This is not a teaching with emphasis on food above all other things or even on a par. It is simply addressing an error among the Lord’s people and instructing them in the way they ought to conduct themselves in this particular matter among others.
How is it men can corrupt the heavenly food, but cannot corrupt earthly food?
The world says, “Eat dung; as long as we tell you it is food, it looks like food, looks good, is convenient, tastes and smells good, case closed; you’re fine.”
The Christian replies, “Sure I’ll eat it. I have the Great Chemist dwelling within; He has created me a marvelous body that can deal with what I put into it and even heal itself… it is very forgiving. Besides, it isn’t what goes into the mouth but what comes out that defiles a man; I’m spiritual, my mind is on heavenly things, the things above… I pay little attention to food. The Lord created all things good and nothing to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving.”
Tell me, you who thinks he or she is spiritual and wise, how is it that men can corrupt the heavenly food, the Scriptures and wrest them to their own destruction, unrighteously dividing the Word of Truth thereby deceiving and destroying many, but cannot do likewise with earthly food? Have you not been subject to false doctrine and teachings at any time and have you not suffered the consequences? Surely you have and if you cannot say you have, then you are still in great darkness, not realizing that you suffer death even as you read these words. “For lack of knowledge, My people perish.”
The Christian believes the world, indulges with the world and then, alas, suffers the same consequences. Then he cries out to the Lord, “Why did my son die of cancer, my father of heart disease, why does my mother have arthritis, why did a wonderful Christian like so-and-so, who had so much faith, die… and so young, too? Why? Are we not Yours, Lord? Didn’t You promise us health and blessing? Do we serve You for nothing?”
The Lord did promise blessing, health and deliverance, provided we keep His laws and act with good sense and reason. Where do we get off with a notion that we can live ignorantly and recklessly in any area of our lives before the Lord? While the Bible does refer to body, soul and spirit comprising the man, this Greek notion of dividing up an individual into 3 parts as though separate, and treating each separately, is destroying many a believer who to some degree, doesn’t really believe.
Almost 100% of what one finds today on the conventional grocery shelves is DUNG, YES, DUNG… in some cases, quite literally. In many cases, worse. Let’s take a look at what is there and prevalent:
1) There are the chemicals applied all along the food chain process, starting with herbicides, pesticides and artificial chemical fertilizers in the growing and for nutrient. Then we sometimes have lethal chemicals for accelerating maturation (like Roundup for grain), then fungicidal and pesticidal chemicals for storage and shipping, chemicals for enhancing appearance and preservation for long shelf life. We are talking thousands of chemicals which are proven harmful individually. Nobody knows how lethal they are in combination with each other. The manufacturers make merchandise of you.
2) Processing of most foods removes much of the little remaining nutritional value. To compensate, processors add artificial “nutrients” such as vitamins lacking the life principle, and often do even more harm than good. They make merchandise of you.
Land has been raped of health, and it cannot provide the nutrients for foods.
3) Almost all meat on the market comes from animals which are force-fed chemically-treated feeds, treated with growth hormones and medications (harmful antibiotics, for example), and are kept in confined, unnatural surroundings, fed unnatural feed for speedy and cost-effective weight gain. A great part of the reason we have “super bugs” that are resistant to any known antibiotics is because we have been ingesting antibiotics in most meats thereby encouraging new resistant strains of bacteria. And what saith the Scripture? “A righteous man regards the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.” They make merchandise of you.
4) Homogenization and pasteurization destroy more of essential elements like good bacteria (along with the bad) which are needed to help digest dairy products and other foods. Why are so many people “lactose intolerant” or allergic to dairy products? There are two reasons. One, because the dairy products aren’t what they are supposed to be as God created and originally intended and two, because the consumer’s immune system is compromised over a period of time from what he consumes and is exposed to. They make merchandise of you.
5) The food industry has introduced irradiation of almost all foods on the shelves, without having to disclose it is doing so, killing good bacteria as well as bad, leaving the field open for bad. In other words, your food can be and often is radioactive. Neither is it harmless as they claim. They once claimed you could drink 2-4D, that thalidomide was safe and today there are those who claim Roundup is harmless but it is proven that all three are very harmful. They make merchandise of you.
