Salted With Fire...

By Cal Cook

As I read the scriptures for this week, that simple little statement jumped out at me for some reason. Jesus goes from talking about the fires of Hell to speaking of fire and salt? The Ceremonial Laws given to Moses required salt.

Leviticus 2:13

Season all your grain offerings with salt. Do not leave the salt of the covenant of your God out of your grain offerings; add salt to all your offerings.

Even the incense for the tent of meeting required salt.

Exodus 30:35 and make a fragrant blend of incense, the work of a perfumer. It is to be salted and pure and sacred.

Salt is a preservative, salt is a seasoning, salt was one of the most valuable things in the ancient world! That is why we have the saying, “Let’s see if he is worth his salt” people were paid in salt. The city of Venice exists because of the salt that was harvested from the ocean there. Salt was relied upon for people’s existence, without salt food would spoil and families would starve. Maybe the only thing more important than salt was fire, fire would warm, fire would dry, fire would cook and preserve, fire would protect and fire would purify. All of the offerings made before the Lord required fire. Even the grain offerings were to have the heads of the grain crushed and then roasted, over fire…with salt. It is on one hand a very practical thing yet on the other hand a very peculiar thing. The people needed the fire and the salt…but why did the Lord?

Luke 3:16 John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

All throughout the Old Testament and the New, God is associated with fire. I even referenced it last week when speaking of jealousy:

Deuteronomy 4:24

For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.

Jesus came to Baptize with fire…we didn’t see that manifestation until the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came:

Acts 2:3

They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

Yet even before that day Jesus spoke of why He came:

Luke 12:49

I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

Was He only speaking of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit…I don’t believe so:

2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

His second coming is filled with references of fire as well! Fire is the great purifier, it is the dynamic of the Holy Spirit…it is what will bring about a final cleansing of this earth that we have defiled, but God will restore all back to Him!

In this life you will face trials (John 16:33) they are our purifiers, they are our refiners. These troubles will test our faith, they will push us to the brink…they may even break our faith, if it were possible. So that we might be salted, seasoned not just on the outside…but all the way through as a ham is cured in salt and it not only preserves the meat, but permeates and changes the texture and the flavor forever…it can’t be washed off, it is now part of the meat. So it is with our trials and tribulations. They not only season us but they permeate out being, they change who we are…forever.

1 Peter 1:7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Faith and Hope will pass away on that day…

We will no longer hope for what we do not have, we will no longer believe in what we cannot see…all will be revealed…in fire! A Holy offering before the Lord…just as God commanded Moses, seasoned and salted…a pleasing aroma before the Lord.