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For Psalms 104, Psalm 104, we'll start in verse one. Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great. Thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who covers thyself with light, as with garment, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, who maketh the clouds his chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind, who maketh his angels' spirits, his ministers of flaming fire, who lay the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed forever. Thou covers it with the deep, as with a garment. The water stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke, they fled. At thy voice of thy thunder, they hasted away. They go up by the mountains. They go down by the valleys, unto the place which thou has founded for them. Thou hast said abound that they may not pass over, that they turn not again to cover the earth. He senteth the springs into the valleys, which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of the heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches. He watered the hills from his chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and the herb for the service of man, that he may bring forth food out of the earth, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth the man's heart. The trees of the Lord are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted. Where the birds make their nests, as for the stork, the fir trees are her house. The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies. He appointed the moon for seasons. The sun knoweth he's going down. Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. The sun ariseth. They gather themselves together, and they lay them down in their dens. Man go forth unto his work, and to his labor until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom has thou made them all. The earth is full of thy riches. So is the great and wide sea, wherein are the creeping, innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships. There is that Leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These wait all upon thee, and thou mayest give them their meat in due season. That thou givest them, they gather. Thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath, they die, and they return to their dust. Thou sayest forth thy spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth. The glory of the Lord shall endure forever. The Lord shall rejoice in his works. He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth. He toucheth the hills, and they smoke. I'll sing unto the Lord as long as I love. I'll sing praise to my God while I have my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet. I'll be glad in the Lord. Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul. Praise he the Lord. Brother Mike, you want to pray for us? Thank you, Lord, for bringing us here this morning. Let us pray for the burden of having free service in Jesus Christ, the God of the free service, the God of the church, and the glory of the Lord. Provide us with the reach that we need, and capture that common strength in Jesus Christ, and go on and pray, and we'll be able to pray, amen. All right, amen. Psalm 104, look at verse number 15. So the Bible says, And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. Keep your place there, but go to Genesis chapter number three, Genesis chapter number three. So last week I started a series called Lessons Learned from Living with a Zombie, okay? Now just read, listen to this here. I'm not gonna go back and kinda go over the whole story about my dad, but if you were here last week, you understand that these sermons are lessons that I learned from living with my dad who had full-blown Alzheimer's and dementia, but I want you to listen to this here. This paragraph here is about zombie, or zombie-like behavior, and this is actually something serious that I took from a government website, and it says this. It says possible causes for zombie behavior in a modern population can be attributed to viruses, bacteria, or other phenomena that reduce the mental capacity of humans, causing them to behave in a very primitive and destructive fashion, okay? That phrase there in the middle of that paragraph that I just read to you, it says, or other phenomena that reduce the mental capacity of humans. So we're gonna focus on that today. And what I mean by that, and what I'm plugging into that there is food, okay? We're gonna be talking today about food. The title of the sermon is Rotten Flesh, Rotten Flesh. Not a very pleasant title there, but it's true. One of the things that we noticed about my dad was basically he was rotting from the inside out, and we'll talk about that here in a minute, but one of the things that he would do probably for the last six to eight months is chew on his hands, and he'd literally be in tears crying, just chewing on his hands. I'd be like, stop, take your hands out. It was just a constant all-day battle. Stop, take your fingers out of your mouth. And he was like, it hurts. I'm like, yeah, because you're trying to eat your hand. Stop. So that kinda got me thinking like, what lesson can I take from that, right? And I figured, oh yeah, his diet, his diet, and what he ate. And I thought you guys might be interested not only in his diet, but what his blood work looked like for the last three years, up until the day he died pretty much. So at the end of the sermon, we're gonna go over that. I'll give you that information there. But I thought it would be interesting to address the subject of food and what kind of food should we eat, what kind of food should we stay away from. Now, I'll be honest with you, I used to be a food Nazi, so I've been on both sides. We've had people in here before that are real, real adamant about their diets. Like, I only eat this, I only eat this, I stay away from this, and they're really zealous about that stuff, more zealous than the things of God, for that matter. So I can relate, I have been on that side, and I have been a jerk about it in the past, I've been horrible, and I'm here to tell you that the sickest I have ever been in my entire life has been when I was following a strict, super healthy diet. And some of you are like, oh man, I'm gonna turn this sermon off, I'm shutting down right now. Don't do that, okay, because I'm telling you, I've got some valuable, valuable information that's gonna help you out. And there's, you know, this is good for all of us, okay? So biblical advice for food and mental and physical health, and at the end of the sermon, I think you might be surprised what is most beneficial for flesh and for our mental clarity really isn't necessarily about food, okay? So here's why. Why is there so much, you know, so many different diets, so much difference in opinion when it comes to food in the world? I mean, I've read just tons and tons of books, I've tried so many different diets on both sides of the spectrum, I even played around with veganism, you know, when I was in Japan, just for a little bit, just because somebody was like, you know, this is gonna help you, you know, your mental clarity and help you lose fat and stuff, that lasted like a week, and I was like, I'm done with this, this is stupid here, I cannot do that. But why is that, okay? Genesis chapter three, look at verse number 19. So the Bible says this. In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it was thou taken for dost thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Okay, now go back to Psalm chapter 104. So the Bible says that obviously the old man, the physical body that we have, will go back into the ground. That is a promise, that is a guarantee thing that is going to happen. The question is, can we soften the landing, okay? Is it possible to avoid basically what happened to my dad or other sicknesses and diseases and so on and so forth? But the reason why there's so much different information about foods and of that nature, you'll see here in a moment, okay? And part of the reason is because a lot of people out there have this goal, have this vision, and these people don't believe in God, and they think, you know, we can transcend the bounds that God has set upon humanity. We can make vitamins, we can make minerals, we can make foods, we can make diets that'll basically just help us to live forever, okay? And you're gonna see that's not true. The Bible promises you're gonna go into the ground. You cannot stop aging, okay? The only way you can stop aging is by getting saved, okay? Because then age honestly really is just a number to you because you're not gonna get to having to be some crippled old person with dementia or Alzheimer's or cancer or whatever it is, okay? All those things are gone. You will not have any pain, and we've talked about that recently. So again, I'll address that question in more detail as we go along, but the idea is, hey, if there is a way to soften the landing, if there is a way to make it to the latter years of our life, if God grants us that, what is it? What can we do to be more like Eli where he was at the end of his life? Now you don't wanna be Eli like raising your children, but he was still mentally competent, and he did live a long full life. Abraham, Moses, I mean, David, a lot of these guys, they still had mental clarity at the end of their lives. But why is it that in America, I mean this Alzheimer's, dementia, and these types of mental health things are literally crippling this nation along with everything else? And when you take a look at other parts of the world, they don't struggle with this as much as we do, and we'll talk about that here in a minute, okay? So Psalm chapter 104, look at verse number 13. So as you're reading through the chapter, you probably notice that the Bible here is describing how God cares for the earth, cares for the planet, humanity, the birds, the animals, everything here. But let's look at verse number 13. It says this. It says, he watereth the hills from his chambers. