Fundamental of Belief #14 – Part C; Diet and Unclean Foods

Edited Sermon Transcript
Jon W. Brisby; 3-23-2002

Well, brethren, today’s sermon is the one you have been waiting for, or dreading, whatever it might be. As I mentioned to you before, some have dubbed this my “sugar sermon.” We are going to continue a discussion about healthy diets predicated upon fundamental of belief number fourteen, which reads:

We believe that certain foods called “unclean” are not to be eaten under any circumstances as they are harmful to body and health and also violate our bodies which are called the temple of the Holy Spirit of God.

The sermons that I have heard over the years to explain this fundamental have usually focused strictly on the meats. I wanted to take the opportunity to cover a wider range of aspects concerning food. It doesn’t just say that we believe certain meats are unclean; it says certain foods are called unclean. If we are really adhering to the health laws that God established, we are concerned not only about eating the proper meats that God ordained in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, but also about the other spiritual principles that are applicable for Christians in that which we apply to our diets.

Let’s begin, as we have in the last sermons on this topic, with 1 Corinthians 3:16, just to remind us of the foundation of why we should be concerned about diet—why we should be very cautious and careful about what we put into these bodies.

1 Corinthians 3:16–17:

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.

We have emphasized the fact that God created human beings in flesh and blood bodies. For what purpose? To be the repositories of His Holy Spirit in order to accomplish His perfect will. He did not create man to be in defiance against God, but to comply with God’s laws and to come into a perfect, harmonious relationship with the Father and the Son.

From the very time that He created man, He knew man would rebel because He placed within us an orientation that defies God’s law by nature. This is opposed to the erroneous teaching that crept into the Church beginning in the early 1970s, which went unnoticed by most. It was a change in the doctrine on human nature. We began to hear that human beings are not evil by nature, but that little babies are born with neutral natures and it is only that they very quickly tune into Satan’s wavelength. No, the original teaching from the very beginning was that God Himself intentionally created us with an orientation of mind which opposes the laws of God. He did so intentionally because He wants man to come to recognize that, from the time he is called, his responsibility in the flesh is to overcome the self—to put out sin which is the natural orientation of flesh, to crucify the natural lusts, and to become obedient to God.

So, He knew Adam and Eve were going to fail from the time He created them. Yet, He created them and all humanity in order to have a close, personal relationship with God. That is man’s purpose. The purpose of these physical bodies, as they were created, was to become the repositories of God’s Holy Spirit—that missing ingredient which He did not give us naturally at birth. It can only come through a priceless calling, having our minds opened. Then, in accepting that way of life, we receive the down payment of the very mind of God within us to do His work. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit is what makes us the temple of God, as we just read. What happens if we are pursuing a lifestyle of habits, even including—and maybe especially for today’s purpose—our eating habits, which defile the very physical body that is intended to house God’s Holy Spirit to accomplish His work? How can we accomplish His work? How can we do those things that He needs us to do when we are intentionally, or by default, allowing the very destruction of those bodies?

God created those bodies as a clock winding down. Not all aspects of illness or problems that we experience are necessarily related to acquired things and bad diet; but, by and large, brethren, the majority of the penalties that we are paying can probably go back to broken health laws.

Sooner or later, these bodies were designed by God to wind down. We are degenerating from the very minute we are born, so we are never going to avoid, by good diet, the ultimate end of flesh. No, God appointed man once to die. We are not among those who are advocating—and you will see this written in many of the publications of the health gurus—that by proper diet, man can sustain his lifespan to 200, 300, 400, 500 years if we just ate everything we are supposed to in the right ways and had the proper environment. They disregard the fact that God is the one who limited our lifespan—three score and ten. And so, those who have lived beyond that in relatively good health are very blessed indeed. However, how many of us are suffering, within our human bodies, the kind of penalties which God did not design or intend for us to deal with? This is for no other reason than that we have been conditioned to eat things which are not food, and we are tearing down these bodies long before they need to wear out.

Meat, brethren, is not the only consideration. Yes, if you believe and obey the health laws in the Bible concerning clean and unclean meats, then you are light years ahead of the people in the rest of the world who disregard those health laws; but I am also here to tell you that it is not enough. If you don’t pay attention to many other health laws and principles that affect the functioning and health of these human bodies, then you are still going to pay serious prices.

My goal today, in this sermon, is at least to have us become concerned enough about the proper principles of diet that we can start, maybe, moving a little bit off of dead center. If we start making even just a few improvements, then I will accept that; I will consider my work successful. I know it is an uphill battle, because we have developed our tastes for certain things over the years; and we like them and we love them, and it is so hard to break those habits. I know what I am talking about, brethren. I am not talking about you alone; I am in there with you. The one thing I know, though, is that I am still a relatively young person. I want to be an old, healthy person. That is what I want to be, God allowing. I know that the more I live up to those health laws now, the more it is going to pay dividends years down the road. I don’t want to be one of those who waits until I’m sick before I start being concerned about my health. It is a whole lot harder to fix things once you’re already ill, than it is to start the habits while you are still in relatively good health.

We are an aging Church. There is a lot of gray hair in this Church, and I know a lot of the problems and difficulties that we are experiencing in health, even now. So, there are many of you who can benefit very much by some dramatic and immediate changes in diet. One of the things that I hope to accomplish today is at least to get us to the point where we are as concerned about diet and the health laws overall as we used to be years ago in the Church. Some of you who haven’t been in the Church longer than twenty or thirty years may not remember or have been around to know what it was like, but I remember it as a child. People in the Church were concerned about obeying the health laws. If they were going to eat junk food and bad things, they were going to do it in secret because they were ashamed to do it—at least when other brethren would know about it. That is the way it was. I would at least like to get us back to the point where we recognize those laws; and even if we are going to break them in weakness, we are ashamed of it—we aren’t justifying it. That is one of my other goals today.

What are God’s other diet laws that we were taught from the original years of the Church? Let me read a short quote from The Plain Truth, Personal from the Editor, Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong, in December of 1967: “Many children are raised on a diet of white bread, jellies and jams, potatoes with greasy and starchy gravy, a little meat, pie and cake and cookies and pastries, candy. Some will ask: ‘Well what else can we eat?’ Eat more vegetables—green leafy raw salad vegetables unspoiled by injurious dressings; non-starch vegetables cooked at low temperatures—about 180 degrees, and served with only butter and a little salt; fresh fruits; clean lean meats (no fat); whole grains; fresh raw (unpasteurized) milk, butter, cheese; eggs and clean fowl.” That is a very good, simple synopsis. I don’t think I can say it any better than Mr. Armstrong did.

