptance is another. The ground of acceptance is the blood and righteousness of the Son of God; the state of acceptance is sanctification by the work of the Holy Spirit. These two things are brought together by the apostle, "And such were some of you—but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Cor. 6:11.) It is an indispensable preliminary to all spiritual worship, that the person of the worshiper must be accepted before the offering can be acceptable. The worshiper is accepted as being washed in the blood and clothed in the obedience of the Son of God; that is his real, his only ground of acceptance. But when he comes as a sacrifice, the spiritual worshiper must not only be accepted as standing in the blood and obedience of Jesus, but he must have that work of God upon his heart whereby he stands before him as a priest to offer sacrifice. The apostle, therefore, says of the saints of God that they are "a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. 2:5.)
But in order to be priests, they themselves must be salted with fire, and thereby consecrated to the service of God, as was Aaron, when the blood of the bullock offered as a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord was put upon the tip of his right ear, and the thumb of his right hand, and the great toe of his right foot. He was thus consecrated by blood; and when Moses took of the anointing oil, a type of the sanctifying operations of the Holy Spirit, he was consecrated also by oil. So now by blood and oil is the sacrifice consecrated—the blood of the Lamb, and the unction of the Holy Spirit. This, then, is the reason why the Lord salts the sacrifice, that when he comes before the throne with a sacrifice, he may not offer strange fire nor stand before the Lord a profane wretch, without any spiritual offering in his hand, or any spiritual desire in his heart, which is in the sight of God no better than offering swine's blood upon his altar, or having broth of abominable things in his vessel. (Isa. 65:4, 66:3.)
But he is to come before the Lord not only washed in the blood and clothed in the obedience of Christ, but as a spiritual worshiper, for the Father seeks such to worship him; and if he be a spiritual worshiper, he must have been divinely made so as having been salted with fire. Now, then, he comes before the Lord with his first acceptable sacrifice, which is himself. Does not the apostle say, "You are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's." (1 Cor. 6:20.) Do not both belong to him? Are they not his? Can you call them your own? Then when you give them to the Lord you must still say with David, "Of your own have we given you, for all is your own." (1 Chron. 29:14, 16.) Have you never been able to do this, to present your body and soul before the Lord as a sacrifice that he would take you and make you what he would have you to be? First present yourself, and then present your offering.
But do we not see now more clearly the necessity of being salted with fire, and of the sacrifice being salted with salt, that you may offer an acceptable offering? For a man may present before God a sacrifice, and that sacrifice not be accepted, as not salted. The Lord gave a special charge to the children of Israel, to which I have before alluded, that salt was never to be lacking from the offering. "Every oblation of your meat offering shall you season with salt; neither shall you allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your meat offering—with all your offerings you shall offer salt." (Lev. 2:13.) A man may offer a sacrifice without salt.
How many ministers have left the church of England and gone over to Popery! They have made, in so doing, the greatest possible sacrifices—sacrifices, perhaps, of which you are little aware, but which I well know, as having personally known in former days some of the men and something of their position—men of learning, amiability, family, and every prospect before them in life. Great was their sacrifice, but we should deny our firmest convictions if we believed that they or it were salted with salt. How many young women again of rank and family, in the prime of life, with bright prospects before them, courted, and admired by the world, and possessed of everything which could please and gratify the female heart, have given all up and gone into a nunnery, there to endure the most humiliating privations, to be forever shut up in solitude and poverty, undergoing the severest penances and a daily course of most mortifying discipline. Are not these great sacrifices? But, alas! with all this there was no salt. It was not the grace of God nor the operations of his Spirit upon their heart which made them do this. But the sacrifice was not the less; no, indeed, greater to the flesh, for there was no grace to support them under it.
I have brought forward these two instances to show how people may offer themselves in sacrifice, but the whole be unacceptable to God, and one to which they were no more led by the operation of the Holy Spirit than the king of Moab was, when he took his eldest son and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. So you also, in your narrow sphere and without their sacrifices, may do many things as you think for the Lord, but if the salt be lacking, they are tasteless, unacceptable, unaccepted. But having been yourself, by the power of God's grace, salted with fire, then you may offer a spiritual sacrifice. As the apostle speaks, "to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."
