A Biblical Perspective on Eating, Dieting, and Gluttony (pt-1)

of gluttony. What does the Bible say about food? What does the Bible say about diets?

What does the Bible say about overeating, under eating, binging, purging, anorexia, bulimia, all kinds of those issues.

What does the Bible say? In the old days, this topic was called one of the seven, what?

Deadly sins. Why was it called that, by the way? Because if you ate too much, you would die.

That's true. But why was it called a deadly sin, one of the seven deadly sins?

Anyone? Yes, Frank? Idolizing food? Okay. It's good logic, but not quite.

It is bad to idolize food. That's part of gluttony. Yes, Luke? You're not using your body wisely.

That'd be one of the seven deadly sins. That's good logic. That's right from 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 19 and 20.

But sadly, Luke, no, that's not the right answer. Good try though, buddy.

Bruce? No, there are six things that the

Lord hates, yea, even seven. There's that kind of cadence where the writer in poetry says there's three things that are great.

No, there's four in a way that brings out something. And so is that one of the seven deadly sins there that God hates?

No, that's not why it's listed, but that's another good guess. Somebody besides a pastor? Seven deadly sins.

Matter of fact, if they are deadly, then why don't we ever hear preaching about it? And certainly what we aren't going to do tonight is somehow equate if someone is overweight, they're automatically a glutton.

If someone is fat, they're not necessarily a glutton. Skinny people can be gluttons. Overweight people can have problems with thyroids, all kinds of other medical issues.

And so as we learn tonight about this topic, one of the things we want to do is not try to find somebody in the congregation who we think, well, they've got the problem and now that I've learned about this issue,

I'll minister to them. We don't want to do that. We want to find out what the

Bible teaches so we can love each other. And if we are gluttonous, fat or thin, we don't want to do that.

And I think maybe next Sunday night we'll have to have a pot Providence dessert. But before you laugh, maybe some kind of veggies and fruit only pot

Providence kind of thing for dessert. We'll see. But the issue is always the heart. Back to this whole topic, though.

Why seven deadly sins? What are the seven deadly sins? Where do they come from? By the way, let's see if we can name them first.

Who knows the seven deadly sins? Avarice. Good. You know what

Avarice means? Sounds great, though. Avarice just rolls off the tongue.

Avarice. Avarice is greed. That's right. It's an insatiable desire for wealth or things.

That's Avarice. That's one of them. Sloth. Good. That's another one. Pride. Good.

Gluttony. Excellent. Promote that man. Then he'd have my job.

Envy. Impurity are the other ones to make the seven. So pride, anger, envy, impurity, gluttony, slothfulness and Avarice are insatiable desire for wealth.

Those are what were called the seven deadly sins. Not in the Bible, not in the Old Testament, not in the

New Testament, but around the fourth or fifth century. These seven deadly sins came about.

Gregory the Great described gluttony as too much, too delicately, too greedily and too soon.

And so right around that time frame, the kind of precursor to the Roman Catholic Church and certainly

Rome since then has come up with these seven deadly sins. So it's more of a Roman Catholic origin.

We find out about seven deadly sins in Dante's Purgatory. It would follow those seven deadly sins.

Chaucer writes about gluttony in the Parson's Tale. Marlow writes about gluttony in Dr.

Faustus. It was written a lot. It was written often, written about often in older days, but these days we don't hear about it much.

And so tonight we want to look at what does the Bible say about gluttony, eating, dieting, etc.

By the way, who has heard a sermon on eating gluttony or any of these kind of topics with eating and food?

Not many. How many times do we eat a day and we don't even know how to eat Christianly?

Is that a word? It is now. How do Christians eat? Should Christians eat differently than unbelievers?

Should they think about things differently? Should they diet in the same way that unbelievers diet? Should they fast?

Should they shop at Shaw's? I mean, these are questions that need to be answered tonight. And if they aren't answered tonight, we'll answer them next

Sunday night. And so I think it's going to take a while if you're looking for brute exegetical exposition.

Tonight's going to be more of a background as we dig into the Bible slowly but surely. Now these sins were called deadly to the

Roman Catholic Church. And every other sin could be put under these categories because if you started to go overboard in one of these areas, it could quickly slide into other areas.

And these seven deadly sins were venial sins or mortal sins, do you think? Mortal sins.

