Salt of the Earth — Don McClure

The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount

Matthew chapter 5, and once again I like to always go over this because I hope as a result of this time that we have of just kind of the initial going over of the beatitudes. I hope you end up memorizing them.

I think this is a portion of scripture that is well worth memorizing. The whole Sermon on the Mount is worth it, but if there's just the beatitudes alone because of the power, I think the truth of these beatitudes, I think they're life-changing.

And they're things if you take them in all your life, you want to learn them and relearn them, you'll never reach the end of them, end of the truth of the message within them. And of course the Sermon on the Mount, as you recall, it's one that essentially is given to the disciples.

When we see these movies and things kind of of the Sermon on the Mount, usually Jesus is preaching it to the multitude. But it says there, seeing the multitude, he went up onto a mountain, and when he was set, his disciples came unto him.

So seeing, this is all in light and in view and in thought of the multitude, but it is given to the disciples. For when he said his disciples came unto him, and he opened his mouth, and he taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they that are persecuted, for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

And blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say, O man, I am evil against you, falsely, for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets that were before you.

Becoming Poor in Spirit

And now tonight you are the salt of the earth. And if the salt has lost its savor, it is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men. I was going, I even in all my studies and planning, I committed myself to doing the salt of the earth and the light of the world, both of those tonight, but I realized I wasn't going to do it.

So I'm not even going to pretend, end quoted, because I know I'm not going to get to it, I just know, I can just feel it, you know, but the, but at any rate, here is Jesus again with the Beatitudes. Hopefully these are things that you yourself could sit out and with your own heart or with your own family or with neighbors, you could preach them, you could just turn right around and I've kind of driven them home hopefully so many times over and over that there would be such a familiarity that the message of them, you could just simply give them back.

For here again, they're just like falling off a log almost, they're just things that one ought to result in another into the next and the next. When he says, oh how happy, he says the happiest person in the world is somebody that first and foremost is poor in spirit.

They're utterly personally, individually, spiritually poverty stricken. They've come to the realization though created in the image of God, they have fallen. The life and the power and the glory and the majesty that God created a human being to be, they've lost it.

Something occurred and they forfeited it and the consequences of it is great personal poverty stricken nature. They find themselves right there. Jesus, he simply says the person that can just be honest about that, honest about their own sinfulness, honest about their own loss, honest about their miserable personal identity says that's a person that's going to be immensely happy.

It isn't happiness in and of itself but it is definitely the first step towards it. And then that ought to result in, oh how happy are they who mourn. That now there is somebody that they mourn over their own sinfulness, they mourn over their own loss, they mourn over the fact that here they are somebody that had such a majesty, such a glory and they lost it.

And in losing it they take personal responsibility. They're not blaming their world and their life on their mother or their father or their teachers or their environment or their friends or their neighbors or anybody else.

They take full responsibility. They say I have sinned. Like the publican who couldn't even so much as look up unto heaven but he smote himself on his chest. He says God be merciful unto me a sinner. Jesus said I tell you that man will have his prayer answered that day.

The day that somebody can look and say I am wrong. I have sinned. And there's an old kind of a spiritual that they used to sing not my mother, not my father, but it's me, oh Lord, stand in the need of prayer.

And then they would just add any other name. Not my brother, not my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, stand in the need of prayer. And not my friend, not my neighbor, but it's me, oh Lord, stand in the need of prayer.

And it's a wonderful thing when somebody takes personal responsibility. It isn't God, I'm tired of blaming my life on everybody else. It's me standing in the need of prayer. And there's a sorrow, there's a mourning over their sin that results in a new found humility of life.

In a meekness, Jesus said oh how happy are the meek. They shall inherit the earth. The wonderful thing there to the person there that in his meekness before God all of a sudden the power of God, the hope and the plan of God begins to be open to that person.

God looks at that person and says you can't believe what I'm going to do for you. When you open your heart and your own life and you take responsibility and it produces a humility and a meekness. Then he says oh how happy, because that's going to, all those just drain a person.

They take us all the way down to the core of our being and they take us into a hopelessness and an emptiness. And it's difficult for most anybody to be honest enough to take that route toward believing it could even lead to happiness, but Jesus says it does.