B. What, then, is the next sacrifice after you have offered yourself, laid body, soul, property, prospects, all you are, all you have at his feet, for the Lord to do with you as seems good in his sight? A broken heart; for a broken heart is God's sacrifice. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit." (Psalm 51:17.) But the Lord enables you to offer it by salting you with fire. The law; the fiery trial; temptation; his word; and especially his love revealed to the soul, produce brokenness, contrition, humility, lay the soul low at his feet; and this brokenness of heart is a spiritual sacrifice; it is salted with salt, for the grace of God is in it to season it and make it acceptable.
C. Prayer and praise are spiritual sacrifices for they are the "calves of our lips" which we render unto God. (Hosea 14:2.) To these sacrifices we have a reference in the prophet Isaiah, where, speaking of the sons of the stranger, the Lord says, "Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer—their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon my altar; for my house shall be called an house of prayer for all people." (Isaiah. 56:7.) But that they may be accepted upon God's altar they must be salted with salt. How many prayers are offered up publicly and privately that never spring out of a broken heart, a contrite spirit, or a humble mind; are never salted by the Spirit's operation, and therefore not acceptable before God; for the salt is lacking from the offering; and the salt being lacking, it is not preserved from corruption; it is not seasoned or flavoured; has no part or lot in a covenant of perpetuity and peace; and lacking all these things, is not acceptable to God or to his people.
D. Your conversation with the people of God must be also seasoned with salt to be a spiritual sacrifice. "Let your speech," says the apostle, "be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." How tasteless, how flavourless, how unprofitable, how unacceptable to a spiritual mind is the conversation of most professors of religion in our day! Of old, when "those that feared the Lord spoke often one to another, the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him." (Mal. 3:16.) But would the Lord hearken and hear the conversation in our day, or write it down in a book of remembrance? We would be ashamed, I believe, many of us to read it ourselves were it written down faithfully. Conversation to be profitable should be seasoned with salt; then it will be "good to the use of edifying and will minister grace unto the hearers." (Ephes. 4:29.) Without this it will be "a corrupt communication." But if the sacrifice is not well salted with fire, salt will be lacking from his conversation. What flavour is there in an unsalted tongue? How soon it is tainted unless salt be well rubbed into its pores. An unsalted tongue ministers death, not life, barrenness and condemnation, not fruitfulness and grace. Rather hold your tongue in the company of God's people than be to them a minister of barrenness and death. But how many great religious professors can talk readily upon carnal topics and worldly subjects, and anything and everything but God and his Christ or the work of grace on the heart.
E. The preaching of the word, the ministry of the Gospel, is also a spiritual sacrifice; and many a man has sacrificed his comforts, his health and strength, and his very life to the ministry, made himself prematurely old, and brought upon himself disease and suffering which have shortened his days by the arduous labours and anxieties connected with holding forth the word of life. But his tongue, too, must be seasoned with salt, or it will not minister grace to the hearers; will have neither savour nor flavour, neither power nor pungency, neither force nor faithfulness; will neither rightly divide the word of truth, nor take forth the precious from the vile.
But the salted tongue can only move as influenced by a salted heart. The minister, therefore, must be salted with fire, know something of the fiery trial, be exercised with temptation, feel the power of God's word in his conscience and something of the love of God, that he, in offering the sacrifice, in preaching the Person, the work, the blood, the righteousness, the grace and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, may bring these heavenly truths before the people well seasoned with salt.
F. Gifts and acts of liberality to God's people—these are also spiritual sacrifices. The apostle speaks highly of them, when writing to the Philippians, he says, "But I have all, and abound—I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God." (Phil. 4:18.) But why were their gifts a sacrifice "acceptable, well-pleasing to God?" It was not the greatness of the amount, but it was because grace was in the givers, and being sent to Paul under the influence of love, they were seasoned with salt. It was this which made them acceptable. Men may give large sums of money away—and I speak to the praise of many in saying what a vast amount is now being raised for the suffering brethren in the north. I confess that I much admire the benevolence and liberality all through the land which has thus been called forth. Still, all of it may not be a salted sacrifice. Apart from a natural feeling of benevolence and compassion to the sufferers under what we may well call this national calamity, may not other springs move the outstretched hand? I would not discredit so good a work; but to make it a sacrifice acceptable to God it must be salted with grace, and not be done through ostentation or the force of example. I am daily receiving contributions from gracious individuals and the collected liberality of churches and congregations for our famishing brethren, which I am distributing among them—and what is thus given in the fear of God, with an eye to his glory and from love to his people, will be viewed by him as a spiritual sacrifice, seasoned with salt. So that whether a man do much or little—and some can do nothing in aiding the saints of God—it is a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God when it springs from spiritual motives, and is salted with the salt of his grace.