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. Look at verse 14. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man that he may bring forth food out of the earth. And then look at verse number 15. It says, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. We're gonna break this verse down into these three sections here, give you some thoughts, give you some verses about these different things here, and then we'll move on to the application. And answering the question of why is there so many different diets, and which one's the best, and how come this person has results with this one, this person doesn't, we'll get into that here in a moment. But the point being here in this chapter here is that God takes care of man, right? If he provides the food for the animals, he provides the nourishment for the earth with the water, the rain, the wind, all of these things, we need to understand as God's people that there are things on this planet available to us that are good for us. Now, the problem is a lot of modern day scholars in the food world would disagree with what I'm about to tell you. They would disagree with this verse here. Now, the beginning part of that verse, it says this. It says in wine that maketh glad the heart of man. Now, a lot of people read that and are like, oh, this is great, man. I'm gonna chug them up, man. I'm getting toasted tonight, okay? We don't, yeah, I'm getting drunk. We do not have time to get into a full sermon about alcohol and that nature. That'll come later on, okay? One thing you just have to remember, most of you probably know this. When you see the word wine in the Bible, it is either referring to the alcoholic kind or Jews, okay, non-alcoholic. And it's your job to determine the context to get the answer to which type of wine that is. I will prove that for you at a later date, but not today. You just need to know that. So go to Proverbs chapter number 24. Proverbs chapter number 24. And wine that maketh glad the heart of man. And I always tell people, if you really want a good picture of what this is like, deprive yourself of food. Go on a fast, okay? Go on a fast, I don't know, during the week. Make sure you're going to work, you're working hard, you're getting sweaty, you're having nothing but water, okay? And at the end of that fast, go drink some Welch's or organic grape juice, if you will, okay? And you know what? Your heart's gonna be pretty glad, and you will definitely see that. Go out in the woods for a couple of weeks, okay? And have scarce food, you know? I'm not saying to go the whole two weeks without food, but you know, just have water, a little bit of meat, you know, just deprive yourself. And then at the end of that two weeks, go ahead and have yourself some juice. And guess what? Your heart will be very glad, okay? So a lot of people say that, well, no, it's the fermentation, and it's the buzz that you get. That's what that's referring to. That is not what that's referring to, okay? You'll see that here in a moment, in 1 Samuel. But what that represents is sugar, okay? The question is, is sugar the devil? Is that really bad for you? Should we stay away from all sugar and have no sugar consumption? I read this book one time, and it's basically, it basically said that, you know, that if you just give up all sugar, your life's gonna be better. You're gonna be, you know, thinking more clear. You're gonna have, if you have cancer, it'll just go away and blah, blah, blah. And they was talking about all sugars, no juice, no honey. And one of the examples that this guy brought up was, well, think about the honey bear, okay? The honey bear is the only bear in the wild that gets cavities. And why is it? Because he just eats honey all the time, and it's just drunk on sugars, okay? I don't know too much about honey bears. I don't really care. But the point is, that's a stupid bear. We're not bears. We're not animals, okay? We're human beings, okay? We can actually read the Bible. We can actually discern things. We can reason. A bear's just like, oh, there's some honey. I'm gonna eat it. Oh, there's a person I'm gonna charge you. You know what I mean? It's a beast, okay? We shouldn't always just, oh, look at what the beasts eat. Oh, look at what the sharks, look at how the sharks behave. That's how we need to act out. We're gonna, man, shut up. Read the Bible and be a human, okay? Let's not adopt the world's view of worshiping the creature more than the creator, okay? It's ridiculous. But there's a thing with sugar. You'll see that here in a moment. Proverbs 24, look at verse number 13. So the Bible says this. My son, eat thou honey, because it is gonna cause cancer. Oh, it is good in the honeycomb, which is sweet to thy taste. Go one chapter over, chapter number 25. So here in the book of wisdom, okay, I mean, these are wise things preserved for us by God through Solomon. And what does verse 13 say that we just read? Does it say honey is bad or honey is good? Honey is good, right. Now, obviously, some of you are probably like, yeah, but you better warn us about that pasteurized stuff and yeah, I get you there. I don't really like the pasteurized stuff. I eat the raw honey, okay? I get it. But look at verse 16. Proverbs 25, look at verse number 16. It says this. Hast thou found honey? Eat so much as is sufficient for thee, okay? Lest thou be filled therewith and vomit it. Now, as I was reading this, I was like, that's very interesting there. Eat so much as is sufficient for thee. Well, that's interesting. So you mean to tell me if I read this book here, I'm gonna go on this exercise program and I'm gonna follow this diet and it's like, you can only have this much of this and this much of this. You know what? That might actually be some bad advice because the Bible says that, hey, have you found honey? Well, if you have, eat as much as is sufficient for thee. Meaning a portion that might be sufficient for you may not be sufficient for me. Makes sense? We're all different. We're different sizes, we have different ages, we're different activity levels. There's all sorts of differences, okay? Some of us have maybe had illnesses or different things going on to where we at this moment in time in life can't handle the sugar because maybe it triggers a rash or some kind of a reaction. We'll talk about that here in a minute. The point being, eat so much as is sufficient for thee. What does that mean? Well, that means balance, okay? That means balance. And the problem with today is there's so much sugar in different foods. There's sugar in spaghetti sauces, there's sugar in French fries, tater tots, all of those different things. Things that we don't normally think would have sugar. And so the problem is unknowingly, we consume way more than is sufficient for us and we just don't even realize it, okay? So look at verse 27, Proverbs 25, look at verse number 27, it says this. It is not good to eat much honey, so for men to search their own glory is not glory. Okay, and that is not good. So we'll talk about that at a later date. We've hit that up all the time. Go to 1 Samuel chapter number 14. So it is not good to eat much honey. What does that mean? We don't wanna eat too much honey. Too much of anything that is good for you is bad. There are people out there who have dropped dead by drinking too much water. I'm serious, you can go look that up. You know, and I've had bosses when I was in the military and they're like, you know, drink more water, drink more water. And they're having us to drink so much water and get IVs and all this junk. And I mean, it will literally harm you. I mean, you'll be barfing. I've drank so much water before that I've literally just power barfed everything out. Like I can't take anymore. That is not good for you. That is not good for people. You need electrolytes, we need balance. Okay, you're gonna see that word come up over and over today as I'm talking about this stuff. Balance, okay, very, very important. But I wanted to give you a kind of a picture of what honey can do for you. I always think this is interesting when we read the story here. But 1 Samuel chapter 14, this is about Jonathan. It's about the days before David became king. King Saul's in charge and he's, you know, he's already goofing off and, you know, being a coward and stuff like that. And so his son Jonathan says, you know what, we need to do something about this. We need to spark some revival. So he takes his armor bearer, they mop up 20 guys, and let's pick it up in verse 24, it says this. It says, so after the battle, after they sparked this revival, there was war, the people are tired. It says in verse 24, the men of Israel were distressed that day. For Saul had adored the people, saying, cursed be the man that eateth any food until evening, that I may be avenged on my enemies, so none of the people tasted any food. Now, as I'm reading that, I wish I could park it right there and just preach about that phrase, that I may be avenged of my enemies. Not that we may, right, but not that God may, but that I may. But let's move on, verse 25. And all they of the land came to a wood, and there was honey upon the ground, verse 26. And when the people were coming to the wood, behold, the honey dropped. But no man put his hand to his mouth, for the people feared the oath. Now look at verse 27. But