How to Live a Long Life

There’s a lot of information on the internet, as you obviously know. And I discovered that they have a survey that you can take where it basically boils down all of the data and all of the statistics and all of the odds and all the probability based on your life about how long you’re going to live. It’s a length-of-life calculator. And you go to that site, there’s probably several sites that do it, and it will ask you things about your habits, things in your family history, your eating, how much exercise you get, what kind of work, what’s your education, your income, all kinds of data that I guess the statisticians have figured and they boil it all down and they say that with some accuracy they can predict exactly how much longer you’re going to live. So I did it. I was depressed. They tell me that I’m going to live to be 84.34 years. Well, I didn’t like that answer.

So I went back to the survey and I changed some of the data. Well, you know, instead of being 155 pounds, I thought I can lose five pounds, I wonder what kind of difference that will make and so I carved that down to 150. And it talked about my ancestors. Well, my brother had diabetes, but it’s because he had cystic fibrosis and so I said that doesn’t really count. So I dropped that off. And then when it asked me about the foods that I eat, it said of these five food categories, how many of them do you eat? Well, it had meat, dairy, vegetables, fruits and grains and I thought, well, I just put three down because I’m a vegan vegetarian and I found out when I put all five down they thought I had better nutrition and I was going to live longer. So, that’s not fair. And so I kept going through the test trying to adjust things and I gained another year, but I do have a 25 percent probability of making it to 92. I still wasn’t satisfied. My grandfather made it to 93. I thought at least I’d get as far. He’s the one in the family bald and I thought, you know, I probably take after him. They didn’t ask about my hair in the survey. And so I tried to torture the calculator and see how many years I could milk out of the probability.

You know, and it made me think, what could I do to live a long life? And that’s really the title of the message today, How Can I Live a Long Life. You know, that’s something practical that the bible addresses. And I thought you might want to know some of the answers to that question.

You know, I have lived long enough to know that this may sound very simple, but life wants to live. Life wants to live. You ever notice how the tendril of a vine fights for the light? Why does the gazelle run like crazy to get away from the lion? Because it’s alive and it wants to stay that way. And there are seven billion people in the world today that will testify that most of us want to stay alive as long as we can.

And the reason that eternal life is attractive is because we’re naturally wired by God to want to live. So I thought I’d share with you some of the things that I learned from the statistics that tell us practical things that you can do, and most of them have bible scriptures to go with them, to help lengthen your earthly life. Now, that’s good information because as a Christian you should take care of yourself and you want to live as long as you can so you can feel better longer and serve God and your fellow man better. Right, isn’t that right?

So here’s some things I learned about what you can do, and this is based upon the surveys and I think this is put together by a variety of insurance companies and other institutions, to figure out what are the things that make a difference in how long you’re going to live and is there anything you can do about some of those facts and figures. And there’s even some of them that are bible principles, so when possible I’m going to give you a scripture.

All right, first of all and you knew this was coming, watch what you eat. Now you know you need to eat every day and this is different than some things. You know, some people struggle with all kinds of habits that you’ll do just fine in quitting cold turkey never doing it again, but if you quit eating cold turkey, you haven’t got very long. You’ve got to do it, but you’ve got to do it right. So eat that which is good.

You know, it says that in the bible, ‘Why do you eat that which is not bread’, in Isaiah 55, eat what is good. And so best thing, plenty of fruits, vegetables, grains. Simple rule, avoid animal products; you will lengthen your life. Did you know that? And there’s a lot of statistics. Matter of fact, people have said, you know, if those that had some almonds in their diet and if you’ve got a certain amount of broccoli or some of those dark leafy vegetables in your diet and if you’ve got some walnuts in your diet, it’s supposed to be good for your brain, and some olives. And you ought to see, I eat those things everyday and I’m hoping it’s going to make a difference. I liked them before I knew they were good for me.

Obviously, what you eat affects the number one killers among disease. Heart disease and cancer and diabetes can be impacted by your diet. So immediately by being more careful about what you eat it’s going to make a big difference in your lengthening your life and also having a better life the time you are alive.

