Let's start in verse number 15 where the bible reads there in 1 Corinthians 6, "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh, but he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
What I want to preach about tonight is the subject of your body being the temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said something similar when he said on to the Pharisees, "Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up." The bible says, "He spake of the temple of his body." Jesus referred to his body as a temple and he says to us that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in us and that we are not our own, but that we have been bought with a price and that we should therefore glorify God in our body and in our spirit which are God.
Both our body and our spirit belong to God and we should honor God with our spirit, yes, but we should also honor God with our body, and not to defile the temple of the Holy Spirit which is what our body is. This body is not something that we own and contrast in any way, that we see fit. Rather, we should treat it like it belongs to the Lord.
It's like when you rent a car. You don't rent a car and just put a bunch of bumper stickers on it and just start trashing it and messing it up and being really rough with it, because you know that it doesn't really belong to you and you're going to have to return it and give an account for how you treated it when you turn it back in to enterprise or whoever. We should treat our bodies as if they belong to God, not unto ourselves. My body, my choice isn't really cut it because the bible says it's the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in us.
Now, one of the things, first of all, that would defile the body, I'm going to give you several things tonight but number one, the thing that the bible talks about that would defile our body as the temple of the Holy Ghost is fornication. That's what this passage mentions right away.
Now, it says in verse 18, "Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body," or outside of the body, it's saying, "but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body," the bible says. It says in verse 15, "Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid."
The bible is teaching us not to defile our bodies by engaging in fornication. The bible says, "Look, I'm not going to take the body that belongs to Christ. I'm not going to take them the members of Christ here and make it the members of a harlot because two saith ye, shall be one flesh." We don't want to defile the temple of the Holy Ghost by committing fornication.
Now, one of the many verses we could go to, we could go to all kinds of verses in the New Testament about fornication, but one that I would point out is Revelation 17:4, and if you want, turn over to 2 Corinthians 7. You flip over to 2 Corinthians 7. In Revelation 17:4, when it talks about the great whore, it says, "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations," watch this, "and filthiness of her fornication." Notice that phrase, "filthiness of her fornication".
The bible refers to fornication as filthiness. It refers to it as uncleanness. It refers to it as abomination. It's a sin and it's something that we should abstain from and we should have some respect for our bodies. You say, "Well, why would commanding fornication be a sin against your own body?" Because of the fact that going out and committing a bunch of fornication is harmful to your health. You say, "Well, how is it harmful to my health?" Look at all the disease that's out there, and it's always been out there. There's nothing new under the sun. The bible talks about people being diseased as a result of their sin.
I'm telling you, today, the level of STDs in America has skyrocketed as we've thrown out Christian morality, as we've thrown out the idea of remaining pure and abstinent until you get married STDs about. Today, in certain areas, one-fourth of the population has an STD in a lot of urban areas. The statistics are through the roof. Also, because of the fact that our land has become filled with sodomites. This has has caused the disease to spread at a rate that is just rampant, because a lot of these sodomites go both ways, and spread it to the straight population.
When you go out to some bar or some nightclub or hook up with whoever off the internet, there's a pretty good chance that that person could be someone who's a sodomite or they've been with a sodomite or whatever, and you could pick up all manner of disgusting diseases. I'm telling you, there are people out there who are spreading these diseases like wildfire. If you think it's far-fetched for you to go out and get a disease, if you're living a fornicating lifestyle, you're wrong.
You know what? The bible says, "Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Therefore, a saved person who goes out and commits a grievous sin like fornication is more likely to be punished than an unsaved person, because whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. See, a lot of unsaved people can go out and sin and get away with it, but when we're saved, we know God will judge his people. God will judge his children and punish his children as a loving father will punish their children.
We don't want to commit this grievous sin of fornication. It's morally wrong. It is spiritually filthy and it also is physically unsanitary and harmful to your health. We need to flee fornication. We need to run away from it and not get involved in it. That's the number one way that we should not defile the body. The bible says in 2 Corinthians 7:1, "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit." Notice, he differentiates between filthiness of the flesh and filthiness of the spirit. They both need to be avoided. He says, "Cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
Here's another famous verse about our bodies. The bible says in Romans 12:1, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Listen, you're going out and fornicating and being a whoremonger or a whore, that's not a body that's holy and acceptable unto the Lord. When you're going out and taking the members of Christ and making them members with the harlot, or when you as a woman go out and commit fornication before you're married, you're defiling the temple of the Holy Ghost. You're bringing the Holy Ghost along for that physical debauchery. That's what the bible is saying.
Number two, go to Leviticus 19. Remember, we're not our own. We're bought with a price. We need to glorify God in our body and in our spirit which are God's. We need to present our body a living sacrifice unto God, holy and acceptable. Number one, we do that by abstaining from fornication. Number two, we need to stay away from tattoos and other mutilations of our body.
The bible says in Leviticus 19:27, "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor ..." watch this, "nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord." Verse 29, " Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore; lest the land fall to whoredom, and the land become full of wickedness." He's listing off here in Leviticus 19 some ways that people would defile their body.
Now, of course, some people just want to throw out the teachings of Leviticus, but let's not forget that this very chapter, Leviticus 19 contains the second greatest commandment in the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." That's right in this chapter. All scriptures given by inspiration of God and his profitable for doctrine, there is nothing in the New Testament that says, "Hey, there's been a change. Now God likes tattoos." If he said in the Old Testament, "don't print any marks upon your body," then we shouldn't be printing any marks on our body in the New Testament. There's no change in the New Testament where he says, "Hey, I've changed my mind. Now, it's okay."
