Michigan Camp Meeting 2022: Knowing the Time

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Health, Science, and the Bible: Making Good Soup

Zeno Charles-Marcel

01 Disease

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2022 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Father in heaven, I want to just thank you so much for Dr.

You have called him not just to clinical work and research work and analytics, which you have gifted him in, but you have also gifted him as a pastor and a brother and a soul winner.

And so we look forward to learning through him what you have to say for us today.

We come with hearts that are aching for our own challenges and for those around us.

Please educate us, help us, and strengthen us to hear your voice.

Thank you, Vicky, for inviting me to be here.

And we're gonna do something a little bit, probably a little bit different than you are accustomed to, but I wanna start off by saying the health issues and the health message has been somewhat hijacked.

In many churches when people hear that there's going to be a health Sabbath, they start thinking, oh boy, there's gonna be this guy who's gonna come and he's gonna tell me about all the things that I'm not doing right.

And they're gonna force me to eat some food that I don't particularly like.

And so we have reduced this beautiful message into something that seems onerous, that people don't want to have to do.

And today and this week, hopefully, we can unpack some of that so that we can revisit what health is about and what health is not about.

So today we're going to be looking and laying some groundwork as to how we can revision and re-envision what God had in mind when he gave us this health ministry.

Well, in John chapter 5 we find a very interesting question that Jesus asks this man.

I want you to talk to the person next to you, whether you know them or you're now going to know them, and answer that question to your colleague.

If you're not sitting next to somebody, I suggest that you stretch across or look behind or something.

So, someone up here was saying, do you want to be made whole?

Do you think God wants you to be healthy?

Okay, so we're going to start with that premise and we'll go a little bit deeper and we'll tell you what we're gonna be looking at over the course of the week.

And I have a list here, and you have it in your program, your brochure, your guide for this week.

So I'm not gonna go through the details, but from today onward, God willing, we will go through different things, looking at different kinds of diseases.

Today we will not talk about any specific disease, but we'll have a framework for how we're gonna deal with things, okay?

First of all, you need to understand this.

We're not gonna do any shaming, all right?

I am not here to shame you into behaving.

We're not gonna blame your parents and your grandparents, all right?

And we're not gonna blame your kids, and we're not gonna blame your pastor.

First of all, you need to know that I don't know everything.

I experience things probably the same way you experience things.

There are some things that I am really good at and some things that I'm not good at.

And there are some things that I just have learned to trust God in a way that is very profound and some other places I seem to falter a little bit.

So we have a common kind of experience, right?

So no shaming, no blaming, no wild claiming.

The way I'm gonna put things together by God's grace is gonna be something that will help you, as it has helped me to change my mind about how I look at things and to understand what God wants me to do by the application of his grace, okay?

Now, I need to tell you, there is no righteousness by lifestyle.

There is no righteousness by veggie burger, okay?

You can eat all the veggie burgers you want, that does not make you righteous, right?

We heard in the last talk, right, the righteous shall live by faith.

Okay, so We have to understand that we're not going to use health, whether it's physical health or any kind of health, to beat people over their heads into being righteous.

As a matter of fact, if anything, it's just the opposite of that.

It is because we are saved that we actually want to do the kinds of things that God invites us to do.

He's inviting us to enjoy an abundant life.

And he wants us to have that abundant life, and so he has given us instructions of things that will help us along that way.

Okay, so No Righteousness by Veggie Burger.

We're gonna have high engaging, and that means I'm gonna be asking you questions.

And of course, you're gonna be asking me questions too, but I am gonna ask you questions first, okay?

So, I'm gonna try to engage you in your thinking.

If you don't want to think, you probably would find another seminar better than this 1.

The aim is for me to help to inform you, to inspire you, and to get you involved in your own health, your own health journey, because that is what I believe God wants you to do.

So, here's the first exercise, and if you're taking notes, this is a good place to stop and take some notes.

Remember that question, do you want to be whole?

Talk to the person next to you, give just 1 reason why you wanted to be in this seminar during this camp meeting.

We have 30 seconds so that you can say and they can say too.

Now if you're taking notes, it'd be a good thing to write down what your aim is, okay, what your goal is, all right?