Now, it also has something to do with not just watching what you eat, watching how much you eat. I checked up again to find out who’s the oldest man in the world and right now he resides in Japan. As of last night he was still alive, Jiroemon Kimura, 115 years old. Still active, has 25 great grandchildren, 13 great-great grandchildren. He is health conscious and active. He wakes up early in the morning, reads the newspaper with a magnifying glass, he enjoys talking to people and he likes watching parliamentary debates on television. I would think that would shorten your lifespan, but everyone needs a little indulgence. According to him when asked why he’s lived so long he says, I eat small portions of food. That’s the key to a long and healthy life and you know there’s some truth to that. They say that people who have a smaller calorie intake, and they’ve done this even testing animals, they tend to live a little longer. Your body machinery cannot handle if you are putting in too much to process. It has a tendency to shorten your life. So, eat the right things and don’t eat too much. You might make it to 115.

Another point, regular exercise. Ecclesiastes 5:12, ‘The sleep of a laboring man is sweet.’ Even God told Adam and Eve, ‘In the sweat of your brow you’re going to eat bread.’ We’re supposed to work.

1 Corinthians 9:27, ‘But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection.’ You may not always feel like aerobic exercise because you’ve got to get your heart going. It may feel like work at times, but in the long run it’s good for you.

Sometimes, and I do a lot of deskwork with Amazing Facts and pastoring, a lot of sitting in a car, sitting in meetings, and sometimes, you know, you just start feeling sluggish and I don’t feel like going down to the club and getting some exercise or playing racquetball, but whenever I make myself do it, I always feel better for a long time afterward. So you have to discipline yourself, make yourself exercise and get out and get your heart pumping. Develop a regular schedule.

Now I thought you’d all be having your pens in your hand taking copious notes. Don’t you want to live longer? Well, maybe I’ll put it up on the church website if you want these. Have a regular schedule in your life. Your body has cycles and rhythms and to it and if you’re living and eating and sleeping, and working and it’s all irregular constantly changing schedules, it’s hard on your body, hard on your mind. Your body gets circadian rhythms and so try to maintain a schedule where you’re eating and sleeping and working and resting at regular times.

And Ecclesiastes 3:1, scripture for that, ‘To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven.’ And there are better times for certain things. Morning for instance is a good time for your study. Your mind is usually a little clearer and a little sharper and sometimes it’s a good time for exercise because if you get your heart going early in the day then your circulation is a little better, your metabolism is a little better for the rest of the day.

Now here’s one. Pick a safe place to live. That’s one of the criteria that they had for something that will help determine how long you might live. It says in the bible that Lot did not pick a safe place to live.

Genesis 13:12-13, ‘Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, but Lot dwelled in the cities of the plains Sodom and Gomorrah and he pitched his tent even as far as Sodom, but the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord.’ And because of Lot choosing the wrong place to live, did it affect the mortality of some of his family? Probably affected his mortality, too. He ended up marrying a couple of his daughters and so that might shorten your lifespan.

It all started with where he chose to live. Would you like to know some of the three most dangerous places in North America to live?

Number one, St. Louis. Crime risk index for St. Louis is 530. This is something I guess that the FBI puts out. That means it’s five times the national average.

Number two, Atlanta. Not too far behind St. Louis. It’s got a crime index of 484. Still five times the national average.

Number three on the list, and I could give you all 20, but I’ll stop at the first three. This surprised me, Orlando. I guess they lose a lot of people at Disneyworld. No, it’s because of, I guess they get a lot of crime there, too, or all the theme parks or something, but anyway it’s listed as number three. A lot of crime.

Safest, would you like to know the three safest places? It’s not Sacramento, sorry.

Burlington, Vermont. That’s cold, I’m not going there.

Virginia Beach, Virginia is number two.

And Portland, Oregon. I guess the constant rain is supposed to be safe or something, but those are considered three of the safest cities for people to live in. And, you know, it could make a big difference even from neighborhood to neighborhood. I just know, I looked at some insurance statistics here in Sacramento. Your insurance and your liability is higher in South Sacramento than it’s going to be in Rocklin for crime. And just even a little distance can make a big difference.

Something else you can do, this is one thing that you can do immediately that will lengthen your life, don’t smoke anything. I know some people say they do it medically, but that really is an oxymoron to smoke something for medical benefit. I know what I’m talking about.

There’s a scripture for this. It says, the wicked will all smoke eventually.

So, Psalms 37:20, ‘But the wicked shall parish into smoke and they will vanish away.’

