Salt Talk

Today we are looking at something which is used by many people, if not all people in different ways. I am referring to salt. You know how salt is used, but some may not know that many people, like me, use salt to throw on snails to kill them. These are destructive pests which kill and invade fruit trees. I thought of it in this example and said to myself that salt does not bring life, it brings death to snails. But then I was quickly made to note that the salt, in bringing death to snails, brings resurrection to plants and fruit trees with their fruit. I’m satisfied with that! Are you? Salt talks and it is for resurrection.

Let’s go to Ezekiel 43: 24 and listen to what it says. You are to offer them before the LORD, and the priests are to sprinkle salt on them and sacrifice them as a burnt offering to the LORD.

God has been quite specific and clear about what He requires in relation to the altar and sacrifices.  The altar is built by human hands to the stipulations and instructions of God. Because of this, the altar itself must undergo a purifying, before it can be ready to accept the sacrifices. Verse nineteen speaks of the priests designated from the Levitical family of Zadok, the priest, as the only ones to purify the altar with the blood of the sacrificial animal. Only after the altar is purified and atoned for can the young bull and the ram be offered on it. 

Now we turn to the sacrifice. Every sacrifice is a death and should be a ‘death’, otherwise it is not a sacrifice. A sacrifice is that which is given over from you, so that it is no longer yours to have. In this sacrifice, the Lord has asked for the blemish-less and specified young bull and ram. These sacrifices had to be sprinkled with salt before they were sacrificed. Note, blood was not sprinkled on them, but salt was.  It is the understanding of the Salt Talk or the Salt of Resurrection that is being made real to us.  Also notice that in this case, the salt came before sacrifice.  

There is the Offering of the blemish-less animals.

There is the Sprinkling of salt upon them.

There is the Sacrificing of the salted animals. 

Salt has a life-preserving and a life-giving quality also. Is this not what Elisha did when he put the salt of resurrection into the ‘dead’ water at Jericho, so that it was alive and life-giving for the people? Having complained to Prophet Elisha about the poisonous water which has the land unproductive, Elisha asks for a new bowl with salt in it, to be brought to him. Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, This is what the LORD says: I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive. And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken. 2 Kings 2: 21 - 22.

Is this not what Jesus is saying, when He says that His disciples are the salt of the earth? You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. Matthew 5: 13. Remember, He also said, Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other. Mark 9: 50b

Look again at the picture of the offering in Ezekiel 43: 23. You are to offer then, the unblemished animals, before God. These animals must be ‘fit’, not those that are of no use and no good to you. When these are sprinkled with salt by the priests, they are made ‘alive’ as it were, pleasing, a ‘living’ sacrifice to the Lord. Jesus is our High Priest and when we are chosen to be His servants, we too must be sprinkled with the Salt of Resurrection so that we not only receive newness in Him, but we are made the Salt of Resurrection with Salt Talk, for some other. I tell you, this is what pleases God tremendously, Salt Talk. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one. Colossians 4: 6. NKJV

Salt that gives life, must be sprinkled on that which is to be offered to God.