6) Because of aggressive profiteering in agriculture, land has been raped of health and nutrition so that even if one grows food without chemicals, without revitalization, the land can no longer provide the nutrients that foods should have, and once did have many years ago. There is an article in the August 1996 Alive magazine wherein it was stated that land had generally lost much of its mineral nutrients. A footnote in the article said that the article was 60 years old!
Think of it: Since then we have had intensive use of agricultural lands with the ignorant notion that we could do so forever without giving back to it anything but artificial fertilizers. It is only in the past 50 years, since WWII, that governments and zealous enterprisers introduced chemicals into agriculture and food-processing in order to do something with all the stockpiles. It is suspected that more people have been killed by the Second World War since than during its “visible” period from 1939 to 1945, the casualties escalating. They make merchandise of you.
7) Because we live in a day of modern technology, packaging, transportation and effective transnational corporate merchandising, harvests are reaped prematurely to enable the produce to last longer, surviving shipping, storage and distribution over unnatural and unreasonable periods of time. Scientists have recently discovered that vitamins and minerals are only part of the equation and quite insufficient without… PHYTOCHEMICALS. These are a component of fruits and vegetables vital to fight free radicals in our systems which cause all kinds of diseases including cancer. Without these, our immune systems are compromised.
Phytochemicals are found only in maturely ripened fruits and vegetables. This is not a problem for things like lettuce and potatoes but when it comes to apples, grapes, strawberries, to name a few, we are robbed of essential nutrition. And, preservatives must be used to make these products look good for as long as possible and to keep them from spoiling. Maturity of fresh foods has now been discovered to be very important. Do merchandisers care? Rare few do.
Atheistic, presumptuous, and arrogant, man thinks to better God in every way.
8) Most frightening of all, as if any one of these others wasn’t bad enough, science has introduced genetic engineering of foods, things like tomatoes with fish genes… crossing mineral, plant and animal boundaries, intermingling their DNA and coming up with millions of little Frankensteins in disguise, in the name of health, profit, more efficient production to feed the increasing population of the world, etc.
Many scientists fear that this now present and active meddling with nature’s building blocks and wisdom will make the chemical era look like a Sunday School picnic. In terms of insidious repercussions, they say, “You haven’t seen anything yet!” Scientists are warning that while chemical pollution can be reversed, unleashing genetic alterations into the world precipitates a change which has a hidden future and which cannot be called back. The Lord forbade mixtures in the breeding of animals and growing of grains on a much simpler level. How much more at the DNA levels! They make merchandise of you.
Atheistic, presumptuous, and arrogant, man thinks to better God in every way. An example of the fruits of atheism and evolution: tonsils were taken out, deemed useless and potentially harmful as an aberration of evolution (God made a mistake). Today, they are discovering that for one thing, tonsils provide antibodies to fight disease.
9) In commercial production, like chicken processing in the U.S. (and Canada), you can forget quality control, hygiene and health assurances. With much of that chicken, says 60 Minutes, you are literally eating dung. You also eat dung in beef because there are feedlots since the eighties who have taken cattle dung, disguised it, hidden it in feed and fed it back to the cattle… all scientific, legal and “wise.” They say that cattle digest very little of the food’s nutrients the first time around, hence the recycling for more profit. Have you tasted the difference between naturally grown beef on non-chemicalized feed and beef one buys commercially? Try! They make you eat dung to make merchandise of you.
Christians sanction and even sanctify such practice by consuming the product.
“What does all this have to do with the Christian?” you ask. Just that Christians are breaking every commandment in the Book, that’s what. How? I’ll tell you how:
First, there are many nominal Christians who irresponsibly produce food this way, not ever having given it any thought. In the process, they kill necessary micro-organisms in soils; they kill both good and bad insects; they kill birds and animals; they pollute all the water sources; they kill plant life, themselves, people in the world, and finally their own brethren who inevitably and ignorantly eat their produce. Does it not say that inasmuch as you do something unto the least of the Lord’s brethren, you do it to Him? Does it not say that God will destroy them that destroy the earth?
