Salt in the City

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. Remember Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 13, you are the salt of the earth. You are the salt. Now what does salt do? Salt creates thirst.

There should be something in my life that creates a thirst in you. Welcome to A Call to the Nation and Carter Conlon's message taken from 2 Kings chapter 2 verse 19. To help a wound heal, you can use water with salt in it. Salt helps with healing and as Carter will show us today, that's what you and I are called to do.

With the presence of God that flows through us, we can bring healing to those who are in need. Here's Carter with today's message, Salt in the City. Salt in the City, 2 Kings chapter 2 and beginning at verse 19. Then the men of the city said to Elisha, please notice the situation of this city is pleasant, as my Lord sees, but the water is bad and the ground barren. And he said, bring me a new bowl and put salt in it. So they brought it to him. Then he went out to the source of the water and cast in salt there and said, thus says the Lord, I have healed this water and from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.

So the water remains healed to this day according to the word of Elisha, which he spoke. So this is the story of a young man who made a choice to accept the calling of God on his life. This is a choice that we make.

We can accept it or we can refuse it. For everybody that's listening to me, it doesn't matter where you are or what you are involved in, God has a calling on your life. The calling on your life is not just to get out of where you are, but it's to bring you into something he has for you that will affect other people around you.

It will affect your town, it'll affect your family, your city, your society. Realistically, there's no limit to what God can do. As he took Billy Graham one time and a young man had just had some a lot of questions even about the word of God, but he touched him and Billy made the decision to take up the calling of God that was on his life and of course the rest is history. He's preached to more people in his lifetime than perhaps anybody throughout history ever has done. And there was a great prophet of God that came before this young man called Elijah, just as with you and I. There have been great men and women of God that have gone before us.

That's true, everybody knows that. There have been the Billy Grahams of this world, the David Wilkersons, and I could just continue to mention names, both men and women who have gone before us and in many cases they're now gone. And it's another generation, it's another time, it's another season where the presence of God needs to be made known again through another people, a new people, another generation. Now we can either just walk around talking about what God did in the past or we can do as Elijah did when Elijah was taken from this world, the mantle of Elijah fell down to the ground basically and the choice was given to him.

Do I pick up the calling of God for my life? Or he could go on, he could live his life the way he wanted to and he could talk about the great things that Elijah had done or he could pick up the mantle. And he made a choice and he reached down and he picked up that mantle of God, knowing that it had not always been easy for Elijah. When he picked it up he understood that there's going to be resistance, there's going to be trials, there's going to be difficulty, but considering that it's worth it to represent God in the world, it's worth it to take a stand for God, it's worth it to walk in the divine enablement of God to fulfill the calling that he has placed on each of our lives. And we recognize we need a divine enablement. And I love the fact that when he picked up the mantle the scripture tells us he took it and he struck the water that stood before him and he said, where is the God, the Lord God of Elijah? You know it's an amazing thing that God was not offended by his question. He was basically saying, God where are you?

I need you, I need you, I can't do this on my own. And you did wonderful things through Elijah. But Elijah's gone and this is a new generation and it requires new people but with the same power.

And so God, I'm calling out to you and I'm asking you to make yourself known to me. And the scripture says he took the mantle of Elijah, he struck the water and the water was divided. And it says, Elijah passed over.

He crossed over. He walked out of the natural and into the supernatural. He went into places that only God can take. When you pick up that mantle, that calling of God on your life, the waters of impossibility that you can't cross in your own strength will suddenly part for you. The addiction you can't get out of will give way to the presence of God in your life. The hopelessness will give way to the hope that Christ offers. The struggles in your family will give way to a new life that God will bring into your heart and into your home and into your lineage that's all around you. And suddenly you find yourself walking through these waters of impossibility out of the natural and into the supernatural life of God that he has for you. And you're doing it just the way that others have done before you.

It's amazing. When you study the scriptures, you'll find in God's people, especially in the Old Testament, of course, it seems that they always had to pass through these waters before they could know the presence of God. There always had to be this initial, may I call it a non-baptism baptism, where you pass through the water but you don't get wet.

You know that impossibility just parts and makes your way. I've known it and many others have known it where you know in your heart you've been taken out of your own weakness and you've been brought by the strength of God to an unfamiliar place, a place you've not walked before. Now in Elisha's case, the very first test that confronted him, and this is the test that's going to confront a lot of people in this generation. Now Elisha was in Jericho. Now Jericho had amazing history.