Cuttings in the flesh, tattoos upon the body, these are permanent mutilations to your body. Now, look. You say, "Well, pastor's mad at me because I have tattoos." Look, if you've had tattoos in the past, there's nothing you can do to change it and this is a big reason why you shouldn't get a tattoo. If you talk to the people who have tattoos, they would get rid of them if they could but you can't. This isn't to try to rip on people who have tattoos because you know what? There are a lot of godly Christians who have tattoos. They got them in the past, and they're permanent. They got them before they were saved or they got them after they were saved but they just weren't as strong in the Lord. Maybe they didn't know this scripture.
This is nothing good, to judge people, to look at people and judge them that they are weak Christian. It's not for that at all. You know what it's for? It's to warn people who haven't gotten a tattoo yet. It's not to make people feel bad who already got one because there's nothing they could do to get rid of it. If they could push a button and get rid of it, if they could spend money and get rid of it, they would but you say, "Oh, tattoo removal." Yeah, it sounds great, go look into it. It's not that easy. Talk to people who've tried it. It's extremely painful, expensive and doesn't really fully get rid of it.
I mean, there's varying levels of success. It obviously depends upon the person and what kind of skin they have, and what kind of tattoo they have. It's not just that easy of just walk in to the tattoo removal and just get erased. Listen, if you get a tattoo, just plan on having it for the rest of your life because you're going to.
Here's the thing. I look at it this way. Tattoos on your body is like bumper stickers on a car. It doesn't make the car look like a nicer, fancier car when you put bumper stickers on it. I mean, think about it. If you put a bunch of bumper stickers on a car, that doesn't really make it a nicer car, does it? It doesn't really add to the value or make it look cooler. You know, some people go real overboard with bumper stickers. Some people go real overboard with tattoos. It's kind of similar.
Here's the thing, and I'm not ripping on you. There's no provision in the bible against bumper stickers. Go ahead and put all the bumper stickers you want on your car, because it's just a car, but don't do that to your body. The bible says right here, "Thou shalt not print any marks upon thee." Case closed. People say, "Well, I'm not sure what God thinks about tattoos." To my knowledge, I think this is the only mention of tattoos in the bible, and it's telling you not to do it. Case closed.
Then he also talks about cuttings in your flesh for the dead. He also talks about rounding the corners of your heads and marring the corners of your beards. Now, some people would twist this scripture and try to say that this is telling you, you could never trim your beard. That's ridiculous. You should keep yourself neat and tidy. Now, some people go clean shaven. I don't believe that there's anything wrong with being clean shaven, and I don't believe there's anything wrong with having a beard. Some people have a longer beard, a shorter beard, whatever.
I think when the bible says ... Here's the thing. The word "mar", if you look at the word "mar", that has to do with damaging something. When something is marred, it's like there's a chunk taken out of it. It's been gouged or damaged. This is basically talking about in my opinion carving strange shapes into your beard or into your haircut. Instead of going with a natural look of your hair and a natural look of a beard, carving out this real creative, weird shapes where it looks marred, it's messed up, there's something wrong with it. I believe that that's what he's saying here.
You see people who do these just crazy hairdos. It all goes in the same genre of let's say, shaving your hair and do a mohawk, for example or then making the gauges in your ears when you have the big, giant earlobes hanging down, or the disk in your lower lip, or just all the different piercings.
Here's the thing. The bible does speak positively about earrings in a woman's ear as being something that's normal. My wife doesn't have her ears pierced. I'm not really into piercing my daughter's ears. I don't think there's anything wrong with it because biblically, there is a positive mention of earrings on women. I will say this, some of the piercings that we're seeing now are more like a cutting in your flesh and just a mutilation than just a normal pierce in your ears.
Piercing ears is one thing, but what I'm seeing now is like where somebody will just have a metal rod in the back of their neck. Who knows what I'm talking about? What do they call that thing? Does anybody know what it's called, the official name of these metal rods that are just like a post or ...? I don't know what they call it, but putting a hole in your tongue and putting a metal rod through it or just putting a rod through random parts of your lower back, your neck. I mean, I've seen people have just a big chunk of metal on the back of their neck and it looked inflamed. You could tell the skin around it wasn't happy. It was like, "What is this? What is this on the back of my neck?"
Then also, I one time literally saw a guy who instead of a mohawk, he had these metal spikes, but they literally screwed into his head, like the sockets were installed in his head. He could change them out for different occasions, different spikes because they could screw in and out. These type of mutilations are the things that God is saying, "You're defiling your body." Don't permanently disfigure yourself in any way, shape or form. Don't burn yourself, cut yourself, tattoo yourself, mutilate yourself. Look like a normal person the way that God made you.
We're living in a day where these body modifications and body culture is becoming more and more popular as we get more away from the word of God and Christian culture. We get into heathen culture of mutilating. Everybody wants to just look different or standout. Why don't you standout like the bible says by your good works? Why don't you let that light shine? If you want to get attention so bad, why don't you get some attention by being a great person for God that does great exploits for God, and your adorning will be not the outward adorning of the way that you do your hair and the clothes you put on, but that outward adorning of good works, the bible says. That's what's a great price, and so this whole mutilation thing.
Number one, fornication. Number two, tattoos and other mutilations. Number three would be slothfulness. Go to Proverbs 19. You say, "Well, why would slothfulness defile my body?" Well, because it's unhealthy, because you're not treating your body in a healthy way. You see, God wants us to be healthy. Here's a verse from the bible, 3 John 2, " Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth."