IV. But we now come to a case which the Lord assumes as possible—"If the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it?"
A. The Lord assumes the case here that the salt may have lost its saltiness—lost everything which makes its valuable; and I have read that this is the case sometimes in Eastern countries. I think it is Mandrel, who gives an account of his once coming to what appeared to be a mass of rock salt. He naturally stretched forth his hand to take a piece, but, when he tasted it, all the saltiness was gone—it had been washed out by the deluging rains which in those climates fall at certain seasons from the skies. The substance and appearance remained the same; but the reality, the savour, all that made it salt, was gone. I have also read of a similar instance in the salt lakes of those countries. When the lake becomes partially dry in the summer, it leaves a crust of salt upon the shore. Upon this the summer rains fall, washing out all the saline particles, but not injuring its outward look. It has thus all the appearance of salt, but none of the reality. This being a common phenomenon in those climates, the Lord assumes it as a case spiritually in the visible Church of God, and asks a very pregnant question—"If the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it?"
Observation and experience abundantly show us that the saint of God for a time may lose his saltiness. Being salted with the King's salt, and this being a covenant of life and peace, he cannot altogether lose it, but he may lose much, very much of its savour. There may be a few particles of salt left, enough to save him, but not enough to make him savoury either to God or man. We frequently see this in old professors, who in times past seemed to show the possession of salt; but what with worldly cares, family anxieties, the hurry and flurry of business, the lapse of time, the lack of gracious revivals, the growth in them is not in grace, but in covetousness and in worldly mindedness, and the deadness natural to advancing years, they at last sink into the spot of which the Lord here speaks—they lose their saltiness.
Is not that a deplorable case that your last days should be your worst; that your carnality should be so great and your spirituality so little as to cause considerable doubt in those who fear God whether you possess the grace of God at all? And is it not lamentable that the sacrifices you offer, or pretend to offer, before God should be unacceptable, because they have lost their saltiness? There was a time with you, perhaps, when you had some brokenness of heart and contrition of spirit before God—your heart is hard enough and careless now. There was a time when you could make sacrifices, give up anything for the Lord's sake—now you can scarcely make any sacrifice at all; scarcely squeeze out half-a-crown, though your pocket is full of them, for a poor child of God. There was a time when your prayers came out of a feeling, believing, warm heart—now they are cold and wandering, and there scarcely seems to be any life or power in them. There was a time when you met the family of God, and your heart burnt within you when you talked of the precious things of Christ; and now you can meet them, and your conversation be as carnal as that of any worldling. There was a time when you could praise the Lord with joyful lips; and now not one word of praise swells your note. There was a time when you could give liberally out of your poverty; and now you are so tight-fisted as to be hardly able to part with sixpence out of your wealth. Your salt has lost its savour; and though it preserves its appearance, yet, like the rock salt that Mandrel touched and tasted, it has lost all that made it really valuable. Does conscience smite you at all under the strokes which I am dealing at it? Are you sensible that you have lost your saltiness? that you are not as in times past, and that if you possess the grace of God at all, it is at a very low ebb in your soul?
