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expect the watch to keep good
time.
And when you put into your
stomach all kinds o f foul things
that the great Architect who
designed your human mechanism
never intended, you fou l up your
body and br ing on sickness, dis–
ease, aches, pains, a dulled and
clogged-up mind , inefficiency and
inability- and you commit suicide
on the installment plan by actually
shortening your life!
The God who designed, created
and made your body has revealed
sorne essential basic knowledge
about what meats will keep that
body functioning in tip-top shape.
Why does humanity refuse his
ins tructions?
Some Are Eating Po l son
You don't eat every plant that
g rows out of the ground . Sorne
things that grow are poison, not
food.
But did you know there are
many kinds of poisons? Potassium
cyanide wi ll kili you very quickly.
Sorne poisons will result in death
within a few hours or a few days.
But very few seem to know there
are other poisons people mistaken–
ly eat as foods which result in
premature death after continuous
usage for , say, lO, or 30 or 50
years.
The only difference between
these poisons we fa lsely cal! foods
and potassium cyanide is the rela–
tive number of minutes, hou rs or
years it takes to accomplish its
mission .
J us t as every plant that God
caused to g row out of the ground
was not designed for food, so it is
with animal flesh. Sorne will say,
" We ll , if swine's flesh isn't sup–
posed to be eaten as food, what
did God create swi ne for?" You
might as well ask, what did God
create weeds and poison vines for ?
Everything may have been created
for a purpose, but not everything
for the purpose of eating.
Now sorne believe that in the
original creation- in the garden of
Eden- God did not intend any ani–
mal flesh to be eaten. God's revela–
tion on that point is vague, and
many have argued it both ways.
However, God has clearly revealed
that certai n animal meats are to be
J uly / August 1983
ea ten as food
now,
in
this age, and J esus, who carne to
set us an example, did eat flesh as
well as vegetables and fru its, and so
do
l.
What the Great A rchltect o f
Your Stomach lnstruc t s
When the first written revelat ion
of God carne to ma n through
Moses, God instructed man as to
which kinds of animal flesh man
ought or ought not to eat. You wi ll
find this list in Leviticus
11
and
Deuteronomy
14.
This is a basic law- a revelation
from God ·to man about which
kinds of flesh will properly digest
and assimilate in the human sys–
tem, and which will not. I t is not a
part of God's great spiritual law,
summed up in the Ten Command–
ments. Nei ther is it part of the cer–
emonial, ritualistic or sacr ificial
laws later abol ished at the crucifix–
ion of Christ.
It
is necessary to recognize that
God is the Author of
al/
law, and
there are countless laws in motion.
There are laws of physics a nd
chemistry. You know of the law of
gravity. There is the great immuta–
ble spiritual law to regulate man's
relationship to God a nd to fellow–
men- the law of love-the Ten
Commandments. God gave hi s
nation Israel civil s tatutes a nd
judgments-national laws for the
conduct of the national govern–
ment. Israel was also bis Church,
under the old covenant. And for the
dispensation then present God gave
Israel rituals and ceremonial laws
for the conduct of religious ser–
vices, laws relating to typical and
temporary sacri f ices, meat and
drink offerings- temporary substi–
tutes for Christ and the Holy Spir–
it. Those laws, of course, ended
when the Reality carne.
Phys ical , as We ll as Spiri tual , Sin
And then, we must realize, there
are physical laws working in our
bodies, regulating our bealth. This
meat question has to do with these
laws.
1
know of men who make a hob–
by of bitterly accusing others of sin
for eat ing pork, oysters and clams.
Let us get this straight and
clear!
We usually speak of sin i:n its
spi r itual aspect. That is the aspect
in which it is considered in the
New Testament. T he Bible defini–
t ion of it is this: "Sin is the trans–
gression of the law" (1 J ohn
3:4).
The penal ty for violation of that
spiritual law is death- not the
firs t , or physical death, but the
second , or spiritual a nd ete rna!
death in the " lake of fire" (Rev.
20:14).
Now the eating of wrong food is
not a transgression of this spiritual
law, and is not a spiritual sin. To
violate the physical laws of health
often brings the penalty of disease,
disability, pain, sickness and sorne–
times the
first
death.
It
is not nec–
essarily spiritual sin.
That is what Jesus made plain, as
recorded in Ma rk 7:14-23. Here
J esus was speaking of
spiritual
de filement , not physical health.
Not that which enters into a ma n's
mouth, but the evil that comes out
of his heart , defi les the man spirit–
ually. What defi les the man- and
he is speaking of defiling the
man,
not injuring the body-is trans–
g ression of the Ten Command–
ments-evil thoughts, adulte ries,
fornications, murders, thefts, covet–
ousness, blasphemy (verses
21-22).
These things have nothing to do
with the physical laws of health. He
was making a point conce rning
spiritual defi lements, not physical
health .
Specifically, on the physical lev–
e!, he was referring to a possible
particle of dirt that might get on
the food from dirty and unwashed
hands-he was
not
here speaking of
clean or unclean meats at all.
No Change in Structure o f Anima l
Flesh at Cross
T he animals whose flesh properly
digests and nourishes the human
body were so made in the original
creation. No change was ever made
in the structure of men's bodies at
the time of the Flood, or at the
time of Jesus' death or any other
time. Neither did God make sóme
sudden change in the st ructure of
animal flesh, so that what once was
unfit for food wi ll now digest prop–
erly and supply the body's needs.
The unc lean a n ima l s were
unclean before the Flood.
Notice, before the Flood, Noah
35