Episode Transcript
Jesus said in Matthew 28, verse 19, go therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Welcome to go teach all nations, bringing you Christ's teachings through australian and international speakers.
And here is today's presenter, Lazio Crescentini.
So this year I'm part of the personal ministries team and my role on the personal ministries team is the health coordinator. And I thought I've got to do something for that part. So I said, okay, something that maybe not all of you might know, but my background is in microbiology, so I've studied microbiology, biotech, engineering, and I want to share a bit more what? And I've got to try now, remember back when I went to uni, which is a few years back where we studied, because I had a few questions and I'll share one of those questions as well this morning in the sermon about it.
But I want to share more about our health, what we're going to do. So what I want to ask this morning is, have you done a health cheque? Yeah. Have you done one in your life? Yes.
Okay. No, but why did you do a health cheque? Why did you do one? Did you just do one because someone told you to do one? Maybe you had something, you felt something was off, something was not right, something is missing, something needs to be done right. You got a pain here or a pain there and you got to do a health cheque, right? Or you might be tired or think there's different reasons why you've done a health cheque.
But does the Bible teach us health principles? Yes, I got a strong yes from that side. Let's go. Let's go to John.
So third John. So third John, chapter one, verse two. And it says, beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers.
God wants the best for us. He wants us to prosper. So why did God give us these health principles? So I just shared, yes, God wants us to prosper, but why did he give it to us? Let's go back to the beginning, back to deuteronomy.
So Deuteronomy, chapter six and verse 24. And the Lord commanded us to observe all these statues, to fear the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as it is this day. He wants to give us life.
He wants us to live. He wants to bless us in Exodus 23, verse 25. Exodus 23, verse 25 says, so shall you serve the Lord your God and he will bless your bread and your water and I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
God has created us. Surely he would know best what is best for us if he created us. Correct.
He knows what's going to lift our moods. He knows what's going to give us joy. He knows what's going to help us think clearer.
He knows what's going to keep us sharp, what's going to keep us fit. He knows these things. The power of Satan over the youth of this age is fearful.
Unless the minds of our children are firmly balanced by religious principle, their morals will become corrupt by vicious examples with which they come in contact. The greatest danger of the youth is from a lack of self control. Indulgent parents do not teach their children self denial.
The very food they place before them is such as to irritate the stomach. The excitement that produced is communicated to the brain, and as a result, the passions are roused. It cannot be too often repeated that whatever is taken into the stomach affects not only the body but ultimately the mind as well.
Gross and stimulating food, fevers the blood, excites the nervous system and too often dulls the moral perceptions so that reason and conscience are overborne by sensual impulse. It is difficult and often well known, impossible for one who is intemperate in diet to exercise patience and self control. Hence the special importance of allowing children whose characters are yet unformed to have only such as is healthful and unstimiliating.
It was in love that our heavenly Father send the light of health reform to guard us against the evils that result from unrestained indulgence of appetite. There's a lot in there, but I want to share this morning. It's a message for me, message where I've got to look at my life, what I've been doing, and I want to share that because I feel if it's a message for me, it might be for you, but this is a message that was given to me.
If our life is not the best, then our spiritual life will also suffer. I believe there's a great controversy at the moment happening all around us. There's a war, and we need to be on our sharpest, just like the soldiers that goes to war needs to be fit and healthy.
We need to be fit and healthy. We need to be on our guard. And if there are certain things in our lives that takes that away, that inhibits us, that breaks us down, not to be that fit, not to be healthy, not to be sharp, how can we go to war? But where do we get this information? Where do we get the information? What is best to our bodies? Is there a manual? And some of you are going to laugh now because just as we were out there praying, someone mentioned it as they walked past.
There is a manual. It's called the Bible, which is the basics, instructions before leaving earth. That's our manual.
That's our instruction. God gave us that. He made us.
And just like a car manufacturer or someone else will make something and bring a manual with it, God has given us a manual. Does our lifestyle only affect us? What about our kids? There's an interesting text in deuteronomy. If you turn to deuteronomy, chapter twelve.
Deuteronomy, chapter twelve, verse 25, you shall not eat. Eat that. It may go well with you and the children after you when you do what is right in the sight of the Lord.
