Are you codependent?

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle
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Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'"
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In short, if you like smooth, watered down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.
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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.
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Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is
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Mike Abendroth, and we are glad to have an expanded audience. Todd Friel has been promoting the show on Wretched Radio, and we've gotten lots of emails from you wretched folks.
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Is that proper to say? I think that's right from Romans chapter seven. And today, especially for my friends at Wretched Radio, we are going to talk about food.
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What can a Christian eat? How should a Christian eat? What foods are proper to eat?
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Which foods are improper to eat? And my goal is for you, it's almost lunchtime here in the studio in West Boylston, Massachusetts.
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My goal for you is for you to have a big, juicy, bloody steak by the end of the show that you're gonna wanna have to go eat a steak.
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This is gonna be an ad for dead cow. That's basically what this is gonna be. All right, here's what we're going to do.
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Christianity Today, November, 2010, has a cover story, and that cover story, it has a brocc, it has a cauliflower.
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It looks like a brain. And it says, eat, pray, think, returning integrity to the act of eating.
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And then inside, cover story, we've got something called a feast fit for the king, subtitled,
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Returning the Growing Fields and Kitchen Table to God. So the growing fields and the kitchen table are not close to God or not near God.
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And now we've got to return those by Leslie Leland Fields. Leslie Leland Fields.
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And I don't know if Leland is her maiden name or Leland is her middle name. It's not for me to judge, although I do not see a hyphen there.
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A feast fit for the king. Now, what we have in Christianity Today is basically a return to Hinduism with some
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Buddhist flavors. We are in a situation in society today, especially among Christians, that we're moving,
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I think, backwards when it comes to food and eating and what the Bible says.
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I don't think we're moving forward. And this is a case in point. What should you eat?
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Is it okay for you to eat pork? Is it okay for you to eat dog?
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Is it okay for you to eat pigeon? Is it okay for you to eat broccoli?
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What does the Bible say about eating? Now, it's interesting. Towards the end of this article, it seems like she turns about face and she does say that the real issue, let me quote it,
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I worry the food movement and its calls to action will divert us from our real need, a transformed heart.
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And she does talk about people that are so into food that they cause factions in the local church and that they are concerned about legalism, that they give trouble to the local church.
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And so I'm glad she says that. But for most of the article, it's almost like she betrays what she really thinks at the end.
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So let me start off with the beginning. If you've never tuned into No Compromise Radio, we like to have biblical topics promoted or discussed in a provocative way.
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And we like to keep it in that order. So always biblical, always controversial, or always provocative and always in that order. And so I just find this fascinating because we spend a lot of time in Santa Cruz.
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My wife is from Santa Cruz. And of course, the vegans and the pure food people are very big there.
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And so here's what it says. It's potluck Sunday. I stand near the end of a long line wondering what will be left by the time
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I get to the front. Grateful that I'm not particularly hungry. Well, we call ours Pot Providence.
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I have some idea of what the offerings will be. Hot dogs wrapped in white buns, cut in half for the more delicate appetites.
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Buckets of dry through chicken anchoring the table. Neon orange cheese doodles will inevitably show up somewhere near the salads.
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The greenest item will be several bowls of lime jello with fruit suspended in it, which
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I've decided is to signal it's in obvious function as food. So she's going to potluck.
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By the way, she lives in Kodiak, Alaska. So maybe she should try a church in San Francisco.
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It's quite different there. And here's what the article goes on to say. We pray our thanks over this smorgasbord of chemical wizardry and marketing genius.
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Ask that it would strengthen our bodies, something I believe we'll take by an intervention, and invite
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Jesus to be among us as we eat. Now, here's the question.
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I don't know if you've ever asked such a question. I don't think I've asked such a question. And I think it's probably to sell articles and to elicit a point.
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Maybe she's trying to be provocative. When we lift our heads, I consider this last request and wonder, surveying the tables, what would
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Jesus put on his plate? Would Jesus eat lime jello and cheese doodles?
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Would he care that the chicken in the bucket came from cages where the birds were likely fed their own recycled excrement?
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Would he eat that barbecued pork that came from massive pig farms that pollute the water, soil, and air?
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Would he stand, as I do, filled with guilt, dread, and judgment before this culinary minefield?
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So I guess we now have to ask the question, would Jesus eat lime jello? I am quite positive that if somehow
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Jesus could be on the earth now between his first coming and second, we know that's an impossibility.