Jonathan heard not, when his father charged the people with the oath, wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in a honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth, and his eyes were enlightened. Leave your place there and go to Matthew chapter number three. Matthew chapter number three. So here's the story here. Jonathan, you know, he's busy being a warrior, doing things, or out in the woods. You know, they don't have the comforts of electricity. They don't have running water all over the place. You know, they're not gonna open up a bag of beef jerky. Certainly not gonna have an MRE or anything of that nature, right? These guys are absolutely starving. They have gone, I mean, just through full bodily exertion, okay? Just tired. Jonathan has no idea about this oath, stumbles upon this honey, and the Bible says his eyes were enlightened, meaning he got his energy back in his physical strength. How did he get that? You know, he didn't have power bars, and, you know, these organic things or whatever at the store. He has a natural product, and that product happens to have sugar in it. And what does it do? It revives him. It helps him out, okay? But you have to understand why. Again, people say, oh, honey, it's bad for you. You're just gonna cause cavities. You're gonna get cancer and die. And then those people are alive. Those people are out there, okay? Nothing can be further from the truth. So picture this. So the idea is here, he's real low on energy, real low on everything, probably sweating it up, you know, just way off the scale here. Well, that honey helps bring him back into balance, okay? It provides him nutrients, minerals, and so on and so forth. And, you know, that is a little bit of application that we can take for our own lives. You know, when you're tired, if you exercise, you follow a workout program, you would probably find that a little bit of honey after that, maybe in some tea or water, however you wanna take it, would actually help fuel your muscles and help you to think better, help you to think clearer. I've read that these guys over in Africa that run a lot that do these marathons and these Olympic guys, they don't have the money to be spending on the fancy stuff that the guys over here do. So what they do is they get milk, they just warm it up, they don't boil it, they just warm it up, and they drop in raw cane sugar into it. And it really helps them to recover very quickly. So just some food for thought for you, just something I thought was interesting about sugar, because so many people today just, oh, sugar's the devil, you know? We used to have a guy in this church, you know? And he told me that basically. He said, you know, when you get cancer, they give you this stuff, and they scan you, and it's all sugar, and it basically bombs to the cancer molecules. And that might be true, okay? But does that mean that sugar is bad, that we should just stay away from it completely? Well, the Bible says that honey is good, okay? But it has to be in moderation. It has to be as much as sufficient for thee. And you'll know, okay? You should know when you're eating it, right? We've all been there, right? We've all had access to tons of candy or stuff, like in here. And there's times, like, we got them Red Vines, I'm eating like 20 of them, man. I'm like, what am I doing, right? That's way more than is sufficient for me. But if you put them out there, you know, I'll be talking, just. Same with those Reese's Pieces peanut butter cups or cookies or whatever it is. I always take way more than is sufficient for me. And you know how I know that? Because something in me tells me, hey, that's probably enough. That's probably enough. You know, you're stuffed, you're full here, should probably stop. But I'm like, I don't get this all the time. These are really good. I do intermittent fasting. Man, I'm gonna be eating these cookies till I drop, it's fine. So I find ways to reason with myself, okay? Just, you know the deal here. You know when it's efficient for me. That's all I'm saying. And again, you do whatever you want. I'm just giving you some advice from the Bible this morning. That's all I'm doing. And Matthew chapter three, verse number four. John the Baptist here, what was his diet like? Look at verse four, it says this. It says, in the same John had his raiment of camel's hair and a leathern girdle about his loins. And his meat was locusts and wild honey. Now I doubt anybody in here is desiring to go on this diet here. And I'm surprised that some clown hasn't like made up a program that you can pay $300 for or subscribe to to be a member. And there probably is somebody out there to mention it. But you know, how to catch bugs and grasshoppers and substitute and do the John the Baptist act. Hey, don't do that, that was for him. You know, that was for John the Baptist. But here's the thing, John the Baptist was a great man of God. We had a guy tell us that, was it last Saturday, right? I think it was last Saturday, right? I don't know where he's going with that. But anyways, his diet was what? It was locusts and wild honey. So meat and sugar. And I'm sure if you were to dissect a locust and break it down, you know, probably had, you know, a good amount of protein, good amount of fats, you know, and then the honey, what do you get there? Well, you get your carbs. So you get a balanced diet, okay? And obviously there's a miracle in place here as well that he was able to sustain on that. The Bible's telling us, hey, God took care of his prophet and so on and so forth. But the point is, God wouldn't subscribe this to him if it was bad, if it was harmful, okay? So what is the world telling us today? Stay away from meats, okay? This is a big thing that's popping up right now. You know, we need to stop with the meats because it's hurting the earth. Yeah, how's that working out for India? Right, they've got people dropping dead all the time, dead bodies laying in the streets, just this stench of death. I've talked to several people that have been over there and actually have seen this. And they're like, the crazy part is there's cows walking around, okay? But because it might be your great lost uncle or something like that, they don't want to, you know, cook them up. And you know what, that's kind of the mentality that's going on today. Someone gave me a gift card to Starbucks and so I stopped at the one over at the Fred Meyer on Franklin the other day. And I looked at the menu and it was impossible breakfast sandwich, impossible sausage meat. And I was like, whoa, I haven't spent a long time since I've been to a Starbucks, but I was like, I'm pretty sure that wasn't there even when we were in Seattle or California. You know, what in the world's going on here? You go to Costco, you know, this impossible meat and this fake meat stuff is just starting to spread. You go to where you get the burgers, the burgers have gone up in price. And all of a sudden, oh, there's this large section of fake meats and guess what? It's reasonably priced. There's an agenda today to make people unhealthy and to take every last bit of wisdom that comes from the word of God and throw it away, okay? Look, that is what's going on today. So the point being, don't skip the sugar and don't overdose on the sugar, okay? John the Baptist didn't do it. We shouldn't do it either. So let's see here. Go to Isaiah chapter number seven. Isaiah chapter number seven. We're gonna move on from the sugar. So I'm just gonna read for you Psalm 104, 15 again. It says, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man. You got to see that, okay? Now Jonathan didn't stumble upon juice in the wild, but what did he do? He stumbled upon some sugar, which was in the source of honey that made his heart glad. It revived him. And so we can see from the Bible, we shouldn't put off those things completely, okay? We should have those things in our diet. And we'll talk again here in a moment about that. But let's look at the second part of the verse. So you don't have to turn there. You go to Isaiah seven. But it says, and oil to make his face to shine, okay? And oil to make his face to shine. Now as I was studying for this sermon, I was reading about different populations in the world. That consume olive oil in very high doses. And over in Greece, believe it or not, they still do this to this very day. They have, I read different numbers, but they have like gallons of olive oil running through their veins at any given month. You know, I mean these people just put it on everything. It's always available. They use olive oil like it's going out of style. They'll drink it in like little tiny cups. They'll have it on their salads. You know, breads, everything. Put it in on their meats. They cook with it. They have it raw. They put it on their skin. All these different things. And I'm looking at their life expectancy. And there's a place near Greece where people frequently live to be over 100 years old. And they can still talk. They can still reason. Dementia and Alzheimer's is almost unheard of. So with that being said, you know, if you're one of these people, it's like no fat. You know, no fats at all. You might want to reconsider based off of what we're about to read here in a moment. The Bible talks a lot about oil and the benefits. So much that we're not even going to turn to a lot of the verses. Because you guys, I'm looking at this crowd and I know you guys know this, right? Oil is mentioned all throughout the Bible and it is good for you. Now, am I going to rub olive oil on my face and stuff? No, probably not. I mean, I did try it last night and I had no one's, I did, you know, I really did. I put