We are beginning here our 12th part of: What the Scriptures REALLY Teach About Health. Part number 12. And Scripture has quite a lot to say about health. As we have gone twelve segments, it is the longest study I have ever done in my entire life, this section on health.

And it is important. It is an important part, I mean, for us to have a healthy body, while we are on the earth. We want to glorify Yahweh with our body.

And health is a big topic today. And this is a subject and an approach to the subject of health that is not usually taught. Most people don’t pay any attention to it. And so, I felt the need to really, really dig in deep to this. There are a few ministries out there that do talk about it, but not a lot.

And there are, you know, some concerns about those ministries I have that I wouldn’t feel comfortable directing people towards.

So, anyway, we want to talk now about (are you holding your breath?) exercise and nutrition. All right! I know some of you are waiting for me to talk about exercise, nutrition and herbs and… “Tom, what about doctors? What about medicines? What about herbs? What about all these things?” And you would like me to share about these.

And I have definitely been looking forward to sharing what I think would be maybe a more unique perspective, a more unusual perspective, than what you are used to seeing, not for the sake of being different, but because this is what I really see from Yahweh’s Word. And this is what Yahweh’s Word says about exercise, one verse that I am aware of:

1Timothy 4:8 – For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.

Okay, so it does profit. There is blessing in it, and we should, you know, be healthy in terms of exercise. And it does profit a little and we need to, even though it is little, consider that there is a benefit to it. There is profit in it.

We should not be living a sedentary lifestyle to the extent that our body is like, “Why are we even here? Why am I even here? I’m not doing anything.” The couch potato lifestyle we all know is not exactly healthy. But it says, “Reverence is profitable for all things, having a promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”

So the bodily exercise does help with the life that now is. I think that is by implication here, but reverence for two things: for the life that now is and the life that is to come. Reverence toward Elohim, a piousness toward Elohim. So, yes, exercise does help.

Now, I want you to remember, the purpose of this study is to learn what the Scriptures really teach about health. It is not a study on what nutritionists say about health. It is not a study on what herbalists say about health. It is not a study on what the doctors say about health. This is: What the Scriptures REALLY Teach About Health.

And it does say bodily exercise profits some. So, good. HalleluYah! We should practice it. But what does Scripture actually say about nutrition? As far as I know, it doesn’t say anything. It talks about what things we can eat, what we can’t eat. It doesn’t say, “Eat this many vitamins. Make sure you get your Vitamin C,” you know.

This is all modern stuff that man has learned about the body. I certainly believe, however, that it would be wrong for us to eat something or do anything that we know would cause harm to our bodies. We should… we should be careful about that.

Remember the time that Yahushua was told, “Hey, why don’t you go jump off of the top of a pinnacle?” You know, the temple…

Matthew 4:5 – Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple,

6 – and said to Him, “If You are the Son of Elohim, throw Yourself down. For it is written: `He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, `In [their] hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'”

7 – Yahushua said to him, “It is written again, `You shall not tempt YAHWEH your Elohim.'”

We should not do something that we know would be harmful to our body. But in terms of health, Scripture says:

3John 1:2 –

Just as your soul prospers. If your soul is in a condition of it is going to inherit eternal life, then your health will likewise fall suit. So just as your soul prospers, if you are in right standing with Yahweh and you are practicing righteousness, then your health can prosper just as your soul prospers.

But we look at Yahushua. He was tempted to allow His body to be killed, and, you know, “Hey, why don’t You rely on Yahweh’s promises to save you?”

Now Yahweh does promise us good health in the Scriptures, but that doesn’t mean you go jump off a cliff, and say, “Yeah, I’m going to have good health.” It doesn’t mean you eat something that you know would be harmful to your body, and say, “Look, I’m going to have good health.” In fact, the Torah actually says this:

Deuteronomy 22:8 – “When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.

What does this mean? Basically, build a little ledge or something around the edge of your roof so somebody doesn’t accidentally step off the back of it. Like a little, small, low kind of a fence. And the principle here is that we should take necessary safety precautions to protect human life, whether it’d be the lives of others or even our own life.

A failure to do so, Scripture says, could produce what? Guilt of bloodshed on your household. So we are supposed to take proper safety precautions to ensure that we don’t die. So failing to do so could result in the guilt of bloodshed.

So following these principles could certainly carry over into the area of nutrition and that if we put things into our bodies that are inherently dangerous to our health, we are failing to take proper care of something that actually, in truth, belongs to Yahweh.

1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19, says:

1Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit [who is] in you, whom you have from Elohim, and you are not your own?

20 – For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify Elohim in your body and in your spirit, which are Elohim’s.

They are Elohim’s. So, I mean, too often I think we have the wrong mindset about our bodies. We think our bodies belong to us, but in reality, our bodies belong to Yahweh. We were bought with a price. It belongs to Yahweh our Mighty One. It does not belong to us. We are not our own.

Do we believe that? Do we understand that? And do we live as though that’s true? That is an important question for us. We need to live as though it’s true. And we should take proper care as stewards of our body we’ve been given.

If Yahweh sent you a prophet with a Torah scroll in his hand, and said, “Yahweh sent this to you,” certainly you would take very could care of it and make sure it doesn’t get harmed, right?

Well, the truth is, He has given you a body He expects you to take proper care of and that means not doing things you know could cause harm or not do things that could unnecessarily cause the risk of harm.

Now one of the things that we know can cause unnecessary risk of harm to our bodies would be smoking cigarettes. According to studies, and so on, half the people who pick up the smoking habit end up dying from some kind of disease directly caused by smoking.

That would be equivalent of taking a revolver and, you know, fill half the chambers with live ammunition, spin it, close your eyes, shut it, and pull the trigger while you point it at your head. You have a fifty percent chance of dying.

Now if Yahweh is concerned enough about human life to require a parapet around the roof of an Israelite home, certainly he would be concerned enough about human life He would not want us to play Russian roulette with our lives, or the equivalent thereof, by smoking cigarettes.

He would also not want us to engage in some kind of diet that would be inherently harmful to Yahweh. And so, Scripture says:

1Corinthians 10:31 – Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of Elohim.

So that’s the rule if we want to give glory to Elohim with our bodies.

Now we know there are certain plants that if we were to eat them would cause us to get sick. It would be common sense to say it’s wrong to eat them because we know it would be causing harm to our bodies, which are not our own, but we would be poor stewards of Yahweh’s body He has given us.

But how do we know? I mean, how do we know what’s harmful? How do we know what is poisonous to our bodies? We would have to rely on the testimony of other people. I mean, Yahweh never says, “Don’t eat those berries over there from that particular plant. They are deadly.”

But in this fallen world, we have to rely upon the testimonies of other people to tell us whether that particular plant or berry or whatever could be harmful to our bodies.

Now today, man has more knowledge about the human body and nutrition than ever. Scripture says in Daniel that knowledge shall be increased. Man will go to and fro. No question. But some of the information that’s out there regarding nutrition and health, it’s simply not even true.

I remember… I’m old enough to remember… back in the ’70s and ’80s, it was commonly believed that eating eggs and butter was a terrible thing to do for your health. And so, alternatives to butter were marketed– something called margarine.

Margarine contained, in many cases, hydrogenated oils. To hydrogenate oils cause the oils to last longer on the shelf. But look at what the FDA is now saying about hydrogenated oils. This is actually true. I’m not making this up.

“The FDA released its final determination that Partially Hydrogenated Oils (PHOs) are not Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). The determination is based on extensive research into the effects of PHOs, as well as input from stakeholders during the public comment period. PHOs are the primary dietary source of artificial trans fat in processed foods.

“Removing PHO’s from processed foods could prevent thousands of heart attacks and deaths each year.”

Thousands! I said thousands! So companies now have, actually, according to FDA regulations, they have until 2018 to remove hydrogenated oils completely from American foods. After that they will be outlawed. So I wonder how much harm to human life could have been caused by hydrogenated oils. And what is the research?

Now this is not an FDA statement. I’m sorry, that’s still up there, but it says: “In a review article published nearly 10 years ago in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Willett and his colleagues estimated that removing trans fats from the U.S. food supply would prevent between 72,000 and 228,000 heart attacks each year. The FDA finally agrees.

“In the blog FDAVoice, Susan Mayne, the director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, wrote that, ‘it has become clear that what’s good for extending shelf-life is not equally good for extending human life.’ ” And that is according to Patrick J. Skerrett, Former Executive Editor of Harvard Health.