That's why Jesus said, you know, narrow is the gate and few there be that enter in. Broad is the way, as he said later on, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. Many there be that go in there, but narrow is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto eternal life and few there be that go in there.

So often real happiness, it looks so narrow to people. It looks something as you observe it to go down this road. How could this possibly lead to happiness? Poor in spirit, mourning, meekness. But then that person, and then it'll result in a hunger and a thirst after righteousness, after a right life, a right relationship with God, a right relationship with Jesus as son in my life, a right relationship with his spirit, filling my heart and my life.

And when I am allowing that hunger to happen within me, when I really find myself crying out God, fill me, God work within me. Jesus said, I'll tell you that person, he'll be filled. And then the result of that fullness is God comes in.

Mercy, Purity, and Peacemaking

He takes up a great place of power in his life. And that person now begins to be merciful. They find there the very nature, some of the deepest aspects of the very nature and the character of God begins to be fashioned and formed within their heart.

And there is a mercy towards the rest of the world. They realize, God, if you can forgive me of my sin and my rebellion, who can't you forgive? They begin to look at the world and realize now, oh, if everyone knew this road, if they knew the poverty of spirit and what it is to mourn and what it is to become meek before God and the hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Oh, how their lives would be different. Oh, how every one of them. And here these people can be so hard and so angry and they can have so many different aspects of their life that turn us away and frustrate us and make us convinced they're hopeless and they're lost and we don't like them and we're angry and we're just wanting them to get it.

But rather the person is poor in spirit and they mourn and there's a meekness about it and they're filled with God. They begin to look at the whole rest of the world and say, you know, if these things that have happened to my life could only happen to your life, you'd be a different person.

You wouldn't be the way you are. Your heart, your life, your entire existence would be transformed. And he says, oh, how happy are the merciful. They'll obtain mercy. And then, oh, how happy are the pure in heart.

There's somebody now that God is literally purifying their heart and their life and their motives, their identity. And then he says, oh, how happy are the peacemakers. Now a person that has found peace with God, peace within their own heart.

How to retain peacefulness with God is simply through continuing in these same things day by day, continuing in a poverty stricken spirit, continuing mourning over our own sinfulness, continuing in a meekness before God, continuing day by day, God fill me.

I'm hungry for you and I'm thirsty for you. Continuing in his mercy, continuing in his purity of heart. And he says that person is a peacemaker. Oh, how happy is that person. They can now bring peace to virtually anybody, anywhere, anytime.

Because the issue in everybody's life is just the same as ours. We're all the same. We all have the same needs, the same struggle. We are all created with the same identity. We all fell into sin. Every, you know, all men everywhere.

We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But when somebody knows this, they know where peace is. And they're a peacemaker. And then he says, next after this person is a peacemaker, oh, yes, there'll be a lot of people that won't go for it.

They won't like it. They won't agree with it. And he says, oh, how happy are they that are persecuted for righteousness sake. There's the kingdom of heaven. And he says, rejoice and be exceedingly glad.

Great is your reward in heaven. Blessed are you when you are reviled and you're persecuted and they saw a manner of evil against you falsely, but rejoice about it. The wonderful thing is, is that even when the world rejects it and doesn't want us, they realize, hey, they didn't want my Lord either.

Jesus said, a servant is not greater than his Lord. He didn't like me, they won't like you. But then now when a person comes in there at peace with that, all right, this is who I am. Now at this point, it's as if Jesus can now step back after he has actually taken somebody and they have been through these beatitudes.

Salt as a Preservative

Now it's an essentially, it's like Jesus just steps back, looks at his finished work, looks at this person that he has recreated, refashioned their life, their identity, their whole existence. And now he looks at them and he says, you are the salt of the earth.

He now looks at this person that has been through this and he says, you are the salt of the earth. He goes on, he says, if the salt is lost its savor, it sends forth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men.

There's a consequence when you don't know it and don't respond to it. But first of all, he says, you are the salt of the earth. He looks at somebody, he says, this is now your reason to live. You have the greatest of reasons for existence.

You have the greatest of identities. He looks at them, you are the salt of the earth. Now salt is something that to us, it doesn't mean as much in our society, although it still has a lot of the same principles and truths never change about it.

