God's Super Food

Scripture:
Date: 09/18/2008 
Does God care about what we put into our bodies? This Bible study series for kids takes a closer look at what the Bible says about health.
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Good evening, friends, welcome again. This is night number seven of this ten-part series called "Amazing Adventure, a journey for life with Jesus." We'd like to welcome all of our viewers across the country and around the world. We'd also like to welcome our local group right here in Richardson, Texas. I'm glad to see all of your smiling faces this evening. Again, if you have not received your lessons yet, please go to the Amazing Facts kids website.

You can order the lessons. They're interactive. I know a number of our children right here at the local site have filled out their lesson guides and they're well on their way to getting their Bible at the end of the series. Well, let's stand together as we sing our theme song, "life is an adventure." [Music] Life is an adventure, following the King. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing.

Walking in the Spirit, he will lead the way. With His Word to guide us, glowing deep inside us. Nothing can divide us following the King. Life is an adventure following the King. Every day with Jesus makes us want to sing.

Conquering with kindness everywhere we go. Voices we are raising, Jesus we are praising, life is so amazing following the King. Life is so amazing following the King. Please remain standing. I'm gonna invite our helpers to come forward this evening.

Byron will be giving us our Scripture reading tonight. Byron, what are you reading for us? 1 Corinthians 10:30--31. "Therefore whether you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." All right, thank you very much. And our prayer is coming to us from Emily, is that correct? Dear Jesus, thank you for this wonderful day that you've given us and bless this church as we go through tonight. Watch over us and bless Pastor Doug as he teaches to us.

Help us to learn more about you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Thank you very much. Please be seated. I'm gonna invite Pastor Doug to come forward.

Pastor Doug it's Bible question time. Evening, Pastor Ross. I'm always excited about this time and your questions come in fresh each day so looking forward to it. Okay, well, let's go right to the video and we'll get our first question for tonight. My name is tendashai.

I'm 8 years old and my question is: how often should we pray? Good question; how often should we pray? Now there's a Scripture that tells us we should pray without ceasing. Well, does that mean that we go around on our knees all day long praying? No, some people take it that way and they get sore knees. What it means is be in an attitude of prayer that God is with you and near you all the time. But you can read in the Bible in psalm 55:17, king David said, "morning, evening and at noon will I pray." Not only that, Daniel in Daniel 6 it tells us that he had a pattern, three times a day ever since he was a child, he would take time aside for God to pray. Now how many of you always pray over your food before you eat? It's always good to thank God for your food and ask him to bless your food.

How many of you eat three times a day? Well, so that's a start. You're at least praying over your food three times a day, but you should have private time with God every day. Every morning in our house, I take time to read the Bible. We encourage the Batchelor boys to have their own private time. Then we read something together as a family before we go to sleep at night, we kneel, we pray together.

And you should, during school or lunch or something, take a few moments and pray and talk to God and just ask him for continued strength that you can be a good witness. But never forget that Jesus said, "I am with you always." So talk to him all through the day, that's the best thing. Pastor Doug, we have a question that somebody wrote in. "If there is only one Jesus, how can people on the other side of the world see him when he comes?" Well, that's a good question. Ya know, we included that 'cause we get it a lot.

Do you still have our globe somewhere? You know, I thought we'd take our globe we borrowed it last night and use it as an illustration. All right, let's pretend that Pastor Ross is Jesus and the world turns like this, and as he comes the world's turning, he sweeps around the world. The Bible says that the righteous are caught up to meet him in the air. So comes from this direction as the world's turning, sweeps around, vacuums everybody up and then heads back to glory. So it never says in the Bible, every eye will see him at the same time.

It says every eye will see him when he comes. And so if the world turns like that, every eye's gonna see him, isn't that right? That's all you gotta remember. All right, well, thank you very much, Pastor Doug. We have another video question, we'll play that at this time. My name is nicholas.

I'm 8 years old and my question is: why didn't God create everything at once? Why didn't God create everything at once? Well, I think that he wants us to enjoy the things that he made. And, you know, the Lord seemed to break up the creation. Keep in mind, does God have angels that watch? They were enjoying the creation. The Bible tells us in the book of job, all The Sons of God shouted for joy when they saw the world being created. And so they were enjoying it and God was spreading out the splendor and the magnificence of his creation.

Now while we're on the subject of creation, we don't normally do this, but I'm gonna ask nathan if he'll come up here for a second. And look, nathan is the other--he's the youngest of the Batchelor tribe, and you know I just came all the way from California. I gotta use him once, if you don't mind. Look in there and find out if you can find something in that chest. Open it gently, nathan, that you might use to bake a cake.