So there is an example. Now imagine that: 72,000 people, or 228,000 people– they don’t even know, somewhere in that range– dead or heart failure, or whatever, per year because everyone said, “Get away from the eggs. Go to the margarines. Go to the…” “Oh, this is all healthy.”

And little bright packaging, “health,” you know. “Healthy way of doing it,” you know. And it’s all partially hydrogenated oils. It’s not healthy. It was killing people.

Now I have talked quite a bit about the spiritual roots of disease. Heart disease can have a spiritual root to it. So I wonder, okay, how many of the seventy-two to two hundred and eighty-eight thousand people were people that were actually living on a high level of stress, anxiety, fear, each of which can be a major factor in heart disease.

We simply don’t have that information. I mean, how many of those people were regularly eating unclean foods, which Yahweh said not to eat? Probably ninety-five percent of them. How many of them were Torah observant believers that were walking in complete freedom from bitterness, fear, anxiety and depression? Probably very few.

Now I’m not trying to say we can ignore what’s being written here. I’m not trying to say that we should. But I am saying that we need to be careful we are not just downright obsessive about what goes in our bodies. I mean, some of the scientific studies are actually kind of influenced by money. Ah, yeah, really. Money. Really.

No, you are not shocked one bit, are you? But I wonder, you know, some of these studies have said, “Butter is bad for you.” Maybe it was funded by companies looking for, you know, sales of their hydrogenated oils. Of course, they made a killing… actually, literally, made a killing.

But even information out there in the health food industry, you know, this is the “alternative medicine.” You go to the health food store and here are these things, “Oh, this is better for you.” A lot of the stuff is just rumors. It’s not even true.

It’s like a rumor gets started somewhere. There is no factual proof behind it. It is just what people have said. You know, “This is better for you.” And some of it is true. I’m not saying it is all not true.

But again, I’ve been around long enough to see a lot of the claims in the health food and nutrition industry are also from people looking to make a buck selling a book or a line of products that resolve a problem that they said existed in their book and it doesn’t even really have an impact on our health.

I tend to be more skeptical whenever I see the person offering the information stands to benefit financially from you believing what they have to say. Because the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. We know that.

So we need to be aware, you know, where are we getting our information from? Who funded the latest health study or nutrition study or study on whether or not this pill or that pill is good for you or bad for you? Who came up with the funding on that?

Because the information out there is very subject to being influenced by corruption, by greed, and if it is not influenced by corruption and greed, it could simply be wrong or untrue.

It could be simply not the whole story. Now the person thought what they were writing in their health book were true, but really it was just kind of an exaggeration or something being overblown.

And so, in this information age, I mean, there is a limitless pile of information on what’s good or not good for your body. I might even call it the misinformation age in some cases, because in regards to health, and in regards to a lot of things in Scripture, there is a lot of good information, but also a lot of misinformation as well.

And so, where do we draw the line as believers, in the midst of all the voices and people telling us this and that and the other, and they may be wrong? Ten years later they find out this was wrong and that was wrong.

Well, I think we ought to avoid the things that are obviously harmful to our bodies. But I really want to look at the Scriptures as much as possible when trying to filter out all the information on health.

For instance, there are a lot of people telling us that animal milk is not designed for humans. Don’t drink it. It is bad for your body. It is made for the animals. It’s not made for you.

Okay, well, if that was a real important thing, why would Yahweh say:

Deuteronomy 26:9 – `He has brought us to this place and has given us this land, “a land flowing with milk and honey”;

I mean, there are people out there saying, you know, eating meat is a terrible thing. You don’t eat meat. It is bad for your bodies. Our bodies weren’t designed to eat meat.

Okay, but what I see here in the Scriptures:

Leviticus 7:34 – `For the breast of the wave offering and the thigh of the heave offering I have taken from the children of Israel, from the sacrifices of their peace offerings, and I have given them to Aaron the priest and to his sons from the children of Israel by a statute forever.'”

So they got the best part of the meat or one of the best parts of the meat. Yahweh gave the portion to the high priest and his sons. I mean, whenever a person brought an offering, the high priest would get a part of it. So probably the biggest meat eaters in Israel were the priests. I mean, I’m just throwing it out there. It’s there.

So I filter things through the holy Scriptures, and say, “Well, studies this and studies that, but Yahweh’s Word says this.” And I know that is going to stand in the end.

Other people say, “Well, you need to eat only raw foods and vegetables,” and, “Go down, get your fresh carrots. Get you fresh greens. Get your fresh this and fresh that.” But in ancient times in Israel’s day, they didn’t have a way to preserve broccoli until winter time.

I mean, in the winter time they would have to rely upon dried legumes and lentils and grains and, you know, some wine or grape juice. I mean, they did not have, you know, Wal-Mart down there with food from all over the world coming in to feed you.

And, you know, people say, “Well, you need this fruit over here or this vegetable over here,” that comes from Japan or from China, or whatever, or some other foreign country that, you know, it’s like the best thing. And maybe it is, but am I required to eat that in order to refrain from sinning? I don’t think so.

So we have this, you know, grocery store mentality. That’s what we were raised in, but in ancient Israel, they didn’t have those things. I mean, they couldn’t get tomatoes in from the equator or… I mean, they may have gotten some things imported, but it was limited in what people could do and what they could eat.

But this is what I’m talking about. We have to look at things with a balance here and through the filter of Yahweh’s Word, and say, “Okay, what would Yahweh have required of Israel?” And we are Israel. So what does He require of us?

And some of the things that, you know, the health food industry and the nutritionist industry require of you and say of you was pretty much even impossible in Israel’s days. So we don’t want to go overboard.

I’m not saying they are wrong. I’m not saying that maybe you would be healthier with the things they are offering, but as far as you feeling guilt because you are not taking proper care of your body, I wouldn’t go there. I wouldn’t call it a sin. So we have to be careful.

Now I also know the food industry in America is heavily driven by money. I mean, they want to produce food at the lowest possible cost, at the highest possible profit, and the most attractive tastes and textures and things possible.

So that could very easily be a signal for us that the food we find at the local Wal-Mart may not be what’s best for our bodies. And if you read, I mean, some of the ingredient labels, a lot of the ingredients you can’t even pronounce them, let alone understand what they are. So, you know… a batch of chemicals from who knows where.

But they are trying to make food taste as good as possible, to stay as long as possible on the shelf, and to cost the least amount possible with the highest possible profit. And we have to remember that when we are shopping our food.

And for that reason, it’s probably best– and nutritionists and health experts will tell you this– just stick with a simple list of ingredients. I mean, an ingredient label that you can understand and recognize and have assurance that they are not trying to feed you something that you have no idea what it is and how harmful it could be.

And even they don’t know. Or maybe they do know and they don’t care or they are trying to make money.

And so, in the same way I have skepticism about some of the health care claims with the money driven thing that is happening there in some cases in all this, I also have the same level of skepticism toward the American food, the standard American diet that’s out there, just overall.

But we are living in this increasingly complex world with conflicting information and it can all get very confusing very quickly. I mean, the way that man is doing things right now. We just don’t know if one day the FDA is going to come along and something that’s promoted as being the epitome of health, they find out, well, guess what? It’s not.

It is harmful. I mean, some preservatives, some food coloring, some additive. I don’t know how many food colorings have been outlawed because it causes this and causes that. And it will be too late for the people who have died from it or got some kind of disease from it. So man is playing with fire.

And he is delving into stuff before he really even knows the harm it can do. And so, if we just stick with the basic foods with basic ingredients, homemade food from scratch, like Grandma used to make… well, that grandmas in my day used to make… GMO free, organic, CLEAN, of course, by Yahweh’s standards, it’s the safest way of eating.

It has the least amount of potential risk to our health. And so, I’m all for that. That’s what I think we ought to do. I know that probably a percentage of you have been kind of waiting to see if I would tell everybody how a particular diet is best for our health– maybe the Mediterranean diet or, you know, avoid this food or that food.

I appreciate maybe your diet has helped you. It has helped others to live a more healthy lifestyle, to have a more healthier body and feel so much better. I’m not doubting you one minute, but this is not “What the Nutritionists Say About Health Study.” It’s not “What the Herbalists Say About Health Study.” It’s not “What the Doctors Say About Health.”

