NEC 2014 Camp Meeting: Transformed Agents

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NEC Youth

Don Mackintosh

Addiction and the Glory of God

You know, I was in the United Kingdom a few years back, and I read a book called The Outside Verdict.

And it was a book talking about how revival needs to come to the Kirk of Scotland.

And it talked about the fact that Britain is basically a consumer-driven hedonistic society.

And it said that the solution is to have the old Kirk in the new Scotland, because the new Scotland is completely devoid of Christianity and direction.

And the idea written by this very popular newspaper editor was that there needed to be a revival and get this this is what he said let's see if I can remember a couple of points he said number 1 the church doesn't need to be ashamed of its mission and its message.

Alright, so you don't think that was a good 1.

I mean, I think the Adventist church nears to hear that.

Number 2, The church needs to preach about people like John Knox and let people know of the great reformers and the Reformation.

Number 3, people in the church need to be distinct and different from the culture they're in.

When you look at them, you need to be able to see that they're different by what they eat, by what they drink, by what they wear.

He made the point, why is it that it's only the Catholics that they ask for to be profiled in movies when they're trying to depict religious people?

And the reason is because the Catholic priest always wears his little get-up out in public, and he has his robe, and he has his clerical collar, and people know he's different.

And he said, why can't we have a people that look different I think he's kind of onto something there.

I'm not going to hand out Catholic robes, but what I'm saying is, should we look different?

Not just to be different, But because we are different.

And then he said, we need to revive the spirit of 1844.

Did you know that in Scotland there was a split between the National Church and Reformed churches in 1844, there was a revival.

What we need is the old Kirk in the new Scotland, is what he said.

I think that's what we need as well, and especially when it comes to the idea of addictions.

I think we are addicted to so many things.

You know, I'm over here, my cell phone, if I turn it on, costs me a lot of money.

And I realized that I'm kind of addicted to this.

I think I might just put it in my kitchen sink and then it won't work anymore.

I actually did check my email the other day and there were 320 emails.

It was great that I didn't have to worry about them until I turned the computer on, thanks to Pastor Ramden who gave me a hotspot.

Addictions, we're addicted to all kinds of things.

So we're gonna talk about that today, and then tomorrow, doing good and the glory of God.

Our brief time together, it's been great to be here with you.

Specifically, are there problems with addiction?

Of course we know, duh, but we're gonna look at that.

A closer look at addictive substances, can the addiction cycle be broken, and what is the most effective weapon in habit change?

First of all, how do you magnetize a baby?

How many of you have a relative that has a little child or maybe you have your own and you want that little child to pay more attention to you?

Well, here's exactly how you do it, okay?

And let's say he's age 9 to 12 weeks of age.

You sit face to face, 15 inches apart from him.

You put his little binky or his pacifier, whatever you call that thing, in it.

And then you turn on a clock for 3 and a half minutes.

And every single time this is what happens.

There's an increase in dopamine in that little young mind and he is addicted to you because he has bonded with you and he sees you are the sugar daddy or the sugar mommy and he looks right at you and researches sound Every single time you come into the room from then on, I don't care, even if his mother is in the room, he will look at you, and he wants you to give him some love.

But really what he wants is a dopamine rush.

Now this does not work with babies whose mothers are addicted to narcotics because they are already addicted.

But they really have had their first buzz.

Sugar reduces crying in healthy newborns, reduces reaction to heel stick and circumcision.

For those of you who have not been circumcised or heel stick, you don't know what that's about.

No affected infants with opiate addicted mothers.

We live in a nation, however, of people that are addicted, especially Americans.

Americans, less than 5% of the world population, consume 80% of the global opioid supply.

I didn't have time to look up your statistics.

They consume 99% of the global hydrocodone supply.

They consume two-thirds of the world's illegal drugs.

Most of that is in California and Hawaii where I'm from.

I'm sure there's many great statistics showing that there's addictions in almost every western nation.

Well, let's look closer at the addictive substances and what can be done about it.

How many find yourself craving for broccoli?

I mean, the only demonstrable problem we can find is this bite out of this watermelon, but how many of you are just addicted to watermelon?

My father-in-law loved watermelon so much, he thought he would make watermelon jam.

He took watermelons and he boiled them for 4 days.

And then he attempted to make jam out of that.

But anyway, the addicting foods are of course these foods.

Now these are foods that will cause adults to look just like babies if you give the foods to the adults.

What's happening is The opioids are being released.

We can give Vivitrol and it can go right there to that receptor site and it can stop the opioid from going across that synaptic or that membrane there and giving us the buzz.

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Addiction and the Glory of God

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