Overcoming the Acceptable Christian Sin of Gluttony #39
Welcome to the Overcoming the Acceptable Christian Sin of Gluttony podcast, a companion podcast to the Acceptable Christian Sin of Gluttony message series. My name is Daniel Whyte III president of Gospel Light Society International. The purpose of this podcast is to share with you, from a biblical perspective, the means by which we can combat and overcome the sin of gluttony and its outcome of obesity.
Our passage from the Word of God today is Proverbs 23:20-21 which reads: “Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh: For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.”
Now, let’s look at gluttony and its effects in the news: According to The Times of India, the first thing that comes to our mind when we talk about overeating is weight gain. But that’s not all, according to a new study, overeating doesn’t just make the number on the scale go up but also damages the important regions of your brain, leading to brain damage. The research used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, which compared the brains of 59 obese adolescents with 61 healthy adolescents. DTI is the new technology that tracks the diffusion of water along with the white matter of the brain. White matter is the nerve-fibre-rich matter found in the deeper tissues of the brain. The researchers derived the fractional anisotropy of these people, which was correlated with the condition of the white matter in the brain. The lower the FA, the more damaged was the white matter. On comparing the FA values of all the participants, it was seen that obese people had lower levels of FA. The brain change caused in obese people due to the lower levels of FA was related to important regions that are responsible for controlling the emotions, appetite and cognitive functions. This same brain damage was caused by increased blood sugar and insulin resistance. The study even showed a positive relation between brain damage and hormones like leptin (which regulates hunger and stores fat) and insulin. In short, obesity causes inflammation that can lead to brain damage, increased blood sugar levels, insulin resistance and leptin resistance.
In this podcast, we are going through the book, The RAVE Diet and Lifestyle: The Natural Foods Diet With Meals that Heal, by Mike Anderson. This section is titled: No Animal Foods, Part 1:
William Clifford Roberts, M.D., Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Cardiology, said, “When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings, who are natural herbivores.”
William Connor, M.D., The New American Diet, said, “No one can contemplate directly eating 13 pats of butter, but they essentially do when they eat a cheeseburger.”
The Scientific American, 1892, said, “Cancer is most frequent where carnivorous habits prevail.”
All animal foods are excluded from the RAVE Diet because they promote the major degenerative diseases sweeping across the country. The link between animal foods and cancer, for example, begins back in 1892 with a study published in the Scientific American from which the quote above is taken. Subsequently, there has been a mountain of evidence compiled that confirms the link.
The only thing you’ll miss from eating animal foods is the saturated fat, cholesterol and animal proteins – as well as the diseases these ingredients bring to your body. When you come right down to it, all our nutrients are ultimately obtained from plant foods. Meat-eating animals (including humans) feed off plant-eating animals, which really amount to storage systems for plant nutrients. The problem, of course, is that the plant nutrients in animals are delivered in a package of saturated fat and cholesterol. So why eat animals when you can get everything you need directly from plants – without the cholesterol – and in a low-fat package with healthy fiber and cancer-fighting chemicals to boot?
And calorie for calorie, plant foods are far richer in nutrients than animal foods, with green vegetables being the most nutrient-rich foods on the planet.
From a weight loss perspective, many studies have confirmed that over time, the more people eat meat, the more they gain weight. The more people eat whole plant foods, the less likely they are to gain weight. In a recent multi-nation study, it was found that without exception, the thinnest people ate a complex carbohydrate diet, while the fattest people ate a meat-based diet. Eliminating meat from your diet is essential if you want to achieve your ideal weight, reverse heart disease and protect yourself against cancers and our major degenerative diseases.
We will continue looking at this topic in our next podcast.
— PRAYER —
Now, in this series, as we focus on overcoming the sin of gluttony, and managing our bodies as God intended, we must not lose sight of the most important part of our existence — our spiritual life. Even those of you who are fit, who eat right, and who exercise regularly must still address the condition of your soul. You may keep your body in perfect condition till the day you die, but you will still die — we all will, and the only thing that will matter is the condition of your soul. Is your soul in shape? Is your soul in right standing with God?
The only way to make sure of that is to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and the consequences of sin. He alone can save your soul, put you in right standing with God, and ensure that you do not perish in Hell. Now, if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior, believe in your heart that Jesus died for your sins, was buried, and rose from the dead by the power of God for you so that you can live eternally with Him. Pray and ask Him to come into your heart today, and He will.
Romans 10:9 & 13 says, “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved… For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Until next time, may God bless you and keep you is my prayer.
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