Admittedly, it is not easy to eat good, clean, healthy, unadulterated food. No, it is not. You cannot go to your local grocery store and hope to buy good food. That is the one thing that we are going to talk about also, as we get into this a little bit. If we want to have a good diet and we want to avail ourselves of the blessings that God has promised to those who obey His laws, we are going to have to put out a little bit of effort. You cannot obey those health laws and have good health by buying the things on the store shelves in most of your grocery stores. You are going to have to put in a little bit of sweat and energy in order to secure good food—that is, if you want to have health. If you are ok with having illness, disease, lack of energy, getting sick with the flu and colds every time they come around and that is just kind of an accepted part, then maybe you don’t care that much about it. I don’t like to be sick; I don’t want to be ill. I want to have God’s blessings, physically and spiritually, and I hope you do too.

God’s food laws, brethren, were not written by God in order to be a burden or a curse to us at all. They are the key to good health. They are the instruction manuals that go with these physical bodies. I have already used the example of an automobile. The manufacturer designs, engineers and builds an automobile with specific regulations concerning proper fuel. You have to be concerned about the gas you put in the tank. You have to be concerned about the kind of oil that you put in the engine. You have to keep the radiator filled with water. You have to do all of these things in order to have a running and well-maintained vehicle. If you take shortcuts and put the wrong kind of liquid in the wrong portion of that engine, then it is not going to function properly, and it is ultimately going to stop on you.

The human body is no different. Our Creator who made these bodies is the one who wrote the manual on how to maintain and care for them in order for them to last. It is His laws, His instruction manual, that we should pay attention to if we want to have bodies that function properly. That instruction manual is not written as a curse. Those who respect it and are not fighting against it—those who are willing to submit to and recognize those principles that God laid out—are the ones who can avail themselves of good health. You don’t have to live the lives of your neighbors and the people of this world who are constantly living in their doctors’ offices, seeking the cure of all their dread diseases. It doesn’t have to be that way. Most illness, except for that which is a natural function of the degeneration of these bodies as they wind down through the years, is a result of broken health laws.

John 5:5–9, 14:

And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. [We don’t know what that infirmity was, but it was something that he endured which was crippling and had afflicted him for 38 years.] When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool . . .

He was at the side of this pool that was famous for its healing properties. When the waters were stirred, the first person who entered into the water received a miraculous healing. Since he was crippled, even though he sat on the edge of the pool, someone always beat him to it. He was putting his hope in being able to be the first one to take advantage of this alternative healing opportunity in the waters of this pool.

The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole [after 38 years. Whatever the crippling disease was that this man was afflicted with, immediately the man was made whole.], and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the sabbath. (Verse 14) Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

This tells us what? This man was not suffering from the natural results of the degeneration of age. Whatever had caused his affliction for 38 years was something that Jesus Christ called sin. Christ healed him of this affliction and gave him back his health, and yet warned him and said, “. . . sin no more.”

Do we recognize, brethren, that in order to avail ourselves of the healing of God, when we come to the ministry and ask to be anointed, we are asking in the very same way for Jesus Christ to heal us, just as this man wanted to be healed? How many times, though, is Christ really saying to us, if we are paying attention, “Sin no more”? How many of the things that we are suffering have we brought upon ourselves? Is it possible that, before God is willing to accept our plea to Him, He is waiting for us to put in a little bit of effort to show that we respect His health laws more than we have in the past?

What good is it going to do for Him to heal and restore us miraculously if we are going to continue in the very same practices of broken health laws, which is sin, that got us in that state to begin with? Is God going to be duty-bound to continue to undo and miraculously take away penalties for those things that we are bringing upon ourselves? Or, does it make more sense that we are more apt to have the ear of God and to have Him near to us in our time of difficulty, illness, problems and circumstances in the flesh, if we are at least doing everything we can in our own human power to live up to those principles? No, none of us is perfect, but I think there is a good chance that God is going to be more readily willing to hear if we at least step it up in our lives to obey His health laws better.

The watering-down of the doctrine, which became more apparent in the early 1970s within the Church, was also manifested in a change, even subtly, in the diet laws. In the early years of the Church, diet was emphasized incredibly. People who came to a knowledge of the Truth and the plan of salvation through the preaching of Mr. Armstrong, simultaneously came to a knowledge of the health laws and the requirement to change what we put into our bodies. People embraced those health laws as readily and immediately as they did that new Truth. By virtue of the same changes they made to begin keeping the Sabbath and to stop keeping all of the pagan holidays of the world, they simultaneously began to make radical changes in the way that they ate.

You know what happened in the mid-70s? The doctrines were changing. Pentecost was changed, divorce and remarriage was changed, the doctrine on human nature was changed, the concept of the meaning of Christ’s body as a sacrifice for healing was changed and, at the very same time, laxity set in concerning the health laws. I remember it happening. I was pretty impressionable because, during that time, I was a young teenager; and I noticed almost immediately. When I would go over to the homes of my friends who were in the Church, there was a difference in what was put on the table. Things began to be accepted that, before, were taboo and that you never would have seen in a Church member’s home.

The only assessment I can make, now that we are 30 years after that time, is that it’s the one area I think we have not done a good job of getting back to, even within this small, remnant group. I think it is probably one of the things that we have been more lax on than anything else. Yes, we embrace the original doctrine, and so we hold on to those spiritual principles and we are not going to change them; yet, diet-wise, I think, overall as a group, we are not even close to being as concerned about good food as that Body was 40 years ago. That, I would love to see changed, for no other reason than that we could all begin to avail ourselves of the blessings that I am sure God is urgently ready to give.

Is it possible that there is a direct correlation between the era of great healing that took place in the Church years ago and obedience to the health laws? It was a time when God seemed to be so near within His Church, and there were dramatic healings that are undeniable. Is there any direct correlation, do you think, between that time of miraculous healing in the Church and the level of concern about our physical diets? I submit to you, brethren, that I think there is. If we insist on eating wrong foods, as I said, we should at least do it in secret, and it should be something—like other secret sins—that we should be ashamed of. It should not be something we are justifying in error before everyone else.

