LESSON 12:
SPICE NOT FOR LIFE
1: If I could place a number of different substances on your tongue without you seeing them, you would be able to identify them by their taste. How is it that you would be able to tell me accurately what each item is even though you could not see them? Yes, you could tell by taste, with your taste buds! The taste buds on the tip of your tongue tell you when something is sweet. Those on the sides tell you when something is salty or sour. The ones at the back in the middle tell you when something is bitter. Perhaps you have noticed that your sense of smell has a great deal to do with your ability to taste. When you have a bad cold, your food does not seem to have much flavor. In fact, if you hold your nose while eating you lose much of your ability to taste!
2: Something else you may not have thought about is that whatever you taste must be wet. If you put something dry on to a dry tongue it cannot be tasted. This is another good reason why you should thoroughly chew your food; you get much more flavor as your saliva mixes with the food.
3: Many people do not realize that they are actually slaves to their taste buds. Why is it that one person likes something very much, and someone else dislikes the very same thing very much? It is because of the way the taste buds have been trained.
4: The training of your taste buds starts when you are just an infant, and by the time a child is just a few years old, he may already be the slave of his taste buds instead of teaching them to obey and be trained to enjoy the food that is good for body-building and health. Such a situation is a great pity, and is really the fruit of the parents who have allowed the child to be ruled by his appetite. Because of their slavery to their taste-buds, many people live to eat instead of eating to live!
5: There is one very good thing, however. Your taste buds can be retrained, and you can become the master instead of their slave! You can learn to enjoy the many wonderful flavors that God put into the great variety of foods He has given to us.
6: There is a saying that flavor is the soul of food, and that spices and herbs are the soul of flavor. What is the most common and important flavoring we use in almost all cooking? Salt. Without salt, our vegetables and other main dishes, yes even most cooked desserts would not be very tasty. In addition to salt, we also use other seasonings in order to add interest and make an ordinary dish a little more distinct from the rest. Let us consider some of the more common seasonings which many people use: Salt, Bay leaves, curry leaves, cinnamon, ginger, paprika, cloves, vinegar, black pepper, mustard, curry-powder, small hot peppers, and many kinds of mixed flavors such as hot sauces, of various kinds.
7: All of these items add flavor to our food. But not all of them are healthful. Hot peppers, curry powders, and all other hot, irritating spices, are quite harmful to the very delicate membranes lining the gastro-intestinal tract.
8: Their use also deadens the taste buds, making it impossible to enjoy the simple foods and their natural flavors. The result is that people with deadened taste buds want more and more highly seasoned foods. You will notice that vinegar is also in the group of foods that are not kind to your digestive system. The word "vinegar" comes from two French words "vin" and "aigre, " meaning sour wine. You have already been informed of the bad effects of alcohol, which is the main constituent of wine. The use of too much vinegar may produce effects similar to alcohol.
9: When patients are taken to the hospital with stomach complaints, the doctor orders a diet free from these irritating spices. He knows that these may only aggravate the situation.
10: But we should not wait for such symptoms to develop. Our attitude should be that when we know these things are damaging to our wonderful body temple, we will train our taste buds to refuse them.
11: It is a fact that many are deliberately destroying this structure which God so fearfully and wonderfully made. This is serious, for the apostle Paul wrote, "If any man defile (or destroy) the temple of God, him shall God destroy. " (1 Corinthians 3:17.) There is a day coming when God is going to settle up with those who have ignored His counsel, His message and commands. He settled it in Noah's day by water, but in our day it will be settled by fire "when the world burns up."
12: The fire which is going to put an end to sin and the sinners is called Hell. We read: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." Psalm 9:17. This world will not be allowed to continue on and on and the wicked remain unpunished. "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begins at us, what shall the end by of them that obey not the gospel of God?" 1 Peter 4:17. Everybody is going to be judged according to what he has done in this life.
13: While the righteous are given eternal life, the wicked are condemned to eternal death. This is called everlasting destruction in the Bible. This destruction of the wicked is going to be complete. Nothing will remain after it has gone through this fire. 'Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." 2 Thessalonians 1:9. "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." Matthew 18:28. But the wicked shall perish and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume away." Psalm 37:20. "For while they be folden together as thorns and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry." Nahum 1:10.
14: When will the wicked be cast into hellfire? This is a question in the minds of many today. We will let the Bible answer for us: "Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest, I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn." Matthew 13:30. In Matthew 13:39, we read, "The harvest is the end of the world," therefore the wicked are not being burned now. For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the good out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished." 2 Peter 2:4,9.
15: So, we conclude that no one goes to hell or heaven now. Only at the end of the world is anyone cast into hell. Our next question is, where will hell be located? "Behold the righteous shall be recompensed in the earth: much more the wicked and the sinner." Proverbs 11:31. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men." 2 Peter 3:7.
16: When the thousand years are finished, the New Jerusalem with all the saints in it descends and Jesus leads the way. As soon as His feet touch the Mt. of Olives, it cleaves in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south." The New Jerusalem settles in this valley.
17: Jesus then resurrects the wicked dead whose number is like the sands of the sea. Once again Satan is let loose and leads the wicked against the city. They surround this Holy City, New Jerusalem.
18: God will then rain fire and brimstone upon the wicked and the whole world turns into a lake of fire, while the saints in the Holy City are protected. The root, which is Satan, and branch, his followers, all are consumed in this fire. Then the fire cools down. Jesus renews this world and makes it a peaceful habitation for His saints, for ever and ever.
19: My dear friends, we have only two choices. There is heaven to choose and hell to shun. God in His great love has done everything so that we might be saved. But He cannot choose for us. All those who choose to accept Jesus as their Saviour and surrender their lives to Him fully will be among His saints in the earth made new. Those who will not make this choice now, will find their place in the lake of fire. May the Lord guide you so that you can make the right choice now and thereby avoid eternal death in hell.
Here is additional information about life only in Christ:
"The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23.
"Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12.
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand." John 10:2728.
"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son." 1 John 5:11.
"He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God bath not life." 1 John 5:12.
"But I would not have you to be ignorant concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (also 1 Corinthians 15:18, 20; John 11:11-14).
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." Daniel 12:2 (Ecclesiastes 3:20)
"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish." Psalm 146:4.
"For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not any thing." Ecclesiastes 9:5.
"For in death there is no remembrance of Thee Psalm 6:5.
"The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence." Psalm 115:17.
"They dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for. . the earth shall cast out the dead" Isaiah 26:19 (Psalm 17:15)
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." 1 Thessalonians 4:16.
"I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: 0 death, I will be thy plagues; 0 grave, I will be thy destruction." Hosea 13:14 (fulfilled for the righteous at Christ's Second Advent: 1 Cor. 15:51:55).
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first." 1 Thessalonians 4:16 (also 1 Corinthians 15:23).
"For thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:14.
"What shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel?" 1 Peter 4:17.
"Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John 3:4. "For the wages of sin is death.":Romans 6:23.
"Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction." 2 Thessalonians 1:9.
"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Luke 13:3.
"For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall bum them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." Malachi 4:1.
"And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet." Malachi 4:3.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Matthew 5:5.