This is what the Scriptures say about health. And so, we want to stay within the parameters of what Scripture permits or doesn’t permit. And we are looking for things that may be harmful to our bodies and trying to be balanced and not get out of whack and, you know, out in right field somewhere over something that Yahweh is not really concerned about.

But I know there are a lot of knowledgeable people among us, even believers, who have studied these things and I encourage you to seek them out. But I study the Scriptures. I share the results of those studies. And this study is concerning what the Scriptures teach about health, and it turns out it has a lot to say.

And too often people turn to their doctors or pharmacists or herbalists or nutritionists to get their health information and don’t even think about, “Well, Yahweh said some things in His Word, too, about health.”

Now even if Scriptures do not speak specifically about the healthiest possible way to live on something, it does tell us that refraining from sin is the healthiest possible way to live.

Now I want to talk about something that is not really “G” rated. It’s kind of explicit a little bit. And so, if you have young children in the room, you may or may not want to have them go into another place. Okay?

But I want to talk about something that, you know, does have an impact on our health. And that is whether we keep the commandments regarding purity. Purity.

Scripture says there is a spiritual… I mean, they’ve determined already, in medicine, there is a spiritual root to cervical cancer. Now they don’t call it a spiritual root, but they say it’s a spiritual root… they don’t say it’s a spiritual root, I say it’s a spiritual root to cervical cancer. And here is what they say:

“While there are many factors that put women at risk for cervical cancer, almost all cervical cancers are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), the same virus responsible for genital warts.”

And here are the risk factors: first intercourse at a young age; high number of sex partners; a history of other sexually transmitted infections, such as chlamydia or gonorrhea; sex with a man whose partner had cervical cancer.

And so, you know, here are some risk factors. If everyone obeyed the Scriptures, these wouldn’t exist. There wouldn’t be cervical cancer. It wouldn’t exist. So if you maintain purity until marriage, it’s not a problem… if both man and woman would practice abstinence.

And I don’t even need to tell you about the health problems among homosexuals, but it’s a medical fact they don’t live as long as the rest of the population. And it’s not just because of AIDS. There are other things.

But practicing fornication can cause cancer and other diseases, medically shown to be true. And medical science has also established that it is something sexually transmitted. And they acknowledge that. And, also, a person could get throat cancer.

Let’s continue reading here… it says:

“It is important to note that other biological factors also affect HPV infection. In young women, the cervix is more susceptible to infection. Smoking makes HPV infection more likely to turn into cancer.”

Another unbiblical lifestyle. Wow!

“Immunodeficiency (weakened immune system) also makes it harder for the body to eliminate an HPV infection.”

What were we even talking about this entire study? A weakened immune system can cause what? Cancer! Can cause you to develop a disease you otherwise normally would not develop.

And, actually, there is a spiritual root to throat and mouth cancer as well. It says:

“Yes, you can get throat cancer from oral sex, says American Cancer Society Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley, MD. It’s not oral sex, per se, that causes cancer, but the human papillomavirus (HPV), which can be passed from person to person during sex, including oral sex.”

Now I probably don’t need to cover other diseases– I mean, AIDS, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes. The line goes on, but the bottom line is this: If we choose to depart from Yahweh’s way of doing things, we are placing ourselves at risk.

If we choose to do the things Yahweh’s way, a woman will not get cervical cancer, both men and women are less likely to get throat cancer, and we will be in better health. We need to understand, everything that Yahweh commands us is for our good. Everything!

He wants children to be raised by a mother and a father. It’s built in them biologically to have that need for both a mother and a father. If we engage in fornication, that will greatly increase the likelihood that a child will be unwanted when he comes into this world.

A child not being born into a family where there is security, there is a father and a mother who are committed to one another for life, instead, you know, a one night fling, and you don’t even know who the dad is in some cases.

And so, you know, when you look at the situation the way it is and then these children grow up in homes where there’s problems, there’s brokenness, there’s bitternesses, there’s fears, there’s lack of security, and all the other problems that we’ve been talking about can rise up out of a single parent home.

It’s far more likely to rise up out of a single parent home. If it is a dual parent home, if the parents are not practicing love and righteousness and holiness and walking in the fruits of the Spirit, that child is more likely to grow up and have health problems. We see that… the spiritual root of disease.

So if a person with these kinds of problems comes to an herbalist or a doctor or a nutritionist for help, I mean, they might get some help, and actually eating healthy and stuff might actually help them resolve this disease or their immune system might strengthen and be able to fight it off, or whatever, and even cancers. I don’t deny that.

But, you know, if a person with such a cancer, you know, if they overcome these other areas, they might also be healed of cancers. So our bodies are very complex. Some diseases are from external things like our environment, but that could be offset by righteous living.

Or we might have a good environment, but struggle with bitterness and fear and develop a disease we never would have had otherwise. And so, there are a number of contributing factors that can affect our health.

I would say, if we are walking in righteous living, that is the best thing for us. And that would include… part of righteous living is not doing things we know are harmful to our bodies, whether it is something we eat or something in our environment, or whatever.

Now the truth is even in the first century not everybody got the healing they were looking for. Have a look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 and verse 19. It says:

2Timothy 4:19 – Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus.

I can’t remember how you say that name.

2Timothy 4:20 – Erastus stayed in Corinth, but Trophimus I have left in Miletus sick.

Why did you leave him sick in Miletus? Because, well, I guess, he couldn’t heal him. That’s kind of sad. Paul, you know, a great man of Elohim, couldn’t just lay hands on the guy and see he got healed. I guess it didn’t happen.

So not everybody is going to get healed. Just because you have sick people in your congregation, it doesn’t mean your ministry is failing. It could be that person has a spiritual root. They are not repenting of their disease. It could be a sickness unto death and it’s just it. They are going to die.

Another example, Philippians 2:25:

Philippians 2:25 – Yet I considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need;

26 – since he was longing for you all, and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.

Another companion of Paul who was sick.

Philippians 2:27 – For indeed he was sick almost unto death; but Elohim had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

So, okay, he was near death, and finally Yahweh had mercy on him and did heal him. But he had a sickness for a while.

Another example…

1Timothy 5:23 – No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities.

For your what? Frequent infirmities. He is suggesting some kind of change in his diet to help him with his infirmities, which he says are frequent. Some people believe the water, you know, had some kind of organism in it or something that caused sicknesses.

And so, he says add a little wine there to your water. Not to get drunk, but something in the wine was… and is… they have determined even nowadays, medically, that wine is very beneficial to our health. I am not saying drunkenness. I am saying wine or grape juice, either one.

So as much as the New Testament talks about people getting healing from Peter’s shadow or someone laying hands on them, I mean, the first century congregation wasn’t completely without sickness. Trophimus was sick. Epaphroditus was sick. Timothy was said to have had frequent infirmities. Onesiphorus had a sickness almost unto death.

Paul himself said he had a messenger of Satan buffeting him, and as we shared in one of the first segments of this study series, it was just Yahweh’s will that he would have to suffer through that.

But I noticed that Paul advised Timothy, “Hey, take a little bit of wine there for your stomach’s sake and for your frequent infirmities.” And modern science has proven again and again the health benefits of grape juices, and so on.

Other practices in Scripture that can have a positive impact on our health… one would be practicing clean and unclean. And I’m not just talking about the food laws. I am talking about overall bodily cleanliness.

Frequent bathing was an important part of the lifestyle Yahweh established in Israel. Leviticus 15:16 says:

Leviticus 15:16 – `If any man has an emission of semen, then he shall wash all his body in water, and be unclean until evening.

And so, whenever he had relations with his wife, the whole part of the thing there would be go and wash. And so, it would be a normal thing. And for women, as well, having their monthly cycle, to wash.

And so, you know, it’s just a matter of regular things that they would do. It was a lifestyle of frequent bathing in Israel. And 1800s, 1700s, 1600s, and dark ages in Europe, people thought baths were terrible.

The bubonic plague comes along, the black death, and all these Jews aren’t getting sick, but all the Gentiles are. So they blamed everything on the Jews saying they poisoned the water. They didn’t do anything. They were just practicing righteous living. And plus they were kind of a cloistered community and they didn’t have, you know, outside access.

But they were a cleaner people. And so… why? Because they followed the Scriptures. And bathing sometimes was one way of dealing with disease. I know it is spiritual in its application, but there is a physical counterpart here.

Leviticus 15:1 – And YAHWEH spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying,

2 – “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: `When any man has a discharge from his body, his discharge [is] unclean.