No, you know, smoking is not good for you. Tobacco in any of its forms, chewing or snuffing, and a lot of carcinogens in tobacco and the jury is in. One of the first things that you can do, matter of fact it’s one of the most expensive bad habits in North America for everybody. Do you know how much the medical industry would save if everybody quit smoking? And even on the survey it asks if you smoke and then I was happy to click no, and then it says, does your spouse smoke, because even - I could click no again, but even if you don’t, if you live in a home where your spouse does then the secondhand smoke will affect how long you’re going to live. And so it’s not only that you don’t want to smoke, I hope you’re not hanging around people that do because, you know, they found for years the flight attendants on the planes when they used to allow smoking, you know, never made any sense to me. They had a smoking section and a nonsmoking section, but you’re in a tin can up there in the air and it just circles through and everybody gets to breathe it. And I used to smoke and I used to fly, but, you know, they found that years later a lot of those flight attendants that were on those planes that were forced to breathe that smoke in that tin can up there, they had a much higher incidence of lung cancer and disease and even though they may not have smoked through the secondhand smoke that they were forced to breathe. And so obviously tobacco is something you can do right away to, well, hopefully not everybody here, but give that up.

The other big thing that will lengthen your life is do not drink alcohol. One of the number one killers, 75 percent of the accidents on the highway are related to alcohol. And it’s phenomenal how many people are in prison because of alcohol and how many people are in the hospital, the emergency rooms because of alcohol. Not to mention all of the disease and the problems with the liver and the birth defects, all connected with alcohol.

I told Karen and today I was watching a special on National Geographic about alcohol and what -- they’re not a religious organization by any stretch and they were talking about what a terrible curse alcohol is in the world, in every aspect. Christians of course should not drink and someone’s going to say, well, what about a little wine for your stomach and haven’t they found out the little red wine is supposed to be good for your heart? It’s not the alcohol in the wine; it’s the red grapes that are good. You can get it from eating the grapes. You don’t have to wait until it turns into a drug to get the benefit. And so you can get Welch’s and drink the red grape juice and you’ll get all the benefit from that. And there’s so many other bad side-effects to drinking.

You know, I’m not going to cover everything on this list. I’m just covering some of the high points. I think everybody here knows that any addictive drug is going to shorten your lifespan and yes that would even include caffeine. Boy, I tell you if ever before that society has become caffeine crazed, it’s now. I mean it’s just -- it’s not enough that people used to drink their cup of coffee, then they started making it and breeding it to be stronger and stronger where the caffeine content of coffee today is almost double what it was when I was a kid. That depends somewhat on how you brew it and now they’ve got, if that’s not enough, they got these things you can buy at the counter that just give you a jolt of caffeine and they try and advertise it like it’s good for you with mixed vitamins in with these three hundred gallons of caffeine so it’s good for you.

But then people just are constantly wired and, that stuff, if you want to get a little spike of energy, you’re making an early withdrawal on something that you’re going to pay for another way later. It’s like using a credit card. Sure you can spend it now but you’re going to end up paying on the other end somehow. There’s no way in the world, it violates the laws of life and physics for you to think you’re going to get that burst of energy without having to suffer some kind of corresponding depression later.

And so allow your metabolism to stabilize. You get exercise, fresh air, eat right, you’re going to have enough energy. You won’t have to be getting it artificially through a drug. Oh, no amen on that, huh? So any kind of drug abuse. It asks that in the surveys and some people are on prescription drugs and says are you abusing your prescription drugs?

Next, drink a lot of water. Got a scripture for that. Oh, by the way, on alcohol, let me give you a verse real quick.

Proverbs 31:6, ‘Give strong drink to him who’s ready to perish and wine to those of a bitter heart. Wine is a mock. A strong drink is raging. Who has wounds without cause?’ Lots of scripture in alcohol. ‘Whoa to him that give his neighbor drink.’

Water, back to water. Revelation 22:17. ‘Let him who thirst come, whoever desires let him take the water of life freely.’ Everywhere God’s people went they were digging wells.

So God wants us to drink water and drink clean water. You know, a lot of people get sick and all kinds of disease from being dehydrated. And so there’s something that you can do for this. You know, I remember when I thought people were strange when I saw them walking around with bottled water. Thought, you have to pay for water. And that was so sad to me, seemed like it was a natural right for everyone to at least have clean water to drink, but you know, if you’ve got to cart a bottle around, now I’ve got in my car -- every cup holder in my car usually has a bottle in it. I’m sure I’m getting worse gas mileage in my car because I’m hauling gallons of water around in my car. But it’s nice now to always be having fresh water available. Drink lots of water.

Avoid stress. Something you can do to lengthen your life and you might be thinking, well that’s easy for you to say, but there’s things you can do. For one thing, having a Sabbath day, having a day of rest where you have trained yourself to say, I am by your grace going to cast my cares on the Lord, I am going to rest in Jesus. I’m going to take this time and decompress and to get some physical rest.