Basically, in 3 John, the letters being written to a man named Gaius, and John says to Gaius, "Basically, it's great that you're prospering spiritually, but I also want you to be in health even as thy soul prospereth." God does desire for us to be healthy. Why? Well, if you had somebody working for you, wouldn't you want them to be healthy, if you had an employee or a worker? Guess what? We've been bought with a price and we are the servants of the Lord and God wants us to take care of the body that he owns, and that we would not defile the body.
One of the ways that we defile our body is by being slothful or idle. Now, the bible says, where did I have you turn? Go to Proverbs 19. Proverbs 19. Here's one of the things that slothfulness does to you. Slothfulness is an archaic word. Our modern word would be what? Laziness. We say laziness. The bible calls this being a sluggard or being slothful which comes from the names of two animals: a slug. What is a slug like? It's like this little blob of an animal.
Basically, it's a snail with no shell. In fact, in Germany, it's called a naked snail, "Nacktschnecke". That's how you say it in German. Basically, it's just this blob of an animal that moves very slowly. It's as slow as a snail. It basically is a snail with no shell. That's the slug where we get the word "sluggard" in the bible. Then slothful comes from the sloth which is an animal that lives up in the trees, and doesn't move around very much or very fast. We have these two animals as an illustration of this.
Look what the bible says in Proverbs 19:15, "Slothfulness," or laziness as what we would say today, "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger." Now, there are a couple of things that we get from this scripture. First of all, we see that people who are lazy lack energy. See, the bible says, "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep." Ironically, not working makes you more tired because you'd think, "Oh, man, if I went out and did a bunch of physical activity, I'm going to get tired," but actually, it's the opposite. If you go out and do physical activity, you end up with more energy than the person who sits around. Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep. They get tired and drowsy from sitting around and doing nothing.
I remember when I used to work in the fire alarm business, it was a lot easier to work all night if I were actually pulling wire and installing electrical, but driving all night was hard. Why? Because you're idle. You're just getting really tired because you're just sitting there, and the vibration gently lows you to sleep because you're idle. You're not really doing anything.
It's bad for your body to be sedentary, to be idle, to be slothful. It actually makes you have no energy because it's a vicious cycle of being lazy, then you get no energy, and then you get lazier and then you sit around even more, and it gets worse. Then notice what it says also, "An idle soul shall suffer hunger." People who sit around and are inactive, also have a greater appetite. This is also ironic because you'd think, "Oh, yeah." You go out and use a lot of calories, you're going to be really hungry to refuel. Actually, it's people who sit around doing nothing that get the hungriest.
Again, back to the illustration of my job. When I would sit in the car driving, you want to snack while you drive. You're bored, there's nothing else to do, you're channeling down. You're stopping and picking up a Ben & Jerry's tub and that's what I would pick up. You get one of those Ben & Jerry's tubs. What was the one that I get? The chocolate peanut butter cup, whatever. I forget what it was called or the Häagen-Dazs chocolate peanut butter.
I'd kill one of those things like it was nothing on a drive or I'd get those Häagen-Dazs bars with the almonds on it. I get four of them. Yes, I did, because you're driving down the road and it's just one after another, after another. This has become the American culture today of being real sedentary, idle, slothful, and then that leads to gluttony also, which is a later point in the sermon.
Look at Proverbs 24:5. Proverbs 24:5, the bible says, "A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength." According to the bible, strength in a man is a virtue, being strong, not being weak. Now, obviously, the verse that pops into everybody's mind when you preach about stuff like this is they'll say, "Hey, exercise thyself rather unto godliness, for bodily exercise profiteth little but godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." Of course, this is the life verse of many people that are way out of shape. "Hey, bodily exercise profiteth little. Amen." Just like every winos favorite bible story is when Jesus turned the water into wine or "Hey, use a little wine for your stomach's sake."
Basically, these are the type of verse that people latch on to. You know what? That is true that we should exercise ourselves rather unto godliness. Godliness is far more important than bodily exercise. Bodily exercise profiteth little. Godliness is profitable unto all things. We don't want to take that and just trash and neglect our body, "Well, you know, bodily exercise profiteth little," just plop down and lay around and do nothing. No, because of the fact that the people in the bible live lives that were completely different than the life we live with all the technology that makes us sedentary.
See, the reason the bible is not telling you, "Hey, you need to get out and do some exercise," is because here's what the bible says, "Go work." Back then, their work was strenuous. When the bible is telling you to go out and work hard, that's your fitness program. When you're on a farm, when you're dealing with cattle, when you're living in those days, they worked hard.
Now, if we look at the people in the bible, because even though there aren't a bunch of verses telling you, "Hey, you need to exercise," but look at the lifestyles that the people in the bible live. First of all, let's look at Jesus and his disciples. Jesus Christ, the pattern man, he went everywhere on foot. That alone is great exercise. You never see him riding a horse, except one time when he rides into Jerusalem on the triumphal entry. He rides upon a colt, the foal of an ass. That's where you see him on an animal. The whole rest of his ministry, what's he doing? Walking, walking around to all of the villages. Then whenever he's going to go pray, where does he go to pray? He goes up into a mountain to pray.
See, even just the act of walking from village to village, walking up a mountain to pray, these are all things that are going to keep you physically fit. I guarantee the disciples were in great shape just by walking through the villages every single day. They're walking over here, walking over here, going up the mountain. See, walking is actually a great exercise. It's actually very good for you. It's a full body type exercise too, especially if you're carrying stuff. I'm sure that they carried a few basic things. Therefore, they were getting plenty of exercise through doing that.