We know a lot about signs as well. Will tell us there's certain fruits you cannot eat when you're pregnant, right? Because it does affect the baby. One is alcohol.
You can have like a cleft lip. There's dysformalities that can happen if you consume certain things during pregnancy. But what about after? I hear a lot about where people would say it's in my genes, right? I'm born this way.
This is what I ate. This is my genetics. I got it from my parents.
But I want to share something different this morning. Have you ever thought about maybe you've inherited the diet from your parents? Do you eat what your parents ate? Most likely you do, right? Their favourite food maybe is your favourite food. I know there's certain things my dad liked and which I like now.
And I can see my kids like it. It's been passed down so the food we eat can be passed on, that can affect our lives. We might struggle with certain diseases because of what we eat, what we take in.
But is our health important? Just like an athlete. Just like an athlete needs to look after its health, not just in what it eats, but how much it sleeps, how much the athlete will exercise, how much sunlight. All these things the athlete will take in to give its best when it comes to that test or race or whatever he needs to do, he needs to look after his health.
Let's bow our heads. Our father is in heaven. Thank you.
We can come here this morning, we can open your word. We can see that you care about our lives. But so much that you've given us a manual, given us instructions how to live, how to lift our lives up, to live a life that is joyous, to have a closer relationship with you.
And if we live by these things, we can come closer to you and experience that joy be with us now as we open your word. It's my prayer. In Jesus name, amen.
We had our scripture reading, which is one corinthians six, verse 19. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own? Ever thought about it? Why would God say, why does the scripture say your body is the temple? Ever thought about it? We might say, yes, the Holy Spirit's in us, but why does it say the temple? I want to take you this morning a bit deeper. I want to take you into the science of it.
Up there you'll see a blood vessel, which is the intravascular space. That's where our blood is. That's where the nutrients come into the body is, through the blood.
In the sanctuary, we have a space where the blood is. It's in the altar of burnt offerings. So we've got the blood in our bodies and the blood at the altar of offerings.
Then we have the extra vascular space, so that's the space between the cells. So you got the blood vessels, then you got the extravascular space, and then you have the cells. So the nutrients need to flow through the extravascular space, which is fluid water, into the cells.
Before the priest can move from the burnt altar of offerings into the sanctuary, into the holy place, he needs to go through the water, through the labour, he needs to wash himself. So that's the sanctuary. So we talked about the altar of burnt offerings, the basin, and then the priest would go into a compartment, makes of two compartments.
So we have a cell. The nutrients will go into the cell, which has two compartments. It has the cytoplasma and it has the nucleus, two areas it will go into.
And I want to point out three things that's in the cytoplasma. So as we look at. So as we look into the holy place, we have the lampstand, we have the incense altar and a table of showbread.
We look at the show bread. Showbread is the food in your body. Here have the granules.
So there's a lipid granule over there. And a lipid granule stores glycogen, which comes from carbohydrates. And if I say carbohydrates, straight away, bread, right.
So the granule straws the bread. It's in the cytoplasma. Glycogen plays an important role in the process of the glucose cycle, which I'll go into a bit later, but goes into that.
Then you have the altar of incense, which burns. You've got the vacuoles. There's a vacuum.
So there's a vacuum over there. The vacuums contains enzymes. And the role of that is to burn things and get rid of things in your body.
It burns the things in your body, in our cells. Then you have the lamb stamp over there and. Ever heard of the mitochondria? So the mitochondria is where beta oxidation takes place.
It takes a fatty acid and it burns it to produce energy. We have the candlestick. It contains an oil, contains a fat.
It burns and creates a light, which is energy. And from the holy place, the priest will then move into the most holy place. And in the most holy place we have the Ark of the Covenant.
And within the Ark of the Covenant we have the Ten Commandments, which is the code that God's written with his own finger. So we have the cell with the two areas. And then we've got the cytoplasma and the nucleus are mentioned.
And inside the nucleus we have chromosomes. So the chromosomes is like the arc of the Covenant. That contains something.
What does the chromosomes contain? DNA. Right? Two strands of DNA, or rna, really, if you split them up. But it's two strands.
So just like the Ten Commandments have the two tables with written code, we have a code in us that is life. Can you see? Is there similarity? Amen. So that's the code of life.