By the way, for Protestants, could you please name me the mortal sins versus the venial sins? Which sins are mortal?

Which ones will cause you, if they are unforgiven, if you commit this kind of sin without Christ forgiving you based on His work at Calvary and His resurrection, that would cause you to go to hell forever and ever?

What sins might those be? Are there any for the Christian? For the Protestant? Pardon me?

Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit? Anyone else? Unbelief? How about every sin and any sin is mortal, right?

James chapter 2 verse 10 makes it very clear that when we sin against God's law, we are not only sinning against His law, but we are sinning against the lawgiver, the

King. And so it's like taking not a BB gun, shooting it through the window and having a little hole there, countersunk almost on the back.

But it's like taking a sledgehammer to a mirror when you go to Filene's and try on clothes.

And I know some of you probably would like to do that. By the way, they have the worst lighting in some of these stores when you try on clothes.

I try on these clothes and think, boy, it's bad. But anyway, it's like smashing that mirror when we have one sin against God.

One sin will keep you out of heaven if you have one unforgiven sin. That's why it's so important for us as Protestants to realize that when

God justifies us, he forgives our sins past, present and future.

And we don't have to go around like I did for many years thinking, is there a sin tonight that I have not confessed before God?

Because if I die in my sleep with an unconvinced sin, I will go straight to hell. And I don't know if you've been under that kind of system as well, but it's very, very difficult.

So fourth and fifth century, we have a lot of attention to gluttony and monks began to write about gluttony.

Very interesting because they would say these seven deadly sins would beget daughter sins.

For instance, Gregory said that gluttony propagates foolish mirth, uncleanness, babbling and dullness of mind.

So they were deadly because they would spawn off into something else. They would regenerate into other forms of sin.

That's why they were called mortal. In the case of gluttony, one writer says, a person who occasionally eats more than is necessary or appropriate has committed only a venial sin, becoming so taken by the pleasure of gluttony that the delights of the palate turn one away from God and his commandments is to commit a moral mortal sin.

Gluttony is deadly when a person makes a God of the belly. Now, how would we define gluttony?

Well, some monks did and you tell me if you think these are right or wrong. And so I'm going to tell you these six things that people showed as evidences of gluttony and you tell me if you think that would be right or wrong.

I'm going to say how many people think it's right. You can just raise your hand. What is gluttony? An evidence of gluttony is gorging ourselves and not savoring a reasonable amount of food.

How many people would think that is gluttony? I'm not going to write it down or count that Scott Fair's job.

That's why it sits in the back. Oh, here we go. Now, according to the monks.

Evergrace, Cassian, Gregory and Thomas Aquinas, if we put these together, better be careful eating at any other time than the appointed hour.

Is that gluttony? Of course, we don't think it's gluttony because we like to snack.

That's easy. And of course, remember, you're back with these monks who would eat and eat only certain amounts at certain times and they would be very austere in their lifestyle.

Third evidence of gluttony, according to some of these monks back in the day, anticipating eating with preoccupied, eager longing.

Kind of like about 12 o 'clock on Sunday morning, lunch, they've been dropped would just be quiet lunch.

Is this do you think that's gluttony? No one. OK, for eating excessively costly foods.

Is that gluttony? OK, we have one over here. I see that hand. Five, seeking after delicacies.

You have food and you're sitting there eating. But as you're eating, you're talking about all the other foods that you wish you had, the escargot and the sushi and the everything else.

OK, we have a little bit more here. Good. And lastly, number six, paying too much attention to food.

I think that's a little bit easier. All right. Well, that's what the monks thought. I wonder what the Bible says. Well, before we get to that, we have to kind of do this fun stuff because this is an amazing topic.

I've just been so waiting to preach the sermon tonight. And now I just want to kind of slow down. This this initial stuff before we get to the

Bible is the appetizer. OK, Russian Bishop Ignatius Brian Chanevo said, quote,

Wise temperance of the stomach is a door to all the virtues. Restrain the stomach and you will enter paradise.

But if you please and pamper your stomach, you will hurl yourself over the precipice of bodily impurity into the fire of wrath and fury.

You will coarsen and darken your mind. And in this way, you will ruin your powers of attention and self -control, your sobriety and vigilance.

Nice. There's another hand that went. Now, certainly, gluttony is much easier to engage in in times of prosperity.

