Bless The Lord, O My Soul - Thanking God For Good Health

Temple Baptist Church - 11-15-2015

Psalm 103:1-3

Introduction:

A.  Psalm 103 is one of my favorite portions of Scripture because it so vividly describes the goodness and grace of God to His children. 

1.  We took a look at David “Blessing The One Who Blesses.”  What a wonderful thing it is to bless the Lord who blesses us daily in so many ways.  Blessing the Lord is something that we determine to do in spite of our circumstances.

2.  We took a look at David blessing the Lord for His great forgiveness.  God is a God of mercy and grace; He is a God of loving-kindness.  We thanked God for the forgiveness of sin, both positionally (which is eternal and produces salvation) and practically (which is continual and produces fellowship). 

3.  This morning, I will preach on a subject that I have never used for an entire sermon: good health!  I want to take a short look at one of the greatest blessing that you can ever expect to have in this life: good health!  The word “health” is found 17 times if you have the right bible, the King James Bible. 

a)  The word “health” is found only 14 times in the Revised Version.

b)  The word “health” is found only 11 times in the ESV, the so-called bible that so many people now hold dear. 

c)  The word “health” is found only 11 times in the American Standard Version. 

d)  The word “health” is found only 9 times in the Modern King James Version.

e)    Notice with me that in the modern versions from the Catholic Text (Wescott-Hort Text), the number of references decline. 

B.  I guess, to the liberal scholar, the Word of God is in a transitional state!  Good health is not quite as important to the liberal as it is to the conservative?  I am going to let it go at that because this is not a study on the travesty of the new versions.  Let me say that Good Health is important to God as well as to the believer.

C.  Our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Ghost and, as we respect the church house, we should respect our bodies. 

D.  Five lessons concerning good health:

1.  Good Health is a blessing.  Good health is the will of God for the most part.  I understand that some people are born with health problems and that is the will of God for their lives but most of us were born with good physical bodies.  I watch our little children and every part of their bodies work right.  As you get older, they do not work as well.  If you have good health and your body reasonably works right, you are blessed! 

3 John 2  Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.  (The key words of this verse are “prosper” and “”prospereth.”  It means to do well and to be so progressively.  To continue in good health.)

1.  God wants you to prosper spiritually – “even as thy soul prospereth”  I want to look at the last part of this verse first because of the words “even as.”  Spiritual prosperity brings about the first two prosperings. 

2.  God wants you to prosper materially – “that thou mayest prosper”  God wants us to prosper financially.  Not to be rich but to have sufficient to eat, drink, and to enjoy the things of life.  I am not preaching a Prosperity Gospel but God wants us to enjoy life.  Ecclesiastes 2:24 There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.

3.  God wants you to prosper in physically – “and be in health”  God gave us our bodies to take care of.  These vehicles must carry us for many years and, as any good automobile or tool, must be maintained.

2.  Good Health can be taken for granted.  Never let a day that is good go by without blessing the Lord for your good health and a body that has little pain.

Psalms 71:9  Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.  (Growing old is not for wimps!  As you get older, you do not take good days for granted.) 

3.  Good Health is fragile.  Sickness, disease, accidents, and foolishness can change how your body performs.  David said that there was but a step between him and death.  There is just a breath between having good health and declining health.  One step between having a body that works and having something break through accidents or sickness that makes life more miserable physically.  “Life is fragile, handle with care!”  That saying was on a reflective sticker on my hard hat when I worked in the mines because so many things underground could change things.

Philippians 2:27  For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.  (Our health can change with one beat of the heart.  I have pastored a long time and have buried them from a still birth up to old age.  Sickness, accidents, and death are no respecters of persons.)

4.  Good Health can be enhanced.  Through proper diet and physical exercise, we can strengthen our bodies.  There are things that we can do to, as much as lies within us, enhance our quality and quantity of life. 

a.  Our mental state is important.  Proverbs 16:24  Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.  (Poor mental health will ruin good physical health!  “For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he” makes a good application here.  Mental health and physical health go hand-in-hand.)

b.  Our diet is important.  Acts 27:33-34  And while the day was coming on, Paul besought them all to take meat, saying, This day is the fourteenth day that ye have tarried and continued fasting, having taken nothing.  (34)  Wherefore I pray you to take some meat: for this is for your health: for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.  (If God made it, we can eat it.  It is not the food that eat that so often hurts us but rather the amount.  I hear of all of these crazy diets, all of which are extreme in nature: low fat, low carb, etc. which tell you that you can lose weight fast do not work well.  In grade school, we took a Health Class which told us that all food groups were necessary each day for good health.  Now, eating meat is a cause of cancer?  Get a life!  Leave my grill and smoker alone.) 

c.  Our exercise is important.  1 Timothy 4:8  For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.  (I know that we zero in on the last part of this verse but the first part says that bodily exercise profits.)