Just recently we celebrated New Year's, right? We went through that. Some of people might have gone and watched the fireworks. I know my family was in bed by before 09:00.
But we started a new year. We started a new things. A lot of people will say it's a new page in my life, a new beginning, right? Take on these things.
But we might have this new start, this new beginning with old problems, right? I don't know about you, but I look at it as a new year with new opportunities. And you might have done New Year's resolutions. Now, Kylie mentioned it last week.
She talked about that. But could we have a new year, a new start? Who's glad it's a new year? It's a few. Some want to be in 2020 freestyle.
I think Ben was still in 2023 this morning. But maybe you won't want to start a new start, right? We want to start over. But I want to show you this morning, you might have heard about it as well.
New start is nutrition, exercise, water, sunlight, temperance, air, rest and trust. I don't know if you heard about it, but it's a new start, a new start, a health new start. And I'll start with nutrient.
So whenever you look at a plant, you might be someone that grows plants, but if you look at your plants and you start to realise something is wrong with your plant, you can look and investigate, right? You can see if the plant has certain things. It might need iron, it might need potassium, it might need certain. Might need sunlight because of certain effects, certain things you can see in that plant.
You know what the plant is lacking, right? Have you done that before? Have you examined your plants and cheque? Yeah. Pearl might be knowing what I'm talking about. There's certain things we need to put into the soil, feed that plant so it can get rid of that disease or change.
Would it be the same with us? We might notice something. Have you noticed sometimes you eat something and that affects you in a certain way? If you eat certain things, you might have maybe more pimples. There's certain things you'll eat that will change you, right? I know if I were to eat a little bit of those little chocolates that's got the.
And it's got a bit of small and that will give me straight away a headache. If it's a sugar, if it's a caffeine, I'm not sure what it is, but I can feel it straight away I'll get a headache. So there's certain things we can eat which we can realise afterwards that will affect us, right? And we try to stay away from those things then.
And it's the same with our body. If we might lack energy, it might be a lack of iron. If we struggle with muscle pain, it could be magnesium with hair loss or dry hair, could be selenium.
If we've got bleeding in the gums, could be a lack of vitamin C, dry skin, could be water and other vitamins. So there's certain things we will look at and it's when you go to the doctor, you will examine and look and say, you must probably need this and this and this. So the benefits of healthy eating is a number of things.
It's for our skin, our muscles, our immune system, our bones, our minds, our digestive system. All these things is really important and we can see that in scripture. Turn to Daniel chapter one and we'll read a few verses here in Daniel chapter one, verse eight.
But Daniel proposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies. Nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore requested of the chief and of the enochs that he might not defile himself.
Now God had brought Daniel into favour and goodwill of the chief and the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear, my lord, the king who has appointed your food and drink, for why should he see your faces look worse than the young men who are your age? Then you would endanger my head before the king. So he was afraid if he's not going to eat those foods which are provided, that his health will take a dip, and then this guy's life is on the block.
Verse eleven. What did Daniel say? He said to the steward whom the chief of the enochs had said over Daniel, Hannah, Michelle and Azarai, please test your servants for ten days and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be examined before you, and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacies.
And as you see fit, so deal with your servants. So he consented with them in this matter and tested them. Ten days.
So he gave them a ten day period where they can test in verse 18. Let's hear what happened now. At the end of the days, when the king had said that they should be brought in, the chief of the enochs brought them before Nebuchadnezzar.
Then the king interviewed them, and among them all, none. Do you pick that up? None was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Michelle and Azrael. Therefore they served before the king.
And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, about which the king examined them, he found them how many times? Ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in his realm. Does God have a health message for us so we can live better and be ten times better? He wants us to have that clear, sharp mind. He wants us to be fit.
He wants us to live a happy life. I want to say what we eat is who we are. Garbage in, garbage out.
Pastor once said that we have all these preservatives in our foods these days. 100 years ago you would bury someone, and it will only be a couple of years later and it will be all consumed, all broken down. But with all the preservatives today you would bury someone.
100 years later you'll dig up the grave and the person is still looking at you with all the preservatives. What we are is what we are. What we eat is what we are.