Would you grant that much in the old days if you didn't have a lot? It was difficult to gorge yourselves, and we'll get to this passage soon enough.

But Deuteronomy 21 says, if your son is a glutton, you can take him and stone him. All kinds of disobedience, but he could literally eat you out of house and home.

Your economic viability could suffer because your son ate all of your grain.

And so it's a big deal. What do you think about this statement by Orson Welles?

Gluttony is not a secret vice. True, false, sometimes true.

Gluttony is not a secret vice. Sometimes, all right.

In one of Christianity Today's articles of years ago called To Hell on a

Cream Puff, I kid you not, Frederica Matthews Green said, the gluttonous impulse is a sign of disharmony with God's provision and creation, and it can disrupt the spiritual lives of people of every size.

External dimensions are no predictor of internal rebellion. And I think that's right.

Certainly, there are people who are very overweight, and they're a thousand pounds, and they do their thousand pounds because they eat.

That's not secret, but it's an internal issue. What I want to talk about tonight is gluttony, eating food and dieting from a

Christian perspective, because I think we should think about it properly because we deal with food all the time.

Let me give you some definitions of gluttony before we talk about some truths. I think simply it would be called excessive eating.

That's a good definition. Immoderate consumption of food. I looked at the 1870 to 1930 international thesaurus, and I look at the nouns that were used for the word gluttony, the synonyms.

Very enlightening. Greed, voracity, gastronomy, idiocy, glossity, gluttony, guzzle, pantophagy, gourmandizer, cormorant, gourmand, gourmet, and this is literally in here, so I didn't make it up, hog.

The verbs for gourmandize are the verb form of the noun glutton.

Gorge, over gorge oneselves, overeat, glut, satiate, engorge, eat one's fill.

Now this is all in here. Cram, stuff, guttle, guzzle, bolt, devour, gobble up, and gulp.

In an article called gluttony, love at first bite in the US Catholic in 1987,

Kenneth Wintert said people don't always have rotund bodies to show for it, but the anorexic and bulimic, the gourmet and the chronic dieter are all obsessed with food.

And I think that's going to play into what we're going to talk about a little bit tonight and next week. How should we work on this for an outline?

Let's just talk about some truths regarding food, eating, and what the Bible says about gluttony.

So if you're taking notes, this is outline point number one, just some simple truths. Outline point number one, truths about food and eating.

Number one, weight is a huge issue in the United States and in local churches. No pun intended, but it's a big deal how much people weigh.

It is an issue in the local church and in society. Did you know between the ages of 20 and 50, you will spend 20 ,000 hours over 800 days eating food.

People do lunch together, they have TV dinners, they have fast food drive up windows, they have tailgate parties.

And out of all that, every day approximately 65 million Americans are dieting.

And did you know the sales of diet books outrank all other books on the market except for the

Bible? Physically, it is an issue.

Now you can study your own, but nutrition expert Walter Willett said, next to whether you smoke, the number that stares up at you from the bathroom scale is the most important measure of your future health, how much you weigh.

In the book, Born Again Bodies, Flesh and Spirit in American Christianity, Marie Griffith said, 16 % of American kids are obese.

11 % of high school students have an eating disorder, anorexia or bulimia. Morgan Spurlock in his book said 21 % of Americans are medically obese.

We spend $17 billion a year treating high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, colon cancer, and diabetes, which are obesity related diseases.

I found it interesting that our airline tickets go up. He said, quote, our extra girth creates a drag on planes and the drag requires more fuel and the fuel requires airlines to bump up the cost of our ticket.

Also, that extra plane fuel spews about an extra 3 .8 million extra tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year.

So we have to spend more on fuel for airplanes because people are getting bigger and bigger. Now, for those of you that are crying out, please get to the

Bible. I just want to keep going a little bit more. I'm making my case.

Spurlock reports obesity began rising about 30 years ago.

What is different between 1975 and now? Well, I think we want to talk about that tonight.

Dr. Flagle of the National Center for Health said the general population has gained 7 to 10 pounds over the last 20 years.

People are just gaining weight. Physically, there's an issue with overweight people in the church, but also spiritually, it's an issue as well.

Do we, can Christians get caught up in the God of thinness, vanities, vanity of our bodies?