I mentioned this to you in the sermon I gave on diet—I believe it was two years ago at the Feast of Tabernacles in Newport—about potluck meals at Holy Days. What I would love to see is an improvement in our orientation collectively, even as a first step, reflected in that which we bring before God to be eaten by our brothers and sisters of the common faith. If we are going to eat poison ourselves in our own homes, could we at least not put it as a temptation before others? Destroy our own health, but don’t tempt those that we are supposed to love.

What about the principle of asking God’s blessing upon food? Can we in good conscience put garbage and poisons that are called food on the table and then ask God to bless it to the nourishment of our health? Is God going to bless a ham? We wouldn’t do that, would we? We wouldn’t put a ham on the table and then ask God’s blessing on it, saying, “I know this is not clean by natural elements, but you can miraculously make this clean so it is healthful for my body.” No, we don’t believe that, do we? Yet, we are going to put a big, sugar-laden cake on the table, a Hostess Twinkie or a cupcake, and ask God to bless it and make it nourishing for our bodies. If we know it is not nourishing for our bodies, and it never will be nourishing for our bodies, and that God is not going to make it nourishing for our bodies, why do we go through the pretense of asking a blessing upon it? We take great comfort in the fact that something happens to protect us or to give us an additional element of health when we ask God’s blessing upon the meal that we eat, don’t we? Well, I am here to tell you, brethren, if you are putting garbage on the table and that is what you are eating, don’t bother asking a blessing on it. It is fruitless—pointless. God is not going to do it. All we are doing is fooling ourselves.

Actually, what we are talking about, brethren, when we are talking about diet and God’s health laws and principles, is actually an opportunity for each one of us to evaluate our spiritual resolves and our ability to resist sin. To the extent that we are able to control what we put into these mouths as food is actually a direct reflection of our spiritual status as well. That might be troubling to a lot of us, but it is actually an opportunity. If you and I have the capacity, through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, to begin controlling what we put into our bodies and doing a better job of eating according to God’s laws, then that is the same source of power that is helping us overcome spiritual sin—the weaknesses of mind and heart that we are desperately trying to overcome.

I think if we are continuing to give in to eating wrong things time after time after time after time, then that is a mirror reflecting our general state of fortitude in obeying God’s spiritual principles. So, we can actually see it and treat it as an acid test. Treat your diet as an acid test of your spiritual strength and fortitude in obeying all of God’s laws. Where do we stand now? Is there room for improvement? I think there is for all of us.

Isaiah 65:2–5:

I have spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious people, which walketh in a way that was not good, after their own thoughts . . .

This is what men have always done. They reject what God revealed as Truth, which is good for us, in order to embrace their own thoughts.

A people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face; that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick; Which remain among the graves, and lodge in the monuments, which eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels; Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.

Yes, they are polluting their bodies with swine’s flesh, abominable things in broth, and who knows what else—all along thinking they’re totally acceptable and holy. They don’t admit that they are breaking God’s law; they truly have deceived themselves into believing they are ok.

Isaiah 55:1–4:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread?

Oh, they are eating all right, but what are they spending their money on and treating as food?

“Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?” Yes, it applies to spiritual principles, orientations of minds and hearts of people who have rejected the spiritual laws of God, but it applies just as much physically—especially to diet.

. . . hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

God is saying to take advantage of the blessings that come from obedience to the laws—good health, strength, power of mind and body.

Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

Brethren, if we have insatiable tastes for things that God does not consider to be food and we refuse to overcome the temptation to put those things into our bodies, is that not a reflection of our spiritual state? Over the years, there have been a number of things that I have quit eating just because the guilt associated with eating them ultimately became more than the good sensation I got from putting them in my mouth. If our consciences would be strengthened enough, we might be helped a little bit in being able to avoid those things. I don’t like carrying around guilt after I eat something that I know is bad for me—not to say that I am perfect in it. No, I am not.

Two years ago, when I gave that diet sermon at the Feast, I explained to you that I was still struggling very much with one bad habit—coffee. I am at least happy to tell you that almost two years later, I have cut coffee mostly out of my diet. I don’t drink it in the office anymore. That is where I used to drink coffee for years. I am talking, brethren, for the last twenty years, I was drinking coffee all day long in the office. I didn’t drink it in the morning before I left for work; I waited until I got to the office, and then the first thing I did was grab a big cup of coffee. I filled it up and filled it up and filled it up throughout the day. I drank it on the weekends—on the Sabbath and on Sunday when I was home.

Well, by mid-January after that Feast, almost two years ago, I finally decided that it had to stop. I was not going to allow it to control me anymore, and I did stop. I still allow myself coffee when I travel, but it is very little within my diet and I hope that I am going to gain the benefits of that in the years to come. I have never had any symptoms or problems with internal organs or all the things that come as a result from that. Hopefully, I have caught that soon enough. I have made that change, but it was an incredibly difficult change for me. It was. We all have them, but none of them are beyond our capacity to change if we want to badly enough. We have God. We have His Holy Spirit as our resource, but we have to have the will to want to do it. I am not asking you, brethren, to do that which I am not willing to do myself. I am still in that battle, and I know you are too.

Ok, let’s get to some specifics. What is food and what is not food? People have dubbed this my “sugar sermon” because that is going to be front and center, number one. Probably the most abused element in our diets today, other than unclean meats in the diets of people around the world, is processed sugar. The one other thing that they could do to improve their health one hundred percent would be to eliminate all processed sugar out of the diet. It is poison—a killer—just as much as if you were drinking cyanide or arsenic; but it tastes so good, we just can’t stop using it.

I am going to read several pieces from some articles. These are things that I was able to quickly find on the Internet and print off. Here is an article from an organization called FreedomYou. It is entitled, “Sugar Addiction”:

“Pure white, deliciously sweet and nutritionally useless. Sugar in the morning, sugar in the evening, sugar at supper time. We eat about 130 pounds of the stuff a year or 35 teaspoons a day. And it’s in everything, chicken soup, pickles, pork and beans [Hopefully we are not eating that anyway.], peanut butter [Are you buying peanut butter that has sugar in it?], bread, macaroni and cheese, ketchup, mustard and relish, jam, pop, yogurt, canned fruit and vegetables, salad dressings, not to mention the endless list of desserts, jam packed and stuffed to capacity with sugar. Sugar cane in its natural form is rich in minerals and vitamins.”