Right? Our physical health is maintained by that which we eat if our appetite are not under control of a sanctified mind. If we are not temperate in all our eating and drinking, we shall not be in a state of mental and physical soundness to study the word with a purpose, to learn what saved the scripture. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? Any unhealthy habit will produce an unhealthy condition in the system, and the delicate living machinery of the stomach will be injured and will not be able to do its work properly.
The diet has much to do with their disposition to enter into temptation and commit sin. Is what we eat important? Have you ever looked at what you eat? I challenge you this year. Have a look what you eat.
The next one we'll look at is exercise. Said it's de. How much exercise do we need a day? Do you need to be like an athlete that trains hours and hours a day? How much exercise do you need? I reckon about only 30 to 60 minutes of exercise.
That could be walking. If you read spirit of prophecy, we'll say gardening is a good one. Take the stairs, don't take the elevator.
Don't sit for long times or periods of times. Genesis five, verse 24. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
We need to exercise our faith. We need to exercise our walk with God. Just like Enoch.
We need to walk with him. We talked about it a bit this morning in Sabath school. Ben shared a bit.
But faith is like a muscle. We need to exercise that muscle, just like we need to exercise when we have to do a run or we're going to do a run, like a marathon. We need to exercise our spiritual run as well.
Have you ever heard of Vo two Max? Anyone heard of Vo two Max? So Vo two Max is a test you can do to see what's the rate of oxygen your body can take up during an ex. During an exercise. So it's the amount of oxygen you can take up.
And I'll show later why it's important for that oxygen to take up. But it's a test we do. It's to see how fit you are.
The same. That was this morning. Carol mentioned trials.
We need to test our faith. Have you tested your faith? When is the last time you've tested to see how fit you are? And I must say, it's hard. Like, have you ever tried to become fit, to go for a run or to start cycling? That first part is always hard, right? It's a struggle, that first bit, but the more you train, the fitter you get, the easier it becomes.
I want to say it's the same with the scriptures. It's hard in the beginning, but the more we study, the more we walk with God, the easier it becomes. The fitter we'll get.
We'll look at water. So the body is about 70% consists of water, so we need to keep well hydrated. And it's a known fact that it's really essential to our health.
Water is essential for regulating our body temperature, maintaining other body functions. The body loses a lot of water through breathing, through sweating, our digestive system, and we need to take it in. How much water should we drink? It's a common thing always, yes.
Eight glasses per day. Well done, Luca. So we need to take water in.
John seven, verse 37. Don't you? John seven, verse 37. John seven, verse 37 says, on the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.
He who believes in me, as the scriptures has said, out of his heart will flow the rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the spirit, whom those believing in him would receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.
We need to be filled with the living water, the Holy Spirit. We need to be thirsty for God. Drink his word.
Take it in. But I want to say this morning as well. Have you ever considered the quality of water you drink? Some of you might think about that.
Some of you have philtres at home, right, philtre, your water. Make sure you drink clean water. Likewise, we need to make sure our spiritual water is clean.
There are many churches that mix the water with the wine of Babylon. And it could be like someone explained it once to me, a cup of tea. You take the water, you put a tea bag in it, it changes it.
But now you have to add a bit of milk to make it creamy. And more appetite for the tongue, right? But it's still bitter, so you need to add a bit of something sweet. Do we do that with God's word? Do we try to pollute it and then try to add things to make it better, to make it more appetite? We should be drinking the water.
Clean, fresh water, the living water. Sunlight. Sunlight will lift your mood.
There's so many benefits of getting sunlight. Exposure to the sun increases the release of serotonin, which is quite a common thing people know. And the serotonin is a.
Anyone know? It's a neurotransmitter, which works similar to a hormone that will help lift our moods. There's a town in Norway. Ever heard of that town? Yeah.
There's a town in Norway that is a big part of the year they don't get sunlight. They are in this ditch over here and the sun comes up there and just have this shade constantly over it. So this guy Sam.
Sam Ed, he came up with this idea in 19 3013 to have these mirrors, these sun mirrors reflect the sun back into the court where people can then enjoy the sunlight. Quite interesting, right? To lift their mood, we need to have the sun. There are few who realise that in order to enjoy health and cheerfulness, they must have an abundance of sunlight, pure air and physical exercise.
