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Sabbath, May 13, 2006 Newark Seventh-Day Adventist Church
John 21:9-13   Pastor Tom Hughes

“A Bible Breakfast”

 

John 21:9-13—“Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.
10Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.’
11Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken.
12Jesus said to them, ‘Come and eat breakfast.’ Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, ‘Who are You?’—knowing that it was the Lord.
13Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish.”


It has been said by health educators that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That’s the meal that provides the fuel that gets your body started on the right track. It provides the energy you need to think clearly. Studies have shown that children who eat a good breakfast get better grades and do better over all academically. You can actually improve your child’s grades simply by feeding them breakfast. It helps you control your weight by preventing the starvation response from kicking in. You actually loose weight easier and keep it off longer if you eat a good breakfast.

This can be applied to the spiritual world as well. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Start every day by having a good Bible breakfast. Begin each morning by eating your spiritual Wheaties. Have a good meal of spiritual bread, God’s word.

Jesus compared reading and digesting his word to eating his flesh. He offended many with his graphic illustration. What he meant was that to read or hear his word and do it was like eating his very essence, the very depths of his being, and assimilating it into who you are. Becoming not only like Him, but also through the Spirit, partaking of the divine nature, and becoming one with him in our deepest self.

It was Christ’s deepest desire that we be like Him. That we prosper, and are happy healthy Christians. Now what was Jesus’ desire for us? What was his deepest desire: He wanted us to be like him.

Notice his words in 3 John 1:2 it says:

3 John 1:2—“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.” [u(giaiðnw – “Hugiaino”]

Acts 4:10—“let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead – by this name this man stands here before you in good health.”

He wants us to prosper in all things. He prayed for us to prosper and to be in health – in all things! His will is for our success in all that we do. He is not the author of failure in our lives. He takes our failures and turns them into successes! He wants us to be in health.

The Greek word used here for health (Acts 4:10) is “hugies” (health = υγεία ygeia. Pronunced: hoog-ee-ace').

It means “true,” “uncorrupt,” “sound,” or “whole.”

This word obviously applies to the spiritual, as well as the physical. We need to be spiritually and physically sound and whole, uncorrupt, and true to God’s principles of health.
Today, I want to focus on the physical side of good health. Today I want to you to look with me at three Bible prophets who taught about food that would keep us in good health.


Moses

The first prophet, whose health principles we want to examine, is Moses. It’s interesting that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. In those books he gives various guidelines to health. But in Genesis 7:2, He reveals to us the contents of the Bible breakfast served in the Garden of Eden to our first parents: Adam and Eve.

Genesis 1:29—“And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.”

God instructed Adam and Eve to eat a vegetarian diet of fruits, nuts, grains, and herbs. This was the perfect diet given to man before sin entered into his experience. Man ate of this diet for many years before beginning to eat meat. The meat became part of his diet after the Flood. Because of this pure diet, mankind often lived for centuries, reaching ages of greater than 900 years.

The first record of man eating flesh foods is found in Genesis 7:2, when Noah and his family entered the ark of safety.

Genesis 7:2—“You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female;”

Notice that God directed them to take only two of the “unclean” animals. It becomes obvious that God never intended for man to eat the unclean animals, because if he did, the species would die out, since they only had one male and one female. Everybody knows that: if you kill one of the male or female “piggies,” you will not get any piglets! So they had to keep them both alive and not eat them.

As you study the ages of people in the Bible . . . you know, it’s an interesting fact—and I don’t think it’s just coincidence—it becomes clear to even the casual reader that after Noah’s family began eating meat, the ages of the people dropped off dramatically. The life span of Methuselah was 969 years.

Noah lived 950 years. His son Shem, Only 600 years. His son only 438. His grandson 433. His great grandson Peleg lived 239 years. And within just seven generations, Nahor lived only 148 years. We think 148 years is pretty good! But compared to 950 like Noah, it’s quite a dramatic drop! Now National Geographic has recently begun studying Seventh-day Adventist vegetarians because they’re kind of weird. They are living now at record numbers to be over a hundred years old and many of them are starting to get up there; and they may hit that 148-year mark that Nahor lived. It’s because of their diet and what they eat. They are living much longer than people who don’t eat that way.