3 – `And this shall be his uncleanness in regard to his discharge — whether his body runs with his discharge, or his body is stopped up by his discharge, it [is] his uncleanness.

Leviticus 15:4 – `Every bed is unclean on which he who has the discharge lies, and everything on which he sits shall be unclean.

Now I’m not saying that this was necessarily a medical solution to a problem, but this was establishing a mindset in Israel that they would be a clean people. It says:

Leviticus 15:5 – `And whoever touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.

6 – `He who sits on anything on which he who has the discharge sat shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.

7 – `And he who touches the body of him who has the discharge shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening.

So there is an understanding in Scripture regarding the contagiousness of things. I don’t think all of these laws regarding the bodily cleanness, and so on, is going to be, you know, in lockstep with the way germs function. But there is an atmosphere and an environment of cleanliness that He is promoting in the nation of Israel.

And Yahweh knows why because, you know, if you walk around and you are not a clean person, you are more likely to develop some kind of problem healthwise.

He even talks about houses, and so on. It says:

Leviticus 14:43 – “Now if the plague comes back and breaks out in the house, after he has taken away the stones, after he has scraped the house, and after it is plastered,

44 – “then the priest shall come and look; and indeed [if] the plague has spread in the house, it [is] an active leprosy in the house. It [is] unclean.

45 – “And he shall break down the house, its stones, its timber, and all the plaster of the house, and he shall carry [them] outside the city to an unclean place.

This is actually talking about molds and mildews. And at one time the unbeliever kind of laughed at these principles here in the Scriptures, but now we know, hey, black mold and stuff, there are some really dangerous molds out there that can have a negative impact on your health.

And He is saying let your environment be clean, let your bodies be clean on the outside, and also, what you put into your body also should be clean.

Leviticus 11:2 – “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;

Leviticus 11:5 – `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.

A big one today.

Leviticus 11:8 – `Their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch. They [are] unclean to you.

Now Yahweh, when He gave all these commandments, He didn’t say, “These are My dietary laws.” He just said, “Look, don’t eat pork. Don’t eat the unclean animals.” He didn’t give a reason. He didn’t say it was going to have a positive or a negative impact on your health.

Although, now we kind of know that pork and unclean organisms, like shellfish, which are forbidden in Scripture, are many times harmful to our bodies. I don’t have to go into medical studies to prove that. It is common knowledge. Doctors, one of the first things they will take you off of is those things.

So, to me, it doesn’t even matter, honestly, if pork or shellfish are healthy or unhealthy. Yahweh said don’t eat it. He didn’t say, “Don’t eat these unless they are somehow going to be healthy for you.”

But we see, overall, clean and unclean has an impact on health. Violation of Yahweh’s Word, at any point, can have a negative impact on health, up to and not including the words regarding what we eat, what we put into our bodies.

And so, look at what happened. Actually, a violation of the clean and the unclean happened in 2 Chronicles 30:18. It says:

2Chronicles 30:18 – For a multitude of the people, many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the good YAHWEH provide atonement for everyone

19 – [who] prepares his heart to seek Elohim, YAHWEH Elohim of his fathers, though [he is] not [cleansed] according to the purification of the sanctuary.”

20 – And YAHWEH listened to Hezekiah and healed the people.

And what? Healed the people. Apparently the people had some kind of a disease as a result of not reverencing Yahweh’s holiness in regards to the clean and the unclean.

And if this body does not belong to us and Yahweh is saying that pork eating and so on is an abomination, and we are bringing this unclean stuff into our bodies, then, yeah. I mean, by principle here we see that there is a connection to health and clean/unclean foods, even spiritually.

Now recently the World Health Organization claimed that all red meats are essentially carcinogens. But the problem is whenever various scientific studies talk about “red meats,” they never differentiate (hardly ever) between clean meat, like beef, and unclean meat, like pork. They just kind of lump it all together in the same box.

So I think that their data is skewed. Maybe the real connection between health and nutrition is whether or not we are eating what our Creator designed our bodies to withstand. Maybe that is the real connection.

And I understand that, you know, fruits and vegetables… a diet high in fruits and vegetables… actually is pretty much what Israel would have eaten. But, I gotta say it, high priests were big meat eaters, right? So, I can’t make a doctrine out of it, especially when the holiest men of all were big on eating meat. So we can’t go there.

All right, so what about doctors and drugs? There are some believers who say that doctors and drugs should be completely avoided altogether, that doctors are part of a corrupt system that is demonic in origin.

For instance, did you know that there is something called the Hippocratic Oath? The Hippocratic Oath. It says:

“In a 2000 survey of US medical schools, all of the then extant medical schools administered some type of profession oath. Among schools of modern medicine, sixty-two of the 122 used the Hippocratic Oath, or a modified version of it.”

This is the Wikipedia article referencing “Content analyses of oaths administered at U.S. medical schools in 2000.” It is from the Academic medicine: journal of Association of American Medical Colleges.

And here is the Hippocratic Oath. I don’t want to even read it, but that is what it says. If you look at it, it is an oath to Apollo, to all these pagan deities. And then you have this symbol here for modern medicine. This is called Caduceus and it’s a pagan symbol. It is a pagan symbol.

Now there are other oaths that don’t mention those pagan deities, and they just say: “I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant…” and so on. But those two things, when you look at all of that, you kind of go, “Man, this is not looking good so far.”

You’ve got the doctors swearing to these five gods and you’ve got the symbol for medicine there, which is a pagan symbol. And then we look into this “pharmaceutical” and you find out where the word “pharmacy” comes from… 5332, pharmakeus: one who prepares or uses magical remedies; a sorcerer.

And then, pharmakeia: the use of or the administering of drugs. Whoa! Pharmaceutical is sorcery, right? That’s the conclusion that many people would come to. So we cannot touch pharmaceuticals. I mean, look what the Scriptures say.

Galatians 5:19 – Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness,

20 – idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,

This is what people teach. I’ve been there. I’ve looked at it myself, that sorcery, or “pharmakeia,” is one of the works of the flesh that will cause us to not inherit the Kingdom.

And it says, Revelation 21:8…

Revelation 21:8 – “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

Sorcerers (pharmakeia). So we see these things. I certainly understand why people would conclude, “Look, the modern health industry– keep away from me! Don’t touch my body at all! It’s demonic. I don’t want no part of it.”

But I like to look deeper than Greek lexicons. I like to look deeper than pagan symbols. Traditional Christianity uses a cross as a symbol for their faith in Messiah, which if you study it, could very well be pagan in origin.

Traditional Christianity has some pagan roots in Greco-Roman mentality and in some of the things that are commonly believed and practiced, but that does not mean Yahushua is not the Messiah. You can’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

You can’t toss out your Bible because some people who say they, you know, are doing the Bible thing are doing something that’s found in some other religion that’s not of Yahweh. So what we need is discernment. What we need is for Yahweh’s Spirit to lead us to the correct way of looking at something.

Think about this for a moment. Now think about this please. When the book of Galatians and the book of Revelation were written, did they have pills back in those days? No! They did not have pills in those days. Were they able to create synthetic drugs from anything? No, they were not. That is a modern invention.

So what would have been the drugs that they used? It wouldn’t have been a little shiny pill in a bottle. It would have been herbs and plants. I mean, what else was there? So to what extent might the use of herbal remedies be considered pharmakeia? I don’t think very many people are even… that this is even registering.

I mean, some of you are probably just blown away right now by what I just said. Because it is true. We are conditioned to think of drugs as being pills and synthetic medicines, and so on. But there was no such thing in those days. They had nothing like that in ancient times. They just had the herbs and the plants.

But I want you to know, I understand the concerns with the modern medical system. And I’m going to speak more about that in a minute.

I understand the concerns with the modern medical system, but I count myself as one of the people who do not have one hundred percent trust in what the doctors may do to my body or the drugs they want to put into my body. After all, here is a very important fact to keep in mind…

Leading causes of death per year in the United States of America: Number one: 611,105 deaths from heart disease. Number two: 584,881 deaths from Cancer. And finally: 400,000 deaths from doctor mistakes! The third leading cause of death is doctors.

149,205 from Chronic respiratory diseases. 130,557 from accidents. 128,978 from strokes. 84,767 from Alzheimer’s. The third leading cause of death is doctors. Kind of scary. 400,000 people die prematurely from preventable harm from doctor mistakes.

