Friends, did you know that almost a million people die in the United States each year from heart disease. In Great Britain heart attacks kill 200,000 Englishmen each year. One out of every three New Zealanders dies from heart disease. Annually 30 million Americans spend time in the hospital. On any given day you will find one million six hundred thousand of them in hospitals, wards or private rooms. And in a nation that is supposed to be the healthiest in the world, more than 88 million people suffer from at least one serious disability or disease.
As a person grows older, some alarming statistics are arrayed against him. Ten percent of those beyond 45 years of age face at least one serious health problem. More than 42 million Americans have a coronary artery problem. This means that a heart attack can very well strike at any time. Heart disease and cancer are the number one killers in the highly developed, advanced nations of earth. Around 50 percent of all deaths come from heart disease. Approximately 25 percent come from cancer. Annually in the United States 450,000 die of cancer. To give you a better idea of this figure just keep in mind that 290,000 Americans died in World War II. Gene Mayer of Harvard University has claimed that the American people are in an "absolutely miserable" physical condition. He points to too little exercise and poor living habits as primary causes. The automobile plus modern labor-saving gadgetry has fattened the American people for such killers as cancer, heart attacks and other serious physical problems. The United States Department of Agriculture has demonstrated conclusively that 50 percent of the American people eat a combination of foods that can best be described as "nutritionally poor."
The increasing use of sugar, the declining use of nuts, grains, fruits and vegetables and the excessive use of meat, much of it diseased, along with pastries and soft drinks is taking an incredible toll. You see, God never intended that man face the physical problems he contends with today. Scripture makes it abundantly clear that when God originally created man, He made him perfect. There was no ill health and no disease. When sin came, that picture radically changed. It brought not only death, but suffering and physical disability for man.
Our heavenly Father's real plan for mankind is revealed in 3 John 2, "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." The great God of heaven is not pleased with the epidemic plague of disease that sweeps the world today. He is not pleased when individuals suffer for years upon beds of illness and chronic pain. Lamentations 3:33 bears this out: "He does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men."
But isn't it an incredible truth that millions of people actually seem to be inviting disease and death by defying the rules that God set up for us. This is probably the greatest cause of the vast scene of physical suffering in the world today. People ignore the great cause and effect laws which have governed human life for 6,000 years. Somehow we can't seem to learn by the tragic experiences of previous generations who also tried to "break" the basic laws of our being.
Listen friends, nobody breaks God's laws, they break us, finally. We can violate our bodies for a while by intemperance, gluttony, etc. But nobody gets hurt in the end except the violators. We always reap what we sow. The most amazing thing of all is how the appetite overrules reason, common sense, and even the demonstrable rules of science. You can prove to a cigarette smoker that he is cutting off 16 minutes of life by each stub he flips away, and he will keep right on sucking the poison into his delicate lung cavity. Like the compulsive Russian roulette player, he figures he might be the exceptional one who can get away with it. But the annual leap-frogging lung cancer casualties argue against the possible exception. The cards are stacked against the gambler in this particular set-up.
A survey by the British Tobacco Research Council revealed that Americans smoke approximately 3670 cigarettes per person per year, about 10 a day. Canadians smoke 3340 manufactured cigarettes and an additional 410 of roll-your-owns for a total of 3750. This makes Canadians the highest consumers worldwide of tobacco products, 9.8 pounds per person per year.
Australians rank third with 3310 cigarettes per capita.
Listen friends, we could multiply examples of how the soft, over indulgent attitude of modern youth and adults is creating medical problems faster than science can solve them. With alcohol, tobacco and caffeine addiction so universal, it is a rare individual who has the strength of will to say "no" to appetite. Whatever tastes good, smells good, or is advertised in an attractive format is swallowed down by a gullible public with no questions asked.