But particularly when Jesus said these things, salt was something that when you would talk about it, everybody knew. Two great things about salt. First thing about salt and a reason for its existence.

There's actually a couple of reasons I want to look at, one of which seems to be a little negative. It really isn't, but it seems that way. And the other is positive. But the first essential principle you might say of salt is that salt particularly at the time was a preservative.

It was an antiseptic. It was something that as far as salt was concerned because they didn't have all the methods of food preservation and all the different things that they could put on it to kind of continue it or to contain it or to make it hold and last and stay kind of pure and clean.

They didn't have the refrigeration and all the preservatives for it. The fundamental preservative of food back in Jesus' time was salt. And they went and killed an animal and they had any fresh meat, they would pack it in salt.

Salt kept it pure. Salt kept this from all the stuff of just the air and things around that were just bacteria that would just immediately, you know, you'd take some meat and put it out maybe at home and you'd thaw it out or something.

But if you leave it out very long, you can't do anything with it. You've got to throw it out. Because immediately after it thaws out, it starts putrefying. It starts, you know, going bad. But if there is salt on it, salt was a preservative.

It was an antiseptic. It was something there that the very existence, the reason for salt was it was something that implied rottenness. It implied, you know, the putrefaction process essentially that happened to food.

And I suppose when Jesus is here, He's saying, You are the salt of the earth. He is looking there at His children. He is looking at somebody that has experienced the beatitudes. He says, You are the salt of the earth.

You are the preservative of the earth. You are the one there. And I suppose if ever you look at how the world even was then, but when you stop to think of what it is now, boy, if the world's ever needed a preservative and an antiseptic, it's now.

Cultural Decay and the Need for Christian Witness

When you stop to realize the world we are living in, we are literally watching it seems like the world rotting away at a rate that is unbelievable. You look at our country and even the last, you know, since 1776 when we became a country, but even before that after it was discovered in the time of the Puritans and the time of the early church and the time of really the wonderful things that were happening in this country.

How the Constitution was built. The Bill of Rights was put together. The identities of, you know, of our education process. A lot of people don't even realize it, but back when our government, the federal government was established and they had funds to help the states get established and to set up educational systems and the Department of Education.

One of the very first things that the Federal Department of Education required of anybody that wanted to set up a school, even a one-room schoolhouse someplace and have any federal funds is that if you did not teach the Bible, you could not even apply for funds from the government.

Now, you teach the Bible, don't bother to apply, you know, sort of a thing. But this was kept through so much of our history. When you would look at prayer in our government, prayer that went on in the houses of Congress, the houses of representatives, in the state houses.

When you look at the chaplaincy programs that they all had within them, raising up, you know, there you look at places like now Harvard that was established as a divinity school. You couldn't even attend Harvard if you didn't have a very strong conversion experience to Jesus Christ.

You couldn't even go there, they wouldn't even consider you. It was a divinity school first and foremost, above all else, to train people to go out and serve Christ. And you look at these schools now and how far they have gone, but for many years that's what they were.

And even in our country here, in the recent history, most of our colleges, believe it or not, over 90 of our private colleges were started as Christian institutions. University of Southern California, USC, Methodist, started there as a Methodist college to preach the gospel, train people, equip people to walk with God.

And this went on for hundreds of years in our country. You know, we come along and don't really realize something that preserved and held our society and our nation together. They always knew we need salt.

They knew in our land we need salt, we need to establish churches. They knew right off when they would even go want to establish a town, they knew the bars would come, they knew the taverns and all that, and the dance halls would come.

They knew human nature, but they also knew that if they wanted to establish a town that would survive, they needed churches. They needed people to come in and establish and preach the gospel. And towns were oftentimes set, even in our early, when you go through most of the United States, many of the towns that were settled, you will go in and you will find the main house of government at one side of the town square, and then you will find its church, the first one that was kind of there, established over at the opposite end of the town square or circle, that was right over there.

They established a government and they established a place for people to know God. They knew the government would only stand as long as the gospel, as the salt was being applied to people's lives as they fashioned and they formed a people.