I want to illustrate something. You know a lot of people in the world don't believe in creation, are you aware of that? They believe in another theory of how we got here, what is it called? Evolution, and evolution is the idea that everything just kind of happened by accident over millions of years. Now how many of you know what this is? Don't turn it. Huh? What's this called? They call it an egg beater. They don't use these anymore, but they used them for about a hundred years until they got the electric ones and some people still use 'em.

But go ahead, put that on the ground and just spin it for a second. I don't think it'll hurt the carpet. Don't spin too fast. Now I understand there's a shortage of oil, so who knows we're in Texas, right? Might find something. You notice there are three parts to that.

Okay, you can lift it up and show 'em how it spins now. You got the handle, you got the crank and you got the mixers. It's a very simple invention, but this doesn't happen by itself. If you dug one of those out of the ground, would you think that it came from nature, it just evolved cause lightning hit the ground or does somebody have to make that? Just those three moving parts together require intelligence, don't they? There's a design there. There's organization.

You notice when these things are spinning, they don't hit each other. Someone had to plan that. That would never happen by accident. What's more complicated, an egg beater or one single cell of life? A single cell of life that God made is a thousand times more complicated. Okay, you can take that back, just don't play with it during the program.

That, to me, is a very simple illustration that helps us understand God had to create. There's so much complexity and so much design in our bodies and nature that there had to be a God. If we don't believe that an egg beater happened by accident, how much more difficult or complicated is life? All right, we do. We do have a written question here. It's a question probably a lot of folks are wondering: "if killing is wrong, why did God help David to kill Goliath?" You know a lot of people have asked that question because one of the Ten Commandments says, "thou shall not kill.

" But, you know, that is not the best translation from the hebrew. Jesus quotes that same commandment in the new testament and he says, "thou shalt not commit murder." Killing, if you pull up a weed, you're killing. If you step on an ant-- how many of you have swatted a mosquito before? Killers, every one of you. Is that what the commandment's talking about? No, there's a difference between killing and murder. When a soldier defends his country, is he a murderer? No, he's defending his country.

If a policeman has to shoot somebody who's threatening somebody's life or if he has to shoot a murderer because they're gonna hurt someone else, do you call the policeman a murderer? Or he's just executing justice. When David went against Goliath, that giant was threatening the whole army, he was threatening the country. They wanted to enslave God's people. During times of war, God even sent his soldiers like Joshua to fight battles to protect the freedom of his people, so they can even worship God. And so I know it's a difficult subject and God doesn't want anything to die.

God creates everything to be alive. In heaven, there'll be no more death, but the commandment actually says, "thou shalt not murder." That's how Jesus quotes it. Well, Pastor Doug, our last question for tonight is a video question. My name is jesse, and I'm 8 years old. And my question is: why did God make people different? By the way, that's the youngest of the ross tribe.

Why did God make us all different? What would the world look like if God made people like someone in a cookie factory so he just started stamping us all out and we all looked exactly the same? You've all got different fingerprints, everybody in the world. The iris in your eye, they can check that and no two people in the world have the exact same iris in their eye. God is so unique, no two stars are the same. He has them all named. You know the Bible says he can even number the hairs of our head.

Now, that's not so hard for me, right? But that's a miracle. He's got names for the stars. He wants--he likes things to be unique and he loves that you're an individual, and that's why he made us all different. All right, well, thank you very much, Pastor Doug. We're gonna invite the "Amazing Adventure" singers to come forward.

They're gonna be giving us a song called "the tree song." [Music] I saw a tree by the riverside today as I walked along. Straight as an arrow and pointing to the sky, growing tall and strong. How do you grow so tall and strong? I said to the riverside tree. This is The Song that my tree friends sang to me. I've got roots growing down to the water.

I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine, and the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown. I am nests for the birds of the heaven. I'm becoming what the Lord of trees has meant me to be, a strong, young tree. I saw a tree in the wintertime when snow lay on the ground.

Straight as an arrow and pointing to the sky and winter winds blew all around. How do you stay so tall and strong? I said to the wintertime tree. This is The Song that my tree friends sang to me. I've got roots growing down to the water. I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine, and the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me.

I am shade from the hot summer sundown. I am nests for the birds of the heaven. I'm becoming what the Lord of trees has meant me to be, a strong, young tree. I saw a tree in the city streets where buildings blocked the sun. Green and lovely I could see, it gave joy to everyone.

How do you grow in the city streets? I said to the downtown tree. This is The Song that my tree friends sang to me. I've got roots growing down to the water. I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine, and the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown.