Take note: it is not that the natural sugar cane from which they derive processed sugar is bad at all. It suffers, however, from the very same corruption as does flour that comes from grain which has been mutilated in the processing.

“The sugar molecules are complexed with other organic molecules. The organic components of sugar cane work synergistically to nourish the body. Sucanat, which is dehydrated cane sugar, is rich in potassium, vitamin A, vitamin C, B1, B2, B6, niacin, calcium, iron, phosphorous, pantothenic acid, magnesium, zinc, copper, and chromium.”

Some might ask if the dehydration process of sugar cane, even if you don’t separate it out, potentially compromises its health value? Possibly, but all of the natural elements are still kept together. If we are going to use a sweetener besides honey, which would be number one, Sucanat is not a bad one.

“In contrast, refined sugar is devoid of nutrients and acts more like a drug than a food.” Do any of you really consider yourselves sugar addicts—drug addicts? If you are eating a lot of processed sugar and you can’t stop it, and you can’t get it out of your diet, that is likely, exactly what you are experiencing—an addiction.

“[Processed sugar] quickly passes through the stomach wall causing blood sugar levels to rise, and then plummet. First, the blood sugar level skyrockets and causes the pancreas to secrete insulin to compensate for the excess blood sugar. Afterward, the blood sugar level drops below normal. This state has been coined the sugar blues. The downside of the sugar blues is a state of depression, lethargy and irritability. The craving for sugared foods can be like a drug addict craving a fix. There is an uncontrollable desire for something sweet. The addict will seek a sugar fix eight to twenty times per day. While the average consumption is 24% [We are talking about the average, American diet and the percentage of consumption of different elements. Twenty-four percent of what Americans consume is sugar.], there are children consuming more than 50% of their calories as sugar. For school teachers, Halloween is a nightmare. Their students are affected by a massive sugar intake. Hyperactive on sugar, they behave erratically and become difficult to control. In digestion, protein and sugar combinations putrefy and cause toxic substances called ptomaines and leucomaines. Over-consumption of sugar paralyzes our white blood cell’s phagocytic ability, increasing the risk of viral infections.”

Are any of us subject to illness on a seasonal basis because of weak immune systems? There are 60 to 400 trillion phagocytic white blood cells active in the body. White sugar causes these defenders to become sluggish in their work, thereby lowering resistance to disease. In other words, processed sugar messes up your immune system.

Here is another one; I’m not done. This is from a group called Nature’s Response, and here is their article on processed sugar:

“Sugar is the most common substance we consume, is the single most abused item in the American diet. Sugar is in everything, appearing everywhere in our foods. We call it by many different titles: sucrose, dextrose, glucose, fructose, corn syrup, rice syrup, but it is all still sugar. Chemically, sugar is a relatively simple compound of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. The value of sugar in the diet of man is based upon calorie content and its ability to provide fuel and energy to the body. But what kind of fuel? No substance that we consume so readily is so addictive. We have all heard of diabetes and hypoglycemia, two common and serious disorders that are linked directly to sugar consumption and/or metabolism. The list of sugar abuse disorders is much longer, however. That list also includes tooth decay, gingivitis, acne, obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, cardiovascular disease, and a host of mental and emotional disorders. Prepared breakfast cereals, as well as sweet desserts, are a large source of highly concentrated sugars. Soft drinks are another source of concentrated sugars. Each sugared soft drink contains between five and seven tablespoons of pure sugar. How many do we drink on a hot day? The sugar adds up fast.”

That is one thing I can tell you that I don’t drink at all. If you are going to the store and buying soda pop, coke, sarsaparilla, or whatever you want to call it, and that is a part of your regular diet, you are consuming poison and killing yourself slowly. Stop it. Get it out of your diet. Diet colas are not any better. Sugar substitutes don’t give you any better results, and not to mention the carbonation that eats the lining of your stomach.

“Hypoglycemia has long been labeled by the medical profession as the psychological disorder of our times. Hypoglycemia is really the physiological manifestation of sugar addiction. As glucose is cut off or reduced from the abnormal amounts that we ingest, the body reacts with panic. The whole reaction is chemical and hidden inside the body tissue. For this reason, few people are prepared to deal with the many side effects. As the war between sugar and insulin continues, the addiction worsens. Common symptoms of hypoglycemia might include hunger, dizziness, irritability, tremor, nausea, anxiety and panic. [Sound familiar?] Additionally, and worse, this sugar-insulin war has a very negative effect on our immune system. Countless studies have shown a direct correlation between sugar consumption and chronic degenerative disease. If you already have a chronic disease, then reducing your consumption of sugar is vital.”

I’m going to be stronger and say that if you are already suffering degenerative diseases like arthritis and other problems, you absolutely need to cut out from your diet every item of processed sugar down to reading labels. Get it out. “If we were limited to controlling only one substance in the diet, sugar would be that substance.” Amen to that.

One more: here is an article off the Internet from a website called stopcancer.com. It is entitled, “Sugar: You Just Love Your Children to Death.” Think about this too—those of you who have children that are still in your household—it is not just what you are doing to yourself. What we are doing in diet and what we are doing to our children becomes the very rules and habits that are going to continue with them all of their lives. Are we creating good habits in our families for eating according to God’s laws? Or, are we setting our children up to experience all the same illnesses, diseases and difficulties that we are on our way to incurring upon ourselves?

Here is the article:

“Gregory Grosbard of Miami, Florida received a U.S. patent on a process to improve the strength of plastic by using sugar. Each time plastic goes through a heat cycle, it loses strength because oxygen in the atmosphere goes into the material and creates oxygen ‘holes.'”

So, this man was trying to come up with a process to keep these oxygen holes from developing in plastic when it was heated. What was the solution? Sugar. Why?

“Mr. Grosbard found that, by mixing a small amount of sugar into the plastic material during the heat cycle, the sugar grabbed the oxygen first, preventing the oxygen holes and making the plastic stronger.” Sugar grabs oxygen. Don’t you need the oxygen in your body to restore tissue and to do the functions for keeping good health? Then why are we going to put a substance in there that robs us of the oxygen?

