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Newington Three Angels Church

The Health Message

Eric Walsh

The “Why” of the Health Message

You guys know me, know I'm not a big fan of the winter.

So, trying to soak this all up for the next few weeks.

So we're happy to be starting a new series, and I didn't wanna do this series, but my wife told me I really should, so we're gonna do this series, on the health message, a deep dive into our health message, and really looking at the details of what we believe and why we believe them on this issue.

This is 1 of the beliefs and truths that really separates us from other Christian denominations.

And there's a very spiritual component to this.

If God loves us, and he does love us, it would seem that the 1 who designed us would also give us instruction as to how to live our best life amen and hence we have this precious truth for the last days so our scripture reading that was read so wonderfully by our young brother there today is found in first Peter chapter 4 and verse 7 first Peter chapter 4 and verse 7 which says, But the end of all things is at hand.

Be ye therefore Sober and watch unto prayer.

Be ye therefore sober and watch unto prayer.

A message this Sabbath is entitled the why of the health message.

Father God we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

Lord I ask once again that you make me just a nail upon the wall Lord, a rusty sorry nail.

But upon that nail Lord I ask once again that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Father God, we ask now that we hear a word from the throne room of grace.

And as was just sung, Lord, even in this message, let us, Lord, experience your unfailing love.

This is our prayer in Jesus' precious and holy name.

We're going to go to the book of Mark, to 1 of the most difficult passages on eating and food in the Bible, and 1 that comes up as a challenge for us often as Adventists.

Mark 7, in verse 14, Jesus had been going back and forth in fact his his disciples had been challenged by the way that they eat and so we jump into the middle of the chapter we'll go back to the end at the beginning of the chapter in a second a second but mark 7 in verse 14 it says and when he had called all the people unto him He said unto them hearken unto me every 1 of you and understand There's nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him But the things which come out of him, those are they that defile a man.

Now many take this and say, well, see, I can eat whatever I want because it's not what goes in me that defiles me, it's what comes out of me that defiles me.

Jesus says a statement that he makes when you need to look deeper spiritually at what's being said.

Mark 7 and verse 16, if any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

When we deal with our health message, It is to me 1 of the most difficult things but I am in my walk with Christ have come to understand that God in His infinite love does not withhold from us the information that will improve our lives In fact, well as I studied even just this message this week, I said, boy, I sure wish I had known some of this stuff when I was a kid.

Because what I knew as a kid was to eat the standard American diet.

We call it the SAD, the standard American diet.

And that diet, the studies are overwhelming and show, cause disease.

They break the natural laws of God and the standard American diet causes disease.

Secular people, Christian people, everybody can agree on that.

But it is a challenging thing for the people of god to live in such a way to that causes disease and then expect a miracle from God to reverse the disease.

The health message is the miracle up front.

If we can abide by what God says, He will grant us miraculous favor in our lives.

Verse 17, And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.

And he said unto them, Are you so without understanding also?

Do ye not perceive that whatsoever thing from without enters into a man, it cannot defile him?

Because it enters not into his heart, but into his belly, and goes out into the drought, purging all meats.

And he said, that which comes out of the man that defiles him verse 21 he speaks to that for from within out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

Jesus says all these evil things come from within and defile the man.

Jesus was talking to the disciples and we're going to see what exactly he was talking about when he was talking about what goes into a man.

Let's look at our health message, dietary message.

Let's look at it, let's step back and look at it from a bigger picture.

Why were dietary laws given in the first place?

It is a very unique thing to have dietary law.

In fact, most of my friends that I know who are not Adventists of the denominations, there's no such thing as a rule against eating anything and hence they do the pretty much anything but what did if god gave dietary laws there must be a reason now what some people say is what he gave the laws to the Jews in order to set them apart from all the other tribes around them.

And it was just so that they would be different, not that there was any benefit in it, but that they would be different.

Well, scientifically, we know that's not true.

There are absolute benefits to what was given.

And so I'm not going to even go through everything.

You probably, most of you are familiar with the fact that as Adventists, we don't eat pork, we don't eat rabbits, we don't eat catfish.

And if you read Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, it gives you the list all the way down to the birds that you are to eat and not to eat very profound actually look at it is so descriptive and it uses simple rules 1 of them is that you have the card and we know that some of that goes back to the elementary system of the animal, right?

The animals that chew the cud, the animals that are described the way God describes them, many of them have multi-pocketed stomachs.