Second, Christians sanction and even sanctify such practice simply by consuming the product. Often they buy it out of ignorance, but the Bible is clear that sins of ignorance also have consequence, and we see it work out in our health, finances, relationships, etc. And even when they have been told, and know better, they buy because it is cheaper than genuine, wisely and caringly-grown food. “Looks the same to me,” they think to themselves. Often, with artificial means, it looks better!
Christians hate to admit they have a problem with money. After all, how can they admit to loving mammon and hating God and still lay claim to His Name without condemnation?
“It’s not our righteousness,” they retort. No, and not His either!
What about the slave labor used in the world to produce this cheap food such as when they pay ugly-poor wages to Mexicans in California, Florida and Texas where much of our food is produced? Those laborers also have shorter life spans and health problems because of production practices, chemical usage being a significant factor. It is bad enough for a Christian to support the oppression of any peoples but I wonder how many have considered that brothers in Christ, whether presently or ordained for the future, are suffering that oppression? I suppose it could be argued that at least they have a job which we are supporting by buying the fruits of their labors.
Do we realize that by eating that which the world produces today, we are breaking every commandment? Look! Firstly, how can we say we love the Lord with all our heart when we serve to destroy His creation including ourselves? How can we say we have no other gods before Him when our focus is buying cheap? You say, “But I can’t afford more expensive food.” Will not the Lord provide if you do right? Or is your God only capable of providing cheaply? He’s on a strict budget, is He, and you’ll have to settle for poison because that which He has created and of which He can create more, He can’t afford! What god, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ are you serving anyway?
What are we doing following the pernicious ways of this world?
How can we say we don’t take upon ourselves His Name in vain when we serve the destroyer? How do we keep the Sabbath day holy when not keeping any other day holy, whatever our definition of the Sabbath is? How do we honor our father and mother, whether our heavenly Father and Mother (the new Jerusalem), when killing ourselves and our brethren, or our parents in this world, feeding them and their loved ones physical evil, directly or indirectly, whether in the sense of birth parents or other kinds of parents in all of creation, like for instance, our ancestors and ancient saints and brethren (our fathers) who practised and taught God’s original ways of doing things?
It is not good enough that we become neutral on these matters. Are we not supposed to be the salt of the earth, preserving, and the light of mankind, teaching by word and example, leading, directing? What are we doing following the pernicious ways of this world which lies in darkness, in wickedness?
Christians have silly notions about how physical food fits into their relationship with God. In Genesis 1:29, they read that God has declared every herb and tree for food. Therefore they can eat or drink anything they want “as long as it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.” Yet it is manifest that certain plants are poisonous, whether in the leaves, berries or roots. If this is not so, then why do you waste potato tops and rhubarb leaves?
And certain foods are not sanctified by the Word of God (especially if you mean the Bible which was the Old Testament at the time), and God does not honor foolish, ignorant, carnal prayer. Do you not believe that there are foolish and illegitimate prayers? Talk about chaos and trouble if God did honor every prayer that ever came out of man’s mouth! Both armies pray to the same God for victory; both football teams pray for victory; both competitors pray to the Lord Jesus Christ for the result only one can have. Is God bound by both prayers? True, many pray to another Jesus, thinking they pray to the True One.
In Genesis 9:3, they read that every moving thing that lives was given us for meat, so again, “God said we can eat any creature.” Fine! Let’s have skunk for supper. Or how about a nice plate of tender, baby mice, or a bowl of maggots? How about some certain kinds of fish, which in consuming, can kill one in short order? These all move. Have you noticed where the eating of these things is most prevalent? It is in those areas of the world where Christianity and the Bible have had the least influence.
Why do people take the letter and do as they please? So that they can do as they please. What happens when they do as they please? They destroy themselves. Then they wonder why God wasn’t there for them.