“Research has shown that: Processed sugar blocks the absorption of calcium.” We ingest calcium in all kinds of things we eat, but if processed sugar inhibits the ability of the body to put that calcium where it is supposed to go—our bones and teeth—where do you think that calcium is going? Is it just flushed out of our systems and not used? No, if the calcium is inhibited from going to the places it should go in the body, it is still floating around. And you know what happens then? It goes to places it is not supposed to go. So, where does calcium end up in our systems? After eating processed sugar as a natural part of our diets, it goes and settles into the joints and causes arthritis.

Calcium that floats around in the system also settles in the eyes and produces cataracts. Calcium that is not absorbed properly ends up creating tartar and calculus on the teeth, causing gingivitis, and all kinds of serious problems in other parts of the body. If we continually ingest an item which chemically prevents the absorption of needed minerals within our bodies, like calcium, and leaves them free to float around and deposit in other places, is there any wonder that we are suffering the ill effects that we are?

Back to the quote:

“Processed sugar produces a low oxygen environment. Processed sugar is extremely acidic. [That is very important to understand. I am going to talk about the importance of pH balance.] Too much processed sugar is the death of the immune system. It interrupts the Kreb’s energy cycle which in turn suppresses your immune system’s manufacture of killer cells and antibodies. [Those are the things that keep us from getting cancer.] Processed sugar depletes B vitamins which is needed by the liver to detoxify it. The liver is the most important organ when it comes to healing the body. Cancer has become the number one ‘killer disease in children’ in the past few years. Sugar consumption is robbing the oxygen out of their little bodies and making their cells extremely acidic while shutting off their immune systems. Sugar averages for children are around 36 teaspoons a day. The next time you feel like having a soda, just think about this: Colas are extremely acidic with a pH of approximately 2.5.”

Now, a neutral solution is around, I think, 7 to 7.5. Less than that is acidic, and higher than that is alkaline. Our bodies were designed by God to operate correctly at the proper pH. Foods are either alkaline or acidic; pure distilled water is neutral. The functions of the body do not work properly if we are too acidic or too alkaline.

“It takes 32 glasses of water with a pH of 10 to neutralize that one cola.” And, as it goes on to say, most glasses of water do not even have a pH of 10. So, you would have to drink much more than 32 glasses just to balance out the pH in your system to compensate for one soda pop that you put in.

“The other night the news showed a small boy who had just had chemotherapy. His face and eyes showed the horrors he had been through and he appeared to be lifeless and unwilling to live . . . His doctor and loved ones stood over him with a vanilla milk shake in an effort to make him feel better. They were giving him more acid elements (milk shake—sugar) causing his cellular pH to drop more into the pH range that cancer needs to survive . . .”

Let me read to you what Mr. Armstrong said about pH levels. This is a quote from an article entitled, “The Plain Truth About Fasting,” in the September 1962 issue of The Plain Truth:

“Start drinking lemon juice! Take no sugar with it. Start with a half-lemon every morning—with or without water. As you become used to it, increase to one whole lemon, and, finally 1 ½ or 2 lemons, depending on how large the lemons are. This has an alkaline-reaction.”

Based upon the standard diet we eat, we make our systems very acidic. If we ate everything we should, and we could get good food in the proper balance, then we wouldn’t have that acid problem within our systems. Most of us do not, however, so we have to take alkaline elements that will bring the body back into pH balance.

“In a month or two you will notice quite a difference. Your mind will be sharper—more clear. In many cases, especially if not too far advanced, rheumatism or arthritis will disappear under this lemon-juice habit—especially if you eliminate starches, sugars and greases from the diet. Notice, I did not say cure or heal. But, since lemon juice has a strong alkaline reaction in the body, it simply means the stopping of the physical sin, and in due time you will have paid the penalty. Once paid, the penalty is not there any longer—unless you bring it on again by sinning!”

Have I convinced you that sugar is a bad thing? What about other kinds of sugar? Because I know we will get those questions. Thankfully, one of the brethren had a good synopsis that was very helpful for me. Because people will say, “Well, raw sugar is different than white, processed sugar, right? What about brown sugar and turbinado sugar?” They are all the same, brethren. They are all processed sugar. All of the good nutrients and elements have been absolutely evaporated away. Molasses, which is what is left over from the sugar process, contains all of those good nutrients and minerals. The molasses is good to eat. Good, wholesome molasses is a good sweetener. Raw sugar and brown sugar are just white sugar that has a little bit of molasses put back in it to make it turn brown. It still does not have any of the nutrients, and it has all of the poisons. Turbinado sugar, as I just found out, was named after the process of the machines that separate it. It is a little bit coarser than the nice, smooth, fine, white sugar, but it is exactly the same thing and it has the same chemical properties as poison.

Packaged foods—brethren, packaged foods are next in line behind sugar. We should absolutely eliminate most of the stuff found on the store shelves that is intended for easy distribution. Packaged foods have a long shelf life because they are full of chemicals and preservatives, which are absolutely deadly. I know it makes it convenient, and I know, nowadays, many women are forced to work; and we are not in the ideal society that God intended in order for mothers and wives to be able to spend the time to cook from scratch. However, I want to ask the question, what price do you put on your own health and the health of your family? I know it is especially hard for single moms. What do you do? Are we willing to eat poison for the sake of convenience? Are we willing to tear down our health and the health of our families just because it is difficult to do anything but?

Canned soups—read the label. It doesn’t matter how healthy they appear to be with vegetables and meats, and they give you the content of the vitamins and minerals contained in them. Look at the ingredients label. Look at the sugars, the monosodium glutamate and all of the preservatives that make it keep its shelf life.

Packaged foods make manufacturers money. They do all those things to the food so that it will last, and they put elements in it to make it taste good so you will eat it; but your body can’t assimilate it. The same thing that makes a packaged food sit for weeks and months on a store shelf is the same thing that makes your body unable to process it and use it as good food. Your body cannot absorb those things. Anything that the body cannot use and absorb actually becomes carcinogenic. That is just a fact. So much for the macaroni and cheese in a box, soup in a can, frozen pizza—let alone the cakes, cookies, pastries and all of the other garbage. I went to the store with my wife the other night because I wanted to see what people had in their shopping carts. I picked a bad night because there were not that many people in the store. Besides that, my wife was shopping in the part of the store where all of the fresh fruits and vegetables are. If you pay attention to what other people have in their carts, then you see the pure junk and garbage that people are subsisting upon.

