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Doug Batchelor : Jesus said in Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." Here at Amazing Facts, we take the Great Commission seriously. That's why we're an international ministry. I've personally had the privilege of sharing the gospel in many countries, from China to New Guinea, from Russia to Africa, to India, and it's evident that people everywhere have a hunger for the Word of God.
As we make significant progress in delivering God's message, there's still a lot of work to be done. It's not enough that people know about Jesus, people need to experience a new birth and to know the fantastic love of God. Life's difficult. Many people across the globe are struggling, but God is still love. And it's our mission here at Amazing Facts and it's our joy to show that love to others by sharing the good news. We pray that today's program will bless and inspire you to share God's Word with others and don't forget, stay tuned for today's free offer at the conclusion of the presentation. God bless.
Doug: A little amazing fact I'll share with you. A couple in Australia, Janette and Alan Murray, she had helped to overcome breast cancer by adopting a vegan diet. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use other methods as well, but this really helped her and to promote that, she and her husband got an idea. They decided to run a marathon every day, this started in 2013, for 365 days. Marathon, you know, like 26, 27 miles, and they ran completely around the continent of Australia. They entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the most consecutive marathons and just for good measure, when they finished on January, when they went to Tasmania, they ran one more marathon around Tasmania. She was 62 and he's 65 and to have that kind of health.
Alright, here are the seven ways to postpone your funeral, seven secret tips to postpone your funeral. Best food, routine exercise, healthy relationships, total abstinence--I'll explain that, water yourself, regular rest and a faithful attitude. So people were made originally to be social creatures. And they've done a lot of studies that show that people that have good relationships tend to live longer, more so with men than women. But they've shown that married men live as much as five years longer, there's a lot of theories about that. Why is that? Some think it's because their wives nag them to get exercise. Some think it's because when they're married, they don't take as many risks. But it is a fact that some of you are here, you're saying, well, what about me?
Relationships, it doesn't just have to be marriage. You need a good social support group, when people have good relationships and you've got a support group around you, it helps prevent bad habits. It gives you accountability, it helps you feel like you're part of something, it makes your mind more active. You know, the Bible says, "As iron sharpens iron, so a man does the countenance of his friend." When we debate things and we talk together, we sharpen each other, keeps your minds active. They find people that are in even retirement facilities that have a good support group, they're able to help forestall dementia and Alzheimer's longer because they're interactive in that way. "The Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone.'"
So in the King James Version it says, "God made a help meet for him." And that doesn't mean help meet expenses. God made a wife because we need relationships like that. And it also says that people who are married are less likely to drink and smoke, and part of going to a church, people that attend church live longer. Did you know that?
Yeah, talking about secrets of how you can live longer because we get community. There's relationships, people watch out for someone. They say, I haven't seen this person. They check on them maybe, and they say, oh, they need help. They visit in the hospital, they pray for each other. "Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they'll keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one might be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken." Right, so we need healthy relationships.
Number four, total abstinence. One of the keys to having a long life is you've got to know how to say no. Total abstinence. Some things--you need a moratorium on some things. I know that if you talk to some of the doctors and the studies will say, well, don't drink irresponsibly. Well, they've done some research and there is no responsible way to drink. The downside of drinking far outweighs any benefit you might get from a little red wine. And I understand that the benefit of red wine has nothing to do with the alcohol. It's the grape skin in the red grapes. I had red grapes for breakfast this morning and I'm still sober. So, yeah, so you can get those benefits--have total abstinence in a couple of areas.
One is alcohol. I grew up with a mother and a father that drank quite a bit, just causes all kinds of problems in the family. The Bible says, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, whoever is led astray by it is not wise." Again, alcohol is addictive, it destroys brain cells, it dramatically affects our ability to reason. And then I meet Christians and they say, well didn't Jesus turn the water into wine? And isn't a little wine good for your stomach? Well, the word wine that's being used here is the word grape juice. It's the same exact word. They didn't use the word grape juice in the Bible. Jesus did not turn water into booze. Jesus turned water into beautiful grape juice. You could get fermented alcohol all year long in Israel. He somehow at this wedding feast, probably even out of season, provided harvest grapes in the spring with his fresh wine. Save the best for last.
Jesus, even at the last supper, He said, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it with you new in my father's kingdom. What he had there at the last supper was new wine, that is unfermented. The Bible says, "As the new wine is in the cluster," if it's in the cluster, is it fermented? No. Jesus called His gospel new wine. He said, "You don't put the new wine in the old wine skins," because fermentation will take place. It is fresh. Christians should not drink any alcohol. The Bible says that Noah drank, he got drunk, and some of his family were cursed in the process. Lot was made drunk by his daughters and he committed incest. The record of drinking in the Bible is not a good one.