“Children of grace” declare God gave them the right to destroy themselves.
Think about it! There are do’s and don’ts whether we like it or not. All is ONE, not three. If we drink and get drunk, what does Proverbs say? That our moral standards and restraints disappear (Pr. 23:29-33). Is not alcohol physical? Though it goes into the mouth, yet it defiles. Drink too much and it also comes out of the mouth and defiles… make no mistake, whether directly in illness or by the words one speaks when drunk.
Tobacco is a proven killer. How many “God-loving” Dutch and Christian Reform and Lutherans, etc. do I see smoking or chewing? What man in his right mind even in the world can possibly justify it? And many men in the world are putting it away, knowing better than the “enlightened ones,” those who “are no longer under the law,” those to whom “all things are lawful,” those who, as “children of grace,” declare, in effect, that God has given them the right to destroy themselves.
Just what was Jesus meaning or talking about when He said that it is not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out, that defiles a man? He was addressing those persons who depended on outward cleanliness for salvation and favor with God, those who depended on ordinances:
“(Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men… which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh” (Colossians 2:21-23 KJV).
The Pharisees washed their hands and cups and kept hundreds of meticulous carnal laws necessary for salvation, in their view. Jesus was not addressing ACT so much as MOTIVE. I am not speaking of the keeping of laws for spiritual salvation, but of the keeping of laws because needful, useful, and sensible. God has put us in a physical world and has given us minds to be exercised in this world according to laws of which He is the Author, not laws that men create for their own glory and selfish purposes.
Is it not ironic that those who accuse sensible, law-abiding people of legalism are in fact the legalists themselves in that they judge the Lord and His Words as though He addressed acts and not motives? Are they not taking the letter, interpreting it carnally and applying it to their own destruction while condemning others who understand and who live in wisdom to the benefit of all? Are they not judging after the appearance? But the lawless do always contradict themselves, serving their own bellies, finding ways of eating what they will and excusing themselves from responsible conduct in the name of being free in the Lord. These are the destroyers who destroy both the earth and themselves and God shall destroy them.
Am I advocating laws, the penalty for which we suffer the wrath of God or destruction if we step out but a crumb out of line? No. I have eaten all those things here and there that should not be eaten. Sometimes I should not have but of many of those times it did not matter. It is not to the saving of my soul nor to the perfecting of my physical being which perishes daily that I eat, but to the principle of generally doing what is right and sensible over all.
If you disregard God’s Laws willfully, you will suffer the fruits of iniquity.
Let’s go on: Coffee, because of the way it is grown, harvested, and processed today, is toxic, as are so many otherwise good things. Unless you drink organically grown and processed coffee, you are most certainly poisoning yourself. I am told that coffee has several good things going for it, that it is unusually high in antioxidants, for example. Nevertheless, all coffee, or so I am told, whether organic or not, can be addictive. Taken in disproportionate amounts without proper nutrition, as many addicts do, it can deplete needful elements in one’s body, doing much harm.
I say to you that God has said that He is no respecter of persons, warning that if you tempt Him and walk deliberately ignorant of, or disregarding, His Laws willfully, you will suffer the fruits of unbelievers, that of iniquity. In fact, you will suffer more because you, O enlightened one, should know better. Has He not said, “To whom much is given, much is required”? Has He not said, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”? And to whom did Jesus make that statement but to the same one who seeks to destroy you by persuading you to tempt God?
Go ahead, ignore gravity, hailstorms, tornadoes, sunburn; don’t bother with warm clothing in winter at -35 degrees; drink boiling water; play in the traffic. The Lord will take care of you. Apply your reasoning to food, trust man to do things right, and God to overrule that as well.
But addiction in itself, without spiritual implications, is enough of a consequence. “I can do without coffee” you say. Try. You may be like the alcoholic who says, “Quitting is easy; I’ve done it hundreds of times.” One also finds caffeine in, and can get addicted to, tea, cola, and chocolate. Nutritionists say that chocolate is one of the worst things one can eat today.