When you are obsessed with food, how can you obey the first commandment, love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? One lady said, if a person obsesses over food, he's unable to honor

God the way that he should. Constantly thinking and thinking about food. Outline point number two, there are code words for sin these days, aren't there?

We have code words all the time. And I found this week in all places, the

Weekly Standard Magazine. Who can tell me what a Weekly Standard Magazine is? Yeah, Lewis?

It's just a news magazine, and this is the title of the article, The Sin We Stomach Best. Of the seven deadly sins, gluttony is the only one we commit publicly for honor.

For example, the Glutton Bowl number one aired on Fox. Contestants were challenged to eat bowls of mayonnaise, sticks of butter, and the only rule was, what goes down must stay down.

The winner, Kobayashi, weighed 130 pounds, received 25 ,000 after besting his opponents in the final round eating cow brains.

By the way, he's also the hot dog eating champion as well, when he was eating 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

I found some other ones, Bill Simons, a .k .a. El Wingador, consumed 137 chicken wings in a half an hour.

It's just like Isaiah. Instead of calling evil evil, we call evil good and good evil.

Oh, that's great. I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records. If you go to guinness .com or whatever it is, and you pull it up, you can see gastronomic feats.

Eagle's Deli located in Beacon Street in Boston, there's the Riley Burger, six eight -ounce patties, three pounds of beef, 12 slices of cheese, a five -pound bag of fries, all for 25 bucks, but you get free soda.

Two and a half hours you eat it, it's free. And then lastly, well, okay, not lastly, the most oysters eaten in three minutes, 187 oysters, a guy from Norway.

Well, you got to figure that's what happened. They just slip right down, those oysters. Chicago Chop House, here's what you have to do to be having your picture on the wall there.

Bowl of Caesar salad, 64 -ounce porterhouse steak, 48 -ounce lobster tail in its entirety, another 48 -ounce porterhouse, then finally three scoops of ice cream, two and a half hours, get your face up there.

Can you imagine what a gourmandizer that guy is? But we don't talk about gluttony much.

People in society will because there are issues with obesity and there are issues with poor health, but is this the primary reason why gluttony is wrong?

Answer, well, of course not, because if the Bible teaches gluttony is wrong, then we want to make sure we understand it.

And I think Virginia Owens in Christianity Today is right. While Christians generally hold the line against alcoholism, smoking, and sexual promiscuity, they have tacitly agreed to strike gluttony from the list of seven deadly sins.

People overeat, why? Not because they're sinning, but because of their childhood and what happened to them when they were kids.

Number three, this is a quick one because it's going to come later. Christians should look at dieting and eating different than unbelievers.

Should you look at eating differently? Absolutely. Who can give me a reason why? We can eat for the glory of God.

They eat for self and all kinds of other reasons. We know

God gave us that food directly through secondary means. Give us this day our daily bread.

By the way, do you think that's why we have to eat so often? Because then we get the opportunity to thank

God over and over and over. How many times do you get to thank God per day? Lots, but you should remember at least those times to eat.

Luke, sorry? Well, I think

I forgot my original question. What was my original question? I don't think it had to do with that, son, but I'm glad you're listening.

By the way, Luke takes great notes and then gives them to me every Sunday morning and every

Sunday night. And if you all men and women don't know it, if you have children, they listen.

They might not get everything, but your children listen. And so I want to encourage you to bring your children to sit underneath the preaching of the word of God.

All right, let's do this, and then we better get into the text. Next point, uniquely Christian diet programs are largely ludicrous.

Christian diet programs are largely ludicrous. And I think the answer is yes.

Boy, here we go. Christians will buy or do anything as long as it's got the word

Christian on it. In my day, Christian was a noun, not an adjective, but okay, here we got all the

Christian diet programs. It all started back with Charlie Shed's 1957, pray your weight away.

And if you were slender, you had self -discipline and self -control. And if you were fat, you were decadent and you were rebellious.

Didn't go over too well. But Deborah Pierce wrote a book called

I prayed myself slim. Joan Cavanaugh wrote more of Jesus, less of me.

I like that one. Patricia Kreml wrote slim for him.

That's going to be our potlucks by the way, when they're just fruit and just vegetables, slim for him pot providences.

We have the way down workshop, which I'll talk about later. Cavanaugh of more of Jesus, less of me said being fat is basically a sign that something is seriously wrong.