You know the history. Jericho is where the pre-incarnate appearing of Christ was there where he drew his sword in a sense and Joshua was told to take off his shoes and gave them a spiritual instruction that gave them this marvelous, incredible victory, where the walls of this city that was built to resist their advancement into the promised land was standing. And it had been a long time in this city. Now we've had revivals in great cities. New York City has known a great touch of God. 1857, there was a prayer movement that started in New York City that swept the whole country. Hundreds of thousands of people came into the kingdom of God through one young man, Jeremiah Lanphier, who started a prayer meeting down in the financial district and started with just a few people.

And before he knew it, it just spread throughout the country just like a wildfire. And so there's a history even in New York City of what God has done in the past. There was a history in Jericho. But now it's another generation. It's another time.

It's another season. Same ground, same city, just different people. And Elisha found himself in Jericho and the men of the city said to him, please notice the situation of the city is pleasant as my Lord sees, but the water is bad and the ground is barren. You know, you can get to a place where going to church is pleasant, right? It's pleasant. How was your church this morning? Oh, it was pleasant. It was nice. I went and people were pleasant at the door and it was pleasant to sit there. We had a pleasant service. It didn't go too long. The preacher was pleasant.

He didn't preach as long as he normally does. And I just walked out and it was really just a pleasant experience, but the water doesn't challenge me. The water, you know, the Bible talks about the washing of the water of God's word.

You can read about it in Ezekiel chapter 36. And you walk out and say, it was pleasant, but it's not provoking me to something deeper than where I am. It's just pleasant water. You know, there was a church in the book of Revelation called Laodicea where Jesus said to his people of that time, he said, you're neither hot nor cold. I wish you were one or the other, but he said, you're kind of lukewarm.

You're just kind of pleasant. May I put it that way? And he says, if you don't get a hold of this, he says, I will spew you out of my mouth. Now, a lot of people look at that and say, that was a rather harsh thing to say to his own people.

But you see, historians say that at this particular church, in this geographic location of Laodicea, there was a well that was known to the people. And for whatever reason, the water in that well was neither warm nor cold. It was kind of lukewarm.

And the unsuspecting stranger would kind of walk in, drop down a bucket, take a glass of that water and put it in his mouth. And most everybody, they say, would spit it out on the ground because it wasn't cold enough to satisfy and it wasn't hot enough to make soup or tea out of. It was just lukewarm.

It wasn't satisfying. And this is what was happening in the city, in a sense, that it's pleasant, but the water, there's something about the water. And because of the water, the ground is barren. There's no fruit coming from it. This water is not producing life. This water is not inspiring, in a sense, growth.

This water is not producing a harvest. And you know, we've got a problem in our generation today where a lot of churches are really pleasant places, but the nation is barren. And the fruit that we should be seeing, we're not seeing in our time. The numbers that should be coming to Christ are not coming to Christ. And we're like the fishermen in John chapter 21 have been throwing the dead on the same side of the boat all night when Jesus appears on the shore and says, have you caught anything?

Do you have any food? And they said, no, nothing. He says, well, cast then the net on the other side of the boat, on the right side of the boat, and you shall find. In obedience to God, they decided just to listen to his voice one more time. And this is my challenge to you that are listening tonight online. Could you just consider listening to the voice of God? There's a lot of voices trying to speak to you. There's your own voice.

There's your own heart. Maybe you're going to church and it's just kind of lukewarm water. I'm not criticizing your pastor.

Please don't misunderstand me, but maybe it's not meeting your need. But I tell you, even though you might be spending the night and going nowhere as you can see it, Jesus is still willing to speak to us. He spoke to Caleb. Caleb ran out of his classroom in defeat really and started to hyperventilate and quote scripture. But it was in that moment of stillness that God spoke to his heart and just said, I'm with you.

I'm with you. And I will do something through you that only I can do. Let me do what I can do in your life. I'm challenging you, those that are at home, that there's something that God wants to speak to you.

There's a place he wants to take you to. There's a fruitfulness that first he wants to birth in your life. And after he births it in your life, he wants to birth something through your life. You can't preach to others about something you're not doing yourself. You can't tell them to become something that you haven't become or are not becoming.