And there is, also (it is a fact), that 3.6 million serious complications also result from medical errors each year. That’s according to their own statistics. Now people are just so trusting of doctors and the health care industry, but the industry does consist of infallible people who have a lot of power over the health of our bodies.

And to give someone else complete total stewardship of our bodies when Yahweh has told us to be the stewards of our bodies, is certainly a risk you are delegating.

Anytime you delegate responsibility to another person, you are taking the risk that other person will not operate in a righteous manner and it could potentially make some kind of mistake that would result in your harm rather than helping you.

But most people feel as though since doctors know a whole lot more about the human body than we do, we should trust them. But here we see 400,000 people a year die at the hands of doctors and millions more people have complications from the things they are doing to our body.

So, hey, you can’t have complete trust. I mean, they can make mistakes. Now some of these people, because they are deathly ill, they may have died anyway, right? If they had not chosen to go to a doctor, maybe they would have died anyway.

And so, you might think, okay, maybe someone gets in a car accident or has a heart attack and there is a certain medical procedure that could have been done in order to save them, but they didn’t do the procedure or they made a mistake with the procedure, if that procedure was not followed, the person would die.

And maybe that would be ranked among the 400,000. But that’s not true. The issue here is definitely talking specifically about failures of the system.

It says: “When people go to the hospital… (I’m sorry, it shouldn’t say ‘Scriptures’ up here)… they are sick. It is very easy to confuse the fact that somebody might have died because of a fatal consequence of their disease, versus they died from a complication from a medical error.

“It has taken a lot to prove to all of us that many of these deaths are not a natural consequence of the underlying disease. They are purely failures of the system.” And this was in a Senate hearing that was done. This was closing questions. The experts were asked why the crisis was not splashed on front page news. This was his response.

Most people don’t realize it. They don’t think it matters. They think the person died from the disease when in reality it was the doctors that killed them. All right. So they do seem to be excluding cases where deaths were not natural consequences.

But listen, modern medicine is an attempt on the part of man to look at the human body mechanically and try to determine what’s going on and go in and fix it. And sometimes they are effective. It works. Other times it is ineffective and sometimes even destructive.

But I’m not going to pretend like doctors don’t save lives. They do save lives. I’m not going to pretend surgeries don’t save lives. They do save lives. There’s no doubt. You’d have to have your head buried in the sand or be delusional to think they don’t.

Because someone goes to the doctor. They have some kind of illness, some kind of infection or some kind of problem. They come back. They take the medicine. They don’t have it anymore. I mean, over and over again.

But if a life is saved, I mean, that is a tremendous blessing. And I don’t deny that man has learned about some very effective ways to manage disease and health problems. I’m sure they probably save a whole lot more lives than they actually harm. But we also need to be aware they can also cause harm.

I mean, the discovery of antibiotics alone has saved millions of people’s lives. Antibiotics, though, can be harmful. But we have to be discerning, we have to prayerful, we have to be careful, about giving a doctor stewardship over our body or the hospital doing something to our bodies.

Sometimes the doctors themselves don’t even believe the procedure they are doing is going to work. But if they don’t do the procedure, they will lose their license to practice medicine. Their malpractice insurance will not cover them if they don’t follow procedure. The AMA (the American Medical Association) determines what to do.

And even if they don’t think it will work, they have to do it. So their hands are tied. And some of the more less than moral doctors get these kickbacks, you know, from pharmaceutical companies– vacations to Cancun and little side benefits and stuff from pharmaceutical companies– so they can, you know, persuade to prescribe their particular drug.

I mean, that should be outlawed. I don’t know why it’s allowed, but it is. But, of course, the drug companies also pay off politicians in their election seasons, so there is not this, you know, passing of a law against these things.

But again, we need discernment. We need wisdom. It’s foolish just to hand total and complete stewardship of your body to somebody else without knowing what they are doing and why they are doing it.

I do not believe the profession of a physician is inherently evil. I don’t believe that. Luke was called (Colossians 4:14) the beloved physician.

Colossians 4:14 – Luke the beloved physician and Demas greet you.

He was still a physician. But Luke, being a righteous physician, could have had knowledge of helpful herbs. He probably knew how to set a broken bone and help with managing wounds, and so on. No question. It’s a good trade. It’s not bad. But the medical profession today is very different than it was in Luke’s day, both good and bad.

More information is now available about things like cellular biology, germs, viruses, human anatomy. What we have done with this increased knowledge is the key thing. But listen, doctors are just… they are like mechanics, you know. They go. They look at the body. They see the problem. They try to fix it with a drug. Okay?

They’re sort of like drug dispensers in some ways… or surgery. But, you know, it’s sort of like taking your car to a repair shop. You call the plumber and you call the heating and air conditioning technician. And they come out and they look for the problem and they try to fix it.

Now for nine years I was an HVAC technician. I worked on air conditioning and refrigeration and commercial rooftop units, industrial units. I taught the trade for two years at a career center.

When I was teaching for two years at a career center, I told the students, “Don’t just fix the problem. Try to find the root cause of why the problem happened. You can replace a part, but if the reason why that part failed is caused by another problem in the system, then you’ll be back to replace that same part again sometime in the future.”

I mean, you might make more money that way, but it’s not the moral thing to do. It’s not good for the customer. Now sometimes doctors are just looking for the failed part. They are not really looking at the root cause, and, “Okay, here’s the drug for that part going bad, and here you go,” write the prescription, and, “See you later.”

I mean, I don’t think that is the way to do it. We’ve got to look at the root cause sometimes, right? Or… all the time. And we’ve shared in this study series (both scientifically and scripturally) how sin is the root cause of many different diseases and ailments– a lack of thankfulness, depression, fear, bitterness, anxiety.

Any disobedience can be the root cause of sickness and disease. And doctors simply aren’t trained to handle this stuff, even though now they are finding out, “Oh, guess what? Look at all these bitternesses, unforgivenesses, anxieties and fears and depression, and all this stuff. And it is causing disease.”

They are just now finding it and Yahweh said it thousands of years ago in the Scriptures.

Now I do get concerned that there are experts in the body of Messiah that know a lot about the body– even though they are not licensed physicians– experts who know a lot about herbs, plants and nutrition, and that is all they usually talk about when they are dealing with a sick person. But there is a spiritual dynamic here. We are not just a body.

We are not just a shell. There is a mind attached to it and a spiritual life attached to it. And we need to look at the whole person, not just one little part of the person. And I know it’s not comfortable to approach people about, “Could there be some kind of sin in your life, you know, there causing…?” It’s not exactly comfortable to talk about.

But they are not coming to you for spiritual advise in most cases. They don’t realize there’s even spiritual roots to the problem. They might even get offended. But, you know, you have to look and say, you know, Scripture does tell us:

Jeremiah 8:22 – [Is there] no balm in Gilead, [Is there] no physician there? Why then is there no recovery For the health of the daughter of my people?

You’ve got the balms. You’ve got the physicians. What’s going on? Why is there no recovery here? Because it is a spiritual problem. And so, we see, from the Scripture, herbs aren’t the total answer. And doctors and herbalists seem to be focused on, you know, fixing the symptom in the body rather than identifying the root cause of the problem.

And we see Yahweh gives us the… Really, all disease and sickness, the problem is from sin. But maybe a specific illness or disease is not rooted in a sin in our particular life. But, you know, doctors and herbalists, they are not usually ministers of the Word, and very few herbalists bother to minister the Word to the people that come.

And to me, that’s kind of sad, because if somebody had a high level of knowledge in the herbs and the human body and anatomy, and also had a high level of knowledge in the spiritual roots and causes of diseases, such a person could do a whole lot of good for a whole lot of people. That would be a real powerful ministry.

But if you are involved in the health care industry in some way, whether a nurse or a holistic person or an herbalist or a nutritionist (be careful about the holistic part of it)… but listen, you are not doing them any favors by not addressing the roots of the disease.

And those who take stewardship of another person’s health should be responsible with that stewardship. You might fix the problem temporarily. You might even fix whatever it is and it never comes back again. But then some other health problem pops up.

Even though you healed the one, you’re playing whack-a-mole with the body because, you know, you’re not dealing with the roots, you know. You’ve got one thing. It goes down. You knock it down. Something else pops up. And so, at a minimum, you know, why don’t you send them to this study on health. Hopefully, they are believers and they will hear it out.