I am nests for birds of the heaven. I'm becoming what the Lord of trees has meant me to be, a strong, young tree. I've got roots growing down to the water. I've got leaves growing up to the sunshine, and the fruit that I bear is a sign of the life in me. I am shade from the hot summer sundown.

I am nests for the birds of the heaven. I'm becoming what the Lord of trees has meant me to be, a strong, young tree. Amen. Thank you. That song was based on the first psalm, "blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the unGodly-- he will be like a tree planted by the streams of water.

" I enjoyed that very much. Thank you. Okay, tonight we've got an exciting lesson. Matter of fact the lesson tonight is a real adventure. I want to welcome everybody who is studying with us around the country, other parts of the world.

And our presentation tonight is dealing with the subject of God's super food. If you're gonna go on this adventure to heaven, those adventures need to have strength, they need to have endurance. And, you know, the Bible tells us that there are some secrets that if you follow these secrets, you're gonna have longer, stronger life. I know it's true. God has an outline for super food in the Bible, and we're gonna learn about that tonight.

These things are true. You know a couple of years ago, our family went to Australia and we stopped by the Australian zoo there. And while we were there, we took a picture of not the prettiest animal, Harriet the tortoise, but the oldest animal in the world. Matter of fact, Harriet originally was picked up, we're not exactly sure how old she was, picked up by Charles Darwin when she was only about 10-inches across like a dinner plate in 1835. Brought back to england with two other tortoises, matter of fact they named them, Tom, Dick and Harry.

And poor Harriet for a hundred years they were calling her Harry before someone found out that Harry was a Harriet. Didn't do very well in england. Her brother and sister died 'cause of the cold climate, and so someone brought her back to Australia and she lived in the botanical gardens there for years and years and outlived many people. When we went to see her, he was 176 years old. And you know I took those pictures.

We watched her eat. She's a vegetarian. That has something to do with her long life. Now she just passed away a little more than a year ago, but you're not doing too bad if you live to 176 in this life. You know the Bible says that there's things you can do in your life, by your living patterns that will help you to be stronger and have a longer life to be more abundant and joyful.

Question number one, let's get to our lessons, okay? Does God care? "Does the Bible tell us that God cares about the health of our bodies?" Answer, 3 John 1-- I'm sorry, verse 2. It says, "I pray that you might prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers." God cares about our physical prosperity, just like our soul prosperity. What good is it if you go through life and you say, "you know I know Jesus, but I just feel terrible because of my bad living habits"? the Lord wants you to feel good in your heart and he wants you to feel good in your body and to be strong. Did Jesus spend time just teaching or did he also heal people? Have you ever been healed by the Lord? God has miraculously healed me before, on more than one occasion where I felt bad, I felt sick, I had pain, I prayed and God did something and took it away. I believe that God can heal, but there's things that you can do to help God strengthen and heal you.

Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the Kingdom and healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people. The Bible tells us that God wants us to have abundant life. You can read about that in John 10:10 Jesus said--that man in the picture, his name is Banana George. I think he's 93 years old now. That picture was taken, I think he was in this 80s.

And he's not just water skiing, he's water skiing barefoot. And you know what else? I don't he's got dentures or that rope would fly out of his mouth. He's probably hanging on with his own teeth. He says Jesus said, "I have come that--" oh by the way, his favorite food is bananas that's why he wears yellow all the time. "I've come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.

" the Lord wants us to have good health and an abundant life. Now let me tell you what the most important part of your health is. Sitting on top of your shoulders, on top of your neck, you got a big bubble called a head. Your head has got the most sacred organ of all, it's called your brain. When you're an adult, it'll weigh 2 1/2-3 pounds.

Did you know that your brain, when you're thinkin', uses about 25 watts of electricity. That's enough to power a bulb. Your brain is only about 2% of your body's weight, but it uses about 20%-25% of the body's energy and blood. I know sometimes after teaching or preaching for a couple of hours I'm really tired, and all I've done is stand but a whole lot of fast thinking has to happen and your brain works, but it's not a muscle. Your brain is what's telling your fingers to move.

I can do this with my eyes closed if my brain's telling me. And your brain is telling your eyes to follow me while I move and it's focusing. Your brain is keeping your heart temperature or your body temperature. It's keeping your heart beating. You're not even thinking about your breathing, but you've been breathing your whole life.

Did you know that? Your brain is regulating a million functions in your body all at the same time. And it's your brain that God speaks to. When God wants to speak to you, he doesn't speak to your knee or your elbow. You could lose your feet and your hands, and can God still save you? You can, matter of fact, there's some people lose their arms and their legs and they still have amazing lives. But if you lose your head, you're in trouble, right? So this is the most sacred holy of holies, your brain.