it on my face last night and it did make my skin shine. But you know, I took a shower this morning. No one's complimented me on my complexion. So I don't know, I mean, I don't know. The things you do right in these sermons, you know, I got to be kind of a test dummy to see, but maybe it takes a little bit of a process, okay? But you know what you can do is you can go on YouTube and there are plenty of people out there that douse their face. They get the olive oil in a bowl and they're like, right, and they got this process. It's oil and then it's warm filtered water and then it's ice, you know. Go ahead and play around with all that. Let me know how it goes, okay? But what I want to do now is kind of clear up a little bit of a misconception here about fats and sugars. So you'll follow this here in a second. Isaiah chapter number seven, look at verse 14, okay? It says this, therefore, the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name Immanuel. Okay, look at verse 15. Butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse evil and choose the good. Just keep your place there and just kind of listen to this here. Now, butter and honey shall he eat. I had this young, funny guy one time tell me, you know, I've been eating butter and honey and it's really helped my discernment. It's really helped my mental clarity. Now, I believe that if maybe you were deficient in some of the nutrients that comes from that stuff, but here's the question. Does anybody in here really think that if you just take a person, give them butter and honey and all of a sudden, oh, I know what evil and good is. I know how to refuse. Okay, well, if you believe that, let's go down to Whole Foods Market this afternoon. Okay, I'll buy the most raw organic butter possible, the most orange, darkest colored butter possible and the most expensive honey. What is that? That ramen nuka honey? And we'll just start giving it to some of these people over here and see if they can answer some of the questions. Like, hey, do you think we should bring back Leviticus 2013? And let's see how they answer. Now, who here thinks that the butter and honey is actually gonna make them? You know what, you're right. I now understand. This is great. Yeah, we need to get the sodomites out of here, okay? It don't work like that. People that hate God eat butter and honey all the time. In fact, most of the people at any given time at Whole Foods Market are evil, wicked people. Like really evil and wicked people, okay? So it has to mean something different. Okay, butter and honey shall he eat that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good. Obviously, these are symbolic. Look, this is part of spiritually discerning the Bible. Bible says, the natural man knoweth not the things of the Spirit of God. You know, the old man doesn't know these things. So a person who's not saved may read that and be like, man, you know, yeah, we should just stay, you know, just make sure that a bulk of your diet is butter and honey. You're gonna make wiser choices. You're gonna accelerate your life. You know, you're gonna get a promotion in these types of things. It's not true, okay? Listen to this, Proverbs chapter 30 verse 33 says this. It says, surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood. So the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife, okay? What does the Bible say there? It says, surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter, okay? What does Hebrews five tell us about people who use the milk? They're unskillful in the word, okay? So what does this all mean here? Well, this means you need to have a lot of milk. You need to be taking in a lot of milk and you need to be meditating on that milk, so to speak. You need to be thinking about this. You need to be churning these things inside of your head so that you can bring forth butter because it's hard to make butter. It is not easy, okay? And here's what I'm talking about. You're there in Isaiah seven. Look at verse 22. So skip down to verse 22. It says this. It says, and it shall come to pass for the abundance of milk that they shall give. He shall eat butter. For butter and honey shall everyone eat that is left in the land. So again there, we don't have time to really fully prove this, to break this down completely, but the butter and honey here are symbolic of the word of God. Now, butter and honey is great on bread, right? Well, what does bread symbolize in the Bible? The word of God, okay? So obviously this all play, I mean, Jesus is the word of God, okay? Butter and honey shall he eat. You know, this is for us. What was Jesus always telling people? Hey, I do the will of my Father, okay? That was a big point. You know, the Father sent me. I am fulfilling his will. I am doing what he said because all the Sadducees and Pharisees and Scribes, what were they constantly doing? Saying, you're here of your own accord. You're making this stuff up. It's all you. You're violating Moses. You're doing this. You're doing that. And Jesus was always pointing to the Lord. He was always pointing to the Father, okay? So, I just wanted to clear that up. I'm not saying that butter and honey are bad for you. I just got done telling you that honey is good for you. Eat as much as is sufficient for thee. You know, that also applies spiritually though. You know, you get these clowns, sometimes they'll comment and be like, you need to use more Bible verses in your sermons. It's like, first of all, you wouldn't say that to me if you were actually churning the milk of the word into butter because the Bible says not to rebuke an elder. Okay, so what the hell are you talking about, pal? You know, that just proves that you're an idiot. You know, look, we can't handle too much Bible verses in one sermon. Let's just be honest, okay? These things need to be put out there and they need to be churned. They need to be worked so that they stay in our hearts and in our minds and eventually turn into butter. Butter is high in minerals. It's high in vitamins, okay? And honestly, if you study a lot of these other cultures, you'll see that they eat large quantities of butter. You know, they would eat it in bowls or dishes and things of that nature, okay? So anyways, I just wanted to go over that just because there's a common misconception out there that you can somehow just transcend and just really elevate your mental state by eating huge gobs of butter and honey, okay? That is not what that verse is talking about. That is not true. Though those things are good for you if you eat as much as is sufficient for thee. Not as sufficient for me, right? But for thee. So let's just move on from that. Oh, real, real quickly here. I wanted to mention this, okay? Because someone's gonna try to blast me on this. And that is about fats, okay? So am I saying that all fats are good, okay? And no, I'm not saying that. Now you have saturated fats and you have unsaturated fats, okay? Saturated fats are saturated in hydrogen molecules. What that means is they stay solid, okay? They stay solid all the time. Unsaturated fats are lacking in those molecules so at room temperature it turns into liquid, okay? Both of those in their normal states are good for you. What science has done, what these food science people have done is they've taken these unsaturated fats and added, right, through a process, they have added hydrogen so that that way it will solidify and preserve the fat basically, okay? This is what we call trans fats, okay? And if you start reading about trans fats and I don't have time to preach a whole sermon about it but they're probably not that good for you, okay? Now are you gonna get cancer? Are you gonna keel over because you eat trans fats? No, I'm probably gonna have some here in about an hour, okay? Over at Big Bun, okay? I'm just being honest with you, okay? The idea and the way around this is obviously what? It's balance, okay? And you'll see that, it is balance because there's people out there, if you eat, oh, I can't believe you're eating that. Can't believe you're eating that cheeseburger. I can't believe I saw you at Taco Bell. I can't believe you went to McDonald's, okay? Well, I don't know, you know, I'm 43. I could still drop down and do 50 push-ups, can you? I mean, I mean, what? You know, don't, don't, don't, just, just, oh, I can't believe you're doing this. Look, I have seen people with the most garbage diets that can run a sub five-minute mile. How do you explain that? Genetics, that's how you explain that. And also the injectables and the chewables, okay? For some people, it's just a thing, but we gotta move on here, okay? Don't, the point is don't neglect the fats, okay? Don't, watch out for going on these crazy diets because I really think if you stay, you know, on some of these crazy off-balance diets, you're gonna start to have some mental issues, seriously. We've seen some weird attitudes from people in here and a lot of them have been crazy on these diets and that's not a coincidence. There is something to that, okay? The vegan and the extreme meat muncher, both of them have some kind of mental problems, okay? And you guys know what I'm talking about. You know this is true. So, this is all true, all of it. Let's see here, go to Proverbs chapter 20. Proverbs chapter 20. While you're turning there, I'm gonna read for you our verse of the day, which is Psalm 104 verse 15. So it says this, And wine that maketh glad the heart of man and oil to make his face to shine. And I would say this, you know, there's tons of studies out there, the oil, the good oil, right? The good olive oil, it's good for your skin, but it's also good for your flesh inside. It's good to take internally, okay? Next part of the verse here says this, And bread which strengtheneth man's heart. Okay, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart. This is another big one, okay? Cause we get a lot of people in here, don't, I don't eat bread, yeah. Well it's so tough, that's so cool. I don't eat no bread. You're weak because you cave to the carbs. What's up carb caver, you're weak. Huh, you carb cavers? Caving into all them carbs. Not me, look at me, I'm a hero. I hate that attitude. And the reason why I hate it is because I've been there. I've been that guy. I know what I'm talking about, okay? And I'm here to tell you, I'm a survivor. I am a food Nazi survivor, okay? And I'm here to tell you, it is a terrible way to live your life. The Bible says, bread which strengtheneth a man's heart. I believe this with my whole heart, that real bread does a body good. I believe it's good for your organs. I believe it's good for your mental state. I believe it's good for your health. Obviously the bread of life, the word of God, is good for us as well, okay? We talk about that all the time. But the point being, don't neglect the bread. You don't have to turn there because we've just recently read this, but Genesis 14, 18 says this. Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine and he was the priest of the most high God. So when Abraham was exhausted, when he just went and mopped up, the nations that took his family, that took Lot, what was his reward? What was brought to him to nourish him and his guys? Bread and wine, okay? Bread and wine, obviously meaning the juice. It wasn't like Melchizedek showed up with wine from today from the store. Like, oh, this is like 13, 14, 25 proof. That's ridiculous, okay? Not true. Proverbs 20, look at verse 13, the Bible says this. Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty. Open thine eyes and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. Now obviously sleep is good for us. We definitely need sleep. You can probably point to sermons and days in the past and you can tell he didn't get enough sleep, you know? I got enough last night. But I may have overdone the coffee. I don't know, we'll see here. But the point being, bread is looked upon as a very good thing and a healthy thing in the Bible, both physical bread and obviously spiritual bread. So the point being, don't skip the bread, okay? Bread is good. And we're gonna answer the question, well, what about my friend who turned this issue around and he had stopped eating bread, blah, blah, blah? We'll talk about that here. Go to Psalm 62. Psalm 62. So we're gonna stop, we're gonna kinda change gears here. We're gonna answer the question that I posed at the beginning, which is why is there, or why are there so many different opinions? Why are there so many different diet plans out there? Blah, blah, blah. Well, part of the reason is money, okay? Part of the reason is money. And the other part of the reason is because a lot of these people that put forth these plans, they know human behavior, okay? They've studied a little bit of sociology and they know that most people won't stick with something very long. A lot of people today, they have what? They have the disease of now. I want the results now and if I don't see them, I quit. And then they still want those results so they're on the internet and they're typing in, you know, how to do this, how to lose this, blah, blah, blah, how to get rid, blah, blah, and all of a sudden, oh, there's this great sales pitch on this new diet. And people, oh, maybe that one's gonna work. Maybe that one's the one for me and they buy that one. And these people are just laughing all the way to the bank, okay? So the question is, what about the results? You know, I know this person and they had this autoimmune disease and they gave up bread and it went away. Where I know this person, they gave up meat and they had this issue and that issue went away. What's the deal with it? You know, I was studying this here and I was looking at different diets and a video pops up and it was like, Jordan Peterson's diet, okay? And I was like, okay, let me click on it, I'll bite. It's like, so he's talking about how he had this autoimmune disease and some depression issues, I guess. And he's on an all meat diet. Like he only eats red meat and drinks water and salt and that's it. And he's basically, I've lost this much weight. I've gotten all these health issues out of the way. My daughter, he starts talking about his daughter. She used to have some kind of issues and she's doing this diet and it's all gone away. And he says he doesn't cheat, not even a little bit, okay? And so you may look at that video. You may talk to somebody like that. You may be that person or you may know somebody like that and be like, well, what are you up here doing telling us to eat honey and butter and all this stuff and spices when Jordan Peterson and people like him have gotten healthy by giving up the bread? What's up? What's going on? And I have the answer for you. It's balance, okay? Here's the deal. We live in a toxic environment, okay? There's an abundance of food. I've already talked about this. I have different sugars and fats and blah, blah, blah. So we're all out of balance, okay? And so let's think of a teeter totter or a balance, okay? Let me just demonstrate this here. All right, so let's say, I don't know, you're just eating an icy food diet, okay? It was whatever. And you've got these health issues, okay? So here's the balance, right? You're all the way over here, okay? You're all the way down here. You're like, I got autoimmune issues. I'm getting skin rashes, but I'm also eating whatever I want to, okay? And you start giving up, I don't know, bread and sugars, right? In the process of you doing that, all of a sudden, when you step over here, you start taking stuff from here and you start putting it on here, you start to even the playing field, right? And you start to see changes because this is a change. And that's literally what's happening when you try any kind of a diet. You're going to go through some change. You're going to see some benefits. But what eventually happens is this, okay? And now all of a sudden, you have a whole new set of problems, but you still remember your former days when you were over here, and well, at least I don't have that and this and that. And then now all of a sudden, you're over here and you're, what in the world is going on here, okay? But we happen to catch people while they're doing this, right? We don't always get to see people when they make that full other lopsided adjustment, okay? Now, I could drop some names for you people that I know who've been in the church that are over here right now, but what's the point? You already know, okay? That's why it works. It seems to work, okay? Because you're going from a toxic state to now all of a sudden removing some of that stuff, and so things are getting better and getting better and getting better. But eventually, vegetarian, vegan, all meat, whatever the hell you want to call it. It's going to put you all the way over here. You have a whole new set of problems. And you probably won't even realize it. It's everyone around you. What's going on with so-and-so? How could you say something like that? What do you think? What are you doing here? What's wrong with you, okay? The answer is because you're in the process of restoring balance. Psalm 62, look at verse number nine, it says this. Surely men of low degree are vanity, and the men of high degree are a lie to be laid in the balance. They are altogether lighter than vanity. So we could talk all day about that verse here, okay? The Bible says that men of low degree and men of high degree are really the same. But what about people in between? That's where you want to be, right? You want to have as much as is sufficient for thee. You don't want to have too much money. You don't want to have not enough money. You want to strive for balance in your life in every area, okay? This is why I tell guys with families all the time, hey, you want to learn to balance the soul winning and the Bible reading and all of these things with your family time because it's important. I've seen guys where they say, I'm gonna go seven days a week, and all of a sudden their marriage has fallen apart. It's that whole balancing. It's the same with nutrition. It's the same with diet. The Bible says a lot about balance, okay? And you want to eat a balanced diet. You want to have those sugars. You want to have those carbs. You want to have those fats. You want to have meat, real meat, okay? You don't want to have this impossible meat garbage. Okay, you know what that's gonna do? That's gonna put people over here. It's gonna put people way off balance is what it's gonna do. These people are just absolutely out of their minds, okay? So that's what that's saying there. Men of low degree are vanity. Men of high degree are a lie. We see this out soul winning, don't we? Let's go to the rich areas if you don't believe me. We'll go to the rich area and go knock on some doors. How many people you think are gonna be interested? Let's go to the super poor areas, right? Hey, he owes me. I'm gonna get in just because it's me, right? They have literally the same attitude. We try to go for the people kind of in the middle ground, don't we? That's just where we're gonna find the most receptive and the most fruitful results typically. Proverbs 11 one says this. A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight, okay? So if you could just remember to get yourself balanced. Now you may be over here in your diet. You may have these issues or whatever