But what about drugs and herbs? What does the use of drugs or herbs… when does this become pharmakeia? What is pharmakeia? We see “the use or the administering of drugs.” That’s what the first definition of this word is in this particular Lexicon.

And for that reason, many people consider the “pharmaceutical” industry, from which we get the term “pharmakeia,” consider it to be witchcraft or sorcery. But again, they didn’t have pills. They did not have those things in the old days. They had herbs and plants. And so, what is it talking about?

Well, you go back to the Hebrew, and this is where Hebrew roots can be helpful. There is a translation of the Hebrew called the Septuagint. It is an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament that was done two or three hundred years before the Messiah ever came on the earth.

And we have access to manuscripts of the Septuagint. They don’t date back quite that far, but in these manuscripts, they use the term “pharmakeia” when translating Isaiah 47, verse 9.

Isaiah 47:9 – But these two [things] shall come to you In a moment, in one day: The loss of children, and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness Because of the multitude of your sorceries, For the great abundance of your enchantments.

And the Greek translation of this Hebrew word for “sorceries” is “pharmakeia.” All right. So what does the Hebrew word say here that might give us some insight, particularly if you are like me and you believe there is an underlying Semitic text that the Greek translation is actually a translation of in the New Testament?

So, “kesheph.” Means: “sorcery” and “witchcraft.” Simple as that. That’s what it means. It doesn’t say anything about drugs. It doesn’t say anything about herbs. But when the word was translated into Greek, the word “pharmakeia” was used nonetheless.

Now other Greek lexicons would say this: The Friberg Lexicon says: the use of drugs of any kind for magical effect; magical arts (in the plural). Gingrich Lexicon has “sorcery” and “magic.” Nothing about drugs. Danker says: specialist in mixing drugs and potions, manipulation through incantations, spells, substances, or combinations thereof.

Now, interestingly, the Wikipedia article on the term “pharmakos” says this: “In Ancient Greek religion was the ritualistic sacrifice or exile of a human scapegoat or victim. A slave, a cripple or a criminal was chosen and expelled from the community at times of disaster (famine, invasion or plague) or at times of calendrical crisis.

“It was believed that this would bring about purification. On the first day of the Thargelia, a festival of Apollo at Athens, two men, the Pharmakoi, were led out as if to be sacrificed as an expiation.”

So kind of interesting. You know, this word “pharmakos” doesn’t just mean drugs. There is definitely a paganism connotation here.

And so, the actual use of herbs is not evil, but the use of herbs in the context of some pagan ritual or some kind of magic or sorcery or divination, or whatever, people who use potions and herbal concoctions in conjunction with spells, and incantations and the manipulation of unclean spirits. That actually might even be causing the disease.

They do these things to bring healing. In fact, you might hear about witch doctors, and so on, in these third world countries and ancient cultures, and so on. They do these things. And so, in light of these things, I don’t accept the belief that Scriptures are condemning all uses of modern drugs or pills.

They were herbs and plants. That’s what it was talking about. But there was a negative spiritual component to it.

And there’s also the possibility that it was referring to the kinds of plants and herbs that would cause hallucinations to make someone think they are entering into some kind of spiritual realm when they are maybe not entering a spiritual realm. They are just hallucinating.

And so, we need to be people who are, you know… we are looking for truth. I know the word “pharmacy” comes from “pharmakeia.” Okay, I know it does. BUT, in truth, it doesn’t necessarily refer to the use of drugs, especially modern drugs, which didn’t exist in the first century. It was herbs.

So it is how we use the herbs. That’s the problem. It can’t be herbs alone is the problem. It is how we use the herbs that is the problem.

Wasn’t Hezekiah healed? They put a poultice of figs on him, and he was healed? Other people were told to do this, some kind of herbal thing, and they were healed. So herbs aren’t necessarily evil. And there are many other Scriptures in this area. But if we are partaking of a plant that creates a mental hallucination, we have a problem.

Titus 2:11 – For the grace of Elohim that brings salvation has appeared to all men,

12 – teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age,

Denying unrighteousness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and reverently in the present age. That’s the instruction. So anything that would cause us to lose our sobriety would be a problem. The “sober mind.”

If a person is getting drunk or they are taking methamphetamines or cocaine or heroin, it is causing the person to lose their normal state of mind. They are no longer in a state of soberness. And so, I feel that would be a sin.

We don’t want to put anything into our bodies that would cause us to lose our normal state of consciousness, our normal state of mind, to where we lose our ability to judge good and evil… whether it’s an herb or alcohol, or whatever.

Now the Greek word for “soberly” has to do with “of a sound mind,” having a normal, sane… your senses are operating normally. So I’m very skeptical about any drug that would have any kind of an effect on a person’s mind.

A person could actually be possessed by a demon and they could be given drugs to calm them down or cause the demon to not be able to manifest themselves through the person. It can happen. It can happen both medically through the giving of drugs from the medical system.

You’ve got some kind of unclean spirit causing some kind of ailment in your body, like Job had boils on his body from the unclean spirits. And you go take a drug, you know. The thing, whatever it is, disappears. But the spirit is still there. It is just being held down by the drug.

And so, it’s kind of venturing into a little bit of sorcery there where you’re relying upon, you know, a concoction of chemicals to deliver you from whatever you got… even herbs… rather than seeking Yahweh first, seeking righteousness, and seeking whether or not there could be some kind of spiritual root there to whatever you are dealing with.

So that is where I would say we would run into danger of possibly practicing some form of “herbalism”– you know, using of herbs– as a substitute for what Yahweh is offering us and expecting us to do.

Now, at the same time, it is certainly possible that just as a person can have something wrong with their arm or digestive system or nervous system, or whatever, there could be a health problem right here in the old, you know, the brain. There could be something physiological, or physical, in the person’s brain causing what’s known as a mental illness.

We know cerebral palsy could be a damaged frontal lobe or something. I forget what it is. But it could be a spiritual root. There could be a spiritual root in a lot of things in terms of mental illness.

But science is now learning that our behavior, our spiritual problems, actually cause changes, physical changes, in the way our brain looks and the way our brain operates compared to a normal person’s brain who is not having spiritual problems and bitternesses in these things.

And so, I take these mental health claims with a certain amount of skepticism. I’m not entirely comfortable with the whole thought there on that.

Now if we choose to put a particular pill or medicine into our bodies, we need to make sure that we are obeying Scripture in the process. There are some… actually, a lot… of medicines, a lot of these pills, and so on, they have ingredients that are derived from unclean animals.

For instance, pill capsules – More and more, we are seeing pills being made from gelatin. Gelatin can be from beef. It can be from pork. So we have to see and see whether or not it is one or the other. We have to call the company and find out.

Stearates or monostearates, anything with the word “stearate” in it. They use that to hold the powder together. It is almost like a glue. And it’s commonly pork derivative. Shiny coated pills might have a thin gelatin coating around it. And so, we have to watch.

There is calcium from crushed hog or possibly bovine (cow) bones.

Umm… whatever you say that is (Chymotrypsin) – Used to promote healing and remove dead skin tissue.

Thyroid preparations, thyroxine and thyrotopine, made from the pig’s thyroid.

Mucin – Made from the pig’s stomach for the treatment of ulcers.

Pepsin – Used for indigestion in stomach coaters (enzymes).

Epinephrine – Used to treat heart disease from pig adrenal glands. Watch out! Epinephrine.

Progesterone – From pig ovaries.

We’ve got whatever this thing is (Acth (Adrenocorticotropin)) – from pig pituitary gland. “Acth.” Used to treat leukemia, cystic fibrosis, gout and arthritis.

Adrenalin – From pigs’ adrenal glands.

Heparin – From pigs’ intestinal mucosa, for blood clotting.

Pancreatin – From the pig’s pancreas, used as a digestive aid and for chronic pancreatitis.

Corticotropin – A gel used with injections. Vegetable is available. It could be a gelatin.

Levothyroxine – Used for thyroid dysfunctions. It might be synthetic now. Check with a pharmacist to find out or a drug company.

And here are some newer ones, we found out… Rituximab – It could be derived from mice. Used in some cancer treatments.

And iron oxide – It’s potentially from pork.

If you email this– Cleanfood@eliyah.com– you can retrieve, automatically (a auto responder will come to you), this very list, except for the last couple of items there. Haven’t yet put those in there.