You want to take care of your mind. The devil wants young people's minds to be all cloudy from poor living practices where they can't hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. That's why this lesson is so important tonight because God wants to speak to you and he wants you to be able to hear him and understand his truth, and some kids can't understand because of the way they're living. Number two, what food did God plan for people to eat when he first made adam and eve in the creation? What was the original ideal diet that God had for people to eat? You can read this in Genesis 1:29. "God said, 'see, I've given you every herb that yields seed-- and every tree whose fruit yields seed.

'" They will be food for you. And then after adam and eve sinned, then God added vegetables to the diet. He says in Genesis 3:18, "you shall eat the herb of the field." So the original diet for man was what you call a vegetarian diet, nothing had to die. The lions did not chase down and jump on the baby deer and eat them. The wolves did not eat the lambs, snakes did not bite, mosquitoes did not suck blood.

In the beginning everything was perfect, nothing died, and that means: what did the animals eat? Man and animals ate a vegetarian diet. And during that time, man lived a long time. That was the ideal diet for man. Now, then after the flood and after sin, all kind of problems came into the world and people started to kill animals. But he wanted them to return to the ideal diet, and God showed how much better off they could feel when he saved them out of Egypt.

Matter of fact, God gave the children of Israel super food. You remember, when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and they went into the wilderness, what kind of food did he give them? Manna from heaven. They called it-- it's like angels food. And it says in Deuteronomy 6:24, and I hope you're writing some of these verses down, especially if you don't have a lesson. "And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes.

.. For our good always, that he might preserve us alive." Now after 40 years of eating the food that God had given them in the wilderness and those children must have had fun. We talked about this yesterday, going out and gathering that manna and making it into cookies. You can make manna cookies, you can make manna muffins, you can make manna rolls, you can probably make manna donuts if you wanted. They made all kinds of things probably out of manna.

It was like their flour. Forty years of eating that food, how was the health of the children of Israel? Psalm 105:37, "he brought them out--there was none feeble among their tribes." That means there wasn't one sick person among over, probably over 2 million people. No hospital, no infirmary, no clinic, everybody was healthy because they were eating. They were getting sunshine. They were walking every day and getting exercise.

You know in America with all of our conveniences, there's a lot of sickness and disease, even though we've got a lot of hospitals, because people sit at home. They don't exercise. They use a remote control and use cruise control in their car 'cause you don't want to get your toe too tired pressing on the gas pedal. And you don't even have to dial your phone anymore with your fingers. You're just talk and it dials, so we don't get enough exercise.

And we stay inside offices all day long or you stay inside houses watching television or playing video games. You don't get the sunshine, and there's a lot more sickness. When he brought that nation into the promised land, there wasn't one feeble person. God wants us to be healthy. Let me give you another story in the Bible.

Don't forget this, Daniel 1. What did I say? Daniel 1. If you forget everything else, just read that whole chapter and you'll get this story. You can read in Daniel 1 about when Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylonian king, he conquered the land of Israel. And when he did, he carried away back to Babylon thousands of the people to serve as craftsman and artisans in his kingdom.

And he took some of the young people and he said, "I'm gonna train them to sit in my court, to be advisors, to be ambassadors." And he found the brightest and the most promising of the young people. He brought them to the Babylonian training school and he said, "we're gonna feed you from the Babylonian cafeteria." And among those young men were four individuals, their names were Daniel, hananiah--Daniel, shadrach, meshach and abednego. Hananiah, mishael and azariah. They have hebrew names, they have Babylonian names; I was mixing them all up. And those four young men were very thankful that they had the privileges of the palace, but there was a problem.

Question number three, "what decision did the boys make and what was the result?" When they found out that they were going to be required to eat the Babylonian food, which had a lot of things in it that God's word said was unclean and not good, they made a decision. It says, "Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself--with the portion of the King's meat, and with the wine which he drank." You know the Bible says there's some things you can eat and some things you can drink that defile you. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, "do you not know that you are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" Your body is God's temple and the warning is very serious. "If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

" God wants to live in your body and he lives in your mind, and he wants it to be a pure dwelling place. Don't we treat a church with special respect? 'Cause it's a dwelling place, we call it the house of God. Well, your body is supposed to be a dwelling place for God's spirit. He wants you to take care of your body. He made your body and then when the devil kidnapped the world, Jesus bought your body back again, remember? The story about the sailboat, and so you should take care of your body, not only to honor God, because you'll feel better.

Let's go back to our story of Daniel. Daniel and his friends said to the man in charge of them, ashpenaz, "tell you what, give us a ten-days test." He said, "test your servants for ten days. Let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink." So he said, "okay, what have I got to lose?" So they didn't make them eat the Babylonian food or the Babylonian wine. They drank water and they ate the vegetables for 10 days. What does the Bible say was the result after only 10 days of eating God's super food? Oh, the answer's up here on the screen.