Packaged foods—get rid of them. Cook from scratch. I know it is difficult; I know it takes a lot of time. It is going to take a commitment to do it, but I am telling you, brethren, if you want God’s blessings, make the priority. Everything is possible if we put enough priority on it. We have plenty of time for the things that we value most. What are those things? Is our health valuable enough to us that we are willing to make a little bit of extra sacrifice in our personal time for eating what God said is good?

Good diet requires getting good food and then preparing it properly. That requires sacrifice. It is hard to find good meat. We have been able to find sources. My family and I have moved to a number of places around the country, and every single time we have moved, it has been a struggle to find sources for good food. Raw milk is very difficult to find, but we have been able to do it. Good meat—you have to hunt for it. You have to find somebody who is raising cattle organically, and you are going to have to go out of your way. Fresh eggs are a little bit harder to find. Good diet also consists of organically grown vegetables, fruits, and proper cooking oils.

I am going to talk a little bit about fats. I am by no means an expert on these topics of body chemistry. I tried to brush up on a number of things in preparation for giving this sermon. Thankfully, we have the office staff and a lot of good resources on it. We were able to put together a three-page summary of information, which is kind of a synoptic overview on this very controversial issue of fats in the diet. All of these publications from the New England Journal of Medicine, the FDA and all of these other sources are absolutely giving you false information.

How many of you are eating margarine right now because you think it is healthier than butter? Wrong. You are eating poison. God said to eat butter. Turn with me to Isaiah 7:14:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. [This was the perfect Christ who never sinned, and what was He eating?] Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

God said that butter and honey are good. The experts in this country, our scientific geniuses, and medical doctors are telling you that butter is bad. It raises your cholesterol; it causes heart disease. Don’t eat butter, don’t eat eggs, don’t eat meat, and don’t eat cream. God said He made these things as good food. Who are we going to believe?

I was driving home yesterday from the office, and I heard an advertisement from something like the Association of Margarine Producers; and sure enough, they were quoting all of these official sources saying that margarine is still the best heart-healthy substance. It is a pure lie. Either that, or they are just completely ignorant, one or the other.

Let me read you certain things about fats in the diet. Overall, brethren, what you are going to find is that we have three classifications. There is saturated fat, monounsaturated fat, and polyunsaturated fat. Basically, what you are being told is not to eat any saturated fat. That is butter, eggs, cheese, cream and meats. They say that is bad. They tell you to eat more polyunsaturated fats—vegetable oils. It is exactly the opposite.

Listen to this:

“Fats from animal and vegetable sources provide a concentrated source of energy in the diet; they also provide the building blocks for cell membranes and a variety of hormones and hormonelike substances. . . . In addition, they act as carriers for important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K . . . needed for . . . mineral absorption and for a host of other processes.”

So, fats are absolutely required in the diet. Those who think they are healthy because they are on a low-fat diet, are absolutely mistaken. You need to have fat; but you must have the right kind, and you must have it in balance. That is the way God made our bodies. We are not talking about the kind of fat that God said not to eat—the saturated fat that surrounds the meat. We strip that off. You don’t eat animal fat.

“All fats and oils, whether of vegetable or animal origin, are some combination of saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated linoleic acid and linolenic acid.” This, by the way, is summary information that we put together from a number of sources. In fact, we have copies of this if anyone wants to order it. It was very helpful in order to give me a quick education on this.

What have you heard about triglycerides? “Elevated triglycerides . . . do not come directly from dietary fats.” Isn’t that what you have been told? Red meat is full of triglycerides. Butter and eggs—triglycerides—bad. “Elevated triglycerides . . . do not come directly from dietary fats; they are made in the liver from any excess sugars that have not been used for energy. The source of these excess sugars is any food containing carbohydrates, particularly refined sugar and white flour.” That is where your triglycerides are coming from. There is where your heart disease is coming from—processed sugar and white flour, among other things.

You haven’t heard any of the doctors talk about that, have you? One of the authors who summarized all of this material is Dr. Mary Enig. It says, “Recent scientific and media attention on the possible adverse health effects of trans fatty acids has brought increased attention to her work. She is a licensed nutritionist, certified by the Certification Board for Nutrition Specialists; a qualified expert witness; nutrition consultant to individuals, industry and state and federal governments . . .” So, she has a number of credentials. You know what, though, you can find any expert you want in order to support your individual take. So, that is not what we put our weight on, but I am going to give more credibility to somebody who says, “Butter is good food,” than to somebody who says, “Don’t eat butter.” God is the one who said He made butter to be eaten.

Saturated fats—”. . . they do not normally go rancid, even when heated for cooking purposes.” When we are talking about saturated fats, we are talking about those that the body creates from eating foods like butter, cheese, eggs, cream and certain meats. “. . . [saturated fats] form a solid or semisolid fat at room temperature. These [saturated] fatty acids have antimicrobial properties . . . they protect us from viruses, yeasts and pathogenic bacteria in the gut [which contribute to a healthy immune system]. They . . . [are easily and] directly absorbed for quick energy. For this reason, they are less likely to cause weight gain than olive oil or commercial vegetable oils. [Examples of saturated fatty acids are butter, eggs, cheese, cream and some meats].” These are all the things you have been told to eliminate from your diet. Absolutely not.

Monounsaturated fats—”. . . tend to be liquid at room temperature. . . . They do not go rancid easily and hence can be used in cooking. The monounsaturated fatty acid most commonly found in our food is oleic acid, the main component of olive oil . . .” I don’t have the time to turn to it, but you recognize that olive oil is the oil of choice in the Bible. Olive oil is shown time after time as that which is considered good for cooking. “The monounsaturated fatty acid most commonly found in our food is oleic acid, the main component of olive oil as well as the oils from almonds, pecans, cashews, peanuts and avocados. [The monounsaturated fatty acid] . . . gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) . . . is found in evening primrose, borage and black currant oils.” It is also, by the way, the same kind of oil found in salmon. So, the natural oils in certain fish, which God said were clean to eat, also give you monounsaturated oils which are absolutely required by the body for good health.