02 Diabetes

Our Father in heaven, we thank you that you can be everywhere at the same time.

And so it's with that idea we know that you can be here with us and we recognize your presence with us as we start this day's activity in this seminar.

Please guide our minds, guide our hearts, guide my words, so that what we do and what we say will bring honor and glory to you and only you.

So I thought we'd start with a little light-hearted situation for you to kind of get your mind.

Each day I'm going to show you 1 and it'll get harder.

So if you're learning more you'll be able to see more, right?

This is the context, okay, in which we're dealing with this issue of health and shalom.

We're dealing with shalom and Jesus is coming back so we should get involved in what he has asked us to do while we wait for his return.

So we are looking forward to being with him and what he wants us to have was his original idea.

He wants us to have everything that is good.

So I have a few kind of tidbit questions to ask you.

Did you know, did you know that the way we live actually affects how we will die?

Yeah, Annie Oakley, yeah, the pistol carrying Annie Oakley.

Well here's something that she didn't know and it cost her her life.

She didn't know anything about vitamin B12.

And we know that there are certain people who are prone to getting B, vitamin B12 deficiency.

And some people knowingly put themselves in harm's way to get vitamin B12 deficiency by not taking a simple supplement of vitamin B12 and being a total vegetarian.

See, if you're a total vegetarian, you don't get any vitamin B12 typically in your diet, and you have to get it from your diet.

Therefore, if you are a total vegetarian, please don't be like Annie Oakley.

B12 deficiency is found in the United States.

3.2% of the population have this issue if they're 50 years of age or older.

And the reason is because physiologically as we age, our stomachs produce less acid.

And less acid also means we are producing less vitamin B12 and we can't activate the vitamin B12 to do what it's supposed to do for us, so we end up with a deficiency.

People who are taking heartburn medications, we decrease the amount of acid and therefore we have a similar kind of effect.

Also, people on a vegan diet and some vegetarian diets that are very abstemious, you know, they don't eat much of anything, that also can cause a problem.

Now I'm not saying that these diets are bad, I'm saying that they can be problematic if you don't make the, you know, the required and the proper arrangements to have a balanced diet.

People who have had weight loss surgery, some of the weight loss surgery bypasses the natural conduit for the production and absorption of vitamin B12 and therefore they can end up with vitamin B12 deficiency.

Also people with autoimmune gastrointestinal disease like like like Crohn's disease etc they can end up with problems with B12 deficiency and they should be taking a supplement.

The symptoms oftentimes might be something as simple as balance.

But as we get older, we kind of get a little bit unsteady on our feet and we might think that that's just not it.

It's just that we're getting a little bit older.

We may become depressed and they say that as you get older, you might become depressed, you might lose loved ones, you might be the only 1 left standing and that loneliness may make you depressed, fatigue, confusion, memory loss.

You see, some of these things people say, This is what happens as you get older, but it's not because you're getting older.

It's because you may not have vitamin B12.

Numbness and tingling in the hands and feet, and of course, ultimately, something that we call pernicious anemia, and death.

And some of these changes are irreversible.

So the best thing is to take care, understand that this is something that can happen and take a supplement if you are a total vegetarian.

In 1 study of 100, 000 people who were diabetes-free individuals, what they found was people who were eating these ultra-processed foods.

The things that come in these packets, some of the crinkling packets and so on, right?

Things that are not really the natural foods.

You don't have any of these growing on trees, for instance, okay?

Yeah, they had a greater incidence of developing type 2 diabetes.

So ultra-processed foods increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

We'll talk more about diabetes a little bit later.

People who eat whole plant foods, on the other hand, they have less problems in developing type 2 diabetes.

So if you are diabetes prone, you have diabetes in your family, making sure that you leave off those ultra-processed foods and take something that is more wholesome, whole plant foods.

This 1, they were looking at how much weight loss we need to have to be able to get some of the benefits of losing weight.

And in this particular study, they found that only 5% of your body weight loss will make a huge difference in terms of your health.

Which means if you take any weight, somebody give me a number.

Let's suppose you're 240 pounds, 10% of 240 is 24, and you take half of that, so that's 12 pounds.