Well, now, the Lord asks the question, "If the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it?" There is something to my mind very expressive in the way in which the Lord puts the question. The Lord does not say, "with what shall I season it," or "with what shall it be seasoned," but "with what will you season it." How will you bring back the saltiness? You cannot do it; but the Lord can do it for you, if it be his holy will. But how does he bring it back? How does he re-season the salt? How did he give the soul it in the first instance when he salted the sacrificer? By the fire! Then he puts you back into the fire to give you back the salt. Don't you see the blacksmith do something like, if not exactly, this? Here is a piece of rusty iron, an old hoop, or a horse-shoe picked out of the dust—he can make it new; and you know how he does it. He puts it into the fire, brings it to a white heat, hammers it well upon the anvil; why, it comes out brand new. Don't you know that the very best rifles which are manufactured are made out of old stub nails grubbed out of the mud of the London Streets?
So the Lord can re-fire as well as refine his people's graces. To revert to our figure, he can put them into the furnace of affliction, and in that fire he can salt them over again. This is the way whereby the Lord usually restores the saltiness which is lost. Temptation, the fiery trial, his word cutting them to the very quick, salts them again; and when thus put into the furnace, once more his love descends as a holy fire into their heart, and they are salted as with fresh salt; or, to change the figure, they renew their youth like the eagle.
What a mercy it is that, partially, if not fully, the salt can be restored, because I have pointed out that salt was an emblem of a perpetual covenant as well as of friendship and peace; for the saint of God, having been once salted, surely cannot lose all his saltiness, and so be cast out of all acceptance with God, as the priest would reject the meat offering brought to him by the worshiper which had no salt upon it. If he could lose the grace of God, he must go where the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched. Gifts, usefulness, a state and standing in the Church, knowledge, profession, and a name to live may all come to an end; but the 'grace of God in the heart of a believer' is un-perishing, imperishable.
V. But we are now perhaps prepared to listen to the EXHORTATION which fell from our Lord's lips—"Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another."
A. That is the grand thing. Have salt in YOURSELVES. Look to yourselves. Don't be spending all your eyesight, and all your hearing, and all the energy of your body and soul upon others, forgetting and neglecting what much more deeply concerns you, your own salvation and the knowledge of it. Look to yourselves. People go about trying to convert the world who never were converted themselves. Don't you fall into that error. Have salt in yourselves. Look at your own heart and see what salt you have there. The Lord, you see, bids his people look in the first instance to themselves, and examine themselves how matters really stand with them before his heart-searching eye.
But what is it to have salt in themselves? The grace of God in their heart; for salt is an emblem of grace. "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt;" for as I have shown, grace preserves the soul from perishing in the corruption of the flesh. It is by grace we are "made partakers of the divine nature, and thus escape the corruption that is in the world through lust." (2 Pet. 1:4.) This salt of God's grace is to be upon their heart to make it right before him; upon their lips, that their conversation may be becoming the gospel, and their speech seasoned with salt; and in their lives, that their walk may be salted, their feet be salted, their hands salted, and every member of their body be salted, so as to be preserved from every corrupt communication, and every evil and corrupt way. I speak unto you in his name, my hearers, this day, "Have salt in yourselves."
As a church, have salt in yourselves, that you may be preserved from corruption; for the church that loses its salt will soon only be fit for the ash-heap. As a congregation, meeting together for the worship of God, to call upon his holy name in spirit and in truth, and to hear his word faithfully preached, have salt in yourselves, lest the Lord comes and removes the candlestick out of its place. Yes, to all here present who desire to fear his name and to tremble at his word, I say– have salt in yourselves, that you may have the comfort of God's presence and blessing upon a dying bed, and when the body drops into the grave may enter into the joy of the Lord.
B. But the Lord also added, "Have peace one with another." Salt, we know, was the emblem of peace. So the Lord bade his disciples have salt in themselves, and eat salt with one another. But this peace, like every other gospel fruit, must be salted with salt. It must be, therefore, peace on a right footing, peace on a gospel bottom, for there may be peace where there is no salt. Is there not a crying, "Peace, peace, where there is no peace?" We have too much of this false peace both with God and man. As a heap of stones will lie together very comfortably, so there may be false peace and false union among people and in churches where the stillness of death reigns.
But as a sacrifice without the salt was unacceptable, so a false peace or a peace without salt is of no avail to assure the heart or to walk comfortably with the family of God. Gracein the heart, peace in the conscience, and peace with the brethren, these are choice blessings. Can I do better then than leave the words ringing in your ears, "Have salt in yourselves and have peace one with another!"
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