But friends, I think the time has come to ask a lot of questions, especially when our lives are on the line. Shouldn't we begin asking, for example, why mental retardation has increased 26-fold since the early 1950s? We are usually stunned by the galloping lung cancer facts that are so widely circulated. But here is a fact that is almost unknown:
The increase in the births of mentally retarded babies has been from 20,000 to 550,000 in 15 years. I won't even go into the money aspect of health care, except to state that it has also experienced a 30-fold increase in the last 30 years.
Does it seem logical, friends, that what we eat has nothing to do with this dismal picture? Our bodies are made up of the food we pour into the machine. The more frequent our violation of God's laws outlined in the Bible, the more terrible the harvest we reap, a harvest that is becoming more horrifying each year.
Did you know that there is a plot of ground, 250 square miles in size, which is so contaminated by the testing of nuclear weapons that it will be off-limits to human beings for the next 24,000 years? It is located in a Nevada desert. But we are not told about the deadly increase of chemical danger that is being poured on our food supply each year. Now, I'm not a nut when it comes to organic gardening, friends; but, I believe with all my heart that the curse of sin is accumulating over the face of land and water, making it necessary to know what we are eating and how it will affect our health.
When the U.S. Department of Agriculture made a survey of American homes they reported that approximately 50 percent had diets which failed to meet the recommended dietary allowances for one or more nutrients. And by the way, about a third of the families in the over $10,000 income range had inadequate diets. You could probably guess where much of the problem lay, or maybe you can't. So I will tell you. The common denominator seemed to be too much sugar and other highly processed food and not enough natural vitamin and mineral vegetables.
Now God tried to protect man from a perverted appetite back in the first chapter of Genesis by giving a law about eating. And let me assure you that if people had obeyed this basic law of our body, the problem of epidemic disease would not exist today. Here is the commandment lifted right out of Genesis 1:29, "And God said, Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the which is the fruit of tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."
Here it is! The basics of a perfect diet that God gave to maintain the perfect bodies that our first parents had. And friends, who would know better than the Creator Himself how to maintain the health of that wonderful body machine? The original, perfect diet which God prescribed was made up of four staple basics; nuts, fruits, grains and vegetables. That was it. And today the greatest nutritionists and food experts agree that this is an ideal diet. But, please notice how the American people have drastically departed from that perfect diet. The accepted full-course menu of today's average society is almost the reverse of what God said should be eaten. Heavy pastries and carbohydrates, along with a main meat entree is standard fare for a socially acceptable meal. And to most people it means more to be proper and measure up to the etiquette and protocol of the occasion than to be right with God. You know what text comes to mind when I think of this massive men-pleasing age that we are living in? I think of something Jesus said in Luke 16:13. He said, "That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." You think of that for a little bit, friends. Isn't it so true of this modern age?
American tastes, styles, and fashion are dictated by a small group of greedy czars who could not care less about the principles of God. And people are so accustomed to conformity that few challenge the current craze whether it be in clothes, food or whatever. Friends, when are we going to gain the courage to draw lines and follow the rules of God regardless of how they clash with the highly esteemed demands of a carnal society? It is absolutely amazing today that millions are digging their own graves with their teeth because they are afraid to defy the intemperate tastes of a godless world. The same thing is happening in the area of dress. Men and women are making themselves look silly by wearing the creations of a few so-called fashion experts who laugh their heads off while they pocket the juicy profits of their fabrication. Even Christian women have adopted the indecent dress of spiritual Babylon for fear of being considered odd or different. Let me tell you something, friends, if we are not willing to be counted as God's peculiar people, we will never make it into His Kingdom. If we are not willing to stand out in sharp distinction from the world around us, we will never qualify for Heaven. The Bible is full of warnings on this:
Jesus said, "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own, but ye are not of the world."
Paul wrote, "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord".
James said, "Ye adulterers and adultresses, know ye not that friendship of the world is enmity with God."
Listen, what you eat and drink and wear are going to bear a powerful testimony as to whether you are following the spiritual rule of Christ on the popular fashions and rules of the world. Jesus said you can't follow both. It must be one or the other. You think about it, friends.