But check it out. There’s lots of ingredients out there that could be pork derived, and we have to be careful that we are not putting those things into our bodies, because Yahweh says not to.

And if you are wondering whether it’s the will of Yahweh for you to partake of a medicine, all you’ve got to do is, you know, take a look here. Is it clean or unclean? That will answer it for you.

Send that and an auto responder will come back and let you know. You’ll get that full list and also some food ingredients as well.

Also, if you go to: eliyah.com/unclean, there is a directory of unclean foods. And also we include medicines in that. So if you’ve discovered something is unclean, please add that to the list. All right. So quite a few there.

By the way, I should mention, if you have this pill– say you are in the hospital or something– you got this pill, and you call the pharmaceutical company, you may have to give them the pill number. Just don’t touch the pill because it may be unclean.

Look at the pill number. And they will sometimes… that’s how they determine whether or not that particular pill might have clean or unclean ingredients.

But the one thing is, you know, there’s also areas like meshes and medical devices and sponges and things that are involved in surgeries, like the mesh that people put into their bodies to hold in and try to keep someone’s hernia from popping out. They have these surgeries. That mesh can actually be unclean.

And so, we wouldn’t want to put that into our bodies. There could be other sources for the mesh that would not be unclean.

But, you know, if a person is taking a drug, there could very well be side effects. If a person is taking an herb– I know that people don’t think so– but there can be side effects from taking that herb.

And there is less likely to be side effects from the herb, because the drug, they take out the little ingredient they think that is causing the healing and they strip it away from the herb. Whereas the herb itself may have other ingredients in it that counteract any negative effects that one chemical may have on the body.

But if you have a side effect from an herb or from a drug, and then you are trying to get prayer for healing, but you continue to take that drug giving you a side effect, don’t expect to be healed.

If the drug itself is causing the healing, and you keep taking the drug… if it is causing the ailment, causing the problem, and you are not getting any healing, the problem could be the drug you are taking. So keep that in mind when you are asking for prayer about healing.

Now modern drugs are derived from herbs, but they contain just that part of the plant that, you know, one chemical out of the plant. They can’t market and put out any patents on a plant, so they have to pull out whatever they think is working there in the plant and try to patent that chemical.

But there is also the factor that, you know, if they were to sell the herb itself, you know. It depends on where the herb might have been planted. If it was planted in good soil, it’s going to be more potent than if it had kind of poor soil, it wouldn’t be nearly as potent.

And they didn’t have any way of giving it a proper dosage of that particular herb. And so, they are trying to sell something and be honest with their equal weights and measures and give you the proper dosage.

And so, there is that factor as well in determining whether or not that, you know, they are going to pull a chemical out or just use the herb itself.

But the problem is a lot of times the herbs, when you take the herbs, you can’t really overdose. I mean, it wouldn’t be a problem because the plant is in its natural state, you have other chemicals, and so on, that offset any negative effects. But you can overdose with a lot of these synthetic drugs and so on.

So I kind of prefer the herbs. If we can get the herbal side of it, I think that that’s a lot better. And that’s really where I aim toward. I’m not on any medications. I never have been, actually, on any medications. I’ve taken antibiotics a few times. But I just… I don’t trust it.

I don’t know what kind of thing they are putting in my body to throw something off somewhere else where I’ll get some other kind of disease later on. I’ve taken headache medicine before, but, other than that, I just don’t.

I’m thankful to Yahweh I don’t have any problems to where I would need to take, or feel tempted to take, those things or feel the need to take them. It doesn’t mean I never will. I mean, I’m only 45, so who knows?

But, anyway, we know that herbs were used for healing in Scripture.

Isaiah 38:21 – Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply [it] as a poultice on the boil, and he shall recover.”

That’s talking about Hezekiah being healed with, of course, Yahweh’s power, and a lump of figs.

2Kings 2:18 – And when they came back to him, for he had stayed in Jericho, he said to them, “Did I not say to you, `Do not go’?”

19 – Then the men of the city said to Elisha, “Please notice, the situation of this city [is] pleasant, as my lord sees; but the water [is] bad, and the ground barren.”

20 – And he said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought [it] to him.

2Kings 2:21 – Then he went out to the source of the water, and cast in the salt there, and said, “Thus says YAHWEH: `I have healed this water; from it there shall be no more death or barrenness.'”

22 – So the water remains healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha which he spoke.

I don’t think the salt really did anything. But it was there as a prop. And Scripture says:

Ezekiel 47:10 – “It shall be [that] fishermen will stand by it from En Gedi to En Eglaim; they will be [places] for spreading their nets. Their fish will be of the same kinds as the fish of the Great Sea, exceedingly many.

It is talking about the fish in the Dead Sea. Today it is known as the Dead Sea.

Ezekiel 47:11 – “But its swamps and marshes will not be healed; they will be given over to salt.

12 – “Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow all [kinds of] trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for medicine.”

So we can’t be against all forms of medicine, especially herbs.

Revelation 22:1 – And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of Elohim and of the Lamb.

2 – In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, [was] the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each [tree] yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree [were] for the healing of the nations.

So I’m a believer. I’m a believer in the use of herbs. Herbs are a great blessing. I prefer using them over relying on “big pharma” to supply the healing medicine. But I always remember, you can go to Gilead and take all the balm you want, in vain use many medicines, and not be cured unless you deal with the potential spiritual root of the disease.

Jeremiah 46:11 – “Go up to Gilead and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt; In vain you will use many medicines; You shall not be cured.

So we seek Yahweh first. You seek to understand whether or not there may be some sin in our lives that is the root cause of what we have. We know that sin is ultimately the root of all disease and death, and without sin, there would never have been disease and death.

Even though there may not be a specific sin causing your specific disease, we know that is the root cause of all disease. But I like herbs. I often refer to a book called “Prescription for Nutritional Healing.” Another book called “Prescription for Herbal Healing,” by Phyllis Balch.

And I am not against the use of natural methods. You might be surprised to know that I for the last twelve years have owned a company that sells a product for spider bite wounds. I basically put activated charcoal and some herbal tinctures together.

And that used to be how I made a living, but it only supplies a very small amount of my income anymore. But now I’m pretty much fulltime ministry. But I’m just saying that I’m not against all use of herbs and, you know, natural methods. I’m all for it. But I’m also a minister of Yahweh’s Word.

And as you’ve seen in this study series, Yahweh has a lot to say about health. He has a lot to say. And we need to listen to what He has to say. We can’t just run to the doctor with every little thing we have. We’ve got to look at what He has to say.

We’ve got to do a little bit of uncomfortable self-examination, as 1 Corinthians 11 says when dealing with the Passover and the partaking of the Passover, and people were keeling over and dying and getting sick and everything, because they were not reverencing the body of the Messiah properly.

He says, “If you would judge yourself, you would not be judged.” You can’t be afraid of judging yourself. You can’t be afraid of self inspection. That’s what our life in Messiah is all about.

But also, as we find things about ourselves that we know are not good, don’t feel condemned, feel convicted. Don’t feel discouraged, feel encouraged. He is leading you to another step. But we need to take Yahweh seriously in what He says about sickness and disease.

Isaiah chapter 1, verses 1 through 3… we’re going to read this chapter.

Isaiah 1:1 – The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, [and] Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

2 – Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For YAHWEH has spoken: “I have nourished and brought up children, And they have rebelled against Me;

3 – The ox knows its owner And the donkey its master’s crib; [But] Israel does not know, My people do not consider.”

Who owns us? Who owns our bodies? Yahweh! Some people do not consider.

Isaiah 1:4 – Alas, sinful nation, A people laden with iniquity, A brood of evildoers, Children who are corrupters! They have forsaken YAHWEH, They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel, They have turned away backward.

He says…

Isaiah 1:5 – Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints.

6 – From the sole of the foot even to the head, [There is] no soundness in it, [But] wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment.

Now I realize He is talking spiritually here. But what happens is we have a spiritual counterpart.

If we have a spiritual problem with our heart, with our mind, from anywhere from the sole of our foot to the top of our heads, if there is a lack of soundness in it spiritually, in terms of the way we function with our hands, what we do with our hands, what we do with our minds, what we do with our bodies, if we are practicing sin with our bodies…

There could be a physical counterpart that could result in disease. Always look for the spiritual counterpart. Always. We are spiritual men and women. Always look for the spiritual counterpart to see. If you’ve got arthritis, if you realize your body is attacking itself, maybe there is some self-hatred there.