It is a big coverup. And when we get serious about losing up our cover, we will need a big exposure. We'll have to admit that we need help and we'll have to expose our hidden faults to the healing power of God.

Really? They have then developed something called the 3D program.

And 3D was like Weight Watchers, except for Christians. First place, they kind of had an alternative to secular weight loss.

Here's what you would do at first place. Weekly meeting, encouragement, prayer, Bible reading, scripture, memory,

Bible study, live it, diet, record intake of food and exercise. Well, how about Coyle who founded

Overeaters Victorious? That's a good one. How about willpower?

Why is it called willpower? My will surrendered to God's power. That's another one. How about Old Testament diets?

This is big. This is really big. If you see a diet program that basically makes you have to eat just what the

Old Testament says, what should you do? Should you? Can you? If you want to just eat

Ezekiel 4 -7 bread your whole life, can you do that? That's fine. Are you more godly if you do?

Do you have to eat only what the Old Testament says? I found one book called Making Jesus Lord of the Fork. And here's what

Betty Miller said, are the approved foods listed in the Bible. Here you go.

And she's got verses for each one. How convenient. Barley, Ruth 2 -23.

Bread, Luke 22. Butter, Isaiah 7 -22. Corn, cheese, dates, eggs, figs, fruits, parenthesis, all, close parenthesis.

Herbs, honey, beef, fish, lamb, poultry, venison, milk, nuts, olives, olive oils, salt, and wheat.

Why don't you turn your Bible to Deuteronomy chapter 14 and let me give you another Pastor Abendroth diet program from Deuteronomy 14.

If you really want to go for this and you want to think you're Israel, the church is

Israel, and you want to be underneath the civil commands, you could just go wild with Christian diets.

And most of them that I have found somehow go back to the Old Testament. And so just for an example,

I will read this, but as I read it, I want you to thank God that you don't have to be under this kind of law anymore.

You're not under Mosaic law. Mosaic law was given by God through Moses on Sinai for Israel for a time.

Deuteronomy 14 -1, you're the sons of the Lord your God. Shall not cut yourself nor shave your forehead for the sake of the dead.

Says you're holy. Verse 2. Verse 3, you shall not eat any detestable thing.

I'd go for that. How about you? Sounds good so far. These are the animals which you may eat.

The ox, the sheep, the goat, the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.

Catch it if you can. Any animal. That's why they were so thin back then. What are you going to have for supper tonight?

Oh, an ibex. All right. I have to take a drink here.

And the list goes on and on and on down to verse 12. Don't eat the eagle, the vulture, the buzzard, the red kite, the falcon, ravens, etc.,

etc. By the way, why did God give them that list? Was it really primarily an issue of health or was it something else?

Was it good that you didn't eat pork if you were a Jew and you didn't get some kind of trigonosis? Was that a good byproduct?

Absolutely. But the real issue with these food laws and the Mosaic law was that these people, the

Israelites, were called by God Himself, Yahweh the Lord, and they were to be different in the way they cut their hair, the way they treated their wives, the way they worshiped

God, and the way they ate their food. And so is it good not to eat pork if there's trigonosis in there?

Yes, but there was a bigger reason, and that's because all the Hittites and all the Jebusites and everyone else ate the pork, and God said, you know what?

You are going to be peculiar. You will just do things differently. And so don't let anyone ever...

That's when I went down to the wild oats or something place, and they've got all these kind of the maker's diet. And I'll tell you where they go.

They go right back to the Old Testament and don't fall for it. If you want to eat no meat and be a vegetarian, fine.

If you want to be a vegan, don't invite me over for dinner, but you can do whatever you want. But you're not more spiritual because you do it.

By the way, we have people right down that street, 110, where the headquarters right down there that says if you eat certain kinds of food, you are in fact more holy.

That is not true, and we're going to see that in 1 Timothy very soon. I found the Genesis diet.

What kind of foods do you think you'd eat if you were on the Genesis diet? Pardon me?

No apples. I found a book about Old Testament eating, what the

Bible says about healthy living, all Old Testament. Eating by the book, what the Bible says about food, fat, fitness, and faith, right to the

Old Testament dietary laws. I found believer size.

We have aerobics for Christians, faithfully fit, love hunger action plan, devotions for dieters,

Francis Hunter's God's answer to fat, CS Lovett's help Lord, the devil wants me fat.