We look at the man of the Old Testament. We look at first of all, Elijah was a man who ... he ran like 20 something miles and outran a chariot. We see other prophets in the bible going on major hikes of hundreds of miles. We see them walking, running, getting all kinds of exercise. Elisha, when he was first found by Elijah, the prophet, was plowing with oxen. He was in the yolk with an ox pulling a plow like an animal. He was obviously a very strong man.
Jacob, when we see Jacob show up at the home of his future wife, and he goes to the well. There was a great stone on the well. They said, "We have to wait until all the shepherds get here because then we'll be able to life the stone off the well." He said basically, "Hey, baby. I got this. Let me just do this real quick." He walked up and lifted the stone up the well, single handedly. That's the one that preachers will call the Mama's Boy, Jacob. Esau was the tough guy, and Jacob was the mama's boy. Yeah, such a mama's boy that he lifts the stone off the well's mouth by himself that usually took a whole bunch of guys to lift.
Not only that, but later, he's wrestling with the angel all night. I mean, try wresting for a while, and you'll see how strenuous activity that is. See, the men in the bible worked physical jobs, carpenters, fishermen. I mean, they're fishing with nets, so they're hauling in in great nets. They didn't have to go hit the gym when they're hauling in a great net of fishes. They're going to be really strong just from doing that physical work of farming, fishing, whatever.
We have to understand that although we have to be careful that this doesn't just become a God to us, and that this doesn't become idolatry where it replaces godliness and where we just get so into body building and making our bodies perfect and we're staring at ourselves in the mirror and whatever. Obviously, it can go to sinful extremes. That's why God warns and says, "Hey, exercise yourself rather unto godliness. Make that the priority." At the same time, let's not go to the other extreme, and just completely neglect the body and become a physical weakling, because the bible never teaches that being weak is a virtue.
The bible tells us to be strong, and the bible says, "A wise man is strong a man of understanding increaseth strength." The bible gives us the example of all the men of God in the bible and all the prophets where constantly, he's telling us about them performing great feats of strength or great feats of endurance, and we see them walking, running, climbing, lifting great objects. So we need to make sure that if we have a sedentary job that we get out there and get some exercise.
A great place to start out too is going out soul-winning. I mean, at least that's getting you some exercise when you go soul-winning. Go to your apartment complex soul-winning and go up those stairs ... I mean, there's your stair master right there. You're going up and down the stairs, soul-winning. At least you're walking a few miles in the course of going soul-winning. That's good for you.
Also, if you work a physical job, you're going to be healthier than somebody who's working a sedentary job. Those who work a sedentary job can make up for that by getting some exercise in their life. I recommend, if you have an office type job, a computer-based job, getting out and getting some exercise or honestly, you're temple is going to go to pot because our bodies are not designed to just sit in front of a computer all day.
Look, there's nothing wrong with having a job like that, but if you have a job like that, make sure that your hobbies aren't sitting around hobbies. You need to get some hobbies that get you outside walking, running, swimming, bicycling, whatever it is that you do, but you need to take care of your body because our nation today has become very unhealthy, very out-of-shape, sedentary, slothful, gluttonous, and therefore, disease bounce and people have all kinds of heart disease, type two diabetes.
A lot of this stuff is preventable by your lifestyle, but people are just trashing their body with junk food, not getting any exercise and they're just quoting "Bodily exercise profiteth little" all day long as their memory verse. There's more to the bible than that. Read the whole bible and get a complete picture of what a biblical man looks like. He's strong, he's a worker, he's laboring by the sweat of his face. So we need to make sure that we get some physical activities in our lives so that we don't become a slug.
Now, you say, "Well, what about as women?" In the bible, in Proverbs 31, when it describes the virtuous woman, the ideal woman in Proverbs 31, what does it say? "She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms." It talks about how she seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. Now, look. It talks about her going out and planting a vineyard, working with her hands, girding her loins with strength, strengthening her arms.
See, throughout history, women have not been sedentary either. You know why? They didn't have a dishwasher. They were the dishwasher. They didn't have a washing machine. They were the washing machine. I mean, they had the washboard. I mean, think of it. That's exercise, right? When the bible says of the Proverbs 31 woman, "She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms." This isn't saying, she's at the gym looking into a mirror doing bicep curls. What's it saying? I mean, she's strengthening her arms, washing the laundry, making the clothes, carrying water. I mean, they'd have to go down to the river and get buckets of water.
Today, we have all these wonderful machines that make our lives easier, the washing machine, the dryer, so you don't have to hang laundry or anything. You got the dryer, you got the washing machine, you got the dishwasher, you got the car to take you anywhere, you got indoor plumbing, but these things also have a negative side of making you slothful to where you sit around and get lazy and idle and then you get more idle and you get more lazy.
This is something that women need to make sure that they take care too, that they get out there and physically move around and get some activity, get some exercise to not defile the temple of the Holy Ghost through slothfulness, through sluggardness, and idleness, which leads to the next point which is gluttony.
Are you still there in Proverbs? Go to Proverbs 23. The bible says in Proverbs 23:20, "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." Right here, we see, God warning about drunkenness, but he also warns about gluttony. He warns about the winebibber, but then he also warns about riotous eaters of flesh. What does that mean riotous eaters of flesh? It's saying people who are just gorging themselves indiscriminately with food. What else could it mean? Riotous eaters of flesh, it's to chow down with no thought of the quantity or the quality of what you're eating.