So that's total abstinence, moratorium. As Nancy Reagan said, just say no. People who say, well, I think I can just drink a little bit moderately. One out of seven, to one out of ten people that drinks becomes a problem drinker, and brings all kinds of addiction and misery into their lives. Not to mention the waste. Would you have a dog that bit one out of seven people that came to your house? So you want to stay away from it.
The second thing that we should just say no is tobacco in all of its forms, whether you're smoking it, whether you're chewing it, whether you're vaping it. Now, friends, I am speaking to you as somebody that used to drink. I'm speaking to you as someone that used to smoke. I know the pros and the cons and it was hard for me to quit smoking. Actually quitting smoking is not hard. I did it 100 times. The hard part was staying quit, right? By the way, I borrowed that from Mark Twain. The hard part is staying quit. Praise God, I did stay quit. But, mother smoked, grandfather smoked, father smoked, they all quit and it was a struggle, and it's a very expensive addiction.
Smoking is probably the leading cause of preventable disease worldwide. It's amazing how many people are in the hospital. I told you what we could do to turn around the health crisis if people would just do some of these basic things. A lot of it is self induced. Smoking is not good.
Now, this last one in my total abstinence category is the reason the unclean foods are called unclean foods is because they are unclean. Do you know why they call pigs, pigs? Because they're pigs. They are unclean. I had a neighbor that used to ask me to feed his pigs, and all I can tell your friends is I can't find a better word than to tell you that they're pigs, they will eat anything. Now, pigs are smart. You know, they say they’re as smart as dogs. I won't eat my dog either. I see what my dog eats and they're scavengers. In the Bible, it often compares pigs and dogs together. It says, "You do not give that which is holy to the dogs, and do not cast your pearls before swine. As a pig that is washed and returns the wallowing in the filth, or the dog that returns to its vomit, is a person that returns to his sin." And so you'll often find that dogs and pigs are in the same category because they're scavengers. They are not meant to be food.
I finished a book this week, yesterday. It's about a man that was captured. Lived nine years among Comanche Indians. An incredible story. I think it's called "Nine Years Among the Indians." True story, Herman Lehmann, he was living with the Comanches. A Comanche would eat almost anything. They would eat almost any part of any animal. They eat rattlesnakes. Hungry enough they kill, they knew how to kill a skunk and eat it. They would not eat pigs and they were disgusted that pale faces would eat pigs. Isn't that interesting? You do with that what you want. I just learned it yesterday. It says in "The Guardian" March 2018, "Yes, bacon is killing us. Processed meat is now in a group of 120 proven carcinogens alongside alcohol, asbestos and tobacco, leading to a great many headlines that are blaring that bacon is as deadly as smoking."
The Bible tells us in Daniel chapter 1, verse 8, Daniel and his three friends, they were brought to the Babylonian court, and they said we're going to let you eat from the royal cafeteria. And then you'll train in as counselors and wise men in the King's court. And it was a great privilege for them to be fed from the Babylonian cafeteria. But they realized that on the menu, there was food and drink that God had said they should not eat or drink. The Bible says, Daniel and his friends, "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies, nor the wine which he drank."
Very first chapter in this prophetic book of Daniel says that Daniel had a determination not to eat certain things and drink certain things. Then you get to the end of chapter 1, it says, the king examined Daniel and his friends who said we want a vegetarian diet and water to drink, the king examined them and found out that they were 10 times wiser than any of the other wise men in his kingdom. The end of the book says, the end of that chapter says, "And Daniel continued until the reign of King Cyrus." Meaning if Daniel was about 17 when he was taken captive, Daniel lived to 100 years of age at least and he was still working. You read in Daniel chapter 6, he's an old man now during the time of King Darius, and he is still the prime minister of the kingdom, managing the biggest kingdom in the world, and he's got to be like 88 or 90 years of age at that point.
Point number five, water yourself in several ways. You are mostly water. In the very beginning, you find water in the beginning of the Bible, "God separated the waters from the waters." You go to the end of the Bible, it says, "Whoever is of thirst, let him come and take the waters of life freely." Talks about God in the beginning, these four rivers came out from the Garden of Eden. Crystal clear water like that, which will flow from the throne of God. I hope I'm making you all thirsty thinking about this clear water. A lot of people are dehydrated.