Polyunsaturated fats—”The two polyunsaturated fatty acids found most frequently in our foods are double unsaturated linoleic acid . . . called omega-6; and triple unsaturated linolenic acid . . . called omega-3.” There have been a lot of things written on omega-6 and omega-3 oils over the years. Usually, what you have found in the past is that people say to stay completely away from saturated fat and only eat omega-3 oils and omega-3 fatty acids. That is wrong; it takes a balance. God created our systems to function with the proper balance of omega-3 and omega-6, with saturated and monounsaturated. You need to have them all, and you need to have them in the proper balance.

If we were able to eat the foods that God told us were good and eat them in the proper proportions, then we would have all of those natural balances built into our systems. We get too smart for our britches and start listening to the scientists and men who think they understand how this body works. They say to cut out all of one thing and go completely to this, or use this modified portion that man has corrupted; and they think they are going to help human beings have better health. All they are doing is increasing our downhill slide, because they reject the simple truth and principles that God laid out in the food that He designed for us to eat.

“Your body cannot make these fatty acids [talking about the omega-3 and omega-6—unlike the saturated, which your body produces, and even the monounsaturated] and hence they are called ‘essential.’ We must obtain our essential fatty acids or EFA’s from the foods we eat. Polyunsaturated fats are liquid, even when refrigerated. They go rancid easily, particularly omega-3 linolenic acid . . . Polyunsaturated [fatty acids] should never be heated or used in cooking.” That is the other principle that is highly disregarded. French fries, all fried foods, baked goods, and most restaurant foods are made using superheated cooking oils—vegetable oils—omega-6 or even omega-3. When they superheat those oils in cooking, they absolutely destroy the beneficial properties, and those oils become rancid. Your body cannot assimilate them.

“Polyunsaturated [fatty acids] should never be heated or used in cooking. . . . [these] oils [are] derived . . . from soy . . . corn, safflower and canola.” How many of you are using safflower, corn or canola oils as cooking oils? “Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are essential, but they are usually imbalanced in our diets with too much omega-6.” For that reason, it is not bad to take an omega-3 supplement to try and balance that out. “This disruption can result in increased tendency to form blood clots, inflammation, high blood pressure, irritation of the digestive tract, depressed immune function, sterility, cell proliferation, cancer and weight gain. [Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids] occur in butter in small but nearly equal amounts.”

See, butter is a healthy food as God designed it. It has the proper, natural ratios of omega-6 and omega-3. It is good for you, just like an egg. Eggs also have the proper balance of those fats; but now, when you go to a restaurant, you see an option on the breakfast menu for cholesterol-free eggs. That is supposed to be healthier. It has a little heart symbol next to it; it’s heart-healthy. They have created these things according to their own orientation, thinking that they are giving you something better for your body, when it is actually poison. Eat the eggs, brethren. It is a natural food that God designed.

“This excellent balance between [omega-6 and omega-3 in butter] prevents the kind of problems associated with overconsumption of omega-6 fatty acids [primarily found in the vegetable oils that we use] . . . [Flax seed oil has an] extremely high omega-3 content, [which] provides a remedy for the omega-6/omega-3 imbalance so prevalent in [American diets] today.” If you have been eating like a lot of other Americans and you have an imbalance of way too much omega-6, which is throwing your system off, then your first job is to correct that; and then, maybe take a high quality omega-3 supplement. Fish oils are also high in omega-3 oils. Eat more fish cooked properly. “At the turn of the century [over 100 years ago], most of the fatty acids in the diet were either saturated or monounsaturated, primarily from butter, lard, tallows, coconut oil and small amounts of olive oil. Today most of the fats in the diet are polyunsaturated from vegetable oils derived mostly from soy, as well as from corn, safflower and canola.”

Canola is very controversial. We are avoiding canola oil. There are a lot of studies showing that canola oil which comes from the rapeseed is not intended for human consumption and actually may be very poisonous. It has been related to fibrotic heart lesions and supposedly, it creates a deficiency of vitamin E in our systems. I can’t tell you whether all of that is true or not. I am usually suspicious of anything written, but there are enough other good oils, including olive oil, that we can cook with in order to avoid the potential problem with canola.

“Excess consumption of polyunsaturated oils has been shown to contribute to a large number of disease conditions including increased cancer and heart disease; immune system dysfunction; damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs; digestive disorders; depressed learning ability; impaired growth; and weight gain. One reason the polyunsaturates cause so many health problems is that they tend to become oxidized or rancid when subjected to heat, oxygen and moisture as in cooking and processing. Rancid oils are characterized by free radicals . . . ‘marauders’ in the body [that] attack cell membranes and red blood cells and cause damage in DNA/RNA strands, thus triggering mutations in tissue, blood vessels and skin. . . . Is it any wonder that tests and studies have repeatedly shown a high correlation between cancer and heart disease with the consumption of polyunsaturates? New evidence links exposure to free radicals with premature aging, with autoimmune diseases such as arthritis and with Parkinson’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Alzheimer’s and cataracts.”

“Partially hydrogenated margarines and shortenings [what you are encouraged to eat to be heart-healthy] are even worse for you than the highly refined vegetable oils from which they are made because of chemical changes [to the fatty acid chains] that occur during the hydrogenation process. . . . This is called the trans formation, rarely found in nature. Most of these man-made trans fats are toxins to the body, but unfortunately your digestive system does not recognize them as such. . . . Once in place, trans fatty acids with their misplaced hydrogen atoms wreak havoc in cell metabolism because chemical reactions can only take place when electrons in the cell membranes are in certain arrangements or patterns, which the hydrogenation process has disturbed.”

Our bodies are more complex than human beings will ever be able to understand, and they will never be able to outguess God and create better food than what God designed for us.