The husbandman that labors must be first partaker of the fruits. The Lord give you understanding, Paul said, in these things. He's speaking to his young son in the faith, Timothy. And so Elisha's first confrontation is in this city where the city is pleasant, but the water is bad and the ground is barren. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to live there. I'm not willing to live in a place that's got a rich history and say, well, and talk about what happened yesterday.

Talk about this great battle that happened in Jericho and how the Lord appeared and how the people of God came through the water and they walked around seven days and supernaturally were empowered and they went in and conquered. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to live in the past. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, today and forever.

And that tells me what he did then. He is willing to do again in our generation. If somebody will pick up the mantle, if somebody will reach down and say, where is the God of Elijah? But with that passion in their heart, the intent was not just to question the integrity of God, but to say, God, I'll go if you'll go with me, I'll go if you'll touch my life, I will go through this water of impossibility. I will go into the city and somehow through my life, you're going to make a difference in my generation. And so the people came to him as they will come to you. And they'll say, well, you say God is with you. That's a wonderful thing.

But have you seen the situation? Have you seen how everything has got this pleasantness about it, but that the water does not satisfy and the ground is barren. We haven't had a harvest in so long as the disciples could say we fished all night and caught nothing. We're tired of our churches being empty. We're tired of empty prophesying.

We're tired of always it's tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, the harvest is going to come in. Where is the God of Elijah? I'm willing to go if God will go with me. And so Elijah says to the people of the city, bring a new bowl and put salt in it.

And so they did. You see, the first thing that is required is a new vessel. We can't go in with our old nature and expect this thing is going to happen, that God's going to do these miracles through our lives.

If anyone be in Christ, these are what? A new creation. It has to be a new vessel. It has to be the man or woman that says, God, I don't want these old attitudes. I don't want these old practices. I don't want this old life anymore. I don't want my old way of thinking.

I don't want these old habits in my life. I want to be the new creation that you said I'm going to be because of Christ Jesus. Where is the God of Elijah? God, you did it for other people. So I'm going to hit the water with this mantle and believe that you're going to make me into a new creation. I'm going to trust my God that as you speak to me, I'm going to go forward.

I'm going to start walking. I'm going to put one foot in front of the other, and you're going to change my nature. You're going to change my character. You're going to make me into a new creation.

You can't take an old bowl and do something new in the city with it. He said, bring me a new vessel. The other translation says a new vessel, the King James vessel, and put salt in it.

Hallelujah. Remember Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 5 verse 13, you are the salt of the earth. You are the salt. Now what does salt do?

Salt creates thirst. There should be something in my life that creates a thirst in you. There should be something in your life that God does that creates a thirst in your children for him, for his presence. We've got to get away from just being an argument about God, and we have to be an actual demonstration of who God is by the power of God's Holy Spirit within us. Where is the God of Elijah? Praise be to God.

I'm challenging people. Get something in your gut that says I'm done with talking about God. I'm going to walk with God, and if it kills me, I don't care. I'm going to walk with God, and not only me, I'm taking my family with me, and not only my family, I'm taking my friends with me, and I'm going to take a few of my enemies along for the journey too as well. I'm going to be that new vessel that creates a thirst for God in my society. Salt not only creates a thirst, salt brings healing. You know if you have a cut on your hand or an infection, you put it in water with salt in it, and the salt brings a healing, and that's what you and I are called to do. Everywhere we go, the presence of God is to flow through us and bring healing to those who need to be healed, and we offer no apology for our faith in God and our trust in God. We offer no apology for our prayers. These signs shall follow them that believe.

They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Thank God for that. We offer no apology. I'm not content to be a history teacher in the kingdom of God. I'm not content to talk about the past. I'm going to live in the power of God for the rest of my days. I'm asking God for more as I get older. I want more salt in this vessel. I want you to deepen my commitment to you, Lord.

I want you to deepen my nature and my ability to be set apart for you and to believe you. And lastly, salt heals. It brings healing, and we should be vessels of healing everywhere we go.

Everything we touch, every word we speak should be bringing something of God's healing power into somebody's life. You see, Elijah said, bring me a new bowl and put salt in it, so they brought it to him. Then he went out to the source of the water and cast the salt in there.