You lose 12 pounds and you get some of these benefits how does that sound to you right it's not a lot right you know I'm saying this it doesn't mean that it's always easy to lose 12 pounds.

But what I am saying is that it's not really a lot of weight loss that you need to have to be able to get these kinds of good effects.

5% of body weight loss leads to a cascade of various benefits, including reduced heartburn, reduced pain, especially knee pain for people who have osteoarthritis, reduced blood pressure, reduced glucose if you have diabetes.

And people who don't have diabetes, it decreases their risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Some people have an issue with nuts and I think some of them are nuts.

And the reason is because nuts don't seem to follow any of the patterns that we otherwise would have expected, scientifically speaking, Because it seems as though the calories in nuts don't do the same thing as calories in other foods and it certainly doesn't do the same thing as the calories in ultra-processed foods.

So, now it doesn't mean that we have open season on nuts and that we should go nuts ourselves, right?

But what it means is that don't be afraid to have nuts.

Be careful though if you're gonna have the nuts that have been adulterated with lots of oil and a lot of salt and things like that because those things can cause something good to become not so good, all right?

They looked at 145, 000 middle-aged people who had up to half a handful of nuts a day, and lo and behold, what they found, that there was a 16% decreased risk of becoming obese.

And you would say, but they're eating nuts, and nuts are supposed to be high fat, and da da da da, right?

No, it doesn't seem to do the same thing.

It defies some of the other science related to this.

I have an anecdote that I wasn't planning to tell you, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

When the first study that was done by Joanne Sabaté out in Loma Linda looking at the effects of nuts on cholesterol and so on, He had a very difficult time getting this study published because all of the scientists who were reviewing that paper, they said, this guy must be nuts.

In other words, we're not going to publish this.

03 Hypertension

That what we say and what we think and what we do because of being here today will all be done to your name's honor and glory.

We thank you for hearing our prayer and answering according to your will in Jesus name, amen.

Okay if you're not here for the health seminar, you came to the right place.

And we start off with the idea again of shalom.

So I greet you today and I say Shalom and you answer me with Shalom.

I am wishing you everything that is good.

I'm wishing you total health, total and complete health.

And this was the way that the Hebrews actually greeted each other with the Shalom and they still do up to today.

And the context in which we are dealing with the health issues is not just with the Shalomic idea, but also from the Prince of Shalom.

You know, when the Bible calls him the Prince of Peace, the word in Hebrew for peace that's translated peace to us is shalom.

So he's the Prince of Shalom and he wants us to be where he is.

And I don't believe that that's just physically he wants us to be where he is.

And I don't believe that that's just physically He wants us to be where He is.

He wants us to be where He is in His heart.

He wants us to have the heart and mind that He has, right?

Let this mind be in you that is also in Christ Jesus.

So we're going to start off again this time with a little thing about what you may or may not know.

So did you know, did you know that by touching someone whom you love when they're in pain, you actually can reduce their pain.

I'm not talking about the doody-doody therapeutic touch.

I'm talking about holding someone's hand, right?

You know sometimes you go to the hospital, you may have a loved 1 or in my case it might be a patient, and I hold their hand and they feel better just because compassionate touch leads to a decrease in pain.

There are also some physiologic things that happen that we can't fully explain, but we begin to become in sync by holding each other's hands.

And this has been shown in multiple studies.

It's not just some fluke, and it's not that therapeutic touch kind of idea.

It's the sweetness that we have from compassion.

And speaking about sweet, let's talk about this 1.

Did you realize that honey, in some studies, have been shown to be just as effective or even more effective in reducing symptoms of colds and flus and things like that than over-the-counter medications.

In this particular set of studies, they reviewed 14 different studies with 1, 800 patients, and they found that people who used honey compared to over-the-counter medications such as antihistamines and cough suppressants and painkillers and expectorants and things, the stuff that we usually would say have, take these cold tablets or so, right, that honey was actually as good as or better at relieving the symptoms, okay?

But be very careful, Don't use it in children who are less than or equal to 1 year of age, because we don't want to transmit anything to the children, all right?

So it's not for the little, the wee ones.