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But if he were on earth or when he was on earth, when he went to someone's home, he was polite and he ate what was put in front of him.
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That's exactly what he did. And if you would feed him lime jello, I'm sure he would have eaten lime jello.
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I'm sure they didn't have such a thing. But this is all driving us back to what does the
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Bible say? Not what do vegans say? Not what do the purists say? Not what does
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Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation say? Not what does Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma say?
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Not what Nicolette Hahn's, Nimmin's Righteous Porkchop say? Our Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Miracle say?
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Our Marion Nestle's Food Politics say? Our Jonathan Safran Foe's Eating Animals say?
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It doesn't matter what any of those folks say. I guess if they say things that mirror scripture, we might like that.
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But let me just go to Jesus's words and let's ask the question and then answer it.
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What is the right thinking for you, the Christian, when it comes to food? After he called the crowd to himself again,
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Mark chapter seven, he began saying to them, listen to me, all of you, and understand.
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There is nothing outside the man which can defile him if it goes into him.
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But the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man.
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So here's the question. If you have some food that goes into you, into your stomach and then is eliminated, does that make you unclean?
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Actually, it says in verse 19 of Mark chapter seven, because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated.
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Parenthetically, the writer of Mark says, thus he declared all foods clean.
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And Jesus was saying, that which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.
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For from within, out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, these are all plurals there, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.
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All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.
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And so when it comes to food, you can eat whatever you'd like to eat.
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What do you need to do when it comes to this movement? I want you to try to think biblically.
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I don't think you need to go out and become a vegan. Now, if you want to buy your own food, harvest your own food, eat organic, you can do whatever you'd like.
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I think it's gonna cost you more time and money. But I want to warn you, and here's my warning.
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The body of Christ is unified by what Jesus did, both his life and death, confirmed by the resurrection.
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And there are many things that could splinter the local church. For instance, what can splinter a local church?
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Well, anything can split a local church when their focus is off Jesus. When you look at 1
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Peter 1, fix your hope completely. When you think of Hebrews 12, fix your eyes on Jesus.
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When you take your eyes off of Jesus and how his reconciling death unites us, then you're going to have problems.
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And so if you say, well, you know, I like to hang out with all the other white people at the church. I like to hang out with all the other black people at the church.
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I like to hang out with all the other Puerto Ricans at the church. I like to hang out with all the other homeschoolers at the church.
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I like to hang out with all the other public schoolers at the church. I like to hang out with all those that have
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SUVs at the church. I'd like to hang out with those who use King James only at the church. I'd like to hang out with those who like rock and roll at the church.
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I'd like to hang out with those who do soccer on Sunday, instead of going to church, I hang out with those people on Saturday night church.
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See what happens? We become fractured, splintered, and so there's a real danger that Christians can be seduced into, and that is, this is how we do things.
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And we are so pro -animal rights that we forget about the local body.
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Now if you want to go to the Organic Garden Cafe in Boston, you can do that if you'd like, but your unity ought not to come from other people who live organic lives and who are unregenerate and hate
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Jesus and who are going to die and go to hell unless they repent. That's not where you're going to get your unity.
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The Organic Cafe says, by embracing the idea of oneness, the cafe's mission is to honor the earth, farmers, and ourselves through our use of pure organic ingredients.
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So here's my warning. Warning one, don't let anybody tell you what kind of food you can't eat or can eat in order to please the
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Lord, because the real problem isn't what you put in your mouth. That's not the problem. The problem is your sinful heart, and we have acceptance in God's eyes.
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We have full acceptance. We are loved as much as Jesus is loved by the Father because we are in Christ and we are mystically united.
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We have a communion with Christ Jesus to the extent that He loves us with an everlasting love and there's nothing you can eat, nothing that you don't eat, nothing that you refuse to eat, nothing that you partake of, will separate you from that love of God in Christ Jesus, and that's
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Romans chapter 8. And so here I'll say it again on No Compromise Radio, NoCompromiseRadio .com.
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You can write us at info at No Compromise Radio. You can also send us gift certificates from Omaha Steakhouse to the same address.
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If you'd like to eat organic and waste your money, fine. If you'd like to eat non -organic, fine.
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Nobody's better because they do one thing or another. Here it says in this article in Christianity Today, while Christians rightly reject the
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Eastern and New Age pantheism that often informs the world as one, we are hard -pressed to ignore the observable fact that what's done upstream has downstream effects.