Now, today in churches, you usually don't really hear preaching about riotous eating of flesh or gluttony just because you don't want to offend people. I don't want to offend people, but honestly, it's important that we all stop and think about this. I don't preach about this stuff very often because it's not a major emphasis on the bible but it is there, so it doesn't need to be preached. God does warn about riotous eating of flesh, and he does warn about gluttony.
Go to Ecclesiastes 10. Ecclesiastes 10. Really, the message tonight is simple. That is to understand that our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost. We're not our own. We're both with a price. We need to glorify God in our body and in our spirit which are God. We need to take care of the body. Don't defile it with fornication. Don't defile it by damaging it, mutilating it, tattooing it, doing all these permanent modifications to our bodies.
We need to also make sure that we don't become sluggish and lazy and tired. Then when God wants us to work for him, we can't do the work. You try to preach a sermon, you get out of breath. Listen, preaching is a cardiovascular workout when I do it because my hands are moving around. I mean, it's like aerobics workout up here. I'm waving my hands around, I'm yelling. It's cardio. You got to be in shape to be able to get up and yell for an hour and preach loud.
You know what? When you go out soul-winning, that takes some strength, that takes some endurance. If you can't even walk down the street, you can't even walk a few miles to go soul-winning,, that's going to slow you down in your service for God. You know what? That's not what God wants out of us. He wants us to render him a living sacrifice of our body that's ready to serve, that's ready to work, and not to just abuse our bodies by just putting whatever trash food in our body, no thought for the health value of what we're eating, and then be sedentary and lazy and slothful, and just let our body go to pot and then we can't serve him because of poor health.
By the way, the body, the soul and the spirit are all connected. The bible says, "A merry heart doeth good like medicine, but a broken spirit dryeth the bones." We see that the body, the soul and the spirit are connected. So if you are physically unhealthy, that will affect your spirit, and that will affect your soul. Having a bad spirit will affect your health. People will even tell you. One of the worst things you can do if you're ill or have cancer or other diseases is to have stress in your life, because they say, "Hey, stress is going to make it worse," because our mentality and our spirit is tied in with our health.
Sometimes, people will become depressed and have heaviness in their spirit and have mental problems because they're not eating right and taking care of their body, literally. Look what the bible says in Ecclesiastes 10:16, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning! Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!"
Why should we eat? For strength, not for drunkenness. "By much slothfulness the building decayeth; and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through." The building being described there is the temple of our body. He says, "By much slothfulness the building," meaning our body, this tabernacle, "decayeth and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through."
We should eat for strength and not for drunkenness. Look, eating junk food can even mess with your mind. There are certain food that are known as brain foods. What are they? Foods that are high in healthy kinds of fats. These will be bananas, coconuts, tree nuts, avocados. These are all known as brain food because they're giving you good fat for your brain, fish oil, et cetera.
Then there are other foods that actually harm your thinking power and your brain power. It's been shown that drinking Coca-Cola and these junk sweets and your Little Debbie's and Ho-Hos and Svenhard's and junk McDonald's and drinking the soda, these stuff will actually not only affect your body poorly, but actually affect your brain. Why? Because your brain is part of your body. Think about it. Your brain is part of your body. It has blood flowing to it, blood flowing out of it. What's in that blood? Nutrition. What you've been eating, what you've been drinking goes to your brain.
Therefore, you will not be able to think clearly if you're not exercising and eating a good diet. You can get depressed if you're not doing these things, and get sick and depressed and lazy. Look, I've known people who've gone through depression, who've been suicidal and there are certain common denominators that I've seen amongst the depressed. I don't really understand this is much with women, but I've known more men that were dealing with depression than women.
I don't understand as much obviously the female experience because I'm a man, but I know this: the men that I've known who've been depressed and men who I've known who actually went through with suicide, they actually killed themselves, they're dead, some common denominators that you'll see, first of all, there's often an involvement of drugs and alcohol. When people actually kill themselves, that's usually something that is part of the issue, drugs or alcohol.
Other than that, when you see people that are depressed and down, here's some certain denominators, they're usually people who don't have a job, they're very inactive, not getting out and doing anything physically, they're usually not married, they don't ... Basically, you see these things and you cannot understand why they're depressed because they're spending a lot of time idle, they're not getting out there physically and working and doing anything.
Honestly, when I deal with people that are depressed, I don't just tell them, "Hey, read the bible. That's going to fix everything." You know what I tell people that are depressed? "Get a job." I mean, that's a man, because as a man, you need the value and the worth of going out and getting a job. That's what we were born to do as men to work by the sweat of our face all the days of our life, the bible says.
When people are depressed, when men are depressed, I say, "Get a job. Get married. Get exercise. Go do something." That helps. It's people who sit around, listening to music, idle, no girlfriend, no wife, no prospect. That's why they're depressed. I'm not joking. I'm dead serious right now. Here's the formula for ending depression. Get married, get a job and get physically active, and start eating better food.
Now obviously, of course, reading the bible, prayer, going to church, soul-winning, of course, but you know what? If you're going to church, and then eating a bunch of junk, and sitting around listening to music all day, and not doing anything, you might still get depressed even though you read the bible. It's just reality. So we need to take care of ourselves, and we need to understand that when we eat, we should not be a glutton. The bible says that we should eat for strength and not for drunkenness.
