When the Lord Jesus Christ described the proper function of his disciples in this world in the Sermon on the Mount, he made use of two sublime illustrations. The first was salt, as he said, "Ye are the salt of the earth." We looked at that illustration last week. The second illustration was light, to which we come now. 

There is a second thing that salt is good for, and that is to provide flavor. The Christian, through the life of Jesus Christ within and the verities of the gospel, is to lend flavor to a flavorless, insipid world. The pleasures of the world are unsatisfying without Jesus Christ.

This is of great significance for our understanding of the nature of true Christianity, and it has never been of more significance than in our present day. Jesus was saying, "Those who are my disciples should affect the world positively by the way in which they live." But as I view the world today I would say that although there seems to be a very keen awareness on the part of many people that something of this nature is precisely what the world needs, even though they may not look to the disciples of Jesus Christ for the answer, there is not nearly enough of this positive action in the world for good by Christians. 

Now I have just one more thing to add in conclusion. When a Christian can anchor himself in a knowledge of the five great truths that I have just been explaining, persecution can result in rejoicing. And the rejoicing will—and this is the point—lead to greater knowledge. 

The second part of a Christian knowledge that will help him to rejoice in persecution is the knowledge that God often uses persecution to perfect the believer. In the great wisdom of God persecution is often the means by which the Christian is helped along the road to practical holiness and thereby made a little more like Jesus.