Praise aerobics. Jim tear wrote, fed up with fat. 1995 health begins with him.

My favorite one of all. Jesus is the way W E I G H. Jesus is the way

I like that one better than you did. We have PETA going around saying Jesus was a vegetarian and you should eat only what

Jesus eats. By the way, if that's your paradigm of hermeneutics, what would Jesus do? And if Jesus would not eat sugar and processed foods because they were didn't exist.

Therefore, the writer says you shouldn't eat processed foods and everything else that we have today. It is just insane.

Found the hallelujah diet, a vegetarian plan based on Genesis one 29.

I will give you all the plants bearing seed everywhere on earth and every tree bearing fruit, and it shall be yours.

And Pat Robertson and Schuller say it's a good diet. Colbert entitles a book.

What would Jesus eat? And let's turn to first Timothy and find out, can we eat certain kinds of food or not?

What does the Bible say? You know what? Strike that. Let's go to Matt Mark chapter seven, because I want to ask this question.

Is food the real issue is food the problem, or is it what we do with the food and how we relate to it with our internal motives?

Is that really the issue? Because I believe that the Bible, this is the next point, condemns the ascetic view of food.

That is to say food is not the issue. Sanctification is not according to Colossians to touch, not taste.

Not. I think Gwen Shamblin's a heretic. I think she doesn't understand the

Trinity. I think she's a Jehovah's witness in disguise. I think she's a legalist. I think she takes the old Testament out of context, but she is right.

When she says the issue is not the food, it's how much you eat. Broken clocks, right?

Twice a day. What does the Bible say? Take a look at Mark chapter seven. And here we see

Jesus in verse 14. Cleanliness is not based on food.

There should be no diet ever in your life, except for health reasons. If the doctor says, don't eat salt, then fine.

I want you to live longer. So don't eat salt, but it's not a spiritual matter. I can't eat this food.

I can't eat that food. I can't eat fast food. I can't eat this food. It's never that because take a look at Mark chapter seven, verse 14.

This should also keep you away from all these kinds of diets from the old Testament. And after he called the multitude to him again, he began saying to them, listen to me, all of you and understand a pay attention.

You think Jesus is going to mean what he says he always does with this kind of wording, especially. And here comes the diagnosis.

Here comes Jesus's MRI, our CT scan of the person. There is nothing verse 15 outside the man, which can, which going into him can defile him.

But the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man is what

Jesus said. Just true. Or is it false? True.

Then how can Ellen G. White of the seventh day Adventist say, let not any of our ministers set an example, eating the flesh of meat.

How can she say God did not provide for the flesh of dead animals to compose the diet of man?

How can she say cheese is wholly unfit for food? How can she say egg should not be placed upon your table?

They are an injury to your children and a financial detriment to the

How can she say spices, butter, cheese, do the work of deranging the stomach and in feebling the intellect?

How can she say what man with the human heart could look into their eyes, the animals and willingly devour their flesh?

Jesus said, there is nothing outside of a man, which going into him can defile him.

But the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man verse 16. Let's skip that verse 17.

Most of the manuscripts don't have 1617. And when leaving the multitude, he had entered the house, his disciples questioned him about the parable.

Matthew, Peter said, could you explain this to us? Verse 18, he said to them, Are you so lacking understanding also?

Do you not understand that whatever goes into a man from the outside cannot defile him? Because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated.

Thus, he declared all foods clean. Whatever you want to eat, you can eat.

The issue is not the food goes into the stomach, into the mouth, into the stomach, out the digestive system and out doesn't do anything to you.

Verse 20. Here's the illustration. And he was saying that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man for from within out of the heart of men.

And this is where we'll go next week with the diet talk about our motives. Proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.

Look at all those plurals there. Lenski said Jesus reveals what a cesspool the human heart is.

All foods are clean. All hearts are unclean. Sinclair Ferguson said.

Verse 23. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.

The corruption that is universal heart, soul, mind and strength. Men are corrupted and out of corrupted hearts come.

What kind of speech? Corrupted speech.

All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man. Now, on the same note, let's go to first Timothy chapter four and expand it a little and ask the question.

Can you eat all kinds of food? Is there anything you should not eat? The Old Testament has its laws.

Ellen G. White has her laws. What should we eat and what shouldn't we eat? Is it okay to just have no carbohydrates?