And there was something that has always been true, and of course you look today to where now we have virtually just taken God out of the schools, which we did in taking prayer out, and we've taken him out of government, we've taken him out of virtually every possible place, and as boy, as the putrefaction process, has it become rampant.

When you stop and you realize, you look at our morals in this country. Not only the morals of just the natural fallen man, but the morals of our nation, the morals of our leadership of our nation. There was something there on one hand, it was only about 30 years ago, a lot of people don't realize this, but up until about 30 years ago, according to the American Psychological Association, homosexuality was always up until only 30 years ago considered a deviant, you know, psychological disorder.

And 30 years ago, they had enough pressure to where they just said, well, it's just a normal thing. And then, you know, after that, of course, it's being taught in the schools. And you go into the schools, now safe sex is taught, not any abstinence whatsoever.

Oh, no, we can't do that, we can't deny them the right to express themselves. By any means, and we can't be a preservative, we can't tell them, no, this will putrefy your life, it'll rot and make your heart and your life and your human experience rotten.

These are things you need to stay away from. Oh, no, we don't tell them that any longer. Now we live to where we give them condoms, we give them birth control. And then we'll also sneak them off for a free abortion if what we give them doesn't work.

And this is literally what our government is doing. This isn't just something that people out there that are doing. These are things supported financially, legally, set up by our nation as a people. And you look, of course, now at just all the statistics and the issues of what's happened, you know, immorally, of course.

Now we have, so far, interestingly enough, since Roe v. Wade, we have now aborted over 40 million babies. You stop to think of that. Of all the holocausts that have ever happened, of all the terrible things, you know, within a society, how rotten, in a sense, is a society when it literally, we have over 10 of our population, it isn't even here.

Doesn't even, never even got to be born. You know, it's an interesting thing as well, not to get off into other ramifications of our immorality as a country, but right now there's a whole generation of baby boomers that are coming up towards getting near retirement, that have been paying into Social Security, that know full well how are we ever going to get anything out of it?

How is it going to be able to support us? You see, because while in our selfishness and our immorality, we were just thinking about ourselves, we didn't realize, by the way, we have also taken away 40 million lives that would be out there, you know, building a nation, producing, paying into the tax thing that would have paid people Social Security.

But we didn't think about that. The very children that would be taking care of a generation now aren't there to do it. And now there's a generation that's going to find itself out on its own in no way to have itself supported.

What a tragic, you know, process that we brought into ourselves. When we look at this, the issues of, you know, pornography virtually is taking over our society. Now there's all these addictions that have to do with sexual addictions and sexual issues with pornography because now we so opened up First Amendment rights.

There's nobody sitting there that says, this is wrong, this is impure, we need some salt somewhere in our society. There's something that says this will putrefy, this will destroy, this will corrupt a life.

Oh, no, now we're telling kids at the youngest age, you can live as you want to. Go find yourself, express yourself, do your own thing. Of course, in the process now, whether it's drugs and alcohol and so many other addictions are so rampant, and you look at these problems that we're having in society.

And now not only the, you know, the figure that somewhere between one and 500 ,000 lives die a year in direct response to alcoholism in one way or another, let alone the billions of dollars that go, you know, out of a society into the cost of medical aspects and the other billions in lost wages and work days and things because of society.

It's impure, it's putrefying. We're looking there at, you know, you look in the family, you look at what is going on with the divorce statistics. You look at children that are, you know, growing up alone and last key kids without, you know, anybody there around to lead and guide and help them.

You look at the rates of molestation that are happening in our society, the incest, literally the killings within families, killing family members. And you look here, the crime statistics, the murder statistics, the statistics of what's going on in corporate, you know, high white-collar crimes that is raiding billions of dollars out of our society through insider corruption.

We're a society that we are putrefied. It seems like through and through, the carcass. In only a generation or so, very rapidly, we have been falling apart. And in the whole process of it, though, Jesus looks and He says, you are the salt of the earth.

He looks at people, at you and I, and by the way we live, it ought to be something that the mere existence of our life ought to be something that other homes and marriages and families in and through and around the neighborhood, they look.

And they ought to be touched when they say, here is somebody that their life, their values, that there ought to be salt that people look at us. And they look at our life and they look at our love for the Lord.