“Consumption of hydrogenated fats is associated with a host of other serious diseases, not only cancer but also atherosclerosis, diabetes, obesity, immune system dysfunction, low-birth-weight babies, birth defects, decreased visual acuity, sterility, difficulty in lactation and problems with bones and tendons. The cause of heart disease is not animal fats and cholesterol [Isn’t that exactly what you have been told?] but rather a number of factors inherent in modern diets, including excess consumption of vegetables oils and hydrogenated fats; excess consumption of refined carbohydrates in the form of sugar and white flour; mineral deficiencies, particularly low levels of protective magnesium and iodine; deficiencies of vitamins, particularly of vitamin C, needed for the integrity of the blood vessel walls, and of antioxidants like selenium and vitamin E, which protect us from free radicals; and, finally, the disappearance of antimicrobial fats [butter, eggs, cheese and meats] from the food supply . . .”

In our wisdom, we as Americans have eliminated many of those things. We think we are going to be healthier, when in fact, we have taken away the very elements that God gave us to give health to the body and an increased resistance against diseases, including cancer. How do you like them apples?

“. . . our choice of fats and oils is one of extreme importance. Most people, especially infants and growing children, benefit from more fat in the diet rather than less. [Anyone who wills] to remain fat-free for any length of time [develops] a variety of health problems including low energy, difficulty in concentration, depression, weight gain and mineral deficiencies. Avoid all processed foods containing . . . hydrogenated fats and polyunsaturated oils.” You are going to have to give up processed food if you want to stay away from those superheated, damaged, polyunsaturated oils. It also means that I wouldn’t recommend eating in restaurants more than you have to because that is exactly what they are cooking with. “Instead, use traditional vegetable oils like extra virgin olive oil and small amounts of unrefined flax seed oil. Eat egg yolks and other animal fats with the proteins to which they are attached . . . And [eat] good quality butter.”

If anybody would like a copy of this summary, we will be happy to give you one. It was very helpful for me in order to put all of those pieces together. There are a lot of other technical things in it that I tried to edit out.

Also, brethren, even if we are eating good things that God designed for our health, we have to eat them in moderation.

Proverbs 25:16:

“Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee . . .” Honey is the primary sweetener that God designed for us. “. . . eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.” It means that there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Even if it is a healthy substance that God absolutely intended for health in the body, if you eat too much of anything, it will have the opposite reaction within your system. God requires moderation as a sterling principle of His commandments for good health.

I know that in order to change to the kind of diet that God requires, it demands radical changes in the way we cook, think and everything we do. For those of you who haven’t gone through that process yet, I know there are many questions like, “How do I even begin?”

We are addicted to things that taste good, so it is hard for us to want to give them up. We even come to think that the foods that God made do not taste as good. I don’t like the way honey tastes; I like sugar instead. As I said before—and I always get in trouble for this—over the years, my wife has converted a number of recipes, originally intended to have refined sugar, into honey recipes. It took a lot of work. I know she will probably get the calls and letters again, asking for her recipes, but I am sure that many of you have also developed your own recipes. We need to focus more on actually trying to develop recipes that use good, wholesome grains and those kinds of ingredients.

My wife grinds her own wheat. She does all the work in our family to make sure that we eat well. I am incredibly blessed because of that. I don’t take credit for any of it. You won’t find processed sugar in our home. It is not there. We just don’t keep it. I’m not saying that every single thing on every shelf would pass inspection; but for the most part, I am very confident in that which we allow and what is not there. It is not because I stand at the door and screen everything that comes in the grocery bag—I do not—but our family is committed to setting the right kind of standards, even for the raising of our sons. We want them to have the very best start possible. In their short lives, they have not been indoctrinated with all of these processed foods and processed sugars. I hope, if nothing else, that we can pass on to them those very standards before they become adults.

I know it is difficult to change. The only question is, brethren, is it worth it? How badly do we want good health? How badly do we want to avail ourselves of the benefits and blessings that God desires earnestly to give us? We can have it, and it is not a curse. Yes, we are going to have to change some of our tastes. We are going to have to come to appreciate the things that God made which are good for us; but we can do it, if we want it badly enough.

Let me answer some other related questions, just in closing. Are mushrooms good to eat? There are some who have said that, since mushrooms do not bear seeds, they must not be good. They quote Genesis 1:29: “And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed . . .” And yet, they do have spores, and spores germinate. They have all of the most important elements that are considered by God to be a seed, even though it is a different kind of seed than others. So, there is nothing wrong with eating mushrooms, just to answer that question.

What about medicinal herbs? Are special, medicinal herbs a required ingredient for good health in the body? There are a lot of sciences out there that have elevated herbs to the level of special, miraculous food and they try to convince us that they are absolutely required in order to have good health. It is not true. Now, there are medicinal herbs. God made them, and they have beneficial properties for the human body; but there is no place in the Bible that lists specific herbs that are required in order to have health.

We are supposed to eat green, leafy vegetables, and we are supposed to eat those plants that God did intend for food; but that is not limited. The word “herb” is used repeatedly in the Bible. There are about five or six Hebrew words that are translated into the word “herb.” They mean primarily plants and vegetables which encompass all of the variety that God put on the earth to grow—not a special, secret, medicinal herb of some kind that is supposed to have special properties.

We do not know what the bitter herbs were in Exodus 12:8 that were to be eaten with the Passover meal. That is the only reference that we do not understand, and we cannot know exactly what is intended there from the Hebrew word. What were those bitter herbs? I can tell you, brethren, it was not intended to highlight some special, unique, secret element or formula that gives super-health. Not at all. Obviously, we need to be eating vegetables in their organic state as much as possible and not overcooking them. Eating raw vegetables as opposed to cooked vegetables is even better; having a combination of both is ideal.

There are those who know a whole lot more about medicinal herbs and their valuable properties. There are medicinal herbs with terrific properties to help against certain problems and symptoms that we run into. So, those are very good to use in that way. I just caution everyone against going into the sciences of alternative health, which are just as idolatrous as the medical sciences and the drugs. It all comes from the same source, which is Satan. There are very highly demon-inspired people who are into all of these alternative medicines, including medicinal herbs and their properties. So, I just caution you to be very selective about how you disseminate information from the things you read. Take the good and reject the bad; sometimes that is difficult to do.

That is a very quick summary. So much more could be done. So much more could be said, but I have hit the high points that I wanted to cover for the purpose of getting us to think about the most important items. If we are able to make a concerted effort to change those things within our diets and to begin to take these principles more seriously—they are spiritual principles—then we can absolutely have the level of health that God intended for these human bodies which are the temple of His Holy Spirit.