The interesting thing is the Seventh-day Adventists are not unclean food eaters live almost as long as the vegetarians. So if you follow God’s word and don’t eat the unclean foods: the pig, the crab, the lobster, and all the stuff in Leviticus 11—if you don’t eat that stuff you live way longer than the average person also. But the people who are vegetarians live the longest. So we have an ideal diet here. This is something we want to move toward. But God obviously from his word did create certain foods to be eaten. Now why did he do that? So don’t leave in the middle of my sermon or you won’t understand what I’m going to be saying. Don’t get your exercise by jumping to conclusions. Okay?

That’s a dramatic decrease in just one generation, they lost 350 years. Within two thousand years from Adam, thy lost almost 800 years off their life span. By King David’s reign, the average life span was three score and ten, or seventy years; and that’s what it is today.

For the first two millenniums man lived for centuries on a vegetarian diet. As soon as flesh foods came into the picture, man’s life span began falling of almost immediately. By the time of Christ, it was less than a tenth of what it was in the Garden of Eden.

God in His mercy, tried to limit the damage, by directing His people to eat only animals He ordained for that purpose.

Leviticus 11:1-8—“Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them,
2‘Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth:
3‘Among the animals, whatever divides the hoof, having cloven hooves and chewing the cud—that you may eat.
4‘Nevertheless these you shall not eat among those that chew the cud or those that have cloven hooves: the camel, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you;
5‘the rock hyrax, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you;
6‘the hare, because it chews the cud but does not have cloven hooves, is unclean to you;
7‘and the swine, though it divides the hoof, having cloven hooves, yet does not chew the cud, is unclean to you.
8‘Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They are unclean to you.

Many people who eat a large amount of pork will have very high blood pressure, diabetes, and other health problems because pork is filled with salt and carcinogens. The fat is saturated with fat being entwined through the meat there’s no way to get it out. So when you’re eating something that’s salty, entwined with fat and with things in it that are known carcinogens you may experience significant health problems.

Leviticus 11:9—“‘These you may eat of all that are in the water:’”

Now when God says, “their flesh you shall not eat,” don’t get mad at me and tell me I took away your pork chop. I didn’t. Okay? God said, “you shall not eat.” What part of “thou shalt not” don’t we understand? That is not a suggestion, is it?

Leviticus 11:9—“‘These you may eat of all that are in the water: whatever in the water has fins and scales, whether in the seas or in the rivers—that you may eat.”

So when I caught my little Small Mouth Bass and cleaned it, that was okay because God said I could eat it. But if I caught a catfish, it doesn’t have fins and scales, so I shouldn’t eat it. And we’re going to talk about why it says,

Leviticus 11:10-12—“‘But all in the seas or in the rivers that do not have fins and scales, all that move in the water or any living thing which is in the water, they are an abomination to you.
11‘They shall be an abomination to you; you shall not eat their flesh, but you shall regard their carcasses as an abomination.
12‘Whatever in the water does not have fins or scales—that shall be an abomination to you.

Somebody asked me one time, “Why don’t you eat catfish?” I said, “Cause the Bible says not to do it. The Bible says they’re an abomination and that I am not to eat.

Leviticus 11:44-47—“For I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
45‘For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.
46‘This is the law of the animals and the birds and every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that creeps on the earth,
47‘to distinguish between the unclean and the clean, and between the animal that may be eaten and the animal that may not be eaten.’”

So God made it clear that when you eat things that he commands you not to eat in his Word you’re defiling yourself. Now it’s interesting; there are many other faiths that go along with this principle. The Muslim faith, the Jewish faith, and many Christian faiths also teach their people to abstain from unclean foods. The reason God does this is because he wants us to devote our bodies to him. And if he puts an entire chapter in the Bible and tells us that we defile ourselves when we eat these creatures he never intended for us to eat, he warns us to avoid these he warns us to avoid creatures on land, sea, and air that are scavengers and eat garbage.

Don’t eat recycled garbage. If they eat the garbage – they’re the garbage collectors, the scavengers: pigs, catfish, crabs, etc. They eat the garbage. They clean the water and the earth (and the vultures). Don’t eat them. If they eat the garbage and then you eat them, you’re eating recycled garbage! Now that doesn’t make sense to do that, does it? And I think it makes perfect sense for God to tell us not to eat recycled garbage. He equates our eating habits with holiness. When we obey him by abstaining from these “abominations” he says we are being holy.