5.  Good Health can be destroyed. 

Galatians 6:7-8  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.  (8)  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.  (So many people, saved and lost alike, shorten their lives  because of sin.  This principle of sowing and reaping brings about a blessed life or one of corruption.)

a.  Sin can destroy one’s health - 1 Corinthians 3:17  If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. (Young people expect to feel good and every part of their body work right but, too often, even their health and well-being fail.  Accidents, sickness, or abusing the body can be costly and permanent!  The old saying, “If I knew I was going to get this old, I would have taken better care of myself,” stands true.  Obesity, drinking, smoking, doing drugs, sexual impurity, etc. destroy these marvelous bodies that God has given to us.)

b.  The Word of God can prosper one’s health - Proverbs 4:20-22  My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings.  (21)  Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart.  (22)  For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

Conclusion: 

1.  The first mention of health is found in Genesis, the Seed Bed of the Bible:  Genesis 43:27-28  And he asked them of their welfare, and said, Isyour father well, the old man of whom ye spake? Is he yet alive?  (28)  And they answered, Thy servant our father is in good health, he is yet alive. And they bowed down their heads, and made obeisance.  (Abraham lived a long, fruitful life and was in good health.)

2.  The last mention of health is found 3 John 2  Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.  (God’s will for our bodies has never changed!)

Take Care Of Your Health

Temple Baptist Church - 2-3-2013
1 Timothy 5:23

Introduction:

A. While giving instruction to young Timothy concerning the proper way to conduct the local church, Paul gives him admonition not to neglect his body and general health while laboring for the Lord. While we need to “keep the main thing the main thing,” we also must not neglect to properly maintain balance.

B. In the realm of physical health, I guess you can fast too much as well as feast too much. Your body, like an automobile, must have fuel to run on. Paul elaborates upon one of the qualifications of a bishop or pastor: “not given to wine.” He instructs Timothy to “use” (not abuse) a little wine for health’s sake.

C. Paul was not speaking of fermented wine for obvious scriptural reasons. Many preachers allow for some alcohol consumption as long as one does not become intoxicated. I am not going to preach on alcoholic consumption tonight but will give a general reference to why Christians are not to use it in any form.

1. Wine is a mocker and makes you do things that you would not normally do.

2. Wine is not to be even looked at when it ferments or gives its color because of its beauty.

3. Wine is used as a means of taking advantage of people, especially women.

4. God pronounces a woe upon those who give strong drink to their neighbor.

D. Wine, or the “blood of the grape,” is good for the body. Until recently, doctors said it was good for the body and general health for one to drink alcoholic wine in moderation. Recently, they have changed that, praise the Lord, by declaring the alcoholic wine detrimental to one’s health and saying that grape juice was better for you.

E. Our general health is important to both our personal welfare and the work of the Lord. When sick, you cannot work or do the things that you like or need to do; you cannot effectively work in the Lord’s vineyard when your health will not allow you to do so.

3 John 2 Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.

F. How to take care of yourself.

1. Temperance is part of the fruit of the Spirit - Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, (23) Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

2. Temperance is to be added to your faith - 2 Peter 1:5-6 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; (6) And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

3. Temperance brings eternal reward - 1 Corinthians 9:25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.

1. Temperate in diet – Genesis 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. (I am not on a “Halleluiah Diet!” People go one every kind of diet you can think of and the majority of them are not healthy. If you lose weight on one of the stringent, odd-ball diets, you will more than likely gain every pound back with interest when you get off of it.)

1 Timothy 4:3-4 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. (4) For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: ( Eating right things in right amounts helps to maintain good health. A few people do not eat enough or the right things which causes health problem but, for the most part, the opposite is the problem of most. My mother used to say, “Some people dig their graves with their teeth.”)

2. Temperate in labor – Exodus 31:15 Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death. (God commanded man to work 6 days, not 7. Man was never intended to work all of the time. Work is a good thing; work is an essential thing; work is a commanded thing; but you can work too much. Many work to the neglecting of their family; others work to the neglecting of their Lord; others to the neglecting of their church and its work. All work and no play is not the way to go. Learn to have a good time and take a trip or vacation occasionally.)

3. Temperate in exercise – 1 Timothy 4:8 For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. (Exercise profits but is not to be our main thrust in life. Some people are exercising crazy. I believe in physical fitness if done in a right manner. I still reap the benefit of running that I did in my younger years but also am reaping bad feet and knees from it. Bodily exercise profiteth little but it does profit! Young people, take care of your bodies for they will have to carry you a long way for a long time.)

4. Temperate in rest – Mark 6:31 And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. (People differ in the amount of rest that their bodies and minds require. I read once that the average person needs 8 hours of rest for their body and only about 4 for their minds. People differ here. I worked for years on an average of 6-6 ½ hours of sleep for years. I now require a little more. My next door neighbor in Kentucky was 96 years old and went to bed at sundown and slept until late morning. How to you know when you have had enough rest? When you wake up refreshed and can function the entire day, you have had enough rest. When you begin to toss and turn in the bed as a door turns upon its hinges, you are probably just too lazy to get up. J)

5. Don’t be too serious - Proverbs 17:22 says, “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” (I certainly believe that we are not to go to either extreme: foolish jesting or never cracking a smile. It takes more muscles to frown than to smile. I believe that our Lord was a man of laughter! Be serious but also temper that seriousness with a merry heart which produces a cheerful countenance. A smile can be contagious. It is a medical fact that people who laughs live longer. Learn to smile and laugh a little. It is contagious!)