So like the cow has more than 1 stomach it regurgitates the grass so it can digest it better and it changes the way the normal bacteria in the Bowels of the cow so that a cow's meat is very different for example than a pig's meat eating pork is is correlates to actually liver disease and even liver cancer, all by itself.

And when God gave these instructions, there's 2 reasons why I think this is important.

1 of them, he gave these instructions so we would be healthier and clearer in mind, but he also gave them because when you see that what God said thousands of years ago are applicable and scientifically proven today, you are able to better trust in his word you are not following cunningly devised fables so look at Leviticus 11 I won't go through all of the first part but let's look at how it's kind of summarizing Leviticus 11 verse 44 for I am the Lord your God you shall therefore sanctify yourselves and you shall be what for I am what the purpose of the laws given in Leviticus 11 and I could have gone through all of them but mentioned most of the animals the purpose is to be what holy the the health message as given to the children of israel as they had come out of egypt out of the flash spots of egypt and they've forgotten the sabbath in and all of the other things that god had taught them he had to reteach them and he used up 10 Commandments and the Mosaic Law to do it and as he is teaching them this he is telling them the purpose of this is to be holy.

He says, neither shall you defy yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creeps upon the earth for I am the Lord that brings you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God you shall therefore be holy for I am holy it is a statement and what does it mean when the scripture says to be holy If we were to really look at it, it is talking about our characters, that we would have the character that God has, the character of Christ.

It is the habits that form the character.

I said I wish when I was younger, I knew a lot of what I'm learning now because I formed habits that I've learned are almost impossible to break.

In fact, from a neuroanatomical perspective, When you develop some of these bad habits, what they create in the mind are what we call grooves and even the spirit of prophecy refers to them as grooves.

So you get these nerve pathways in the brain that makes it so your default behavior is the habit.

This is why it becomes character because it literally restructures the brain to be a certain way.

Now, the only way to break these habits, and this is why programs like the CHAT program are so important, is you've got to learn new habits and create deeper pathways in your brain for the better behavior.

In other words, you cannot ever totally erase the bad habits, which is why you have to be careful because it doesn't take much to start a bad habit all over again, does it?

I used to do the nicotine dependence classes at the Veterans Hospital in Loma Linda, California.

And I remember 1 of the veterans came in to start back all over the program to try and get off of cigarettes.

And He said he had been clean from cigarettes for like 13 years.

And it was Christmas and he went to a party where they were serving alcohol.

He had a couple of drinks and he said, you know, you're right, what does alcohol do?

He started thinking I can handle this and he had 1 cigarette.

He said I could just have 1 cigarette, it's so much better with alcohol.

And there's a reason for that, we'll talk about that another week.

And he had the cigarette and guess what happened?

He said by the end of the next day he was back to 2 packs a day.

1 of the reasons we, you know, and it seems restrictive when God says to abstain from things, but the reason he says it is because Our minds are fragile.

And here's what's really frightening, the enemy, the devil himself, has figured out how to hijack our brains.

He has figured out how to hijack, particularly, the reward pathway, the reward centers of our brain, which are mediated by the neurochemical dopamine, which is the 1 that gives you euphoria.

When someone does cocaine, it's dopamine that's pushed out into the brain that makes them feel high.

Satan has figured out how to manipulate this.

So have many of the corporations of this world.

Their profit is in manipulating the dopamine in your mind.

Trusting God is Healthy

Perfect timing I guess got cold like just right away So I'm already missing the summer.

So I'm already counting down to the next 1.

Amen All right, we are we're gonna get into God's Word we're in the second part of our series on the health message.

And like our series on apologetics, not an easy series to do.

The health message speaks to a lot of what we are and who we are, especially as Americans in a land of excess, the idea of temperance is oftentimes very difficult.

So as we begin to talk about the health message, know that it's never me trying to pound anyone with anything, but it is a part of what makes us who we are as Adventists.

So it is really important that we study the health message.

We'll have a little slow uptake on our slides.

So our scripture reading for the message, a little different than what Donnie read earlier, is going to come from Proverbs chapter 3.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not onto your own understanding in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths I like what the wise man says in verse 7, be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil.

There's a promise, it shall be health to thy navel and marrow to your bones it shall be health to your navel and marrow to your bones our message this Sabbath the second part of our series is entitled trusting God is healthy trusting God is healthy let's pray father God we thank you for this opportunity to once again study a word I ask in a special way Lord that you just make me a nail on the wall a rusty sorry nail Lord but upon that nail Lord I ask that you hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

Lord, there's no reason for Eric Walsh to be seen or heard.

So, Lord, we ask that you speak now by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Bind the devil and cast him and his minions far away.