"And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter." Fatter means that they were fuller, they were ready. Don't forget they just crossed the desert and so they filled out. "Fatter in flesh then all the young men who ate from the portion of the King's delicacies." And when they were tested, it says Nebuchadnezzar finally tested them after 3 years. Listen to what it says about those four young men. "And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the King inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all of the magicians and the astrologers that were in all of his realm.

" Daniel, hananiah, mishael and azariah were ten times smarter, ten times stronger. They were better than everybody else that had been in that university with them, and they were eating a simple diet. Not only that, that chapter ends by saying Daniel lived until the reign or king darius or cyrus. Daniel lived to somewhere near a hundred years of age. If we follow God's plan in the Bible, you will live longer and you will live stronger and feel a lot better.

Number four, "why did Daniel and his friends also refuse to drink the King's wine?" Answer, you can read in the Bible it says, "wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler," it's raging, "and whoever is led astray by this is not wise." I hope you don't ever plan on drinking alcohol. It's bad news. You know what the Bible says about those that drink alcohol. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, "nor drunkards will inherit the Kingdom of God." Alcohol is a drug, matter of fact it is the most deadly drug in North America. But you've all seen wine.

You've all seen beer commercials. They try to make it look like it's fun. Pastor Doug used to drink wine and beer and alcohol, and I got in a lot of trouble. I wrecked cars, I was in jail, nothing but problems. Do you know, most of the people that go to the hospital are there because of accidents or sickness connected with alcohol? Most of the people that are in mental institutions are there because of disease or birth defects connected with alcohol.

Most of the people that are beaten, children and spouses and families, somebody's been drinking alcohol. And it is a big problem in the world, so Christians shouldn't have anything to do with that. The devil wants to make it look like it's fun. Who was the strongest man in the Bible that ever lived? Pastor Doug. No, it was Samson.

You know what the angels said to Samson's mom? "You're gonna have a baby and you're gonna get pregnant now. Be careful what you eat and everything 'cause that baby's gonna deliver Israel. And when he's born, don't let him drink any wine." John the baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit and when the angel came to talk to his father in the temple, he told him, "for he will drink neither wine or strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit." You know when somebody is filled with wine, they're filled with a different kind of spirit. You ever seen a liquor store and it says, "wine, beer and spirits?" You know why they call it spirits? It's not the Holy Spirit.

It's the Spirits of devils that come into people when they drink. And so one of the things you want to do is you stay away from drugs, stay away from alcohol, which is a drug. Keep your mind clear. The devil wants a lot of young people today to use drugs so that can't hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Question number five, "what was it about the King's food that Daniel knew would defile him?" Now there's a reason, the King-- that Daniel said he couldn't eat the Babylonian food.

The Bible said that some food is clean if they were among the animals. Now the Bible doesn't say you have to be a vegetarian, but you'll be a lot better off if you are. But if you're gonna eat meat, you can only eat the clean meats. You know the clean and the unclean distinction of meat goes all the way back in food, all the way back to Noah. Now I've got a question; how many of you here are related to Noah? Let me see your hands.

Every hand ought to go up. Everybody here, do you know you're all brothers and sisters? Everyone here is related to Noah 'cause the whole world was destroyed except Noah and his family, right? So everyone here came from Noah. Was Noah Jewish? No, he wasn't. The first jew actually was from the tribe of judah or the first hebrew was Abraham, but we're all related to Noah but God told Noah when he put the animals on the ark to make a distinction between the animals. He said, "you shall take with you seven each of every clean animal.

..two of the animals that are unclean." So way back in Noah's day, they knew some animals were clean, some animals were unclean. You know what happened after the flood? All the vegetation was destroyed. Man began to eat more animals and probably began to eat the wrong kind of animals. Look at the life span. I got a picture up here on the screen.

There you've got how long people lived before the flood. You see Noah there in the middle? 950 Years. Look what happened the to their life span after the flood when they started eating more and more animal products, their life spans got shorter and shorter and shorter. It's pretty well proven now that vegetarians live longer. "National geographic" just did an article about that and they interviewed people in Loma Linda because they live longer than most people and the main reason is they don't smoke, they don't drink and most of them are vegetarians.

And there was a lady there a hundred years old that was working out and driving her own car, and so these are facts. God does have super food in the Bible and he wants you to know about that 'cause it'll help you feel better. It'll help you be a better witness for him, help you get more done, and you can hear the Holy Spirit. Now what's the difference between the clean and the unclean mammals? Leviticus 11:3, "whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud you can eat." That means an animal like a goat or a sheep, it's got a cloven hoof and it chews the cud. Ever seen animals do that? They're clean to eat.