and there may be some things you need to give up for a little bit to see if there's some improvement. But once you kind of start to even out, you need to kind of have some unhealthy things. I'm saying you need to go to Jack in the Box every once in a while. You need to go to McDonald's every once in a while. I can't believe you would say that. You don't know nothing. Really? When I was a food Nazi, I was always sick and I wasn't a food Nazi for a week or a month either. I'm talking a couple of years. Always, always, always sick. It wasn't until I was like, you know what? I'm so sick that I got mad. I'm like, let's just go eat this. It wasn't until I started striving for balance that I really don't get sick that much anymore. I mean, when was the last time I called in sick here? Yeah. I think I know what I'm talking about here, okay? Because I've lived it. And I believe what the Bible's looking at. I've got friends and I love them. Brother in Christ, you know, just extreme on this diet stuff. Always sick. Always sick. I see people on both ends of this thing. You know, strive to have as many healthy things as you can, but do not deprive yourself of some of that fast food. You know, when we have the Red Vines and I'll be like, oh no, man, I'm the best. Go have a few. Have as much as sufficient for thee. And you know what else that does? It helps us to not judge other people, right? Because if you see me eating 10 next week, right, that's sufficient for me because I've told you. Don't be like he's out of control. That's what's, I'm just kidding. All right, the reason why these diets work temporarily is because it's temporarily moving you towards balance. That's the only reason, okay? That is why. Go to Proverbs chapter number three. Proverbs chapter number three. All right, now keep your place there. Go to Mark chapter seven. Sorry. Mark chapter number seven. Add a little printing blooper. So go to Mark chapter number seven. Mark chapter number seven. I'm gonna get into a little bit about my dad's diet and his blood work here in a moment, but I wanna read some verses out of Mark chapter number seven for you real quick. All right, look at verse 14. Mark chapter seven, look at verse number 14. It says this. It says, when he had called all the people unto him, he said unto them, hearken unto me, every one of you and understand. So Jesus is trying to get a message across here. Look at verse 15. There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. We'll stop right there, okay? Cause Jesus had put forth a parable and the disciples were like, what are you talking about? What does this mean? I thought we're supposed to abstain from this food. What in the world is going on here? And he says this, there is nothing, verse 15, there is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him. But the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. Okay, look at verse 17. And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable. Verse 18, he says this, and he saith unto them, are ye so without understanding also? So now he's like, what do you got? Are you guys been with me? You don't get it. Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing from without enter into the man, it can not defile him because it enter not into his heart but into the belly and goeth out into the drought purging all meats, okay? I'm gonna stop right there. Now, the reason why I'm bringing this up here, obviously there's a spiritual application here. You guys know this, okay? Just because I go and I eat some pork chops or I go eat some bacon or we do a crawfish boil or I eat some alligator or something unclean doesn't mean I'm going to hell, okay? Because I'm saved, I can't. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna get cancer. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna get extreme brain fog or anything like that, okay? It does not defile me. That's what he's saying here. Saying, hey, there's coming a change where people in my kingdom will eat all manners of meats and people are going to leave them alone, okay? Why are you bringing this up? Well, we had a guy come in here a few months ago now and he was chest pounding, right? He was chest pounding. I don't eat, I don't mix fabrics. I don't eat bacon. I don't eat pork. I make sure that pork hasn't touched that bread because a lot of the bread is made from bones of pigs. It's like, oh man, that is a mouthful, okay? That is stupid, okay? Eating pork, whatever, it doesn't defile you. It doesn't hurt you. So we don't want to adopt this attitude where we're running around and telling people, hey, you know, that McDonald's defiled you. And I haven't eaten McDonald's in a long time because I got two bucket syndrome about a year and a half ago and I'm scared to go back. But separate sermon, okay? The point is we don't want to go around being, oh, you eat at Taco Bell? What's going on with you? That's disgusting. That's your opinion. That's great, but it doesn't define me. I can still go knock doors. I can still read the Bible. I can still serve God despite whatever food that I decide to eat. Now, hopefully we try to eat in balance, but here's why I'm bringing this up, okay? So my dad, he could not use a spoon or a fork. If you were to give him a spoon or a fork, he would either try to throw it at you, stab himself with it, stab you with it, or he would try to eat it, okay? One of those three things. So he could only eat finger foods. So what would we give him? Things that he could pick up with his left hand. Chicken nuggets, cut up chicken strips, okay? Tater tots, french fries, curly fries, mini corn dogs. You could give him the ones with a stick because he would try to eat the stick. It was very bizarre, but you know the story. Anything that was kind of fried that you could bake in the oven, cook in the air fryer or fry, whatever, he would eat, okay? Whenever he was hungry, but we made sure that he ate like three times a day and had what seemed to be enough, okay? He had been on this diet even when he was in the different memory care places and different facilities because he just could not use utensils. So you would think a person with a diet like that, okay, would have some serious cholesterol, kidney failure, you know, liver problems, all this different stuff, okay? 2016, I take him to his medical provider. They take labs, say his blood work is absolutely astounding. Like it is just bizarre that he is this healthy and has dementia. It is very weird. It is very, just very odd. Fast forward to when he moves in with us, okay? What, 2019, take him to the VA, get some blood work done. They're like, he is so healthy. His blood flow is great. Everything is perfect. This guy is eating chicken nuggets, corn dye. I mean, just fried, just junk, just straight junk, okay? I don't know what's going on. Fast forward to last year, same story. You guys know when he fell out here, what about a year ago, right? They took samples. He's very healthy. Everything is just working great. He should have a long life, but what's wrong with him? He's got dementia, okay? Take him down to the emergency room. What was it? March is just recently is his first long stay there. And they're like, man, you guys have taken very good care of him. What are you guys giving him? You know, and they're thinking we're providing him like gourmet organic foods. They're like, he must be on just a great diet. And he's got no health problems other than obviously upstairs. And I'm just thinking to myself, what in the world's going on here? How can this be? How can this be? And we have people running around. You shouldn't eat that, don't eat that. I'm not advocating that you eat that. I'm just telling you an anecdotal story, okay? His blood work, absolutely perfect. And I started thinking about this. How is this possible? Is God just keeping him this way to torture me? You know what I mean? These thoughts start to come through your mind and I'm like, ah, that's horrible. Why are you thinking like that? But anyways, what is it? And I started to think, balance. It was balance. He didn't have too much. He didn't have too little. And when you dissect those foods, yeah, there's trans fats, but there's still fats. There's protein, there's carbs. I mean, there's sugar. Everything that you need that we just read in some form was in those foods. And the dude was absolutely perfect on health. And you say, well, yeah, well, he died. Yeah, but we'll have to get into that in another sermon. So with that being said, and again, I'm not advocating you adopt his diet, okay? Because you probably will slow down. I don't know. You may have some issues. The point being is the only thing I can think of is balance. I mean, we didn't give him too much, didn't give him too little, and he was thriving. Now, let me give you my thoughts on why I think, not necessarily that he got Alzheimer's and dementia per se, but what I think definitely pushed him over the edge. Number one, he was a Vietnam vet and probably exposed to Agent Orange and a lot of different whack things over there that we don't even know about. Number two, you know, he was a government worker like I is. You know, in his early days, you know, during his apprenticeship and stuff like that, they would play softball on these aircraft carriers on the flight deck with asbestos balls, okay? So, you know, Osho wasn't as prevalent back then. They didn't take health and things like that very serious. He was exposed to a lot of harmful paints and, you know, chemicals and things like that. A lot of people of his generation who, you know, worked in shipyards and stuff like that around that time wound up with dementia and different health