Hallelujah. That's always been God's remedy for every lukewarm, pleasant situation in every society is a new vessel with new salt and casting that salt into the midst of the water. That salt that creates thirst, that salt that brings healing, that salt that preserves. And he said, he cast it in and said, thus says the Lord, I've healed this water and there shall be no more death or barrenness.

So the water remains healed to this day according to the word of Elijah, which he spoke. And so this is my challenge to you. Would you rise up and would you take the mantle that God sets before you? Would you strike that place of impossibility that stands between you and the life that God has for you? And would you believe God?

And it doesn't matter. Just call out as Elijah did. Where is the God of Elijah? In other words, he's saying, I'm not content to live in the past. I'm not content to just talk about what somebody else did once upon a time in another generation.

I want the God that gave Elijah the power to affect his generation to be also part of my life. Now, if you want that to happen in your life, you have to be, first of all, a new container. And you can't be a new container or a new vessel until the old nature is put away. The only way the old nature is put away is to admit that you can't save yourself. Only God can. You can't change yourself. Only God can change you. You can't procure your own future.

You can't have an influence in your society. You can't change your family. Only God in you and through you can.

So admit your condition. If you've fallen short of what God desires your life to be, just admit that you have, that you can't get to heaven on your own. You can't save yourself. You can't make yourself godly. With any amount of human effort, you need the power of God to part these impossible waters in front of you, to walk through and to become the man or woman that God has destined you to be.

Believe that God sent his son to die on a cross 2,000 years ago and his sacrifice paid the price for the wrong that you have committed against God himself and gave you the opportunity to be forgiven and to have this living presence of God that we're talking about today come and take up residence inside of your life. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. The old things in his life pass away. In other words, they lose their source. They lose their power. They lose their ability.

Their cords are cut. He becomes or she becomes a new creation in Christ and all things the Bible says become new. Thank God.

We walk through that place that ordinary people can't walk through and we go through by the power of God because we want the calling of God for our lives and begin to confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord. Don't keep it inside. Don't let it be the secret thing. It's not meant to be secret.

You are meant to be public. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world, Jesus said. You're the city that's set upon a hill that cannot be hidden. And so I'm going to give you an opportunity to open your heart, to be forgiven of your sin, and to embark on a brand new journey for the rest of your life. That you run out of one place. When Caleb ran out of that classroom, he ran out of an old place in his life.

I hope you can see this. The Lord's been speaking to us this whole service. Caleb ran out of an old place and it was outside alone with God that he ran into a new place in his life.

And an exchange happened. The old labels fell off and the old fears died. The old ways of seeing himself came to an end and he passed through the waters of impossibility into a man who was once labeled as learning disabled and now has a 4.0 grade average. Praise be to God. And I'm excited to think about what God's going to do through his life in the future. I do believe, I do believe that he takes these new vessels. He takes these new creations. And as we begin to confess that Jesus Christ is my Lord.

And that's not just so we can be happy about our sin forgiven, as great as that might be. But it's that moment where we're striking the water again and saying, God, you're my Lord. So lead me forward. Take me through the rivers of impossibility that are before me. Bring me into the place that you would have my life to be to make a difference in my society.

You're depressed and you're afflicted and your families are in trouble and you've got all kinds of serious situations going on in your life. Might I suggest that you let God take you out of that and bring you into something that you could only dream about. Psalm 126, the people of God of that time said when the Lord turned our captivity, we were like people that dreamed. God did something for us that only God could do.

We never believed it could happen in our lives until one day it happened. This decree came and said you can get up, you can come out of captivity and you can go home. I want you with all my heart to pray this prayer with me tonight. Those that are listening at home and those in the sanctuary prayer room, and those in the sanctuary pray with me too as well. Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you with all my heart that you have a plan for me. You have a future for me. You died so that I could have it, not just on the earth, but forever. And so today I open my heart to you and I accept your forgiveness. And I thank you for loving me and guiding me into the future to be the person that you've destined me to be.

Today, I put away all the old labels, everything that people have said that I am, and everything I've thought that I am. And I embrace your thoughts about me, your plan for me, and the future that you have for my life. From this day forward, Jesus Christ, you are my God. You are the Lord of my life. You are the Lord of my life. You are my hope. You are my future. You are my everything. Use my life for your glory. And I thank you for receiving me in your precious name.

Amen. The message today has been brought to you by Carter Conlon from Times Square Church. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. Plan to be with us next week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.