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An environmental version, an environmental version of many parts one body. Well, let's make sure we don't take
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Ephesians 4 language, and specifically 1 Corinthians chapter 12 language, and then place that over the rubric of eating organic and eating, you know, the right kinds of foods.
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Leslie Leland Fields, I think, does a great service to the Christian community because she lays this out in such a way that all
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Christians should look at that and say, I don't know what she's talking about. She's being inconsistent and we ought to run from such a new fad.
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Barbara Kingsolver says, when we pull packages of deep fried chicken fingers, our cans of cheese spray off the grocery shelf, those are all, you know, that's low hanging fruit for these folks.
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Oh, cheese whiz, you know, Velveeta, as we say here in New England. We are entitled to eat because they make us happy.
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We don't recognize the source of the food nor consider its cost to workers, farmers, or the environment.
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We only see the pieced, processed, and packaged final product.
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Well, I don't like chicken fingers, you know, they've got the beaks and the feet and all these kind of things in them.
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I don't like them really, but maybe this afternoon in honor of a problem solver, what's her name again, Kingsolver, that I might go have some
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Jonathan Safran Fowler in eating animals saids, so what kind of crime is animal agriculture, which uses 756 million tons of grain and corn per year, much more than enough to adequately feed 1 .4
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billion humans who are living in dire poverty. So here's what he says, why waste all the food feeding it to animals when you could just feed it to people?
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You know, this is a sin for people. This is a movement. Friends, if you don't think this is a religion for some people, and they worship this with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, as we used to say back in Nebraska, you got another thing coming.
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This is a religion. This is what they think about, this is what they dream about, this is what they put energies into.
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This is how they think they're going to be redeemed. People go back and say, well, you know, in the garden, there was just vegetables and there was no meat that was going to be eaten.
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Well, that's true, but they forget to tell you the rest of the story. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
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The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky, with everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish in the sea, into your hand they are given.
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Genesis chapter 9 verse 1 and 2 says that. Why are the animals now going to be afraid of people?
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Because people now, given by God's directive, can eat animals.
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And those animals better run or else they are cooked, pun intended.
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Genesis 9 verse 3, every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you.
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I give all to you as I gave the green plant, only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
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So here's my question to my vegan, pure friends. By the way, that whole pure language comes right out of Buddhism, mindful eating.
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That's a Buddhist practice, by the way. So if you have mindful eating as a Christian, welcome to Buddha land.
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Genesis chapter 9 must be read after Genesis chapter 1 and 2.
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God gave them meat to eat. And then, of course, he gave some laws to Israel.
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But now with Acts and with 1 Timothy chapter 4 and Mark chapter 7, food is clean.
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Now of course, I don't want to torture animals necessarily. That's not what I'm after. But animals don't have souls and animals have been given to us for many reasons, including food.
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So when you have people running around, basically starting to try to have some kind of religion, can you imagine?
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You've got the green churches and you've got the organic churches and you've got gluten -free communion wafers and all these kind of things.
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I mean, when will it end? The book The Righteous Porkchop includes a chapter, eating the right food.
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And then they have righteous food and unrighteous food. So you've got certain quesadillas that are righteous and those are without processed cheese and some that aren't.
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You've got righteous raspberry lollies, according to the author, without dairy or refined sugar so you can suck on them with a clean conscience.
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Friends, your conscience ought not to be defiled with stupid, silly things like this. Your conscience should be defiled when you break the two great commandments, loving the
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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. If your conscience is somehow so sensitive because you're having a lollipop that has some kind of high fructose corn syrup in it, your conscience—I never want you to go against your conscience, but you need to have your conscience educated to what the
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Bible says. And if you don't do the right thing, what do these people do who eat sugar, caffeine, and don't eat pure things?
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The article says, pure is the ubiquitous adjective used to describe a vegetarian or vegan diet and lifestyle.
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An animal -free diet that also rejects caffeine, sugar, alcohol, or processed foods is labeled ultra -pure.
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Well, I guess they have to get into that because there'd be no fun in life, I guess. They're probably going to be monastic too, and celibate is the next step.
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If you have overindulged, rather than confessing your sins, you can undergo a cleanse, a popular diet or fasting practice that rids the body and some claim the spirit of toxins.