Did you know that there are different kinds of walking that we can do.

But there are different kinds of walking, just like there are different kinds of talking, right?

There's exercise-focused walks, And it actually changes the way your body responds when you decide that you're going to go to walk for exercise.

So your mind has a part to play in the effect of what you're doing.

So as you think about something, it actually may change the way you respond to it.

There's interval training walks where you walk fast and then slow down, walk fast and slow down.

That's where you carry something with you that may help you to improve your strength.

For women, particularly with osteoporosis, that's a very useful way to exercise, to walk with weights.

Even if you get 1 of these weighted jackets like a fisherman's jacket or the photographer's jacket and you can stick, you know, bags of beans or sand or salt or whatever in the pocket so you can carry some weight.

And this actually helps to increase the weight that you're carrying and helps to strengthen your bones and strengthen your muscles as well.

Their meditative walks, their sports walks and their social walks and their digestive strolls and after a meal to take a 15 minute stroll.

This is not trying to get into a sprint or a marathon or anything like that.

A digestive stroll usually helps with your digestion.

But there's a special issue with a particular study that was done.

This was a small study of only 50 people, but they divided the group into 2, 2 25s, and they had 1 group going out and taking regular walks.

That was group A, weekly walks, 15-minute walks done outdoors, and they had a good time.

And group B, they had them take the walks, but they also asked them to do something else.

They asked them to, well, actually in both groups they were taking selfies and things like that.

But in group B, they asked them also to pay attention to some of the things around that were beautiful.

So we have group A walking, taking walks, taking selfies.

Group B walking, taking walks, admiring what's in nature and taking selfies.

And what they found was that group B had less distress and more compassion, gratitude, etc.

They measured scales on how they were doing after these 15-minute walks that they did.

So by actually experiencing the beauty in nature, you actually can change the way your body responds.

As a matter of fact, they even found the selfies were different.

The selfies of group A that was just taking the walk and taking the selfies had a lot of self in it.

But those who were looking at nature, There was less self and more nature.

So even though they were taking a selfie, they were taking the plants, the flowers, the trees, the things that were beautiful as well.

And these individuals actually had a change in the way that they dealt with things.

So the recommendation out of this study is that you should take some more awe walks.

So go out and take a look at nature and be awed.

Do like you used to do when you were kids.

You lay down, you look at the clouds, and you see all these different shapes.

So you look up there and you see something.

I'm always too slow in saying, look at that, for my wife to also see it.

And sometimes she looks and she says, Zeno, you have a good imagination.

Because she can't see what I'm seeing there.

And you might wonder, well, how much walking do you need to do to get any real benefit out of it anyway?

Well, I'm going to surprise you, because every day I'm going to show you something about how much you really need to do if you want to get the minimum amount of benefit.

Can you find 12 minutes to do some physical activity in your whole 24-hour day?

04 Hearts on Fire

Loving Heavenly Father, we thank you once more for bringing us together, for giving us this time together, for opening a space in our schedules, our usually busy schedules I'm sure, to be here, to be in your presence.

Series

Health, Science, and the Bible: Making Good Soup

01 Disease

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Prophetic Preaching and Persuasive Appeals for Decision

03 When to Preach Persuasive Appeals for Decision

58m

Reasons to Believe

05 The Resurrection of Jesus Christ

50m

Simply Divine! Concept Cooking for Creation Living

04 Quick Cuisine on the Go

57m

Plenary

High Time

1h 18m

Health, Science, and the Bible: Making Good Soup

05 The Battle for the Mind

47m

What Did Jesus Do?

05 The Perfect Priest

52m

The Great Mind Controversy

01 Knowing the Time

50m

Strength Through the Storm – Better Brain, Better Habits, Better Life!

01 Food, Mood, Cravings, and Immune Health

1h 3m

Health, Science, and the Bible: Making Good Soup

02 Diabetes

1h 5m

Principles for Succesful Soul Winning

Interpersonal Relationships - The Art of Hospitality Part 1

42m

Snapshots of My Redeemer: Morning Devotional

The Judge

39m

Hungering for More of HIM

02 Powerless

42m

Sound Doctrine