That Lord we might meditate fully upon your word.

So we're going to go, in order to make our point, we're going to go to 1 of my favorite Bible stories in Mark chapter 5 and I won't break this down as much as I Normally would so we can get to some other stuff, but it is 1 of the most telling stories of the New Testament.

In Mark chapter 5 and verse 25 the Bible says, and a certain woman which had an issue of blood 12 years and had suffered many things of many physicians and had spent all that she had and was nothing better, but rather, the Bible says, she did what?

So here's a woman, based on the Levitical law of the Old Testament, she has an issue of blood, meaning she has a problem with menstruation where it will not stop that based on the law of the time it made her perpetually for 12 years unclean which meant she was not supposed to go around anyone, be around anyone.

If she was married when the condition came upon her, it would, oftentimes, the husband would actually leave.

This would have been 1 of the worst situations she could have been in.

It would have left her ostracized and alone.

12 years, she went to the best medical minds in Jerusalem and of course they don't they didn't understand medicine like we do today but still there there was nothing they could do but here's what's sad they were happy to take her money.

So now after 12 years probably barely able to get nourishment and to live to sustain life from a financial standpoint she is growing physically worse in her health and at the same time she is running out of resources.

The spirit of prophecy tells us that she had gotten to the end of the rope in a sense that she had started the process of giving up, but then she heard about this man named Jesus and in verse 27 when she had heard of Jesus she came in the press behind and touched his garment The Spirit of Prophecy tells us that she had tried to meet him a couple other times before.

She had resigned that she might not ever meet him, but he happened to pass by where she was.

She would have been physically weak, church.

She would not have been able to push and shove like some of us can.

But the Bible says that when that happened she came in the press behind and she touched just his garment.

And here's the logic she had for she said if I may touch but his clothes I shall behold.

In fact she didn't think he would even pay her mind.

He was so under the deluge of the throng of people around him, she figured, I won't even try and bother him.

He'd never hear my voice if I could just touch his clothes.

Verse 29 says, and straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague.

She touched him and instantaneously she could feel deep down in her lower abdomen something shifted.

She knew immediately that she was healed.

She tried to slip away from the crowd quietly and not make too much of a fuss.

She'd gotten what she needed and she was ready to retreat and go home and start her life.

But Jesus would not let her get away so easily.

Verse 30, the Bible says, and Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press and said, who touched my clothes?

There's a mob of people trying to get at Jesus, people sticking out their hands, trying to fall at his feet, people are just throwing requests at him.

He says, virtue, goodness has gone out of me.

You see, when you trust God, you tap into his goodness.

It flows naturally to those who trust him, and it does not mean every time you get exactly what you want, but what you do get is his attention.

And we know which disciple responded, by Luke, it was Peter.

You would have probably figured that out, even if it wasn't written.

You know, Peter is the 1 who informed Mark to write the book of Mark, so he probably didn't put his name in there because he's always in the mix.

And so he didn't say anything here, but Luke tells on him, It was Peter, and his disciples said unto him, Thou seest the multitude strong in thee, and sayest thou who touched me?

And we're gonna see that 1 of the lessons of this story is everybody trying to touch Jesus does not have faith in Jesus.

Verse 32, and he looked round about to see her that had done this thing.

He looks at her and now she realizes she can't hide.

Verse 33, but the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him and told him all the truth.

She's fearful, she's trembling, she's whole.

Even the anemia, the chronic anemia she would have had for 12 years, the amount of red blood cells in her vessels now, in her blood vessels, would have shot back up to normal.

She was fully whole, fully strong, and yet when she is able to speak to Jesus, she trembles.

And I love what Jesus says to her in verse 34.

And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.

We're going to get back to this at the towards the end of the message, but notice that Jesus does not say It's a good thing you reached out and touched my clothes because that saved you.

It was her faith, her trust in God that made her whole.

Now, so trust in God is 1 of the key components of being a Christian, obviously.

But because we're talking about the health message, it is 1 of the key components of our health message is to trust God.

They could not really do anything for her.

In fact, they extracted from her and gave her nothing.

But when she trusted God, her whole life turned around.

You guys have probably all seen this before.

And normally this is a community facing thing that we do.

But I would venture to say that when you're dealing with the church, you almost have to flip this on its head.

Sleep, Rest and Redemption

We had 2 wonderful young people participate today in the scripture reading and in the singing and we praise God for that.

Some People say the youth are the future of the church.

I tell you, as far as I'm concerned, the youth are the church.