They look at our love for each other. They look at our love for our children. And our love for everything that is pure and right and holy and just and good. It ought to remark as something there that they're purified by it.

They are touched by it. They're convicted by it. They're drawn by it. That they look there and they realize there is a way to make a marriage succeed. There is a way to raise a family. There is a way, you know, to have these things happen.

Salt as a Witness to the World

When we realize we're to be the salt of the earth, we're to look at the people we work around and realize, God, I'm there to be salt for them. I'm there in my neighborhood to be salt. And sometimes, you know, who knows what, you know, it's not our business whether they like the salt.

It's just to be salt. I remember I wasn't a Christian at the time, but when things were happening with my family and my parents, and they got saved. And then I've got an older brother and two younger brother, younger sister.

And one by one, they were getting saved. But I remember, you know, my family in the sense of, you know, the need, you know, for prayer, the need for the word, the need, you know, for church. And all of these things starting to happen.

And then our home. Remember, you know, opening up our home. And all the neighbors, our family room. We had a big living room in our house. Furniture all moved out of it. And all chairs put in the thing.

And they'd have somebody. We had a friend, Dr. Ralph Byron. He was head of City of Hope, the chief of medicine or something there. And he'd come over. Ralph would come over. And we'd invite all the neighbors in an old neighborhood to be in the house so that he could preach the gospel.

And he could share with them hope, the message of salvation. And when somebody just looks, this is why we are alive. This is why we exist. We are to be the salt of the earth. I didn't like it. I wasn't a Christian.

So I just stood there and, what are all these people doing in my house? The next thing you know, they're going to want to get into my refrigerator. And you can come in my house but don't eat food or something.

But I didn't care much about it at the time. But when I look back and realize there the issue of human beings realizing who they were and wanting to be who they were. Salt is also, though, it's not only to be a preservative.

Salt is also something, he says, if the salt is lost, it's savor. It sends forth good for nothing. But therefore, it's to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men. But as he looks at it, salt is not only kind of a preservative, which some would look at negative there to take care of the putrification issues, but salt adds flavor.

Salt is virtually still the main spice in the world. You go anywhere. You can find any place where food is served and you're going to find a salt shaker. You're going to find at a fast food place, high, great restaurant, any restaurant, any place in the world you go, if there's food, there's going to be salt.

Because salt has a savor to it. It has a flavor. It has a taste. The word, when he says the salt has lost its savor, the word savor, Webster's Dictionary defines the word as the power to excite or interest.

When the salt has lost its savor. Here he looks at you, the salt of the earth, and you have a savor. You ought to have something about you that has a power to excite and create interest. Here Jesus looks at a Christian, at his child, and he says, I created you and if I've taken you and you mourn or you pour in spirit and you mourn over your sin and there's a meekness and you're filled with me and now there's a merciful spirit and there's a pure spirit and there's a peacemaker within you.

If anything in all the world ought to excite other human beings, ought to be something that gains the interest that people ought to look at. This is it. And he says, you have a savor, you have a flavor, you have something about you that people ought to look at you in that relationship that you have with God and be excited about it.

What's happened to your life? What is going on with you? Where did you get this new joy? That's what happened when you look at the book of Acts. You watch them, the world was just amazed. The world watched their new life and their power and their joy in the way that they loved one another and they ministered one to another and the world was so astounded by it.

The excitement they created, the interest. Ought to be when a Christian walks into a room, all of a sudden people realize, this is what we've been missing. Who are you? There ought to be something, there ought to be a life and a vitality, a joy about them that just ought to ring out.

They ought to be people that are so excited to be alive. Look, the sun came up again. Here we are. What are we here for? Let's go do it. That's how it ought to be. Most of my life I woke up to my mother singing.

Actually, she went through college in light opera. She was going to be a light opera singer. Had a beautiful voice, but my dad married her and that was that. But she still sang. In fact, it was a little embarrassing as a kid because my mother would go around in this, you know, like she's in a, you know, I don't know.

But anyway, she'd be bellowing these things out. But it was always so excited, so alive. Something there that, you know, don't, hey, come on in, don't mind my mother. She's a little weird, but let's go on through here.