problems. Now, the next one here, I think definitely pushed him over the edge. And that was for my whole childhood, teenage years, my early adulthood, this guy would almost never drink water, never. Only when he was feeling really sick would he ever drink a cup of water. I always knew if I saw him drinking a glass of water, something was wrong. Like, oh, you got a headache or something? Yeah, I don't feel good. I got to start drinking more water. He's like, but coffee has water, right? That was, coffee's got water. I drink eight to 10 cups a day. I don't get it, okay? Well, the kind of coffee that he was drinking was like that. The Folgers, it didn't really matter, okay? It didn't really matter. And obviously all of us have drinking that type of stuff, whatever. But when you start digging around, you know, and the internet is a great place to get information and you start learning about how some of these cheaper coffees are processed, it will scare you. It will alarm you, okay? This is why we try to get the good stuff for the break room is because I have a feeling, and this is just me here, just my opinion, okay? The Bible's right here. This is my opinion. I think that if you go too far off balance with a lot of these bad coffees, I mean, it can do something to you. Because think about it, coffee naturally, what does it do? It dehydrates you, it's a diuretic, okay? And if you're not replacing that water, I mean, your brain's sitting there like, what are you doing? What in the world is going on, right? So I think his high coffee consumption with a lack of water for so many years, coupled with Agent Orange, the stress of war, and all of these different things, I think it just got him at the end of his life, you know, and I think that's what really caused it. I believe that maybe we'd be talking about a different story today, if he had drank more water, had more electrolytes, or maybe even just used a better type of coffee, you know? I don't know, that's just what I think, just food for thought. I get it, food goes in and out the drought, but hopefully you've got enough coming in to help replenish and help you out, okay? Look at verse number 20, says this, and he said, that which cometh out of the man that defileth the man, for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness, all these evil things come from within and defile the man. Now go to Proverbs chapter number three, and let's get into what shall we do. So you say, why did you just read all those verses? And the reason why I read those is because all of those things that proceed out of our hearts, guess what? Those are far more damaging to your physical body than any food that you're gonna eat, unless it's literally purposely laced with poison, okay? Understand that, okay? I'm gonna teach you here, give you some practical advice on how to take care of your body, your physical flesh. So just a real quick review, what can we do? What do we do with all this stuff, okay? Now, it would be nice if I could just stand up here and say, the Bible describes this diet, okay? And there are people that will do that. They'll say, you need to eat the Daniel diet. We're just going all pulse or vegetables, you know, just vegetables only, okay? They're missing the complete context and the complete point of that whole event, which was that it was a miracle they even lived, okay? So put the Daniel diet books aside and listen to what I'm telling you, okay? Your goal, if you wanna be healthy, you wanna retain that, that mental clarity, whatever it is, okay, is to strive for balance, okay? Take a look at where you're at now and what you're lacking and try to add that back in, okay? Don't be shy with the oils, you know, these different good fats, the homemade breads, which is hard to come by, you know, you find yourself a good bread, eat it because it's good for your heart. It strengthens you, you say, well, it's gonna make me fat. I don't, look, look, I'm fat, just go, do something, right? Who cares? Because guess what? At least your heart will be strengthened, okay? Eat the bread, don't deprive yourself of that stuff and don't forget about the honey, the salt and the spices, okay? Because, you know, especially with salt today, people are like, oh, you know, you gotta get rid of that, you know, we need low salt, low cholesterol, blah, blah, blah. Shut up, I start my day off with a thousand milligrams of salt in water every day. I'm up to like three grams a day right now and I feel great, okay? No health problems at all. I've had my blood work done and it's great, just like my dad's. So now I'm just worried about upstairs, okay? But I would also say this, don't skip the meat. And is it a good idea to buy the local meat? Of course it is, okay? I don't have time to get into my stories about some of the things that go on with, you know, these large farming operations with conventional meat. But here's the thing, it goes in and it goes out the drought, man, okay? That's what it is, that's what it is. I'll go to McDonald's and I'll be just fine. Well, not the one over here on Franklin, okay? A different one, don't, or I'm sorry, on Fairview, stay away from that one, that one they just remodeled? Yeah, that one gave me two bucket last year, so just stay away from that one. But going back to the subject of meat, here's just some advice and some things that have helped me out, okay? Eat some organ meat, okay? Cook up some livers, some chicken hearts, you know? Kate and I had some chicken hearts on Thursday, it was good, it was real good. Yeah, you say, I don't like that, I don't blame you. I don't either, okay? Gotta be cooked right, eat some gizzards. That's why I call you guys gizzards today. Keep that in mind. Type this in the search engine later, desiccated liver tablets, okay? Desiccated liver tablets, take as many as is sufficient for you, okay? Talk to me again in 30 days, start taking those, you will notice a difference in your strength levels and your health by doing that. Desiccated liver tablets, okay? That takes care of your organ meats, okay? Bill Gates don't want you to have them, so what does that tell us, right? We need them, we need it. Let's eat the meat, okay? But just not forsaking the bread and all that other stuff. Let's strive for balance here, okay? Now, the next bit of application that I have for you transcends all that. It's better than all of that stuff, okay? This is really how we need to take care of our bodies. Proverbs three, look at verse number five. All this sermon really boils down to this. Look at this here. Verse five, trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil. We talk about these verses all the times. Proverbs three, five, and six. Well, look at verse number eight. It, what is the it there? Three, five, six, seven, right? The wisdom, the word of God. It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones. You say, I want to be healthy. What's the best diet? How about the diet of wisdom? How about the diet of the word of God? The spiritual things that you get from churning the milk of the word into butter spiritually actually help your physical body far more than you worried about, I slipped up, I feel so bad, I ate a chicken nugget from McDonald's. Who cares? It's going out the drought. That's where it's going. As long as you're not off balance with it, it doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter. Go to Proverbs chapter number four and I'll prove it to you again. So if one chapter wasn't enough, let's look at another one. Proverbs four, look at verse 20. My son, attend to my words. Incline thine ear unto my sayings. Verse 21, let them not depart from thine eyes, keep them in the midst of thine heart, for they are life. Verse 22, for they are life unto those that find them and health to all their flesh. You say, I want to be healthy. I want a healthy complexion, okay? This is how you get it. This is how you maintain it. This is more important than your cheeseburgers or whatever it is, you're, oh, I ate a TV dinner, whatever, okay? You can eat the TV dinners if you're doing this, okay? And again, you're not off balance. Go to Proverbs chapter number 16. We're getting close to being done. Proverbs chapter number 16. Look, I used to work with this guy, 78 years old, when I was working for the government. This dude could go down to the bottom of the dry dock and go up to the top of the mast on an aircraft carrier in one night and just work all over the place, 78 years old. He could take a look at drawings. He could retain information. He could keep secrets. He was trustworthy. He was reliable. You know what his diet was? TV dinners and tomatoes. That's it, TV dinners and tomatoes. That's it. But you know what, this guy, he also wasn't a clown. You know, he believed in the word. You know, he was a new evangelical kind of guy. But still, I mean, he tried to live his life, tried to shun wickedness and things like that. 78 years old in this guy's hour. I'm like, man, my dad's 72 right now. And he's crazy, he's a zombie. How is this possible? You eat like garbage. His name was Dan. I'm like, Dan, you eat like garbage. TV dinners, man. What are you doing here? Just like, oh, I just like them. They're just great. It's just convenient, it's just me. Throw them in the microwave. Right, the microwave. You wanted to talk about health? No, the microwave, right? We don't even have a microwave in our house because we still have a lot of isms left over from our Nazi-isms, you know? I work on them. Every time I work on them, I'm like, man, I don't know, I better not get no radiation or nothing. I've already been exposed to enough. This dude, 78 years old, can mop people when it comes to work. Absolutely mop you. He'll outwork all kinds of people. 