While I'm setting up here, I was reminded this morning that today is October 22nd and it was 178 years ago that the Millerites suffered what has been called the Great Disappointment.

178 years ago, I think I did the math right, which is a fascinating thing.

So in the month of October while the world looks to celebrate Halloween, we have something far more powerful to think on and to contemplate.

1 of them is that the time on earth is short.

178 years ago, people thought he was going to come.

And in the day of Noah, they were given 120 years.

But the other day that is important in October, and I won't be here to talk about it next week, but is to consider that as the world celebrates Halloween, October 31st is actually the day that the Reformation began.

So everybody is thinking of all of these spooky things when in reality, what actually is relevant about the 31st of October is that it is the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, the move away from tradition and deceit to understanding the Bible more totally.

And of course, so the devil has piled on that day, hasn't he?

And so I challenge you this October to think on those 2 dates and to especially on the 31st really contemplate the fact that we are still in a process of Reformation and that as we prepare for the Second Coming Jesus is about to return.

I don't know what's going on with the slides here.

So today we are going to talk about sleep.

We're gonna continue in our series on the health message.

Like I say every time I get up here, it's the most difficult series I preach.

So If you're uncomfortable with it, know that I'm 5 times more uncomfortable with you than you are because it is tough and it points out where you come short on some stuff.

And so sometimes it's easier to just pretend nothing's wrong, but I've learned as a physician that ignorance is not bliss.

And the world would want you to think that, but 1 day you will have the colonoscopy or the chest x-ray that shows that there are consequences to what we do.

Our scripture readings, read so wonderfully by the young lady this morning is Matthew 11, 28 and 29.

It says, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

So our message, our third part of our health message series, sleep, rest, and redemption.

Father God, We thank you for this opportunity to study your word, and to study your health message.

I pray now, Lord, that the phones would be silenced.

I pray now, Lord, that the conversations would stop.

I pray, Lord, that the Holy Spirit would prepare every mind for your truth Lord these are not easy subjects though but Lord help us to to be humble to take up our cross deny ourselves and follow you speak now Lord let me not speak you speak father our prayer in Jesus is precious and holy name amen We're gonna go to the book of Mark, and there are several stories in the Bible with some powerful sleep lessons and teaching.

And if you haven't read this book, you should.

I read this book, and let me tell you something.

I was actually saddened because my sleep habits are probably shortening my life as you're going to see and it really challenged me as I read this book so this is a powerful book but we're gonna actually take it and actually put it into context with scripture and the spirit of prophecy so let's go mark 435 and the same day when the even was come he saith unto unto them let us pass over unto the other side and when he had sent away the multitude they took him look at what the Bible says here they took Jesus even as he was in the ship.

And there were also with him other little ships.

What the Bible is telling you here is it's speaking to Christ's humanity at the beginning of this story.

The Bible says they took Jesus even as he was.

You ever been really physically exhausted, mentally exhausted?

The images of jesus as this frail pale dude is is is completely inaccurate the carpenters in that carpenters in that day didn't have home depot or loaves they couldn't just go and buy 2 by fours and and pile up a thing and load it into a truck and drive it home.

They had to then hone those things into shape in order to build the furniture or frame the house.

They were strong and Christ was a strong, a physically strong man.

He was also mentally strong and he had been teaching and healing all day the multitude and and at the end of the day his humanity shows in that Jesus is tired and exhausted.

I want you to know that if you are tired and exhausted, if you have a life that seems to be asking more of you than you can give, understand that Jesus has been there.

He knows what it means to have too many people pulling on you, more people pulling on you than you can easily accommodate.

He knows what it's like to have demands placed on you when there's a finite amount of energy you can supply.

The Bible says they took him even as he was I can imagine them holding Jesus up as they brought him into the ship Exalted exhausted and people wanted to be near him so bad that they jumped into other ships and they began to follow Jesus Bible says in verse 37 of Mark 4, and there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship so that what?

Now, I say every time I use this story, I say the same thing.

I've never studied boats or how they float, but I can tell you, I know enough to know that when a boat gets full of water, what happens?

And so here it is, as Jesus is released, A great storm.

In fact, I've been to this lake in Israel when I was there and there are mountains in the distance.

So the cool air comes down, hits the warm air rising from the water.

Those who fished or used boats in this water knew how to navigate the storms in the water.

The Bible says it's a great storm because this storm was not a typical storm.

The devil himself wanted to destroy Jesus and his disciples.

And so the storm wasn't the typical storm that the geography would give.

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Series

The Health Message

Sleep, Rest and Redemption

Transcript

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