We pity little children who are kept confined indoors when the sun is shining gloriously without. Enjoy the sunlight in the morning is your best time, best time to get out there and get the sun in. But there is also sun protection.
Talk about slip, slop, slap and stick and what's the last one? Slide. Right. We need to put protection on.
But I want to say God gives us as well protection. He gives us the armour. We need to put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the sword of the spirit, the shield of faith and the feet of peace, the sandals.
So we need to put these things on. We need to be equipped with the armour of God. And as we go out through this year, it's my prayer that each one of us do that every day.
Pray that we will put these things on that will be equipped to have that protection, someone shared wellness. Well, once exposure to the sun, S-O-N may prevent burning. You get it? Exposure to God will prevent us from being destroyed one day.
Temperance. Go to Galatians five, verse 22. I want to show you something about temperance.
Galatians five, verse 22. Galatians five, verse 22 says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. Verse 23.
Meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Do you pick up? Where is temperance listed? It's a gift.
After it's a fruit of the spirit, which is a gift. You cannot buy temperance, you cannot earn temperance. It's a gift.
It's a gift from God. We might ask this morning what is temperance? Some translations might translate it differently. I don't know what you have in your versions, but somewhat say self control.
But when we mentioned temperance and when I did it during the week as well, and I put temperance in into Google, it comes up with self control for bad things like alcohol. That was like the number one hit. Self control, temperance, alcohol.
But I want to share this morning it talks about self control. Too much of a good thing is also bad. We can have too much exercise, we can have too much food, we can have too much vitamins, we can have too much water.
Too much of a good thing can be bad as well. First Corinthians nine, verse 25. 1st Corinthians nine, verse 25.
And everyone who competes for the price is temperate in all things. Now, they do it to obtain a perishable crown. But for an imperishable crown, they need to be temperament in all things, not just in the bad things, in the good things as well.
First Peter five, verse eight, says, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We need to be, or need to have self control in everything we do. Air.
Who likes fresh air? Ever gone up to like a mountain? And you have that cool, fresh air to just come through, right? You feel your lungs. It's just. I love it.
Air. The body's most essential resource is air. Who wants to guess how many times we breathe a day? Have you ever counted, have you looked at, oh, how many times I breathed today? Yeah.
Have you done it? How many times would you think you've breathed? You take every second. Not quite 22,000 times a day. Yeah.
Which is about 11,000 litres of air. Yeah. And that's something we do, not even thinking.
It just happens. How long can you survive without air? Have you tried it? Yeah. You're all still here, so you made it.
If you have permanent damage in the brain can begin as short as only after 4 minutes without oxygen, and death can occur from four to 6 minutes later. So it's not a long time. Without air, we can start experiencing big problems.
Your brain is about 2% of your total body weight, and it uses about 20% of oxygen your body takes in, and about 25% of glucose that your body takes in. It's a high consumer for how much it takes. It uses a lot of energy.
But where does energy come from? Have you ever heard of the citric acid cycle or the crep cycle? Yeah, it was a nightmare when I was in uni. I had to study this, and when I went through it now again, I'm like, oh, how does it work again? I had to refresh my memory, but it's the breakdown of glucose, which we take in, and we have these atp and adps, which is then the energy that's being made out of it, basically. So glucose gets broken down into pyruvate and then that goes into this cycle, the crep cycle over here.
And as our body goes through this exercise and we breathe faster, we need more oxygen for this to happen. That happens. And then this cycle really needs the oxygen.
So you got an anaerobic and aerobic. Ever heard of that? You got aerobic exercise and anaerobic exercise. If you go into anaerobic exercise, you start build up lactic, right? Lactate, lactic acid, okay? That is because the pyruvate cannot go into this cycle where it needs to go with the oxygen.
Then the pyruvate gets converted into lactate to be stored, and that gets build up as lactic acid. So basically, if you do an anaerobic exercise, your adps will only be a two gain, okay? So that's your energy source, only two gain. But if it would go into this cycle, it will be a potential be up to 36, 38.
It's much higher. Air is really important. So if we don't have air, we get stuck into this cycle, which is really hard to deal with, then it.
So the fitter we are, the higher the vo two max, which I mentioned earlier, and that's all of these. It's how much oxygen we can take up. So this crypt cycle can happen.