If you have some kind of problem with cancer, why is my immune system not working to peak efficiency? Could I have bitterness? Could I have unforgiveness? Could I have stress and fear and anxiety in my heart? Am I not being thankful enough to Yahweh?

Is there some area in my life, that I’ve never even mentioned in this study, that may actually have a physical counterpart that when we do not walk spiritually in the way we should, a physical counterpart shows up?

Isaiah 1:7 – Your country [is] desolate, Your cities [are] burned with fire; Strangers devour your land in your presence; And [it is] desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

You know, our bodies are spiritually land. It is ground. And, in fact, our bodies are made from the soil. Our bodies are made from the soil, and our bodies come from the ground. And so, when we do things with our bodies that Yahweh does not approve of, we are giving ground to the enemy. And so, the enemy comes in and can affect our bodies.

Isaiah 1:8 – So the daughter of Zion is left as a booth in a vineyard, As a hut in a garden of cucumbers, As a besieged city.

9 – Unless YAHWEH of hosts Had left to us a very small remnant, We would have become like Sodom, We would have been made like Gomorrah.

We want to be the remnant, don’t we? We don’t want to be the Sodom and Gomorrah.

Isaiah 1:10 – Hear the word of YAHWEH, You rulers of Sodom; Give ear to the law of our Elohim, You people of Gomorrah:

11 – “To what purpose [is] the multitude of your sacrifices to Me?” Says YAHWEH. “I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls, Or of lambs or goats.

What? People are still doing sacrifices to Yahweh? He tells them He didn’t want their sacrifices. He says:

Isaiah 1:12 – “When you come to appear before Me, Who has required this from your hand, To trample My courts?

Why does He reject their offering? He actually commanded the offerings. Why is He saying, “I’ve had enough of them”? He can’t stand them. He hates them. He says:

Isaiah 1:13 – Bring no more futile sacrifices; Incense is an abomination to Me. The New Moons, the Sabbaths, and the calling of assemblies — I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting.

He can’t stand it. You could be keeping a festival. You could be lifting your hands in praise to your Father in heaven. But if there is iniquity in the sacred meeting, He hates that. He hates it. And He may hate your Feast keeping. He says:

Isaiah 1:14 – Your New Moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; They are a trouble to Me, I am weary of bearing [them].

15 – When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you; Even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood.

What? They are guilty of bloodshed. What is going on here?

Isaiah 1:16 – “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; Put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes. Cease to do evil,

17 – Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.

He is concerned that Israel was not taking care of the weaker ones among them. If you don’t take care of the weaker ones among you, you will become as a weaker one yourself. That was the judgment on Israel.

So part of righteousness, and part of health, I would suggest– because He made the connection between this and health with the putrefying sores and ointments and stuff– that we have to care for the sick among us.

We have to look after them, the ones who are weak, the ones who are the widows, the ones who are fatherless, the children who are being raised in homes without a father. And they are more susceptible to having bitterness and fears and anxieties and all these problems.

We as a body of Messiah need to get our heads out of whatever we are doing and get out and start caring for the needs of other people and be in ministry. Care for others.

And if your own wife is a spiritual widow, or your children are spiritually fatherless, because you are not being a father to them as you should or being a husband to your wife as you should, then you are just as guilty, and probably even more guilty.

Because if Yahweh is upset because they are not caring for another person’s wife and children, how much more your own? So He says this:

Isaiah 1:18 – “Come now, and let us reason together,” Says YAHWEH, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.

That is a promise. It doesn’t matter how ugly and dirty, or whatever, your sins may be, He can purify them and make them as white as snow. There is a promise of one hundred percent complete cleansing.

Isaiah 1:19 – If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land;

20 – But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of YAHWEH has spoken.

Or in our case, quite possibly, devoured by disease and sickness, and the enemy could come in and be allowed to create affliction in our body because of our lack of repentance and we are not seeking righteousness.

Listen, Yahweh is very serious about the connection between sin and disease.

1Corinthians 3:16 – Do you not know that you are the temple of Elohim and [that] the Spirit of Elohim dwells in you?

17 – If anyone defiles the temple of Elohim, Elohim will destroy him. For the temple of Elohim is holy, which [temple] you are.

We need to take care of His temple.

1Corinthians 6:19 – Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit [who is] in you, whom you have from Elohim, and you are not your own?

20 – For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify Elohim in your body and in your spirit, which are Elohim’s.

Even your spirit belongs to Him.

Romans 12:1 – I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of Elohim, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to Elohim, [which is] your reasonable service.

2 – And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what [is] that good and acceptable and perfect will of Elohim.

That’s what we’ve been talking about this whole study series. Let’s be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Let’s do this. Let’s endeavor to glorify Yahweh with our bodies.

The more we overcome fear and walk in faith, the more we overcome anxiety and are content to be safe in Yahweh’s strong hands, the more we have the joy of Yahweh in our heart, rather than depression, the more we turn our hearts to righteousness and truth, the more we will live like the Messiah Yahushua…

The more we turn away from any sin He speaks of in the Word of Yahweh, the healthier we are going to be. That’s the message in Scripture for all of us. If it wasn’t for sin, there would be no death in the world.

So let’s live our lives in such a way that when we die we will have pursued righteousness, we will have pursued the love of Yahweh, we will have pursued freedom from bitterness, freedom from depression, freedom from fear. We will have loved Yahweh. We will have loved man… until we drew our last breath upon the earth.

And that when we die, people will look at us and say, “That was the love of Elohim in that person. No question about it. And He is alive in that person.”

This is the health message in Scripture: Turn to Yahweh; walk in His ways; don’t place yourself under Yahweh’s judgment or chastening for your sin; turn away from your sin; let your heart be pure before Yahweh your Maker. There is no better way to live this one life we’ve got on the earth but to follow Yahushua.

Following Yahushua is the pathway to health. Following Yahushua is the pathway to our soul’s having prosperity in this age and in the age to come. Faith and love and contentment for the abundance of all things, no better way to live. Let’s pray.

Oh, Father Yahweh, Thank You for Your awesome Word. Qadosh, qadosh, qadosh be You, Your Word and Your awesome name. Oh, Father Yahweh, just establish Your Word in our hearts. Let it bear fruit in our lives. Show us, Father Yahweh, discernment in this confusing world of medicines and herbs and nutrition and all these things. Give us clarity of mind.

Most importantly, lead us to righteousness. We don’t want to go under any kind of medical procedure or take any kind of herb or any kind of food that would not be a glory to You, would not be a testimony to You. We want everything that we are, everything that we do, be a testimony to Your grace and to Your awesome ways.

Father, show us anything in our lives that we might have in our hearts and we might be practicing right now, knowingly or unknowingly, that is currently leading our bodies to disease and sickness. It may not manifest right now, but it is on the way.

We pray, Father, that You would show it to us and that we would turn away from it, whatever sin there might be, that You would bring us to a place of healing, a place of understanding of what to do, a place of life. We know Your Word has said, “Choose life.” We want to choose life in every decision that we make.

Establish Your Kingdom in this life and on this earth. Let Your will be done in every aspect. And forgive us, Father, for any wrongs that we have committed, any wrong ways of thinking. Reveal to us Your truth and deliver us from the evil one who only seeks to steal, to kill, and to destroy.

But we thank You we have a Savior who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Father Yahweh, in terms of how we care for our bodies, we want to have life, abundant life. Most importantly, how we care for our souls, we want to have life… eternal life. For that is a glory to You.

Teach us, Father Yahweh, anything that we are doing that brings harm to the temple that You have given us of Your Spirit, our bodies. And open up our ears and our eyes to see wondrous things out of Your Word, to continue instructing us in the way to good health and freedom.

And thank You, Father Yahweh, for bringing us through all these difficulties in bringing this message out. Received a lot of opposition. And I thank You, for even though we faced so many things, that You have carried us through and You have brought deliverance. And these messages are going to go out.

I pray, Father, they will go out to all the world and they would glorify You and bring blessing and healing and deliverance to Your people, for the glory of Your holy name, and for Messiah to be magnified.

For truly Yours is the Kingdom and power and glory and majesty, and all honor, praise and worship belongs to You, Yahweh Elohenu, Yahweh Malkeinu, Yahweh our Mighty One, Yahweh our King, forever and ever. In Yahushua’s name we praise You. Amein.