And then if you have too much stress in your life, I remember I went and saw my doctor and I was having some trouble sleeping. He says well Doug you’ve got too much stress in your life. I said, well, what am I supposed to quit? How do I change that? And you’re probably asking the same thing, what do you do, quit your job? How do you deal with some of the stress?

You know, I found that it really helps for me, it’s an old serenity prayer. Do you know what that is? Lord, help me to accept the things that I cannot change, help me to change the things I can, and help me to have the wisdom to know the difference. I found it really relieves my stress to realize, Doug, you are not in control. You’re not going to get everything done. You can’t change everything. I always want to fix everything. You can’t do it. And just finally getting and I haven’t got total victory, so pray for me, but I’m doing better. Getting to a place where I realize, you know, you just do what you can and you don’t worry about getting everything done. That’s really taken a big burden off me and it’s made a big difference in how I feel lately. And so do everything you can with God’s grace. Stress is a killer. You know that.

Matthew 6:25, ‘Jesus said, therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink or your body, what you’re going to put on.’ Life is more than food in the body more than fashion.

Good relationships also help reduce stress. That’s a proven fact as you can talk to people and commiserate and you bear each other’s burdens and it helps your burden be a little lighter and then cast your burdens on the Lord.

Philippians 4:6. ‘Be anxious for some things, be anxious for nothing. But in everything, you’ve got problems, don’t be anxious about them. And everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.’ In other words, also remember the things you’ve got to be thankful for. That reduces stress.

Let your request be made known to God in the peace of God, that’s the opposite of stress, the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind. So if God’s got your heart and he’s got your mind, are you going to do better with stress if you’ve really just given it all to the Lord?

Now, this is connected this next point on how you can live longer, how to have a longer life. Laugh often. I do that. I just, you know, I can look in the mirror and I can do it. And there’s a lot of trouble in life, granted there’s a lot of tragedy in life, and I’m not saying that you should spend your days being frivolous and telling bad jokes. I think it’s good to make a note of a funny story. And how many of you like to hear a funny story? I don’t have one right now, but I just -- it’s good to, you know, if you think of something like that you share it with somebody, make a person laugh, if lifts their spirits. Something physiologically happens when we laugh. And it just releases the good kind of endorphins, it releases stress and the bible, a scripture on that.

Proverbs 15:13, ‘A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance but sorrow of the heart is the spirit broken.’

Proverbs 17:22, you know this, ‘A merry heart does good like a medicine.’ And so it’s better than a medicine to just laugh. Hospitals have found that. they’ve actually -- they’ve got some hospitals where they’ve got people that go like clowns from room-to-room and try and cheer people up. They found that kids in these wards where they had the clowns going to the rooms to get them to laugh healed more quickly. So I’m not saying we should all just clowning around, I’m saying, but do you have any laughter in your life? You need to be able to smile and laugh and don’t take yourself too seriously.

Something else that will lengthen your life, it’s in the surveys, it’s in the bible, maintain moral purity. Maintain sexual and moral purity. One of the big killers in the world right up there with heart disease, cancer, malaria, is HIV. It is largely transmitted sexually and it’s usually not because people have a monogamous faithful relationship. Not to mention the other STDs and all kinds of things we won’t talk about, but it’s in the bible.

Proverbs 7:22, speaking about a man who is seduced by a lady of the night, a harlot she’s called. ‘Immediately he went after her as an ox goes to the slaughter or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, until an arrow strikes his liver, as a bird hastens to the snare, he did not know it would cost him his life.’

You know, they’ve said that in the surveys they’ve discovered, people who have fewer partners, is the way they word it, live longer. The ones who have one husband or wife, by the way, married people tend to live longer. Those who have one husband or one wife, they tend to live longer. And part of that, part of the reason for that is coming up in just a moment.

Something else you can do to live a longer life, still not taking notes, sunshine and sunscreen. Now that means people know that, you know, too much sun, you’ve got to have some sunblock. If you’re out long exposure it does raise the risk especially if you’re fair-skinned, but even people who have a more swarthy skin, they can also be overexposed, but you need some sun. I heard Dr. DeRose give a good balanced explanation on this. You can have some sun, you need it to get your vitamin D, so spend some time out of doors. God intended people to get some sunshine, but other things have happened with the atmosphere and you don’t want to get too much and if you’re going to be out there for long exposure, you want to butter yourself up with some sunscreen.