They're vegetarians. But there's some animals, they've got a cloven hoof, but they don't chew the cud. It says right there in the Bible Deuteronomy 14:6, "the swine--" what's the swine? "Pig is unclean for you, because it has a cloven hoof, but it does not chew the cud; you shall not eat their flesh." The Bible says they are an abomination, and there's a lot of people in the world. That man, he's taking his lunch to work with him. A lot of people in the world eat pork.

Now you know, most of the food in the Bible that is unclean-- the Bible says that buzzards are unclean. The Bible says skunks are unclean. The Bible says you're not supposed to eat rats and mice. Do you know there are parts of the world where they eat puppy dogs. You know, in china, they just had the olympic there, uh-huh.

Do you know that dogs and pigs are related? They're in the same category. Even Jesus used the dog and the pig together. He said they're very similar. Pigs, I understand, make good pets, but you're not supposed to eat 'em. Even the muslims know that, jews knows that and Christians ought to know that.

It's in the Bible that they are--pigs are garbage cans. God has some animals that are scavengers, they'll eat anything. Has your mother ever come into your room and said, "wow, this place it looks like a deer field"? They don't ever say it looks like a deer meadow. They say it looks like a pig pen, right? Any of you ever heard that before? You know, why? 'Cause what's the dirtiest animal in the world? Pigs. Why would you want to eat the dirtiest animal in the world? They're garbage cans, they eat garbage and you think "I'd never eat garbage.

" But if you eat the garbage can, that's even worse, right? God doesn't want us to eat those things that are unclean. Listen to what the Lord says about how he's gonna judge people in the last days. Isaiah 66:15-17, "behold the Lord will come with fire and with a chariot, like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury. Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, eating swine's flesh--" now swine is a pig. "And the abomination and the--" what's that word? "Mouse.

" He puts pigs and mice in the same category. Would you eat a mouse? "Shall be consumed together, says the Lord." Now Pastor Doug knows what he's talking about. You want to see a picture of me? Believe it or not, that's me, years ago. See what my little car says there? It says, "wholesale prime beef." And you can't read the bottom, it said steaks. I used to have my own meat business, and I used to buy all kinds of beef and sell it, and I ate meat three times a day and I didn't feel very good.

When I lived up in the mountains in a cave, I had no refrigerator so I ate mostly beans and vegetables. I felt pretty good, I felt pretty strong. I came down to town, I went into a meat business, and I started to eat lots of steak and meat and--my mind was foggy. I didn't feel very good. I didn't have as much energy and I asked a friend one day, "can I get some prime pork for a customer?" He laughed at me.

He said, "there's no such thing as prime pork." He says, "they're all dirty." What about the fish? God makes the distinction in His Word between clean and unclean fish. Leviticus 11:9, "these you may eat of all that are in the water: whatever in the water has fins and scales, you might eat." It needed both things, fins and scales. But if it didn't have fins and scales like crab or clams or lobster or shrimp, the Bible says they're scavengers. All those things you're looking at there, they all live on the bottom. They eat what the other fish drop, and we're not gonna talk about what the other fish drop, but they eat that, so why would you want to eat them? That's right, they're scavengers.

And then they're not only scavengers like pigs that go around root things up, and then they got scavengers in the water like catfish and clams. And then they got scavengers in the air like buzzards and crows and carnivorous animals. The birds, the only birds that people were allowed to eat, the clean birds were what they called the foraging birds. They're the ones that go around like little chickens and they peck and they pick up the seeds and like the dove and the quail and the turkey. Those were pheasant, those were foraging birds.

The other birds were birds of carrion. You're not supposed to eat them or the raptors, the hunting birds. And it tells, "every raven after its kind and the short-eared owl and the sea gull and the hawk after its kind," those were all considered unclean. Now here's my question for you, does it make a difference what we eat? It does. What you eat and what you don't eat can make you feel good or not feel good.

And you know the devil clouds the minds of a lot of young people in the world because they're eatin' the wrong thing. Tell you what, you know, I've got so much to cover but I want to do a little illustration. Pastor Ross, why don't you help me and bring that table up to me? I've gotta get somebody to help me out. Now who hasn't helped me yet? I feel you guys are in the middle, why don't you both come? You haven't been up yet? All right, come on, you two, come on up here. Sometimes I always pick 'em on the edges, all right.

Let me help you up. See if you find something sweet in there. You've already helped. Who hasn't? You want to come up? You haven't helped yet? Who hasn't had a turn yet? You haven't had a turn yet, come on. Sorry.