What I've asked in uni was, I don't know if you picked it up. So you got the pyruvate that will come up here and bind with oxybactane or bactate and then start the cycle. So you have to have that to start the cycle.
So that comes down, comes and binds with that to start. What was first, the chicken or the egg? Ever heard of that? How does the first cycle happen for that to be there? You know what my lecturer said? Can only be God. Hey, God's in us.
He's the life. He's the one that kick starts these things that gives us this life. And just an interesting fact, these adps that gets created so of one glucose, you can potentially get up a net gain of 36 atps.
On average, a human body uses about 10 million atps per second. So imagine how many of these cycles your body is going through right now in every second, right? And we are not designed. Can it be? No.
Surely there needs to be the designer. Surely God has made these things. It cannot be fluke.
It cannot be. And over a 24 hours time period, if you were to weigh all those adps, they reckon your body can turn over its own weight in atps. That's how much it will recycle.
And reuse as it breaks down those glucose, turn to Genesis. Genesis chapter two. We just had the creation happen in Genesis chapter one.
In Genesis chapter two, verse seven. And then God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being. We are God breath.
So to me, in my science mind, that's what Genesis two says. God gave that life. He breathed into us.
He kick started that rest. Who likes to rest? Yeah. How do you know if you had a good sleep, if you're a good sleeper or not? I've got to remember.
This is not in my notes. Do you remember your dreams? Do. Yeah.
Do you have to set an alarm clock to wake up in the mornings? If you don't have to wake up early, do you wake up round about 30 minutes at most? You sleep in 30 minutes at most. If you tick yes to those, you get enough sleep. If you don't, you need to get more sleep.
And the other thing as well is. Ever heard of the. You got to have your sleep, your beauty sleep.
And that's by nine or 10:00 you need to turn off the lights. You need to be in bed. You need to sleep.
Your sleep before 12:00 is so much more than after. It's important to rest. I came across this once, say the average American lives about 77 years.
There's a blue zone study that shows that the adventists would leave live about seven to eleven years longer. So the average American lives 77 years. So if we were to take 77 years, how many days would that be? So we can take 77 times 365, which is 28,105 days.
You got to have your brains going, right? Have these maps going. How many sabbaths would that be? So what's 28,105 divided by seven? 4015. Okay, so the average American would have be on earth force 4015 sabbaths.
How many years would that be? So if we don't know how many years will be, what's 4015 divided by 365? Any guess? Eleven years. What did I say in the beginning? The average American lives 77 years. And how long does the as adventures, according to bluestone studies, live longer.
Seven to eleven years. God gives back what we give to him. Ever thought about that? A question I raise is, what about a 25 hours day? Ever heard of a 25 hours day? Yeah.
How many hours does the day have? 24. Right? But what if we were to spend 1 hour a day with God? Would he give us back that 1 hour? Have you? And I've done it. I've got to catch a flight.
I need to be somewhere. The first thing this is a confession. First thing I do is to cut my personal time with God.
What happens that day? It's terrible. It's terrible. Yeah.
Can you relate? Cut that time of God. That day is terrible. But spend that time of God, he gives you the power to go through that day.
And I want to say that day will have 25 hours. You'll have time. You'll go through it.
God will provide. Matthew eleven, verse 28, says, come unto me all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He will give us rest.
Trust. You mentioned trust this morning. Proverbs three, verse five and six says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. Where is your trust? A simple test could be is where are you storing your treasures? Where is your trust? Is it here on earth or in heaven? I've got a picture on there of a kit in the air and the dad catching how much trust does a child have to jump off a platform into his father's hands? How much trust do we have in God? Are we willing to go where God leads us to do that jump and trust that he will catch us to go where he leads? Trust in divine power is directly linked to our physical health. Trust in God is a gift leading to right choices.
Have you heard of the Silver Bridge? Anyone heard of it? On Friday, December 15, 1967 at about 05:00 p.m. The Silver bridge spanning the Iowa river at Point Pleasant collapsed. It was the first bridge built in the United States using an innovative Ibar link suspension system rather than wire cable suspension.