What about the Atkins diet? What about the South Shore diet? What about the South Beach diet? I don't know what the South Shore diet is, but it sounds good.

What about all that? Well, certainly we can decide what food to eat and what we choose not to eat.

But right now, I'm trying to drive this point home. Food is not the issue. Food is not the issue.

Does God say it's okay to eat? First Timothy 4 .1. What kind of epistle is this?

Pastoral epistle. So who really needs to understand this kind of epistle? Pastors.

Is that all? Everybody needs to understand it. The pastors and the people. Almost got you.

I see a couple sleepers. I'm trying to lessen me more of him kind of thing. We're just working on it.

But the Spirit explicitly says, you can write it down, you can mark it, you can take it to the bank, in other words, that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

They will expressly or clearly fall away from the faith.

Paul has just said, be on guard for yourselves and the flock. The Holy Spirit's made you overseers to shepherd the flock.

After I leave, savage wolves will come. And here, if you look at the text there, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.

What does that mean? How are those doctrines of demons spoken of?

Verse two, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron.

Literally, boy, this is tough language. Literally, this is by hypocritical lie speakers. These people know better.

Their lives don't even do what they want. They preach and Satan is using them.

They speak falsely in hypocrisy and they have this seared, cauterized conscience. I used to sell cautery units.

They were called bovies back in the day and they were in the operating room. And when you cut someone open, you would imagine that there would just be blood everywhere.

When you cut their skin, you just think, you know, out comes their guts and there's just blood everywhere.

But there's just a few different spots where there are some capillaries and some veins and arteries are kind of all under.

And so you'd cut the person open. Remember the first time I was in surgery and I saw them take the scalpel out and they just made a cut about that long in someone.

And they told me ahead of time when I was getting trained, don't have your knees locked because when you see that, you could just easily go over.

And so I watched them and the guy didn't even think anything of it. He just took the scalpel, you know, scalpel, passed it over and it just kind of opened up.

I was ready for the blood. You know, I was ready for some kind of Mount Vesuvius. There's blood. You're going to cut somebody open and there's blood.

I didn't know what to think. And there's only a couple little bleeders in the skin.

And the doctor just took a little cautery unit, a bovie. It could have been a bard. It could have been a valley lab. It could have been an aspen and he just took it and he stepped on a little foot pedal or push the little button and just went.

Bleeding stopped, but you could see it was just kind of charcoal, kind of gross, gross, dissipated, just kind of cauterized goo.

How's that for a picture? Let's go have lunch. All foods are clean.

And here don't do that to me here.

The false teachers. Consciences are cauterized.

There's no nerve endings. There's nothing there working. There's no synapses to gap. They're just cauterized and they're the ones spouting doctrines of demons.

Verse three says, what's the particular demon doctrine? Go worship Satan in Santa in San Francisco with Anton LeVay.

Go over there and satanic Bible. Go to Salem, Massachusetts and do all that.

Become a Wiccan, a white Wiccan, but just a Wiccan. What is the doctrine of demons that are going to come into local churches in the end days?

Jesus is in God. No, Satan's much more subtle than that. And look at what happens.

What comes into the church? Men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods.

Don't eat that. Now look at what it says about food. And I like this. Which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

Eat the food, share the food, say, God, thank you for this food. Do a John Piper, where you can just say,

God, I can't believe you gave me these taste buds, these taste buds in my tongue. And I can taste bitter and I can taste salt and I can taste sweet.

And as I just take this filet to my mouth, I just say, Oh God, that you gave me this food and the means to buy it.

And I'm going to just dip it in that big thing of Heinz ketchup. No strike that. And, uh, I'm just going to take it and eat it and go,

God, you gave me that food to eat. It's good. False teachers are going to come around like Ellen G.

White and say eggs. No meat. No roast beef. No. They forbid marriage and they advocate abstaining from foods, which

God has created. Jesus declares all food clean.

Don't let anybody else say anything different. So with Christian dieting, it's not a matter of, and I think you all know it because you've been here for quite a while.

It's not a matter of which foods we can eat or which foods we have to say no to outside of the medical issue of if you've got diabetes or something like that.

Is that true? Whether you eat our drink, do all for the glory of God. And it's not a matter of which foods we can eat and which ones we can't.

Everything created by God is good. Nothing to be rejected. Verse four, if it is received with gratitude.

