Bon Apetite

What we eat is as important as how much we eat. What types of food from different food groups, the balance of proteins to carbohydrates and fats. Even things like what types of fats we eat, food combinations and the time in the day that we eat them. All these issues and more we need to consider even before we take the first mouthful of food.

Why is that?
Why is it important to consider these things before we have taken the first mouthful? Because after we have started to eat it its too late isn’t it! We can’t take back what we have just eaten. Once it goes down the choices that we have made are immediately getting results.

Do all the results of the choices that we have made show themselves right away?
No. Some of the results may be immediate like we may not like the taste of the food, or we immediately have an upset stomach because the food might react to something else that we have already eaten. But sometimes the results don’t show up for a while. We may even develop a sickness as a result of something we ate or didn’t eat years later.

What happens when we make the wrong choices over and over?
The result of the wrong choice becomes increased. We may get overweight. We may get a long-term sickness or we may just have a poor quality of life and not be very mobile. Repetition of the wrong or right choices will develop patterns of behaviour in our brain and make us more prone to repeat that choice.

There are many things that can happen to us if we don’t have the right appetite, the worst of which is that it can cost us our life, both in this life and eternally.

Can our appetite really affect our eternal life?
Yes. The type of food we eat, our eating habits etc. can play a large part in how our character develops and how we deal with the sinful human nature that we are born with.

Testimony Treasures, Vol. 2, page 96
“God calls upon those who know his will to be doers of His word. Weakness, half heartedness and indecision provoke the assaults of Satan; and those who permit these traits to grow will be borne helplessly down by the surging waves of temptation. Everyone who professes the name of Christ is required to grow up to the full stature of Christ, the Christian’s living head.”

But is appetite only to do with what food we eat?
No. Appetite is not just about what we eat but other things as well. Appetite represents our wants and needs in our whole being including psychological, physical, spiritual, mental and emotional facilities.

God has given human beings 5 senses; taste, smell, touch, hearing and sight. Ellen White refers to these as “Avenues to the soul”.

Why is this?
Because your senses are the ways in which our fallen human nature has been conditioned to respond through. Our senses are the method through which our brains input and communicate information. Just like a computer can only give out information based on what data is put into it, so too is it with our brain. Satan uses these inputs to corrupt the mind and heart and to lead us into sin. Over time Satan makes it so that we become weak until we no longer have strength from the Holy Spirit to resist the morally corrupt nature that each human is born with.

Mat 26:41
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
“…the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Here God warns us about our fallen human nature. The “flesh is weak”. Even though we may want to do something that is right our flesh wants us to do the opposite. I am sure that each one of us can recall different moments in our life where this has been the case. The interesting thing about our flesh is, that the more we give in to it, the weaker it gets, and yet the more control that it has over us.

Let us look at a simple illustration. We know that ice cream is full of harmful chemicals and trans fats yet how often do we give in to appetite and eat the ice cream? Imagine walking through a park on a hot day. First you hear the bells of the ice cream truck. Next you see in the distance in front of you, a couple of people walking towards you eating an ice cream. At this point you could walk a different direction or at least avoid the people. As you continue on, you now come upon the people and smell the ice cream. How much more difficult it is to say no if we walk up to the ice cream truck and smell the product than if we walked away earlier.

Watch and pray” this is an interesting choice of words. God uses the word “and”, not the word “or”. It has a very different meaning to watch and pray in combination than to watch or pray. I think many times we do one or the other. Many times we pray to God and ask that he keeps us from temptation but we do not watch. This is an interesting concept to “watch”.

Q. What does the word watch mean?
The word watch comes from the days of castles. Castles had watchtowers to guard against being attacked by enemies. There was a person in the watchtower 24/7. If the person that manned the tower fell asleep or didn’t show up for their shift, the whole castle became vulnerable to attack. So it was very important for the person to keep a vigilant watch throughout the whole time that it was their responsibility to be there.

It is presumption to pray for strength to overcome something or for God to give us more willpower to not do something, like eat the ice cream cone and not expend any effort on our own part.

Paul further defines this concept in 1 Thessalonians 5:6, ”Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” Here Paul compares this to being awake and to being sober instead of drunk.

What happens when someone is asleep? They have no awareness of things around them. What about when someone is drunk? Their senses are dimmed. They do not have the same awareness as when they are sober. The reflexes are less and they can even become a danger to themselves or others. In fact a person who is drunk can even forget what they did when they were drunk!

Appetite is how Satan made mankind fall from God’s grace in the first place. Appetite affects everyone and we all struggle with this. Revelation 3:14 – 22. “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.”

This speaks about the Laodecian church. Look at the alliteration of this text. God uses terms normally associated with appetite.

This describes a time in which the people think they have everything. They have no discipline, no awareness of their spiritual condition. They are given to excesses of every kind and are not even aware that this is describing them! Isn’t this is the most accurate description of the time in which we live? Enough is never enough.

The important thing we have to understand is that every little experience that we go through in our life effects the development of our character. Every appetite left unchecked or indulged will have its influence on us. Each experience leaves patterns of behaviour on our brains and will influence our future thoughts and actions.

When David committed sin with Beersheba, when do you think the seeds of his sin started? When David was walking on his rooftop and saw her washing herself? When as a result he let his appetites take control of him? Remember this is the same man that would not touch a hair off of Saul’s head because he was the “Lord’s anointed”. He was the same man that went out to slay Goliath when all others in Israel’s army cowered in fear.

Patriarchs And Prophets, page 717.
“It was the spirit of self-confidence and self-exaltation that prepared the way for David’s fall. Flattery and the subtle allurements of power and luxury were not without effect upon him. Intercourse with surrounding nations also exerted an influence for evil. According to the customs prevailing among eastern rulers, crimes not to be tolerated in subjects were uncondemned in the king; the monarch was not under obligation to exercise the same self-restraint as the subject. All this tended to lessen David’s sense of the exceeding sinfulness of sin.”

David’s sin of adultery, murder and lying began when he, over time, gave way to the appetites of his sinful human nature.
How do can we guard against falling prey to appetite? “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire”. I pray that we would all heed this counsel today.
Amen.

John Formosa, Canada