". . .Don’t overlook your opportunity to suffer. To place your life in God’s hands is a frightening choice to be sure, but how else will the world around you see that this world is not your home – that the comforts of this life hold little sway in your enjoyment of life – that you need not have an abundance of goods to give to others – that death does not end your life – that your hope is not in this life but in life everlasting – that you need not live constantly in sunshine to smile and continue your life of faith in God?"Q. 4 How do you make salt, salty again?Matthew 5:13, “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” How do you make salt, salty again? Our fallen nature causes us to turn our ear from this statement because there is a sound of impossibility in these words of Christ. It is, in fact, quite impossible to make salt that has lost its savor, salty again. How many of us have opened a new package of salt and, with it, over-salted our food? “WOW, that is salty!” we say. Actually, the salt we had used before had lost its savor. We used more and more of it as it became less and less effective. How can you make old salt salty again? You can’t – it is, from then on, good for nothing. In Jesus’ question there is a sound of futility – in His answer there is negativity, finality, permanence, and condemnation. Modern-day man wants options. Go to any store, any car dealer, or anywhere that caters to mankind’s self-indulgence and you will find lists of options. We like options. Contrarily, impossibilities, narrowed choices, vanishing opportunities, and immutable consequences cause us to shrink and fear. The sober person must admit, though, that all opportunities do not stand permanently open and that some consequences cannot be avoided. Christ’s teaching was popular with the desperate and destitute. It is the man who has everything, who has never befriended Christ – nor will he. A man in charge of his life wants options, not dead ends; he wants a wide range of broad avenues, not a straight, constricted path through a narrow, unrelenting gate. A man in control wants more control, not to relinquish control to someone else. A man in control does not want to hear anything about finality and everlasting, unchangeable damnation. Not only have options been made plenteous in our society, the risk of loss and unavoidable penalties have been nearly eliminated as well. With insurance, and 24-hour police, 24-hour emergency care, warranties, guarantees, contracts, safety equipment, lawyers begging in advertisements for lawsuits, the list of “consequence eliminators” could go on and on. We have become near strangers to harm and loss. (Consider the first questions asked when someone’s house burns down?) There is even a modern Gospel message that “guarantees” us an eternal home. But our Lord Jesus spoke of impossibilities and narrow ways, unchangeable outcomes and desperate consequences. Dangerous situations exist on this way we have joined, situations that can cost men their souls. Jesus taught to fear God’s judgment and to live as though judgment was swift and sure and soon. He calls us the salt of the earth then asks us to seriously consider, “Once salt loses its flavor, how do you make it, salty again?” Many theories have been put forth on the idea of Christians being the salt of the earth and exactly what this means. By the context (as the concept of us being the “salt of the earth” appears only in Matthew) our “salt” is our witness, or how we...

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