Now did I call the swine, the crab, the lobster, or the clam an abomination? No, I did not. God called it that. It didn’t make this stuff up. I grew up on pork chops and ham, okay? I ate a ton of that stuff and I thought you all were crazy when I first heard about this. I thought you were going to church on the wrong day and telling me not to eat perfectly good stuff! Obviously, I have changed my mind!

Don’t get mad at me! I didn’t write the Bible, God did. I’m not telling you, Get that pork chop out of your mouth! Quit eatin’ that crab leg! Stop eatin’ that Lobster! I didn’t tell you that, but God is telling you that.


I was giving Bible studies to a salesman one time. He’s sittin’ there and he says, “Well, Pastor Tom, I love my crab legs, man. Them Alaskan crab legs, I just love ‘em. I can’t give them up even for Jesus. Oh, no! When I travel around I gotta have my crab legs!”

I said, “Well, are you telling me you really want to do what’s right but you’re too weak?”

He said, “Oh yeah, I’m too weak.”

I said, “Okay, let’s bow our heads.” I said, “Dear God, whenever Joey eats those crab legs, he’s weak. His heart’s in the right place, so put his stomach in the right place, too. You do whatever it takes to help him to get past this.”

He said the next time he ate the crab legs he got sick as a dog! I mean he was in the bathroom all night long! He called me up; he says, “Pastor Tom, what do we have to do to reverse that prayer!” I said, “It’s irreversible! You cannot reverse it!” And every time – every time – that happened! Finally, he said, “God’s too much for me. I just have to obey Him. I can’t eat that stuff anymore!” So it’s just so funny the way God works sometimes.

What part of “Thou shalt not” don’t you understand? Well, I’ll tell you what part we don’t. A lot of times we need to have statistics. We need to have things that link these foods with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, iodine poisoning and trichinosis. They’re filled with carcinogens. I could point out that when a person has any of these conditions I mentioned, the first thing the doctor recommends is to abstain from these foods. But I am not going go through the medical information even though the statistics are readily available and very impressive.

Why not? I don’t need man and doctors and medical authorities to second God’s opinion for me to accept it and obey it. That’s why I’m not going to read to you all the medical stuff. It’s all there. You can look it up. If God says it, and he says it plainly in his word, Thou shalt not eat these abominations. You’re defiling yourself when you do. Don’t do it. That’s good enough for me! I’m going to obey my God! I don’t care what medical society says. I’m going to listen to God and do what he says.

Are you with me?

Jesus

John 21:9-14—“Then, as soon as they had come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid on it, and bread.
10Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish which you have just caught.’
11Simon Peter went up and dragged the net to land, full of large fish, one hundred and fifty-three; and although there were so many, the net was not broken.
12Jesus said to them, ‘Come and eat breakfast.’ Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, ‘Who are You?’ —knowing that it was the Lord.
13Jesus then came and took the bread and gave it to them, and likewise the fish.
14This is now the third time Jesus showed Himself to His disciples after He was raised from the dead.”

Jesus gave us an example, too.

When they got off the boat there was a fire and coals there; and Jesus made a little breakfast like I used to do when I was a kid. And it says there were coals, and a fire, and there were “fish laid on it, and bread (vs. 9).”

So Jesus had caught some fish, he cleaned them, he baked some bread, and he put it out for the disciples. “Jesus said to them, ‘Come and eat breakfast (vs. 12).’” And Jesus says to you this morning, Come, and eat breakfast. Come, and read my Word. Come, and feast on the bread of life. Come, and eat of my body, and drink of my blood. Come, and take my very essence into you by studying the Word every morning; by praying.

Jesus fed the disciples fish and bread. Keep in mind, that the eating of flesh foods had diminished man’s life span by this time by ninety percent (90%). So both Moses and Jesus made it clear that it is acceptable to God to eat meat and that God outlined in his Word what was to be eaten and what was not. Jesus even ate fish himself according to Luke 24: 41-43.