And it says that in Isaiah 49:10, use sunscreen, no it doesn’t say that. It says, ‘They shall neither hunger nor thirst, neither the heat nor the sun will strike them.’ And so you won’t be hurt by it.

Believe it or not something else you can do, and this is a big one, to live a longer life is brush your teeth and floss for a number of reasons. Certain bacteria live in your teeth that can cause your arteries to swell and lead to heart disease or contribute to other circulation diseases. Brushing your teeth. Brushing your teeth will increase the likelihood that you’ll have more friends and if you have more friends you’ll have less stress. If you have less stress you’ll live longer. Brushing your teeth will increase the likelihood that you will find a mate and you can get married and married people live longer. Brush your teeth. If you don’t have any teeth brush someone else’s teeth. If you brush someone else’s teeth that will make you laugh. Laughter will make you live longer. Did I say enough about that? Oh, and it’s in the bible.

Song of Solomon 6:6. ‘Your teeth are like a flock of sheep which have come up from the washing.’ So you can floss your teeth with the flock. I don’t know how you fit that in.

All right and then here, this is very important. Cultivate a purpose for living. It’s, you know, one thing to work real hard and to stay alive longer, but why? Do you have a reason for your life? Are you being productive with your life even those of you who’ve retired? Say Lord, how can you use me? Do something; use your gifts, your skill, your strength, whatever you have and say what is my purpose, what is my calling. Know what it is, do it with all your might, but it’s a fact, people tend to live as long as they think they’re needed.

How often have you seen where there’s a couple of married for years and they’ve kind of taken care of each other and it’s not long after one passes away the other goes because they felt like they lost their purpose. The ones who continue to live continue to have a purpose. They try to stay useful and that makes a big difference.

Scripture for that, Psalm 37:3, ‘Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell on the land and feed on his faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord.’ Do you have a way; do you have a life that you’ve committed to the Lord? Trust in him and he will bring it to pass. Say, Lord, I want a purpose. I’m going to commit that to you and he will bless as you commit that to him.

Now this is a big one, and don’t miss this. Something very important if you want to live a longer life, choose your ancestors very carefully. Because in any survey you go through and after all we’ve said about things you can do with diet, you may feel a little helpless, but the fact is that your ancestors and your genes are going to have some affect on everything from the color of your eyes to your height, to how much hair have on your head and how prone you are to diabetes and heart disease and stroke and certain things. There is the gene factor. And so I know there’s nothing you can do about changing your ancestors, but it is a factor. It does come up later.

So, how can you live a long life? Now, I’ve just given you all these things and this is not a complete list. There’s things I left out and you’re going to come up and tell me later and you’ll find you can look online. There’s all kinds of lists of things you can do, go into detail that will make a difference and you boil it all down and when they calculate as you’ve done the very best of all the possible things you can do you might be able to lengthen your life, I should stop right here and say, right away if you say I’m going to smoke and I’m going to drink and I’m going to use drugs and I’m going to live in a dangerous place you might cut 30 years off. You do all that stuff right away and you can cut a lot of time off your life.

You start doing all the right things and you can add little things and you can, you know, bump up the statistics a few years, stay busy, trust in God, you might surprise everybody and make it to 100, maybe you’ll make it to 115.

But then what? I’m still not satisfied. I was plumb depressed when I saw 84.3 even after I tortured the statistics. And I got it up to an 85 I wasn’t satisfied, how about you? Well, I’m not asking if you’re satisfied about how long I’m going to live, I mean would you be satisfied?

So, if you come to church and you’re going to hear about how to live a long life, it does make a difference how long we live in this life and we should care about our bodies. But what I really want is want to live forever. I mean that’s a life that’s really going to matter.

You know, there’s some things you can do to live a long life, eternally long life. I mean if everything you do you talk about 85 years or 90, 115 years, what is that compared to eternity? The last couple of tips I’m going to give you, they’re the ones that can make a difference between a billion years. So do everything I gave you, try to take care of your earthly body. You know, Paul tells us, this is 1 Timothy 4:8, ‘Bodily exercise profits a little’ compared to eternal life, it’s a little. He says, but ‘Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of a life that now is, not only will Godliness help you with the eternal life, Godliness will help you in this life and the eternal life.’