I heard a story, years ago in Saudi Arabia they discovered this pile of bones, an individual evidently died. They were hiking across the desert. They got lost. Finally, when they realized they couldn't go on any longer, they tried to pitch some little tent for themselves, a little shelter, and by the bones in the tattered clothes, they found a note and the man said, I've gone as far as I can go. I am dying from thirst. I cannot go any farther. They found his remains about 150 yards from a beautiful oasis flowing with water. That's kind of tragic. But you know, there's a lot of people that are dying of dehydration when they're surrounded by water in our culture? Most of us don't drink until we're thirsty, and that's because you're already dehydrated.
You need to water yourself, even when you're not thirsty. Pretend that every day you're going to cross a desert, and you want to store up like a camel before you go, drink lots of water--and I know there's side effects to that. You don't want to be too far from the facilities when that happens. I know if I'm going on a long plane ride, I got--you got to ration how much you drink. Could get to turbulence and they don't let you get up. But otherwise you need to be drinking an abundance of water because every cell in your body is cleansed by water. And we need to be hydrating ourselves. Mayo clinic says that we're between 60 and 70% of water in our bodies. You lose water, of course, through perspiration, through evaporation, through elimination, urination. And you need to replace that.
You get some liquid through the food that you eat. But, and by the way, drinking soda pop does not qualify as hydrating yourself. And when you drink caffeinated drinks, do you know that actually makes you, many caffeinated drinks are diuretics that make you lose water. You can actually be a net neutral effect. So you have to be drinking water itself. Drinking soda pop is like liquid candy. Clear water. How much do you need? They say approximately 2 L or half a gallon a day. A little more for men. You've probably heard the rule "eight by eight." You need about eight ounces of water eight times a day. And if the climate is dry and hot, you need a little more. And so you just compensate for that.
When we're talking about water, you also want to be dealing with water in cleansing. By the way, some scriptures on this, Proverbs 5, verse 15, "Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well." The Bible says drink water. Water in the inside, we need water on the outside. Water is the very best solvent for cleansing your body. Washing the body and clothing prevents disease. You know, they found that the people that practice good hygiene live longer. It's a fact, "Then I'll sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean," Ezekiel 36, verse 25.
Regular rest is the section we're talking about here. This is part of God's plan as well, especially in the culture we're living in today. Was a scheduled rest part of God's original plan for humanity? Yes, it was. It says that, "On the seventh day God ended his work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which he had done. And God blessed the seventh day."
God maintains that we ought to have regular rest. God plan, not--the Bible says, God rested, then He made man in His image. And then one of The Ten Commandments, the fourth commandment says, remember to keep the Sabbath. God says, we need to take a break and cease from our regular work and come together and be recharged on a regular basis. And the best time schedule for that day of rest is one out of seven. I understand, in France they tried to make a 10 day week and the US Military tried to get the soldiers to go on a five day week so they could get different schedules going, and everything fell apart. They found the best schedule for the human body was to rest one day in seven. That's why God says the seventh day.
All of the leading killers in society, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, all these things are connected with stress. The number of medicines that fly off the shelf connected with stress. Everything from antacids to sedatives, it's--I think like 40% of the medicines that are sold are dealing with stress related illness. God has a formula in his Word, and it's called, we got to know how to rest. And it's not only resting once a week, you need to get a good night's sleep. And they say that the ideal is people that don't sleep between six and eight hours a night, have shorter lives.
Also, there's a sweet spot. Those who sleep too much, and those that are sleeping like nine, ten hours, you know, in the prime of babies, that's a different story. They're supposed to sleep more. But those who are sleeping like nine and ten hours, their lifespans are shorter too, and they're more connected with obesity. So the prime time you want to shoot for is getting six to eight hours of good sleep every night. And if there are things that are interfering with that, there's some good websites you can go to and find out how you can have a better night's sleep. Sixty-five percent higher death rate for people who sleep less than five hours a night. Eating large meals before you go to sleep doesn't help any, and inadequate sleep has a profound effect on the risks in obesity. Of American women in particular, revealed that women who slept less than five hours had up to 58% greater risk of weight gain and obesity. And again concluded the study between seven and eight hours had the lowest risk for major weight gain. So we also need nightly rest. We need the weekly rest.
I've got a picture on the screen, and this is a cover from National Geographic 2005. It was an article that was called "The Blue Zones." It took off, became so popular that several books have been written on it. A man simply went around the world and he did some research on what groups of people around the world live the longest. And over in Italy or in the Mediterranean, they had the people of Sardinia. Very common for them to live to 100 years of age. And then they went to Okinawa, and they found the people there very common.
