"Salting The Flesh"!Prophecy Chat by Sharon L. Clemens

Special note: all specific scriptures referenced below are linked to BibleGateway.com, making your study easier.

Before refrigeration, salt was essential in the preservation of food. These cooler nights remind me of a detailed account of autumn butchering in the book Little House In The Big Woods, from the author of the Little House On The Prairie books. Fresh meat was butchered, then rubbed in layers of salt and seasonings before being slowly smoked over a smoldering wood fire. The meat was hung from hooks for the smoking, then transferred to cold storage to feed the family during the winter.

Salt is essential to life and is a fitting metaphor to represent spiritual preservation:

"For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.
Salt is good, but if the salt loses its flavor, how will you season it?
Have salt in yourselves, and have peace with one another."
Mark 9:49-50

Just as early methods of preserving meat combined salt and fire, we see the same images in this passage. The metaphor begins in the Old Testament where the Temple sacrifices combined salt and fire. In Leviticus 2:13, Moses records God's instruction, "With all your offerings you shall offer salt." The salt that was added to burnt offerings was called "the salt of the covenant." John MacArthur notes that salt represented permanence or loyalty to the covenant promises the children of Israel enjoyed under Jehovah God. Just as salt preserves flesh and gives it endurance, so God's unconditional covenants with Israel are everlasting, and endure to this day.

The passage in Mark 9 is a challenging passage, humanly speaking, because Christ Jesus literally promises trouble in this life to His followers--"everyone will be seasoned with fire..." Fire falls on the just and the unjust. But the trials of the believer are never without a greater purpose [Romans 8:28-30]. The fires of life for a believer are the way in which our Lord purifies and sanctifies us, conforming us to His image [Romans 8:29--"For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son..."]. Fire goes hand-in-hand with salt and PRESERVES the Saints. We cannot be salt to others if we have lost our own saltiness. Believers are to be salt and light in this life, to the glory of God.

Therefore, our Lord cautions us to "have salt in yourselves..." We are responsible to preserve our own saltiness as well as to submit to the fires He allows. How do we remain salty? By abiding in Christ [John 15:1-5], through the Word and prayer, and obedience to His commandments. [See also Col. 3:16 and Gal. 5:22, 23]

When I first read this passage, it struck me that we are commanded by our Lord to have salt in ourselves, but He does not command in an empirical way. Rather, He implores us, in love. It is not a cold command but one given for our good. Those who live in an abiding relationship with Christ may avoid some of the fires of this fallen world. However, fire cannot be completely avoided. Even when we walk with Christ, a good purifying fire purges the dross and sharpens our witness for Him. Our Lord said in John 16:33, "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." The peace of God transcends any trial of life; pruning enables us to produce fruit, and to do it more abundantly. The result is a supernatural joy that surpasses any earthly trial because we discover that Christ is as real and as powerful and as present as we allow Him to be.

In Daniel 3, God allowed Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego to literally undergo a test by fire. Because they submitted by faith, they experienced the presence of God in a way few others have done. The fire did not destroy them; it burned away their bonds and gave them a greater awareness of God's presence. The experience was one they never forgot.

SALTING THE FLESH--Sincere Introspection

In this temporal life, we battle the world, the flesh, and the devil. Although I try to avoid the pitfalls of this fallen world and I flee from the devil, it is my own flesh that traps me consistently. Do you find yourself falling into the same pit again and again? The traps I create through my own weakness are the ones that frustrate me. How many times must I fall before I learn God's lessons? Often I continue to fall because I am blind to my own shortcomings, although I easily identify faults in others.

The first step to SELF-SALTING is to identify our faults.
Then we see where Christ must be allowed to transform us.

A few weeks ago, our pastor, Tim Harkness, took us to Psalm 139:23-24. This is David's plea that the Lord search David's heart for weakness and wickedness. David gives the Lord complete access to his deepest anxieties through complete submission. Only then could the Lord lead him "in the way everlasting."

IS THE CHURCH LOSING ITS SALTINESS?

How sad when the church is weak and compromising of truth. Salt in an open wound stings, but it also cleanses and heals. But rather than congregations standing firm as salt and light, pulpits are compromising truth so as not to offend unbelievers. How then can an unbeliever turn, and be healed of sin? Truth hurts when it confronts sin. Better to offend the lost than offend the holiness of God by editing His truth. In this age of compromise, it is not so much what is said as what is NOT said. The church avoids the biting conviction of the Bible--from Genesis to the Revelation. So it is that the church is becoming Laodicea--so lukewarm that it makes our Lord sick, and He will spit it out of His mouth [Revelation 3].

In this season of Christmas, give the Lord the gift of your sincere introspection. Allow the Holy Spirit to look deep and long and hard. Is this the year you lay that weakness on the altar of heaven as a sacrifice of submission? The church needs its salty edge back; and it must begin with us.

In Him We Wait, Work, and Watch,
[Luke 12:35-59]
Sharon

[Prophecy Chat is a weekly commentary of current events in light of Bible prophecy. Sharon L. Clemens is an evangelical, premillennial, dispensational teacher of eschatology. She can be reached for comment or questions by e-mail at farmgrove@verizon.net]