78 years old. This guy was six foot six, too. You know what they say about tall people. Oh, I don't live that long, blah, blah, blah. This dude was just a beast when it came to work. TV dinners and tomatoes. And you know what? He wasn't shy with the candy either. I'd see him eating Mike and Ike's and hot tamales and stuff like that. Guy works swing shift, too. Right, so his sleep schedule's off, right? He's not playing with the best of odds here. How is that possible? Well, again, he didn't eat too much. He didn't have too little, you know? He tried in the best way that he could and he knew how to live somewhat of a righteous life, you know, to follow wisdom. And it proved to be health to his flesh. Proverbs 16, look at verse 24. Pleasant words are as in honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones, okay? Look, pleasant words are as in honeycomb. Sometimes when you come to church, you don't hear the most pleasant subjects, okay? So go home and read a good chapter here in the Bible. Listen to some pleasant things. This is why, like who's ever worked with somebody just everything's negative, 100%. There's never anything good, okay? What does it do to your soul? What does it do to like this upper area of your stomach? It tenses it up, doesn't it? It just churns it. It's just like, oh man, right? Look, I'm telling you right now, you need to limit those kinds of people in your life. I'm telling you right now. Nega, you know, you hear the people say this and we mock them sometimes because they're, oh, get negativity out of your life. But there's some truth to that. Pleasant words are as in honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones. So I don't spend too much time dwelling on a lot of the emails that we get here because it's not healthy, okay? It's not good for my flesh. Go to Luke chapter 21 and we'll be done. Luke chapter 21 and we will be done. So again, first thing, right? I'll give you three things of application. Number one is balance with your food, okay? Balance, not too little, not too much. The rest goes out the drought, okay? Number two, what was it? It was the word of God, wisdom, right? Trying to live how we are called to live, okay? Will you make mistakes? Of course you will. But obviously by keeping these words, you know, and trying to push forward and serve the Lord, that's health to your flesh. That is health to your body, okay? It is very important. And number three, I'm telling you right now, is negativity, okay? This will kill you. It can absolutely kill you. And I've been thinking about this a lot because my dad was an extremely, extremely negative person, even before he had dementia and Alzheimer's. Yes, he was nice in the fact that, you know, I wouldn't be here today without him. He did a lot for my family. I wish I could pay him back. I mean, just give you the shirt off of his back. The downside is after he'd give you that shirt, it'd be like, wow, probably made him a sweatshop anyway. You know, just you give my dad a million bucks, he'd be like, oh yeah, well, the Rothschild's got that in the bag, you know, it's probably just gonna devalue tomorrow. You know, just negative, just right out the gate. Just something to consider, man. I'm just telling you, just something to think about here. Watch out for the negativity, okay? Make sure you're getting some pleasant words in there. Luke 21, verse 25, look at what it says this, talking about the end times. Jesus is warning us about this very same thing here. He says this, it says, and there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars and upon the earth, distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring, okay? We're being warned that the end times are coming and this earth is gonna start acting up. There's gonna be a lot of things going on here and guess what's gonna happen? Look at verse 26. Men's hearts failing them for fear. You see that? Fear, fear will cause you health problems and could possibly so as much even cause your heart to stop and to drop, you will die. Men's hearts failing them for fear and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. You see that? See, so we understand that these things are coming as God's people, so it shouldn't be a surprise to us, right? But to the rest of the world, you know why drug sales are up so much? Is because they don't get it, they don't understand. You know, you go to these patriots' homes and they're just like, ah, I hate Biden. And now you do too, I'm with you on that, man, right? But you start talking about God or anything like this, just I don't want no part of that. So they lack that understanding. So now they're looking for another avenue, another way to satisfy themselves, right? But they just can't stop dwelling on Fox News and what these guys are telling them. And they're just like, oh, the gas is never gonna stop, we're gonna die. You know, butt plugs gonna cause me to drive an electric car. And it's like, look, man, I don't know. But here's the thing. I know that in the last days, people's hearts will fail them for fear of looking upon the things that are coming on this earth. Look at verse 27, it says this. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads for your redemption, draweth nigh. So Jesus is telling the people that are saved here, like, hey, you already been warned, you know, don't fret, don't trip, right? Yeah, get mad, right? We want people that are mad about the wickedness and the things that are going on today, right? But, right, we ought not to look at these things with no understanding, like, you know, I'm sorry, heavy breathing, you know, just constantly living in a state of fear. You're gonna see these hospitals fill up because of fear. It's just gonna be labeled something different, okay? I'm serious, you go and talk to these people and you tell them, like, hey, the Bible talks about this. I don't know, I don't know, but that's true. And they just can't get over it. I just need another pill, I just need another drug, I need some crack, we need to legalize all these drugs. That's the solution, that's the answer. No, no, it's because I've been eating too much meat and my hormones are off. No, it's because you haven't been eating enough meat, probably. So, we're gonna stop right there, okay? All that to say this. The food, you know, there's a lot of truth, you know, about eating the best foods that you can find. Like, if you can afford the grass-fed beefs, obviously you wanna do that, okay? But at the end of the day, if you can't, don't beat yourself up over it because it just goes out the drought, right? God's given us the fruit of the earth. Look, you don't think that God's not gonna take care of us in the last days when we can't afford all this, you know, super fancy, all these vitamins, you know? You know, there's this Joe Rogan guy, and he backs this vitamin called Onnit, O-N-N-I-T. Okay, mental clarity, it's gonna help you out, it's gonna help you out. You know what, that's $40 a bottle. Go to Fred Meyer, it's almost $50 a bottle. And you know what you can do? You can work in your oils, you can work in that raw honey, you know, the meat, salt, sugar, have some balance and serve God, and you will be far better off than all of that stuff. I hope I'm not offending anybody here, but hopefully I'm helping you out. If you're subscribed to Onnit or any of these things where you're paying a lot of money, you know, to get these vitamins or whatever, look, you can save yourself some money and just follow the wisdom that I told you today, right? Balance, that's gonna help you far more than all of that stuff. Serve God, learn wisdom, use knowledge, that is good for your flesh. And last but not least, stop, or don't be worrying about the things that are coming. Understand them and understand that Jesus will fulfill that righteous anger that we have against the, you know, the wicked forces that are out there. You know, we're gonna get that satisfaction one day. It's gonna come, it's gonna happen. We will see justice. We just have to wait a little bit, okay? You just have to understand the process, the real process, and you will be healthy. I believe you will be able to avoid these things. I think if my dad would have known this when he was 30, we wouldn't even be talking about this situation right now. Wouldn't have had to go through that, okay? He wouldn't have had to go through that. It's worse for him than me, right? Could you imagine the last seven years of your life, you have no idea who anyone is around you. The only thing you know is your name. Terrifying, right? And look, I believe I've got the answers to help us not go down that road, okay? So hopefully this was a help. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Thank you again so much, Lord, for the wisdom that you provide us out of your book and just pray that you'd help us to live by these, Lord, and to use these things and to seek balance with our food, Lord, and to not be obsessed about it and to continue to serve you because we understand that your word says it's good for our flesh, and to focus also, Lord, on the positive things and the fact that you're coming back and you will solve all the world's problems. That way we may not have heart failure and different issues like that. We just pray for the fellowship after the service, Lord. Please bring us back safely tonight. In Jesus' name, I pray, amen. All right, well, let's grab those hymn books. One final time this morning, we'll turn to song number 167, All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name. 167, All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name, 167.