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Well, some would have to be Buddhist and Hindu people and people who worship animals and ultimately worship themselves.
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It would never be from the Bible. A popular Hindi website,
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Food for Life Global, uniting the world through pure food, explains that, quote, pure vegetarianism is allowed because what we eat directly affects our spiritual consciousness and our subsequent behaviors.
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You ask, what's the purpose of food to a Hindi? On this website, it is to give strength to the body and purify the mind.
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And then, of course, if Hindi is not enough, you've got Buddhi. You've got Buddhism.
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It also requires vegetarianism. And a woman on a Buddhist blog writes, my desire to be a vegetarian is very tied up to my desire to be a really good person.
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We have been affected by the Eastern Oriental religions of Hinduism and Buddhism.
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They are in the church. And if you're not careful, you're going to have what these people call orthorexia.
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You've heard of anorexia. This is called orthorexia. And so I'd like to know if those listeners today would be willing to go to those 12 -step group and say, hi, my name is
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Mike Avendroth and I have orthorexia. I don't know if anybody'd say that, but you know, that's an eating disorder that is defined as an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.
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I have, my name is Mike Avendroth. I have an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating.
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I think you should eat well. I think too many people are obese. I think there are too many people that overeat.
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We can be gourmandizers. We can be gluttons. You can be overweight and not be a glutton.
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You can be underweight and be a glutton. There are all kinds of issues involved in hormones and metabolism and everything else.
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I think we do have a problem with eating. People eat for comfort. People eat for solace. People eat for lots of reasons.
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They don't get enough exercise and they sit all day and it affects their health. I think that's true.
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But what I don't want to do is go so far that we imbibe a doctrine of demons.
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That's exactly what 1 Timothy 4 calls this kind of unhealthy obsession.
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When people say you have to abstain from certain kinds of foods. If it's your conscience and you'd like to, fine.
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But if you say, you know what, you've got to abstain from certain kinds of foods. When these foods
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God has created, 1 Timothy 4 .3, to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth, then you've got a problem.
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Because 1 Timothy 4 .4, everything created by God is what? Good. It's good to eat a chicken.
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It's good to eat a cow. It's good to eat a goat. It's good to eat a pig. Matter of fact,
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I was in India and met some people who came down from Burma area and I asked him what his favorite food was.
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When you go back home and your mom cooks you the favorite dish, what is your favorite dish?
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And he looked at me without joking and said, puppy. And he loves his mom's homemade puppy.
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Well, I have a dog and I really love my dog and I probably love my dog more than I should love my dog.
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But when it comes to food, this is a very cultural thing and dog can be enjoyed.
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I wish people in America would probably eat more cats, but then I probably would get more email.
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You can eat a cat if you'd like. I don't know what the laws are in America for killing a dog or killing a cat, but according to the
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Bible, you have freedom to eat whatever you want. And if you're overseas and you're in Thailand and they're serving dog, bottoms up.
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I mean, go right ahead. Don't say that this is not created by God to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
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And we know the truth. We know these animals, although they might seem human -like and have anthropomorphic and anthropopathic kind of attributes, we know they don't have a soul and we know they operate by instinct, according to 2
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Peter. So we're going to do another part on this show for food, but here's what
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I want you to do today. I'd like you to go get the greasiest burger, the kind of burger that you kind of make at home and it's still red on the inside and you begin to eat it.
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You put a bunch of avocado on there, onions, maybe some kind of mango relish or something.
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And this juice, the blood is running down your arm to your elbow and then it begins to drip off your elbow onto the lawn.
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Wouldn't that be good? I think we need to have a no -compromise burger day just to say to people, what would
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Jesus eat? Jesus would be polite and if He was over at your house, He would eat what you served Him.
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There's nothing you eat that can cause any kind of problem for you spiritually.
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What you put in your mouth is not the issue. Romans 14 and 15,
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Liberty in Christ Follows, Romans chapter 3, 4 and 5 were justified, declared righteous with a forensic kind of judicial declaration that declares us righteous based on the person and work of Christ.
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And so when God sees us, He doesn't love us less if we eat meat. He doesn't love us more if we eat meat.
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He loves us more, He loves us as much as He loves His Son because of our union with Christ completely by the work of the triune
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God. And if you'd like to have a transformed heart, it's not going to come through food. It's going to come through looking to Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith.
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Don't forget Jesus Christ. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.
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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.
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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.
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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.
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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.