Now, drunkenness, we would usually associate with alcohol. What's this eating for drunkenness? What's the bible talking about here? Obviously, food is not really going to make you drunk, but he's speaking figuratively here, and saying, "You know, you're not eating just to have a party in your mouth and to feel good." That's not why you eat. You eat for strength. Food should be looked at according to the bible here as fuel for your body to give you strength. You're putting fuel into the system that's going to be used for strength, not just, "Ooh! Let me tickle and tantalize my taste buds once again with a party in my mouth at every meal and even between meals." That's gluttony, that's eating for drunkenness.
Now, it's interesting when you look at this verse in verse 16, because it says, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning!" Now, it's interesting because we think to ourselves, "Wait a minute, breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper." Who's ever heard that before? No one. All right. No, a couple of you have.
Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper, and we're always told, "Hey, eat that huge breakfast. Eat a real big breakfast, and it's going to make you lose weight. It's going to make you ..." Who's heard that before? To lose weight, be sure you always eat a big breakfast. Here's the thing. Just because you hear something a lot, doesn't necessarily make it true.
In fact, now, a lot of the studies that are coming out are starting to reverse this, and say, "Hey, actually, eating a huge breakfast is not what it was cracked up to be. It's actually not making you any thinner or losing weight to eat some gigantic breakfast," and it really doesn't matter.
Now, here's the thing. The bible never changes, and the bible here is seeming to indicate that eating a lot in the morning is not a good thing, according to this scripture because he says, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child, and thy princes eat in the morning! Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness!" Perhaps, it's better not to just roll out of bed and start eating but rather, maybe to get up and start doing something first, and then eat a little bit later on.
Now, I know this that sometimes, and I know I'm getting a little off topic here, but I want to just expound this verse because I think a lot of people get confused by this verse because they look at it and they say, "Wait a minute. I've been my whole life to eat a big breakfast," but if the bible says something different, we need to look at what the bible is saying here.
When I look at this, I know that sometimes what I've done is let's say I eat a big giant meal for dinner which I've been known to do, real big dinner. Eat a lot of food at the end of the day. Then sometimes, I'll just skip breakfast. Eat a big meal before dinner and then go like 16 hours without eating or something, and then just go all the way until lunch. There's really nothing wrong with doing that, and it's really not bad for you at all.
In fact, sometimes, by just eating a big breakfast, big lunch, big dinner or whatever, the more meals you eat, is just the more chances to eat too much food if you're a sedentary person. Now, if you're a real active person, and you're burning a ton of calories, then yeah, you need to take a lot of food in to maintain that. If you're a sedentary person who's getting very little exercise, it's easy to overeat and to gain weight and to get overweight.
Therefore, maybe just rolling out of bed and eating a big breakfast isn't the best option. Maybe it's better to wait until later, closer to lunch to eat something, and then just eat lunch and dinner and then call it good. Then just go to sleep and then wake up. Look, how much you eat ... I'm not going to get up here and tell you, "Hey, this is how much you should eat," because it's different for everybody.
If you have a real physical active job, and I personally, I'm real active, and so I really try to get enough calories because I don't want to become a skinny weakling, so I have to eat a lot of calories just to try to maintain my body weight. Other people are trying to make sure they don't eat too much to basically get overweight. It depends on your lifestyle, it depends on your metabolism.
Here's what the bible is teaching. You eat for strength and not for drunkenness. Basically, you eat what you need. You eat what's good for you that's going to make you stronger, healthier, faster and not just what's going to give you a party in your mouth. Sometimes, if you roll out of bed, it might be good to go out and be active and do something and get to work, and then maybe eat a little later. Something to consider based on this verse of maybe skipping the big breakfast. Maybe that is not all the describe have to be.
See, the world is always changing its health advice. They'll come out with all the, "Oh, eggs are bad for you," then, "Oh, give eggs a break." "Oh, salt is bad." No, the bible says, salt is good, especially if you live in Arizona, you need to eat a lot of salt because you sweat so much here.
Anyway, I don't want to get off on some big health sermon, but I just want to throw that out there that you know what? We, as Christians should not just say, "Well, it doesn't matter what I eat. It doesn't matter how overweight I get or how skinny I get." Some guys need to work on this. Some of these guys that are just so twiggy, and skinny, and weak need to get some meat on their bones and build some strength. Basically, then they're judging girls by their outward appearance when they're a skinny weakling. That's not cool.
We, as men and also the ladies need to not just have this attitude of just trash our body, drive it until the wheels fall off, bodily exercise profiteth little, it's what's inside that counts, pass the extra large diet Coke, pass the dozen Krispy Kremes and let's eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow we die. No. If our body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, number one, we need to not defile it with fornication. Number two, we need to not mutilate it, tattoo it, put a metal post in it. Number three, we need to make sure that we don't get lazy, sluggish, slothful that we get out and get exercise, and get moving.
I'm not saying that you necessarily have to go to a gym because honestly, a lot of people, they just want to throw money at problems when they're out-of-shape and unhealthy. They want to just sign up for some expensive gym or buy some expensive piece of equipment. You don't need a piece of equipment to get in shape, my friend, because the best way to get a half size is to go out and walk, go out and run, jump up and down, get a jump rope. A jump rope is $10. You say, "Well, you know, I got to work my ..."
Look, here's how you work your upper body, like this. You do push-ups. Everybody wants to go out and get an expensive gym membership, buy a bunch of barbels. Do some push-ups. Before you go out and spend a bunch of money, walk over to the playground and start doing some pull-ups, drop to the ground and do some push-ups, sit-ups, jump rope, run, do something. You don't need to spend a bunch of money and join a gym, but even ... Look, if you have a job that's physical, great, but if you don't have a job that's physical, you need to get active somehow.