Jesus ate with sinners. He met people where they were. He used food to convince the disciples of the reality of his resurrection from the dead. Even though he was in his glorified form, he was willing to eat with them, sharing their food, to bring home the reality of his glorious resurrection.

So Jesus obviously believed that we should have a good Bible breakfast. And he obviously believed that it was okay to eat breakfast because he fed the disciples. He started the fire, cooked the food, warmed, or perhaps baked the bread, and presented it in love to his disciples, who had been working all night. Jesus would never do anything unhealthy. He was our example in all things. So we must be careful to not present health principles in a way that is not true to the Biblical evidence. We can’t forbid things and say things about health that Jesus doesn’t condone and that is obviously not in harmony with what he’s saying. If you tell people that they are sinning, or doing something wrong when they eat meat, then what you’re saying is Christ is a sinner and he ate meat so he must have done something wrong. You can’t say that; and when you do that, that’s not right. So we have to be very kind in the way we help people. Now vegetarianism is our ideal and it’s what we aspire to and we try to move towards. And I think today the Biblical diet in the Garden of Eden has been really validated by the Mad Cow Disease, Bird Flu, mercury poisoning, and I’m sure if Jesus were here on earth today he’d take these things into consideration. And we know that the less meat you eat the better. But it is certainly not wrong to eat meat and we can’t condemn people who do.

Paul

Paul was a very healthy person and he is often misunderstood and misquoted on this subject. First Timothy 4:1-5 is the verse that people usually use to say you can eat whatever you feel like. You don’t have to abstain from unclean foods. Paul does not contradict Moses. They say that Paul gives us permission in this verse to disregard the writings of the former prophets and eat anything we want.

1 Timothy 4:1-5—“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons,
2speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron,
3forbidding to marry,”

Can you think of a church that forbids they clergy to marry?

“…and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received…”

Same church.

“…with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.
4For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;
5for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”

Are we living in the “last times?” If we forbid or command people to abstain from foods, which God created to be received, do we not fall into this category? So we have to be careful not to forbid people from eating meat. We have to just simply teach them the higher way to live – the better way to live. And we have to be kind in the way we teach people about these things because it’s a new thing. When I came into this church I learned to love vegetarian cooking. But I mean at first, man, it was hard! And it’s still hard for me as someone who was not raised with vegetarian talents and cooking abilities. It’s difficult for those of us “sinners” who are converted and didn’t have the benefit of what some of you have. So we do aspire to rise to that level and be healthy. And that’s all we’re trying to do is be healthy.

But notice it says, first of all, God created certain foods to be received, and certain foods are sanctified by the Word of God. So when God says in Leviticus, “of these ye may eat,” that is sanctifying it by the Word of God. God is giving people permission to eat that. Okay? And he’s telling you in the other verses where he says, “Thou shalt not eat,” he is saying those are unholy to eat. So it is only holy to eat what God has sanctified to be eaten. And it makes it clear here.

Now if we forbid or command people to abstain from foods which God created to be received, we are on dangerous ground; so, it is very important that we don’t command or forbid what God’s Word doesn’t command or forbid to abstain from. If you do that it’s called “a doctrine of devils” and I have seen people sometimes driven away because we will sometimes overemphasize a good thing like our health message. So we have to be very kind, very Christian, very considerate, lead by example, and be willing to love and accept people who have different eating habits and practices than we do until they can learn how to follow us.

Now the Bible says God created creatures to be received for food and these creatures are good for food only if they are sanctified by the word of God.

Let me ask you a question. Is swine sanctified by the word of God? Is crab, lobster, or shrimp? Absolutely not. They are an abomination. Now if they’re not sanctified by the Word of God and people try to use this text to say it’s okay to eat them, they’re not really being honest and they’re not following Biblical principals; and all I ask for is that you base your beliefs on the Bible. Okay?

Do you want to eat a Bible breakfast? Then eat only those things that are sanctified by the word of God and with prayer. Pray over your food, and then eat what God pronounces clean and good. Now there is one exception to all this. If you are a missionary and you are out witnessing for Christ and someone sets something before you – Paul says to eat whatever is set before you – and that gives a lot of people pause. I’ve known missionaries who had to eat monkey brains. Because if they didn’t eat monkey brains then the chief wouldn’t allow them the honor of speaking to his tribe and living among them because that was the sacred rite of acceptance. And so they had to get that spoon out and just chow down! Eeeeew! So there are certain exceptions.

