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Amazing Facts

Refusing Babylon’s Buffet

Doug Batchelor

Refusing Babylon’s Buffet, Part 1

Refusing Babylon’s Buffet, Part 2

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Nuclear submarines or boomers are modern engineering wonders equivalent to a tightly packed self-contained city where a crew of 140 share the space of a three-bedroom house.

A nuclear sub can stay submerged up to 90 days.

There's little contact with family during this time.

Along with the pressure being prepared to launch nuclear weapons, it's 1 of the most stressful military assignments.

To compensate, the Navy trains the best chefs for these subs.

A meal might be prime ribs, sauteed mushrooms, baked potatoes, fresh bread, and real chocolate cake.

They say an army travels on its stomach, and that's why the military spends millions evaluating what their soldiers eat.

Why is it that many Christians think God doesn't care what his soldiers eat?

You know, the Bible teaches that whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Since our bodies are God's temple, we should present them to Him as a living sacrifice and not abuse them with gluttony, especially since we're soldiers in His army.

So join me today for this program as we uncover more amazing health facts from the Word of God.

Well friends, we have a very important lesson tonight.

I want to welcome you to the panorama of prophecy.

Again, tonight is going to be a practical lesson, but it's also a lesson found in the book of Daniel, which is a book of prophecy.

We're going to be talking about the subject of refusing Babylon's buffet.

And if you have your Bibles, you want to go to the book of Daniel.

Now Daniel is a book filled with apocalyptic prophecies.

We've got that prophecy in chapter 2 of the metal image.

You get the prophecy in chapter 7 we're going to be talking about.

Chapter 8 where you've got the ram and the goat, chapter 9 where you've got the dates concerning the Messiah's return, and then it's 1 of the longest prophecies in the Bible, which is from Daniel chapter 10 through Daniel chapter 12, and where it talks about the abomination of desolation.

But it's very interesting that the first chapter in the book of Daniel is dealing with 1 of the keys to understanding all prophecy.

It has to do with self-control, wisdom, mental clarity, and your lifestyle.

And so, of course, this story found in Daniel chapter 1 sets the stage for why Daniel was who he was through the rest of the book.

You can read there in Daniel 1, 8, Daniel, and it's assumed that this is also true of Hananiah, Mishael, and Nazariah.

They purposed in, it says, he purposed in his heart, he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies.

What they had on the menu there in Babylon, said we can't eat it.

It included some food that was unclean and no doubt had been offered to Babylonian idols.

And so he came up with a, Daniel was very wise, came up with a solution.

And he suggested to the prince of the eunuchs, said, test your servants for 10 days and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink.

I grew up living with, my father was very wealthy.

Sometimes he'd take us out to nice restaurants and we'd order escargot, snails, frog legs, turtle steak, and they're supposed to be the delicacies.

And then when I was poor and I lived up in the mountains I ate beans and rice and fruit, I had no refrigeration.

I felt much better eating the poor man's diet.

You know in some of the countries when they eat a very simple diet of beans and rice and things like that, they live much longer, they have less disease, less cancer, then they're converted to the Western diet, a lot of fat and sugar and processed food and the heart disease and the cancer just skyrockets.

Notice what happens after Daniel convincing the Prince of the Eunuchs, he said, give us 10 days to try this diet out and it says, in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, he found them 10 times better than all of the magicians and astrologers that were in his realm.

Notice the connection between their perceptions, their intelligence, and their diet that is being made.

So why are we talking about this as we delve into deep prophecies?

Because clarity of mind is actually going to help in your understanding.

The devil is trying to befuddle this whole generation in the world with drugs and dissipation and bad diets.

We just don't think straight and it affects our understanding.

It affects every aspect of our life and our relationships and that's why this is the first chapter that you find in the book of Daniel.

It's a lesson on self-control, giving glory to God with your body and tells us that not only did they live 10 times longer, you read on in that chapter it says Daniel lived until the time of King Cyrus, meaning Daniel lived about 100 years.

So he not only was sharp, and even you get into Daniel chapter 6, and he's already at chapter 5, he's an old man, and he's still brilliant at that time, and God is still speaking through him.

So we're going to find out what does the Bible say about how you can have a more abundant life, a longer life, a healthier life, a clearer mind, and I think you're going to be blessed by this.

First of all, question Number 1, what's a good Bible rule for healthful living?

Therefore, whether you eat or whether you drink, do all for the glory of God.

Now, if it tells us to eat and drink for God's glory, is it possible for us to not eat and drink for God's glory.

You know, friends, I think just it is so critical for us to understand the brain.

Even with modern computers today, for them to build a computer that will do what the human mind does, you would need a building as big as the Pentagon to house it.

You need all the water of Niagara Falls to power it.

You would need all of the water of Niagara Falls to cool it.

The fastest computers they've got in the world now, it goes back and forth between the US and China.

I think Korea is striving for the fastest computer in the world.

They cannot do what a mouse brain does yet.

You know how much processing is going on in your mind even as we sit here right now?

You're taking these sound waves that are going through the air.

I'm trying to make some logical sense out of it and you're converting this into abstract thought and your brain is keeping your heart beating and it's controlling your respiration.

You don't know that it might even be controlling your temperature at this time and then all little hairs in your body are connected with your brain and you're sensing anything that might be going on.

You're hearing noises behind you and you're processing those.

All of this is happening at lightning speed right now as we speak.

Your brain is a strange combination of a physical organ and a spiritual thing.

And God communicates with us through our minds.

But because it's all so physical, taking care of your body, which houses your brain and follows the commands of the brain, it affects your clarity.

It affects how clear it is, how easy it is for God to speak to you.

If we're not following good practical principles for good health, our minds get cloudy and it's hard for us to comprehend spiritual truth.

I don't think it's an accident that the first chapter in this book of Daniel is talking to us about health practices.

So with these things in mind, and we're talking about glorifying God in our bodies, should a Christian use alcoholic beverages?

Now we're not talking about grape juice now, we're talking about the fermented stuff.

Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, whoever is led astray thereby is not wise.

If we're led astray with it, then we're not wise.

The Bible tells us that Noah drank and he stumbled around drunk in his tent and 1 of his family members ended up being cursed as a result of that.

Lot's daughters got him to drink alcohol and he committed incest with his daughters.

A whole race of people, the Moabites and Ammonites, came around that attacked God's people for centuries because he got drunk.

King David tried to get Uriah drunk so he would go against his conscience.

And you could just go through the history.

The Bible says, woe to him who gives his neighbor drink.

Because what's happening is, everyone knows that your response time is impaired by alcohol.

It destroys brain cells, not once but every time you drink.

And I don't know about you, but I can't afford to lose any more than I've already lost.

It dramatically affects our ability to reason.

You know, I'm really passionate about this because my father struggled with alcohol and it affected our relationship.

People drink, they say things they later regret, they stumble around, they do silly things.

My mother drank, I drank when I was younger.

You wake up in prison and you think, how in the world did I get here?

Series

Refusing Babylon’s Buffet

Refusing Babylon’s Buffet, Part 2

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

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