That was another group, had long lives and there was only one group in North America. And it was in Loma Linda, and it was a group of Seventh-day Adventists of course, Seventh-day Adventists are all over the country, but there's a large concentration because of the hospital down there and the schools down there. And so they found there was an awful lot of people down here that live over 100 years of age. Part of that they say is connected with their habit of weekly rest, following many of the principles we're sharing with you. "There is one long-living group stateside, It's the Seventh Day Adventists, who live an average of 10 years longer than the average life expectancy of about 79 years." How many of you would like to add 10 years to your life? Not only do they live longer, they're active longer.
Now, this is hot off the press. Someone emailed this to me last night. What's the date on this slide? This is an article called "The Economist" from a magazine-- a fairly popular, well-established magazine and they are not a religious group. It's just, what does that say? February 19. What's the date today? 25th. Would you say this is fresh information? Christian Californians may have a solution to America's obesity, lessons in longevity from Seventh-day Adventists. And then it goes on, it starts talking about someone in the article named Paul Damazo, who's 96 years old. I know Paul. We had him speak at our church. He's a friend of mine, 96 years old, but we can do better than that.
We got a friend here I'd like to bring out. Now, Dr. John Scharffenberg, when did you get your medical degree?
Dr. John Scharffenberg: 1948.
Doug: You'll need to use this.
Dr. John Scharffenberg: Class of 48.
Doug: Class of 1948. And, now you've heard some of what I've been sharing about health. And are you vegetarian?
Dr. John Scharffenberg: Yes.
Doug: You don't drink alcohol.
Dr. John Scharffenberg: No.
Doug: Don't smoke.
Dr. John Scharffenberg: No.
Doug: You don't chew.
Dr. John Scharffenberg: No.
Doug: You don't go out with girls that do?
Dr. John Scharffenberg: No.
Doug: You still have your driver's license.
Dr. John Scharffenberg: Yes.
Doug: You all stay off the sidewalk. Do you mind my asking, how old are you?
Dr. John Scharffenberg: Well, American way is 99, but Chinese way, it's 100.
Doug: Can you say, amen? So I thought, you know, it's one thing for me to be telling you all these things. It's another thing if you can say, well, we got a living testimony who's a member of our church here, and he could be teaching everything that you've been hearing all weekend. As a matter of fact, we're going to do an interview in a few days and talk about these things. If you had just a word of encouragement for health, for these people, what would you say?
Dr. John Scharffenberg: Well, take good care of yourself when you're young. You know, if I knew I was going to live this long, I probably would have taken better care of myself. But I believe it's possible by three different calculations to live to be 120.
Doug: Amen.
Dr. John Scharffenberg: Most of us could do a lot better than we are; my son is predicting I will live to be 110.
Doug: That's pretty good. Amen. Can you give him a hand and say thank you. Thank you, Dr. John. We so appreciate so much your coming out. What'd it say, Moses lived 120, and then God told them to climb a mountain, go to sleep. Having number seven, a faithful attitude. Faith is crucial and health and you will lengthen your life.
Even in the AA program, one of the ingredients of AA is called trust in a higher power. They were having chronic alcoholism in Russia. They heard that the AA program was successful. They brought the leaders to Russia. They said we'd like you to do your program, but they were communists then. They said you got to leave this part about trust and a higher power out of your program. They said we're getting back on the plane. They said the program will not work without this part. Says we found and we don't even completely understand it. We don't tell them who God is. I mean, most of the founders, He was the God of the Bible. But they said, we need to give God freedom because it's a public program, but they said, without trust in God, making these lifestyle changes--and getting off alcohol is really tough, getting off cigarettes. They see cigarettes can be as tough as heroin. It's really tough and you need help outside of yourself to do these things.
The Bible says in Ezekiel 11:19 and 20 God says, "I will give them one heart, and I'll put a new spirit within them, and I will that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them." You know what Jesus said? If you know these things blessed are you, if you do them.
Doug: Do you ever struggle with your health? Would you like to learn how you can increase your chances for a longer, stronger, more abundant life? Well, God truly cares how you treat your body, and He's given you a free health plan and a manual to go by, the Bible. We have a free study guide we'd like to give you that explains some of the powerful time tested health laws found in the Bible. Learn how to follow God's plan step by step, so you can look and feel better and break free from addictive harmful habits, and enjoy optimal health and happiness. To get your free copy, call the phone number on your screen and ask for offer number 139 or visit the web address. And after you read this incredible resource, make sure and share it with a friend.
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