Maybe you can even work around your house and maybe do some improvement that involves you swinging a hammer or something that will get you active, whatever. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just saying that God doesn't want us to become physically slothful and sedentary, and it will make you depressed and mess with your mind also.
We are living in a time that is unlike any other time that anyone has lived in history. It used to be that being overweight was not a big problem with people. Unless you're like Kublai Khan or something, who was real overweight. Why? Because he's being carried around by slaves all the time because he's the king. He's some great emperor. Your average guy had to go out and work so hard. Your average woman had to work so hard. It just wasn't an issue and people were healthy as a result.
Beyond gluttony, beyond being sedentary, number five, another way that people defile their body, go to Proverbs 23. Another way that people defile the body is through alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Now, the bible does not mention cigarettes. The bible has not mentioned smoking, but I don't think anybody here would argue that smoking is good for your health. Nobody here is going to stand up and say, "No, I think smoking is actually good for you. I think it actually reduces your chances of lung cancer. I think it actually makes you a better runner, and it actually makes you healthier." No one would claim that. Everybody knows that smoking is bad for you.
Therefore, is it really right for you to first of all, take the money that God gave you to the tune of six bucks a day? Just think about it. Do you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day? Doesn't it cost about five or six bucks? Help me out. Who knows how much cigarettes cost? Five bucks?
Seven.
Seven? Man alive. You need to go to the Indian Reservation. How much? If you buy a carton, how cheap can you get it?
Forty bucks.
Forty bucks, and how many packs come in a carton?
Ten.
Ten. So you can get it down if you're real economical, you're getting a carton, you're going to the Indian Reservation, whatever. Maybe you can get it down to four bucks a pack. Other people are paying seven. Let's just say five bucks. That's $150 a month. I mean, that could be a cheap car payment. You could do a lot with $150 a month. You could buy a lot of healthy organic food for $150 a month. You could do a lot with that.
Here's the thing. Not only are you throwing away, and I'm not going to do it tonight because I don't have a $5 bill on my wallet, but usually, when I preach on this, I take a $5 bill and tear it up and throw it on the ground, and everybody's horrified like, "Oh! You just destroyed $5." Think about it. I just destroyed $5 and I'm just as healthy as I was. Pretend I did it here. Pretend I did it. Later will come in the graphics on the video and we'll add the dollar, special effects.
Anyway, pretend that I tore it up. It's like, "Okay. I destroyed $5 but I'm just as healthy as I was five seconds ago." Yet, nobody bats an eye at throwing away $5 everyday and destroying your health. See, if you woke up every morning and tore up a $5 bill and put it in the trash every morning, people would think you are nuts, wouldn't they? What if you just walk in to your job every morning and just ... every day, people would think you're a psycho. Yet, that would be way smarter than smoking a pack of cigarettes everyday because yeah, you'd lose the money, but you'd be just as healthy.
You're tearing up five bucks and destroying your health. So that's something to think about with cigarettes. Even though the bible does not say, "Hey, smoking cigarettes is a sin." It's still stupid. You say, "Well, is it really a sin to smoke cigarettes?" No, but it's stupid and the bible says, "The thought of foolishness is sin." The thought of, "Hey, let's go buy cigarettes," is a stupid thought and just thinking that is sin.
Then also, drugs. There are all kinds of obviously drugs that are harmful, street drugs, people are abusing prescription drugs, and taking all kinds of harmful ... The doctor will tell them, "Hey, you can either change your diet and exercise or take these pills." "Oh, give me the pills." That's what people would choose, the pills instead of changing their lifestyle.
I've known people where that's exactly what the doctor said, "Hey, do you want pills or do you want to start exercising?" "Give me the pills." It's like, "Okay. Here's the list of side effects on the pills," and it's like pages of death, blood in the urine, whatever. It's like, "Whoa! What in the world these horrible side effects?" It's like, "Well, God forbid, you'd actually eat right and exercise." "Give me the pills." Okay? So drugs.
Here's another one that a lot of people don't think of, alcohol. Alcohol is bad for your health. Now, people are trying to lie to you and tell you that alcohol is good for you. They'll even point to scripture where Paul says, "Take a little wine for thy stomach's sake." They'll say, "See, alcohol is good for you. Take a little wine for your stomach's sake."
In reality, when he says wine there, he's talking about juice. Throughout the bible, the word "wine" is often referring to juice, like when it talks in Isaiah 65 about wine being in the cluster, that's like in the grapes. That shows that it's juice right there. When he says, "Use no longer water but drink a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities." Notice the contrasts between water, drinking water only and using a little wine.
What's he saying? He's saying, "Go from just water to water and a little bit of juice." He's not saying, "Hey, you know, you need to drink liquor for your stomach's sake," because alcohol is not beneficial to your stomach. It's harmful to your stomach.
Now, when they say, "Oh, but yeah, but you know, a glass of wine will prevent heart disease." Yeah, a glass of grape juice will also prevent heart disease. It's not the alcohol that's doing it, it's the stuff in the grape juice that's doing it for you, that's helping you.
By the way, there are trace amounts of alcohol in any sweet beverage. Any sweet beverage has trace amounts of alcohol, but it's nothing that could ever get you drunk. If you're drinking orange juice or even a Coca-Cola, anything, has trace amounts of alcohol, but that doesn't make it an alcoholic beverage.
If you need those trace bits of alcohol, you're getting it anyway in whatever you drink, just by drinking juice, drinking tea, kombucha. Kombucha or apple cider vinegar is a great way to get the health benefits of a fermented beverage without the harmful intoxication of alcohol. You can drink kombucha or apple cider vinegar to get that fermented healthfulness, and so forth.