Bodily exercise, that’s important, it helps, it’s good. All the little facts and figures that I gave you now you practice those things you can lengthen your earthly life. It’s true statistically, but you all know that even after all the hospitals and insurance companies, get all the data and they develop the formula, you could be driving through Nevada and be killed by an octopus. You know, what I mean? No, I don’t know that that’s ever happened, but you know what I mean.

Strange things happen. We’ve all heard stories of just somebody out minding their own business; they got hit by a meteor. It doesn’t happen very often. So it’s kind of absurd that after all the things that you might do to try to lengthen your earthly life so you can enjoy your retirement, things happen. The bible says ‘time and chance happens to all.’

So I’m not satisfied with just the things I’m going to do to lengthen my earthly life, especially if there’s something I can do to lengthen my life for eternity that will not be affected by the octopus in Nevada, you know what I’m saying? The strange things that could happen, the accidents that could happen, the unpredictable things, getting exposed to some strange bird flu that happens to land on your house. There’s things that you can’t control, but you can make a decision.

The single most important thing you can do to lengthen your life is become a Christian. If you accept Jesus, if you embrace Christ in His teaching and you have everlasting life, that is the single most important thing you can do to add not only years to your life, but you can add life to your years, too, beginning now and in the world to come.

You know, there’s a verse in the bible that King David comes from his Psalm 21:4, ‘He asked life from you and you gave it to him.’ This is David talking about himself. ‘He asked life from you and you gave it to him. Length of days forever and ever.’ Now that’s right there a pretty good prescription about how to lengthen your life. How do you get it, you come to the Lord and you ask for it. You can come to Jesus and you can ask for eternal life and he offers to give it to you. That’s a pretty good tip. And then when you follow Christ, that will lengthen your life here and there. By the way, obeying God makes a big difference.

Proverbs 3:1, ‘My son, do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands for,’ notice, ‘length of days and long life and peace they will add to you. Obeying the commandments of God will statistically add time to your life.’

1 Timothy 4:8, oh I already read that to you about bodily exercise.

Job 42:16. Job was a man, loved the Lord, perfect and upright man. Feared God, hated evil, and the bible says, ‘After this Job lived 140 years and he saw his children and his grandchildren to four generations. So Job died old and full of days and he said, though I know this body is going to the grave, yet in my flesh I believe I will see God. He’s going to be raised for eternal life.’

Now, I’m not going to weigh in on whether or not you should buy life insurance, but I will tell you need eternal life insurance. Actually, it’s eternal life assurance. The single most important thing you can do to live forever is you come to Jesus. You believe his word. Whosoever believes in Him should not parish, but have everlasting life. You believe His word. You repent of your sins. You ask Him to forgive your sins, you believe that He forgives your sins and then you’ve got something that you can really be excited about. By the way that ought to give you less stress; you’ll probably feel better in this life. You’ll live longer in this life. He gives you hope and He gives you peace and He offers you everlasting life. Think about that.

We know in this world, eventually the statistics will catch up with us. Do we all know that? And we ought to plan accordingly. Do everything you can to lengthen your earthly life, but make sure you’ve taken care of eternal life. What profit is it to you if you gain the whole world and you lose your soul? If a man lives to 99 and he has every earthly blessing and possession and he doesn’t have Jesus, then the Lord will declare thou fool. What profit is it if you gain everything and you don’t have eternal life? Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. You know what I’m saying? And there’s things you could do to try and take care of your earthly life, but if you don’t have Jesus and you don’t have eternal life, what profit is it? That would be the first thing I’d do.

Now if you made a list today and you’re going to go home and you say, you know, Pastor Doug, I feel convicted. You talked about some things today. I’d like to lengthen my statistics a little bit, I’d like to live a longer earthly life and I’m going to make some changes. If you go home and you make those changes, bless your heart, but if you don’t do the most important thing, how foolish that would be for you to say I want to surrender my life to Jesus. I want to believe in Jesus. I want that gift of everlasting life. That’s the first and the foremost and most important thing to turn from our sins, to repent of our sins, to let him cleanse us, to confess our sins to him. He came to save you from your sins. It’s not just accepting and believing. If you believe, you’ll obey. Amen. That’s what it’s all about, being a real Christian.

Then he promises to give you that gift of everlasting life. There is no plan that you can take up. There is no supplement you can add to your diet. There’s no vitamin that you can take that is going to be any better than that one tip right there. What is going to give you more life than eternal life? What could possibly lengthen your life more than eternity? So wouldn’t that be the smart thing to do first. I’m hoping that everyone here has made that decision.