Okay, you find something sweet, hold that up so we can all see what it is. Look in there see if there's something else you can drink. Grab that. Put it on the table for me. Okay.

All right. Do you read pretty good? Let me see here. Come here, come here, come here. Let's see here, what does that say right there by my thumb? Sugar. Sugar, how many grams? Thirty-one grams.

Thirty-one grams of sugar and that's per serving. There's two serving in here so 31 and 31 is 62 grams of sugar. And if there are about 4 teaspoons--I'm sorry, there's 4 grams per teaspoon, let's see, how many teaspoons would that be? That'd be about 15, is that right? All right, I'd like for you to put 15 teaspoons in here. Ya'll count 'em out for her. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten-- is that what you put on you cereal in the morning? Eleven, twelve-- I know some of you, you put more on your sugar-frosted flakes, don't ya? Fifteen.

Okay, that's just what's in the candy bar. Now this has got, I can't find it here, where is it? Soda's sugars, 65 grams. Isn't that what that says? Sixty-five grams. Tell you what, that's not counting the 50 something grams of--57 milligrams of caffeine, phosphoric acid that will clean off battery terminals and some people drink this. Now we don't have time, but why don't you see if you could pour the rest of this sugar in that cup, okay? I'll bend that for you.

You think you can pour that in there? Try and pour it without spilling too much. We measured it out in advance. How many of you have drunk one of these before? Ah, don't confess. You probably could never eat one of these by yourself. You know what's amazing to me? You're all starting to act like you've already had one.

Some of you will eat this and drink that in one sitting. How much sugar are you getting? But it doesn't matter because you always pray over your food, right? As long as you pray over it, it'll be okay? No, oh, no. You know, thank you very much. You can go back down. Pastor Ross might get this for me.

The Bible says, "God is not mocked. Do not be deceived. What a person sows, they will also reap." And there are some people that think it doesn't matter, I'll just pray over it. It does matter. There's something called cause and effect and what you do it's gonna make a difference.

You've gotta be careful. A lot of kids, they're eating so much sugar they're just like this at school and they're not doing very well. I know 'cause I grew up and sometimes for breakfast all I had was a hostess twinkie and a cup of coffee, and then I wondered why I did so poorly in school. And if you eat good food, the Bible says eat what is good? You know why there's sin in the world today? God told adam and eve not to--? Not to eat something they weren't supposed to eat. Did they listen? He told eve "thou shalt not eat of it," and they did eat of it.

Question number six, "why does God say all these things about our food?" It says, "the Lord commanded us to observe all of these statutes, to fear the Lord our God for our good always, that he might preserve us alive." He cares about us, right? Can you have a banana split and then go to school and think everything's gonna be okay? No, no. And hopefully your mom and dad won't let you do that. It says in the Bible, "eat that which is good." Now some people say, you know these people that believe in evolution they say, "people are supposed to eat meat because after all, right here you've got a tooth." Pastor Doug has all his own teeth. See that? I bought 'em with my own money. We got these canine teeth and they say that means you're supposed to eat flesh 'cause you've got these canine teeth.

This fella here, he's got pretty good canine teeth too, don't you think? But you know what? He's a vegetarian. He's one of the strongest animals and he's a vegetarian. Elephant's the biggest animal, he's a vegetarian. Giraffes the tallest animal, he's a vegetarian. These animals know about their super food and so this idea that you've gotta eat meat or you've gotta eat all these sweet things or you're just not gonna feel good, it's not true.

You will feel much better if you follow God's diet. Number seven, "what should guide me in choosing how I live and what I eat?" 1 Corinthians 10:31, that was our Scripture verse to start with. "Whether you eat or whether you drink, do all to the glory of God." All right, I need some more helpers here. I gotta go to this side now. Tell you what, we'll just go right down the line here.

One, you want to help again? One, two, three, four, five, six, come up real quick. We're running out of time. Do ya'll know how to break these and shake 'em? Take one, break it shake 'em real quick. Now I hope this works. Is someone missing one.

Here, shake it, break it. Okay, here we go. What does a red light mean at a traffic sign? Stop. What does green light mean? Go. And yellow light means? One time a kid said it means go real fast.

'Cause so many people, parents, they see the lights turn yellow, they go...rrr! 'Cause they want to get through the light. All right, come here. Two reds lights together. Let me help you with this. Oh, good.

I thought you had a dud there for a minute. All right, the yellow, where's the yellow? Yellow over here. Two yellows. Reds, you guys stand together. Two greens, you stand together.

All right, some foods are perfectly good and God wants you to enjoy them. Now I'm gonna call out a few, you tell me red, green or yellow. I haven't said a food yet. Bananas. Green.