But somebody ought to be able to look at a person and find something and see something within them that there's a power to gain interest and to excite. Tragically, a lot of Christians, they don't seem to realize this is the power of their life.

They ought to have a joy unspeakable about them. There's somebody else that comes in and says, oh, look at this, I got a new ring. Look at this, I got a new outfit. They ought to be, look at this, I got my sins forgiven.

Hello, I'm going to heaven, you're going to hell. You know, or whatever. You want something really lasting? But the joy that they ought to have. But unfortunately, a lot of Christians that get around people and like the early church, they persecuted them, they rejected them, some did.

Massive amounts did. There was always a few that would intimidate to try to get them to be quiet, but for the most part, they had this phenomenal effect on most of society around them. They looked at them and they were drawn into it.

Not intimidated by it, not turned off, not I'm going, I better quit, this isn't fun. They said, this is the reason I'm alive. And they loved being salt and they wanted to be salt. And it was an excitement about them.

And sometimes somebody gets to where they get into, you know, somebody rejects them or doesn't like them or puts them down or gives them a hard time at the office or at school and they just, well, I better be quiet.

It's not popular. I want to go hide. I want to go avoid the world. It wasn't nice to me. I tried to be good and so they just back out. And it's amazing to me how sometimes you meet Christians that have been Christians for years.

And like Jesus, we'll get into next week, but they're a light. And it gets under a bushel. They've got this magnificent story. They've got this unbelievable testimony. Christ has forgiven them of their sins.

They are a child of God. They're going to go to heaven. And yet at the same time, they're intimidated, afraid to share, and they just back off. Many, you know, sometimes we just never say. We never speak.

Sometimes a lot of Christians, they remind me of a story of one Christian. He kind of got put down and he just decided that's it. I'm going to join a monastery. You see, he went to a silent monastery where you don't say a word.

I'm going to meditate. I don't like this rejection or anything else, so I'm just going to be by myself. So he goes in there, and the rules for the monastery is you never say a word. Not a word. He liked that.

Nobody says a word to anybody. Only every five years, you come in to the head monk and you say two words. So you meditate for five years. What are the two words you want to say? And then you go out for the next five years, and you come back in ten years, and you say two more.

Well, this fellow goes in and he joins, and it's kind of tough, but he gets along. And after five years, he comes in, sits down with the head monk, and he says, Well, what do you have to say? He says, Bed hard.

The guy says, Okay. Goes back out. Five years later, he comes back in, sits down. How are you doing? What do you got to say? You've been meditating. What do you want to say? Food bad. Okay. Goes back out.

Comes in after 15 years. Well, what do you have to say now? I quit. The head monk looks at him and says, Well, I'm not surprised. You've done nothing but complain, complain, complain ever since you got here.

Faithfulness Rather Than Spiritual Uselessness

But there's some people, I mean, there's only two reasons. One reason we're alive, and that's to live for Him. And if we don't, we'll just sit around and rot ourselves. We'll sit around and complain or murmur about life or how miserable it is.

Either we'll look within and look around ourself, and that'll kill anybody. Or we'll realize, Lord, let's go on and live. This is why I exist. Maybe, you know, I don't know how good I am. I don't know how I am at sharing, how bold I am, or how to put words together.

I trip over my own words and my thoughts, and people attack, and I don't know what to say. But, God, give me a life. Let me be the salt of the earth. Let me go out and live, because, you see, the tragic thing is, is that if I don't do that, here Jesus, now He simply looks at us and He says, By the way, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt is lost, it's savor.

It is thenceforth good for nothing. Good for nothing. And I'll tell you, I think one of the most tragic things that there ever is to ever see in the world is a good for nothing Christian. Also known as a carnal Christian, essentially, in the Bible.

Carnal Christian, what a miserable life. There, on one hand, you've come to Christ, you've given Him your life at one point, you started off with Him, but then you didn't follow through with it. And yet, at the same time, here on one hand, now you're at a place there where you're run by your own life, or your own fears, your own insecurities.

You're not going on with Him, and the next day, you know, you wake up and you're no good for God nor man. Neither one. And I'll tell you, there's nothing to me more miserable than being a carnal Christian.