I had one person when I was saying, “Look, you know, Jesus ate fish, he fed 5000 people fish.”

And she was going around telling people that eating fish was a sin.

And I said, “You can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well you can’t. The Bible says Jesus ate it. He’s our example.”

“Well, he didn’t have the Spirit of Prophecy.”

And my mouth fell open! I said, “He is the Spirit of Prophecy!”

I had one dear lady, she brought donut holes to a Vacation Bible School and one head elder’s wife lectured her on sugar and how bad it was. And I watched her leave in tears with her two children in tow and the box of donuts under her arm, and I hung my head and cried! She’s never been back.

You know, you don’t realize what you say and how it impacts people. And I like Ellen White. She says that it would be better for us to fall one step short in health reform than to go one step too far.

So all I can say to you is that we have our example in Jesus Christ. He taught us how to live and he taught us how to be healthy. We need to be Biblical. I think that Garden of Eden diet is the best diet. And we need to be moving toward that; that needs to be our goal. But we also need to acknowledge that most of us do eat meat and it’s something that we’re learning.

I think if there’s more and more disease in the animal kingdom some of us who eat meat will be very thankful for the vegetarian instruction and teaching that we get we get so that we can move away from some of these things that are unhealthful. And I’m sure that many of you if you don’t know how to eat that kind of food or cook it you’ll be very grateful then to learn from some of these people that we have among us who are very good at this kind of food and cooking and preparation. And I’m hoping maybe sometime in the next couple of months we could even have a vegetarian cooking school. You guys are very talented you know of our potluck dinners I like to say we have a free vegetarian feast every second Sabbath.

Well today you will learn what good vegetarian food is like and we appreciate all of our cooks. And I’d like to have maybe a cooking school where some of our new people and those who have been here awhile but they just don’t know how. Some of us weren’t raise that way. Now the Newark Church is a special church in that regard. They have actually put together a cookbook for their members. If you would like one of those vegetarian cookbooks, or if you would like to have a cooking school, maybe we could do that. Talk to one of the Elders, or Fran Clapper – she does a little thing in our newsletter about health. Many of our older members know how to cook these foods and if you’re interested just talk to somebody and we’ll see if we can’t get you a cookbook and help you learn some of these things.

So let’s learn from Moses that the vegetarian diet is our parent’s original, best diet. The diet that made them live the longest and the healthiest. We learned that we should only eat clean meats, and not eat unclean meats from Moses. Today, we have to even be more careful – all the things I mentioned. And we should always be moving toward higher ground. These more risky foods today are getting more and more so. So eating less and less of what is not healthy and moving toward a diet like God’s Edenic plan for us is something we should consider.

We learned from Jesus that he could relate to us where we are. He can reassure us, even in his resurrected body. He ate our food, he took our language, he ate with sinners, he ate the Passover lamb, he had a breakfast of fish with his disciples. He put people above dietary customs. He never did anything unhealthful, and he is our example in all things. If he were here today, he would certainly be very careful about what he ate, taking the state of the animal kingdom into account.

We learned from Paul that God does not give us permission to eat anything we feel like eating. Paul made it clear that we should eat what is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer. We need to be on the Biblical diet. We need to say grace, and be thankful for our food. We need to eat a healthy diet, and be sure to get plenty of exercise.

Whatever our body type, big, small, short or tall, we need to walk and exercise. Eat two meals a day, eat a Biblical diet, abstaining from unclean foods, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables. That will go a long way toward answering Jesus’ prayer that we prosper and that be in health.

Father, may we ever be making progress toward that lifestyle we left behind in the Garden of Eden, that will prepare us for a wonderful life in the heavenly kingdom, and it will help us to have a healthier life here. Help us, Lord, to exercise, because that’s just as important as what we eat. And help us not just to eat good food and exercise physically, but help us every morning to eat of your body and drink of your blood and fellowship with you by having worship – by reading our Bibles and praying every day. Help us to have a good Bible breakfast physically and spiritually, we pray. In Jesus Name, Amen.



All Scriptural References: New King James Version

Transcription: Wendy J. Riebel

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