Hold up your light. Green light. Bananas are good. Grapes, green light. Ice cream.

Yellow. Come on, God says he's taking us to a land of milk and honey, right? A little bit, yellow means caution. Coca-cola. Red light. Red light.

I hope I don't get sued for this. Coffee. Oh, red light. Very good. Alcohol.

Red. Strawberries. Green. Zucchini. Green.

Some of you said red. Broccoli. Green. That's right. Let me think what else we could say here.

Potato chips. Yellow. All right, you get the idea? Pork. Red. Bacon.

Red. Did you know bacon is pork? Ham. Red. All right, very good. You get the idea? Thank you, we're running out of time.

You can keep those, guys. Shh, we'll have surprises for you, don't worry. I'm just about out of time and I got more to say. Maybe some more of you will ask questions about health, but God wants you to feel good. You know when Jesus comes back, he's going to give us new glorified bodies, but we need to take care of these bodies, right? What would you think if somebody said they wanted to borrow your family's brand-new car? Yeah, don't play with them now.

Don't play with our light sticks. They wanted to borrow your family's brand-new car and they said, "I'll bring it back in a week." And they're a friend and you said okay. So they take your car on vacation and they go driving off through the wilderness, and they don't even use the road. And they beat the thing up and they scrape it against trees and they don't check the oil. They don't put water in the radiator, and they put the wrong gas in the tank.

And after a week, they come--you hear this noise coming up the street and you look out there and you see this monstrosity come driving towards you, and there's sparks trying out from underneath it 'cause the tires are worn off and it's driving on the rims. And smoke is billowing out from underneath the hood. And they pull up and they open the door and it falls off and the headlight's hanging out like an eyeball. And they say, "where's my car?" They say, "oh, this is your car. Hey, thanks a lot.

We had a lot of fun on vacation." And they say, "can we borrow it again next year?" What would you say? If they do that to the one you lent them, then you don't want to ever lend them another one. Who does your body belong to? How many of you want a new body when Jesus comes? Do you think he's gonna give you a new body if you destroy-- if you destroy the one he's given you? You need to take care of your body, not only to honor God because it's his property, but you'll feel better and you'll live longer. I'm a grandfather, did you know that? I can walk on my hands. You want to see me walk on my hands? Ow, it hurts though, but I'll do it again if you want. I gotta do this real quick, we're almost out of time.

Okay, that's all I can do. For our friends who are watching, we still got one more question left. It's got number eight, a bunch of secrets about health so you could live longer and stronger. Look at those things, you can also find out more about it at the Amazing Facts website. Don't you all want to feel better and live longer and be stronger? God has super food for you if you follow the rules in the Bible.

Let's ask him to help us do that, amen? Can we pray right now? Let's ask the Lord to help us. We need to make some changes in the way we eat and drink so that we bring glory to him. Father in Heaven, thank you for the principles you give us in your word so we can know how we can bring glory to you by taking care of our bodies. Give us victory and self-control. Be with all those that are watching so that we might have more strength to give you glory and to take care of ourselves and be better witnesses.

In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you, friends. Thank you, friends, for tuning in. When's our next meeting? Tomorrow. And our study tomorrow is gonna be "whistling through the graveyard.

" You don't want to miss it. If you've been encouraged by today's message and would like to know more of what God's word says to you today, Amazing Facts invites you to visit our educational website at www.Bibleuniverse.com. At Bible universe you'll discover exciting truths that will fill you with peace and purpose. The mysteries of the Bible will unfold for you at your own pace. Visit www.

Bibleuniverse.com today. Expand your universe. In a world surrounded by darkness, there is a voice that whispers to every young heart urging them to find the treasure of truth. Those who follow the path will discover eternal riches beyond their wildest dreams. Pastor Doug Batchelor leads your kids on a powerful, soul-winning Bible study experience just for them.

The 10-part series is filled with incredible Bible stories, exciting spiritual discoveries and heart-warming music, all designed to help your kids stand with Christ for eternity. The most valuable thing that God ever gave to this world was His Word. Join us for an "Amazing Adventure, a journey for life with Jesus." Order yours now. Take the journey. Thank you for joining us for this broadcast.

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I'm Doug Batchelor. For more than 40 years, Amazing Facts has been a ministry of evangelism, reaching people where they are, changing lives with a powerful message of hope and purpose found in the Bible. As disciples of Christ, we here at Amazing Facts have accepted the great commission challenge to spread the good news throughout the world. What began as a 15-minute radio program has been blessed by God to grow into a multi-faceted, international media ministry. These are truly exciting times yet, we cannot do any of this without your continued partnership.

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