Here's one of the things that a lot of people don't think of about alcohol and its harmful health effects. First, I'm going to read the scripture here in Proverbs 23. The bible says in verse 29, "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."
Here, he's saying there's a type of wine that you don't look at. There's a type of wine that's good for you, juice, and then there's a type of wine that you should not look at, the one that is fermented, the one that causes your eyes to be hold strange women and your mouth to utter perverse things. It's interesting, I was talking to a lady who's visited our church a few times, Dr. Rita, and she said, and I've never heard this but she talked about how beer makes men actually develop feminine body characteristics. It actually increases their levels of estrogen and reduces their levels of testosterone, because she's a doctor and she talked about how she would test men that would come to her clinic for their testosterone levels.
She said that the vast of majority of American men, their testosterone levels are in the dumps. In fact, I read a study that said that men's testosterone levels today are 25% of what they were in the '80s. A 25-year-old guy today has 25% less testosterone than a 25-year-old guy in the '80s or a 40-year-old man today has 25% less than a 40-year-old guy back in the '80s.
The testosterone levels are dropping in men. What is this caused? All kinds of harmful things. Listen to this. Hops. Beer is made from hops. First of all, alcohol in general, any alcohol is harmful to your testosterone levels and it will raise your estrogen, but especially beer. Now, beer is made from hops. Listen to this, hops are the female flowers of the hop plant and have high levels of phytoestrogen or estrogen for plants.
Long ago, German beer makers made the startling discovery that the women who harvested hops actually experienced early menstrual periods. It also seemed to reduce the libido and contribute to feminizing the bodies of men. Did you hear that? Feminizing the bodies of men. The reason for all this is now known. Hops is one of the more powerful phytoestrogens in the world, and all of this extra hops is causing havoc in our bodies. Today, hops is far and away the most used plant-based estrogen primarily being consumed through beer.
The results of all this extra hops is that your body will exhibit the characteristics of a woman. Specifically, hops contribute to the build up of extra fatty tissue in the chest giving many men the appearance of breasts. I'm going to change some of the wording here to use a more biblical wording in the next few. It also leads to atrophy of your stones, to use the biblical term. That is, your stones will shrink and harden as the estrogen in your body overwhelms the testosterone.
Further, you will experience body hair loss, loss of libido and others, some that I'm not going to mention that you don't want to have as a man. Look, we're talking about a drink that makes you feminine. Yet, what do the world and the commercials and TV tell us? "It's manly to drink beer. Yeah! Get that dark ail and be big tough man." You're going to get man breasts. That's what the studies are saying. You're going to get feminine.
You see, men aren't getting them just because they're gaining weight. No. They're specifically gaining weight in their chest because of the estrogen through drinking the beer. That's not cool. I mean, who wants that? Who here says, "You know, I really want to get more fatty tissue on my chest. I really want to have lower testosterone. I really want to have the body of a woman." Nobody wants unless you're some freak like Bruce Jenner or something. I mean, I guess with him it's like, "Drink up, buddy." You freak.
Here's the thing. We need to not defile the temple of our body and beer is defiling your body, men, and it's harmful for women too in other ways because it messes up their balance of hormones as well, getting too much of that phytoestrogen and so forth. Also, soy, soy, low-fat diets and too many beers are the things that are reducing the testosterone. Also, laziness, idleness, making men become more feminine.
In the very chapter that taught us that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 6. You know what else is said in that same chapter? Don't be a feminine, in the same chapter that said, "Hey, your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost."
These are some things to think about, and I know that this is not a big emphasis in our lives. We're not trying to become body builders. We're not trying to make some kind of a religion out of exercise and healthy eating. Obviously, it's not a big emphasis of this ministry. Obviously, it's not the most important thing in our lives, but you know what? It is something we should think about because the bible does address it.
Honestly, we should walk away from this sermon saying, "Hey, I need to take some care of my body. I need to not indulge in sin with it, obviously," and fornication is a horrific sin, but not only that, we need to realize that tattooing it, mutilating it, putting junk food into it, being a slob with it, eating junk, drinking beer, taking drugs, smoking cigarettes, it's all showing disrespect and disregard for the body that God gave us to serve him with.
We need to keep our bodies tuned up within reason, not the big focus of our lives but within reason, let's keep our bodies tuned up so that we can serve God to the uttermost, and we could live long, healthy, productive lives, not for our own glory to go pose in front of the mirror somewhere, but rather, for his glory so we can get out, go soul-winning, preach, so that we can take care of our bodies, be productive, be able to reproduce healthfully and live godly lives that would benefit the kingdom of God and benefit others by taking care of the body God gave us and not just trashing it like some rental car that we're not even worried about getting the deposit back or whatever.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for the bodies that you've given us, Lord. There are people here, I know, that struggle with health problems, but Lord, there are also many people here who you blessed with a very healthy body. Lord, whatever you've given us, we're thankful for it. Help us to take care of it and make the best of it, and not trash the bodies that you've given us or mutilate them to look ridiculous to the world. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
We broke the record again? How many? Hundred and forty-eight tonight. What was our old Sunday night record? Hundred and forty. We smashed it. All right. Do we still have ice cream left or no? All right. Your body is the temple. You guys ready for ice cream? Are we having ice cream? Do we have it? It's organic ice cream. Listen, everybody. Hey, the healthy eating and the exercise starts tomorrow, all right? Deal? All right.