Well, what about Christian diets? What about gluttony? How do I know if I'm a glutton or not?

What about self -control? What about fasting? These are all things we're going to have to talk about next week because time has escaped us.

I also will talk about next week exercise and bodily exercise, true or false, does profit you.

It does profit you. And so we'll talk about things that aren't even really in my realm about if you want to eat more food, then don't eat more processed food because you're going to have to pay the price and all kinds of other things.

And I think you'll be encouraged and we can talk a lot about self -control as well. Before I stop, are there any questions so far?

Bruce, are we still going to have our potluck dinners? Well, sure, because we're going to have praiser sizes right afterwards.

Why do you think we have these lines on the floor? If you think they're simply for Iwana, you have another thing coming.

Jumping jacks for the Lord. We're going to have the three -legged sack race. We're going to have all kinds of things like that.

So what we want to do, how can I leave you now? Well, here's how I will leave you. When you go home to eat tonight, if you go home and eat, you want to just say, there is an aspect of self -control that we'll get to sooner or later.

And you'll say to yourself, this food God has given me, thank you for the food. I never thought about this till today.

I was out and just thinking, I thought to myself, have I ever prayed this prayer before I have eaten?

Have you? Dear Lord, thank you for this food. Bless it to our bodies. You're so generous.

In Jesus name, amen. Have you prayed that prayer? Something close? Have you ever prayed this?

Lord, thank you for the food. I appreciate that it's daily provision. People centuries ago were not given food on a regular basis like we have.

And we just have a pantry even. And Lord help my taste buds, especially to, to taste the food.

So I can just say, God, you're a God of diversity and pleasure, and God, every good thing comes from you.

Have you ever prayed that way? Have you ever prayed this way? God, thank you for the food. May it nourish our bodies.

May it protect us from any kind of problems and, you know, getting hurt.

Thank you for my taste buds and Lord help me not to overdo it when I eat and become gluttonous as I eat.

Have you ever prayed that? I never prayed that. I know I've become gluttonous.

I know Proverbs 23 talks about gluttony. I know they said to Jesus, boy, that guy hangs out with gluttons.

I know gluttony is a big deal, but I think that would probably be a good prayer. Lord help me just eat the right amount.

So I don't overdo it, but help me to enjoy this food. All right.

Any other questions before John, a teacher who forbids marriage?

Uh, I can't think of a teacher, but I can think of the shakers. Catholic church for their priests.

Uh, the, you know, any kind of cults like shakers where you can't have be married and you can have no kind of intimacy, they don't stick around for too long.

They kind of die out by default. Uh, they make good furniture, but that's about it. Um, okay.

If you have questions about specific diets, food, what about this scenario?

What about that scenario? What about acts 10? What about acts 15 email me? Because I think this is going to turn into, it's known as the church of the two part, but this will probably be three parts because I want to look at food.

Was food an issue in the garden? Did Jesus feed the 5 ,000?

Did Jesus make breakfast for the disciples on the beach? Now that food's going to be good.

I think that was food made out of nothing that wasn't even affected by the fall.

Can you imagine how good our food tastes now? But it's affected by the curse. Just like looking at the grand

Canyon, you go, wow, and it's beautiful, but nature sings in a minor key. And can men, can you imagine with our taste buds and the food we eat that's been affected by the fall to how good was it when

Jesus said, as, as MacArthur would always teach, how does Jesus make breakfast with fish and bread breakfast?

Not affected by the fall because he didn't pick up any fish. He just fed them. I bet you that was a good fish and bread breakfast.

I can just smell it on the beach camping. So please give me your questions right now.

I'm just putting the basics down the building blocks. America's obsessed with dieting. Christians need to think about it properly.

But the first step of thinking about it properly is you can eat any food you want. It's not a matter of being holy or unholy.

And don't let anybody tell you any different. If you can't eat certain foods because the doctor says so fine.

I'm with you there, but it's not a spiritual issue directly, indirectly. It's spiritual because we want to take care of the bodies of God has given us as temples.

True. I want to stick around. So let's just close. Now we went over a little bit and we'll just stand and sing the doxology.

Let's just do that now. Let's just please stand where we are and we'll sing the doxology. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

And maybe the other thing you could do with prayers. Did you know the Jews would pray before the meal and then they would pray?