When speaking of nutritionists, I refer to those interested in, and truly knowledgeable about, health and natural eating, not those with their degrees, schooled in chemical company-sponsored universities and colleges, ingesting conventional theories and lies, emerging from them brain-soiled, deceived and teaching them to the world. When speaking of chocolate that is bad for you, the nutritionists of which we speak are talking about the non-organic, diluted, adulterated, refined varieties, chemically grown and processed into many and varied products. The authentic, pure, organically grown and processed dark chocolates, we are told, have some wonderful healthful qualities, and, when taken in moderation, are good for you, as with so many things.
Buy your food where it costs more in the short run, but pays dividends in the long.
Indeed, is our body a temple of the Holy Spirit, Christian? Then what business do we have justifying ourselves and indulging in the things we eat called food, deceived by the world whose prince is out to destroy us? Where’s our vigilance? Do we not think he would attack us from this direction as any other? Why do we believe him and faithfully serve him? Have we not heard what his wages are? Do we not realize that we have been paid by him, we and ours? Are not those wages a terror and a sorrow to us? Has he not succeeded in discouraging us, in stealing from, and destroying, us?
Be ignorant no longer of what you find on grocery shelves. Buy your food where it costs more in the short run but pays dividends in the long. Support those who are fighting against the current and paying the price for doing so. Pay that price with them.
Acts 10 and 11 (wherein Peter in a vision sees a sheet lowered full of unclean beasts and is commanded to eat), is used as a pretext for eating anything. But God was not speaking of eating anything there. He was, by use of symbol, as He often does, teaching Peter that the Gentiles were now to be preached to and received, that He was bringing them into the Kingdom of God. They were to be treated no longer as unclean. It had nothing to do with food. Do not carnalize the Word of God, destroying yourselves.
God put an end to ceremonial law but did He put an end to quarantine and sterilization commanded in the Scriptures? For centuries these principles were lost and hidden to many. More soldiers were dying on battlefields because of infection than from the wounds, from the treatment of physicians with unsanitary hands than from bullets. When the plagues hit Europe, they found that Jews were not so affected by them. Why? Because they were not eating pork and living a lifestyle of squalor and lacking sanitation as were the nominally Christian Gentiles. God honors His Word always. So consider diet as well.
Another passage used to justify destructive diet is Luke 10:8 where Jesus tells the disciples to eat that which is set before them. He was simply saying that the worker is worthy of his hire, that they needn’t be concerned about providing for themselves, that God would provide by those ministered to. But remember at least two things and apply them to yourself for your good, that of your loved ones and your neighbors:
1) that was 2000 years ago… long before we polluted and depleted the planet as we have now done, and
2) at that time, they were sent only within Israel wherein, in the main, unclean foods were not eaten. Furthermore, Peter was one of those spoken to and sent, and he says in Acts 10 that he had never eaten anything common nor unclean (not even during the 3 years+ that he had spent with Jesus Himself Who gave such instruction), so it ought to be obvious, to those unbiased, that Jesus was not making a blanket statement concerning diet but rather stating a principle of attitude and recognition of God’s provision on the way.
If we thanked the Lord for our food, how is it we can throw some out in waste?
We touched on 1 Timothy 4:1-5 which many also use to justify themselves. Well, if we wish to be so letterly dogmatic, then the next time we go ministering to cannibals in some jungle, let us eat and enjoy, reminding ourselves that, indeed, every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused; let us eat that which is set before us. But let’s be careful we are not devoured ourselves.
But what does it say? It speaks of sanctification by the Word of God and prayer. The Word of God then was, in physical terms, the Old Testament, and we well know what it had to say about what was sanctified and what was not. As for prayer, again, there are prayers and there are prayers.
Speaking of prayer, what do we do with the food for which we give thanks? Do we eat it all or do we leave some to be thrown in the garbage? If it is blessed and we have thanked the Lord for it, how is it we can throw some out in waste? Is this a demonstration of our thankfulness? Why does one take so much in the first place, then waste it? Which is worse… to eat a few leftover tidbits which are presumably blessed, serving God in sincerity and truth, or watching our waist line, hypocritically serving our body rather than the Lord, yet doing so in the Name of the Lord?