So basically that's what it is. The eyebar chain was a series of flat metal links held together using high strength heat treated carbon steel eyebars. These eyebars were of varying length and about two inches thick and twelve inches wide, bolded to each other and to vertically suspend bars which descended to support the deck below.
There were 37 cars on that bridge with 67 people in them. At the time of the collapse of those vehicles, 31 fell in with the bridge fell, 21 people escaped, injured or were rescued from the river. There was a total of 46 fatalities, including five killed on the Iowa's shore.
For 16 days, federal, state, local and private organisations conducted excessive rescue and recovery operations. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined that the cause of the bridge collapse was a cleavage fracture in the lower limb of the eye of Ibar 30. The crucial floor was inaccessible to the visible inspection it was stated and could not have been detected by any known method without disassembly of the Ibar joint, the adjacent and the resulting or the accident and the resulting National Transport Safety Board's report led to a passage of legislations for a national bridge inspection and safety programme.
One eye bar at a little deformity which caused a whole bridge to collapse and people to die. I want to say we need to have a safety programme in place. We need to do those regular inspections of our lives, not just our physical health, but also our spiritual health.
As we look at this year, at this new year. Look at your life. Implement a safety programme like new start.
Will you be doing regular inspections of your life this year? Have a look at this picture. You might just look at it. It's interesting.
Guy sitting there reading his book. Lady standing there. But the more you look, you'll notice things.
Do you notice them? You can see through the window, it's nighttime. But look through the door, it's daytime. Look at the fridge.
There's a broom in there, under the sink. The handle is on the inside and on the outside there's books in there. The guy's got two different shoes on.
The lady is not vacuuming. It's a carpet and not the floor. June has the wrong amount of days in it and I'm not sure what else.
But the more you look, the more you find wrong with that picture. What about our lives? We might look at it from the outside just as you look at a picture before. There's nothing wrong.
Maybe. But as we start to look into it, are there things that's not quite right? The closer we look, we start to see things that was not visible at first. Jesus is standing at our door, at our heart, and he's knocking.
And you might open that door today and say, come into my heart, but I want you to go back now to your house where you live. And if I were to knock on your door and you open the door, where would you invite me into picture your house? What's the first room I walk into? Could be your lounge, could be the kitchen. I'm not sure how your house is structured.
Just like God, we've opened a door, we've let him in, into that first part, into that part where the lounge is. But there's more rooms in your house. Is there any room in your house? If I were to come to your house now that the door is shut, you don't want me to go into that room for some reason.
Maybe the room is untidy. The beds are not made. It's a mess.
I don't know. There's some things in there you don't want me to see. What about your house? You've invited God in.
He's in the lounge. But do we have doors that are still shut? So shut in our lives that we don't want God to come in, that we are too scared to open up. But I want to invite you today.
Open those doors. Work with God. Let him lead.
Let him change us. Let's examine our lives, our whole house. Open every door, that God can come and bless us and we can live as God intended us to live.
Amen. Our Father is in heaven. Thank you for your word, for your manual you've given to us so we know where to go, how to go.
And as we go, as we just sang take our lives, let it be. As we take on this year. We want you to lead us, guide us, help us as we examine our lives, as we put at certain things, at what we eat, what we do, where we go.
We want to do it with you and ask for your guidance in all these things. It's my prayer. In Jesus name, amen.
This message was made available by the Dora Creek Seventh-day Adventist Church. For more resources like this, visit Doracreek.church. The poem I have to share with you today, folks, is entitled I saw God.
My name is William Ackland and this short poem features each part of the day. I saw God. I saw God in the morning at the first faint hint of dawn while the stars were bright in the heavens before the day's new dress was worn I saw his sign in the dew drops, nature's diamonds sparkling clean reflecting the mighty and minute an infinite microcosm, it seemed.
I saw God in the noonday when the sun was strong in its power bathing the earth with its glory. Between the morning and evening hour I saw his sign in the life renewed to man and beast and flower. Yes, I saw God in the noonday between the morning and evening hour.
I saw God in the evening when the day was tired and quiet as the orange and pinks and yellows announced our God's good night. I saw his sign in the rest to come when the world would be free from pain. Yes, I saw his love in the promise of dawn when we all might live again.
This programme has been brought to you by 3ABN Australia radio.