Did not Joseph, a man of God, give his brother Benjamin a fivefold portion compared to that of his other brothers? Was it sin for him to do so? Was it sin for Benjamin to partake heartily? Was Joseph therefore advocating gluttony? Was the act condemned by God? And if “every creature of God is good, and NOTHING TO BE REFUSED, if it be received with thanksgiving, being sanctified by the Word of God and prayer,” then how is it we will eat this and not that, like this and not like that (speaking of those things that God did truly intend and provide for us to eat and for which we have given thanks at the table?) Those who say all things are given of God to be partaken and enjoyed to His glory often contradict themselves, and terribly so.
Having spoken of not wasting food, it is important to point out that it is very possible that gluttony has done more harm and killed more people than any of those things I have already mentioned in this writing. Gluttony is the number one sin of the food world mentioned in the Bible. It condemns overeating along with drunkenness. The two are brother and sister, both killers, both ungodly, both dulling the physical, mental and spiritual senses and abilities, both catering to the lust of the flesh. Christian, make no mistake, if you are a glutton, you are a drunkard; if you are a drunkard, you are a sinner every whit as much as the one in the gutter. Know it. There is no way around it.
In obedience, we are rewarded; in iniquity, we are punished.
If you have a weight problem, there is sin responsible, be it past or present, yours or that of your ancestors, but sin is responsible. Your privilege, as a believer, is to go to God, confess your bondage, find out what that sin is if you can, confess it, publicly repent of it, and God will deliver you as surely as you are reading this paper. Please read The Perfect Diet. I know whereof I speak.
We are responsible for the entirety of our beings. In obedience, we are rewarded; in iniquity, we are punished. A car is made to take gasoline and oil, not ketchup and vinegar. If we are so free to do what we will, then why is it we apply reason to our car but not to ourselves? How is it we will not feed our pets and livestock some things? Give your cat radishes and onions, your dog rhubarb, your horse poplar leaves, your cow stinkweed, your sheep some old lumber, seeing as how they are yours and you are the Lord’s. How is it they won’t eat them if you tried? Even animals know better, but when forced or deceived, they may eat what they get and are destroyed with the destroyer, going down to the slaughter house in vengeance, carrying the killer to our mouths.
Truly, physical food is not the issue, is it? But it is an element of our lives which cannot be ignored. When you think about it, the whole Bible and what God is doing is about eating! It all started with Adam and Eve having to decide what they were going to eat. Abraham brought forth food, chosen for quality, to feed the three men as the Lord visited him.
The Lord fed Israel miraculously with manna, a physical food. The angel made Elijah to eat. We work because the mouth craves it of us; we till the earth to eat; we die if we don’t eat; we are invited to dine at the banquet of the Lord in His Kingdom. All the feasts were with food, significant food; food was a main feature in celebrations.
All the sacrifices were related to diet and eating: the Son of God is the Passover Lamb which we eat; Jesus said that we have no part in Him if we do not eat His flesh and drink His blood. Even after the resurrection, Jesus had fish on the fire for His disciples! It’s all about eating! Little wonder then, that even if the physical is only symbolic of the spiritual, we have no right to be irreverent or irresponsible. All is of God and each reaps the benefits or consequences “according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Surely, we cannot escape pollution and deficiency in our foods entirely. Today, it seems fairly certain that such is impossible. Where it is impossible, God intervenes for those He favors, showing mercy. Where it is not impossible, and given to us to do something, I believe we must. Failing to do so is to tempt the Lord. Certainly, we can drink poison and it won’t hurt us as Mark says; the angels are given charge over us lest we should dash our feet against stones, but to cast ourselves down deliberately or even act carelessly is to court disaster. The Lord’s answer to the tempter is eternal and applies to us: “It is written, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.”
Lord, grant us wisdom in those things we despise which ought not to be despised, to have a godly perspective in all things, knowing You are the Law and Life Giver of all.
Victor Hafichuk