Tonight is the night, and you are invited. This Special Presentation by Pastor Rick Arrowood begins this evening at 7 p.m. in the Calvary Baptist Church Auditorium. The public is invited and admission is free. Don’t miss this story of a radical transformation that began on January 22, 2007.

The ladies of Calvary Baptist Church have prepared a “Healthy Snacks” meeting after the feature presentation. Come meet our speaker, try the healthy snacks, discuss the recipes and peruse some interesting books that will help you reach your fitness goals.

We look forward to seeing you tonight!

Sufficient Sweetness

That’s right. This is a sermon about “sufficient sweetness.” What do you do when your body sends you the “full” signal? Keep right on eating or call a halt? Part of the problem is that we have come to think of eating as a way to be entertained. Now it is clear in Scripture that good food is a wonderful way to have great fellowship with others. The problem is that we allow ourselves to think of eating primarily as entertainment rather than nourishment. When you view it this way, munching becomes a way to change your moods; cooking becomes your source of comfort.

Those Basic Assumptions

When our most basic assumptions about eating are out of whack, we can’t really expect to draw the right conclusions.

For instance, one summer evening several years ago, my family was enjoying a wonderful campout near Cincinnati. The children were asleep and my wife and I were reading under the dining canopy we had set up. In a short while, I read 50 pages of 1776 by David McCullough, and almost the entire time, I was munching away on pistachios. Those wonderful, salty nuts added real zest to the occasion and I thoughtlessly downed them while I was reading. Suddenly, in a start, I sat up and looked wide-eyed at my wife.

She asked, “what is wrong?”

I replied, “the Lord just spoke to me!”

She responded, “Well, what did He say?”

I answered by quoting Proverbs 25:16! “Have you found honey? Eat only so much as is sufficient for you, lest you be filled therewith and vomit it up.”

You see, I was just reading a terrific book about the American Revolution, and suddenly the Lord spoke to me through the Scriptures. That kind of thing has happened to me frequently. On this occasion, it brought me up short and I pushed away the bag of pistachios.

What stopped my snacking?

So what was it about Proverbs 25:16 that stopped my snacking?

I was crunching away for contentment. I felt as if pistachios were giving me peace! And in a moment’s time, the Word of God helped me to arrest my impulses. My faith interrupted my feelings. Proverbs 25:16 emphasizes “sufficiency” instead of saturation. When I reach “full,” there is no need to go farther. Now if you begin to think in these terms, you will begin to re-interpret the signals your body sends you. You can begin to discern the difference between “hunger pings” and “hunger pangs.” But, as the verse warns, if you snack right on past sufficiency, be prepared to feel sick. I recommend that you memorize this proverb to see if the Lord doesn’t bring it to your mind as well. God’s Word has a marvelous ability to reign in our feelings and impulses.

In this proverb, honey can represent any and all food. (Have you found pizza??) We were created by God to live for His Glory and enjoy His Creation. We were not created to sicken ourselves with a saturation of sweetness.

So ends this sermon on “sufficient sweetness.” Hope you enjoyed this “Honey Homily.”

–Pastor Gordon Dickson, Calvary Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio

www.cbcfindlay.org

This Wednesday evening, January 30 at 7 p.m., Rev. Rick Arrowood will tell us his remarkable story. Beginning on January 22, 2007, Pastor Arrowood launched his own personal fitness campaign. By paying closer attention to his diet and getting regular exercise, he has lost 116 pounds! He accomplished this feat without surgery, medication, or a specific program.

Rev. Arrowood, pastor of Troy Baptist Temple in Troy, Ohio, has made excellent preparations for this presentation. By the excitement in his voice, I can tell that he is prepared to motivate you to help you reach your fitness goals. He was so excited about this message that he delivered it to his own congregation on Sunday, January 28. He has prepared a free 12 page booklet for all attendees.

We encourage you to join us for this remarkable presentation. The public is invited and admission is free.

Make no friendship with an angry man; and with a furious man you shall not go: Lest you learn his ways; and get a snare to your soul. — Proverbs 22:24-25

How should you respond when you become acquainted with an angry man? Should you make friends with this furious man? The danger of this relationship and so many other relationships is explained in verse 25. The fact is, we tend to adopt the values of the people that we associate with. Stay around this man for long, and you will begin to think the way he thinks. The result: you too will find your soul in a trap, just like he does! If you really want to get frustrated, then learn to think like this furious man. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday evening, February 17, at 6 p.m. Rev. Philip Hunt, the president of Central Africa Baptist College, will be our guest speaker. He surrendered his life to the Lord to become a missionary when he was sixteen. Since 1992, he has served the Lord in Zambia, Africa. He and his colleagues started Faith Baptist Church in the Kitwe area in 1993. The church has also begun an orphanage, the Faith Children’s Village. Rev. Hunt was one of the featured speakers at the recent Student Global Impact Conference.

“The Highway to Heaven is hidden in humility;

the path to punishment is paved with pride.”

I coined this phrase many years ago as part of an extended study of the Gospels. You see, you have to humble yourself before the Lord to really understand Him. Most people are unwilling to do this. That proud response costs them a true understanding of what the Bible says about the Way to Heaven. If you are not certain that you are going to heaven, I encourage you to read through this presentation of God’s Bridge to eternal life.

Gordon Dickson, Senior Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio

61% of Americans are obese. Here is a brief summary from the Journal of Nutrition about some practical changes we could all make immediately. This study was done by Tufts University.

Little things, such as calorie-laden beverages, food portions, eating out and the way you snack can make a big difference. And don’t miss the follow-up article about candy. Did you know that Americans consume 6.3 million pounds of candy and chocolate each year? That’s 22.5 pounds of candy per person!!

This afternoon, we had a wonderful opportunity to join the members of Bluelick Bible Church in congratulating Pastor and Mrs. Jim Neighbors for 3o years of service at Bluelick. We are so thankful for their leadership of this wonderful ministry in Lima, Ohio.

Harriet and I would like to express our appreciation to to the Neighbors and the dear saints of God at Bluelick for a delightful afternoon.

Love Your Neighbor

The “Be Healthy Now” discussion is now going strong. I believe that most of the casual conversations I had in this last week involved health and fitness. As I mentioned in a previous post, this is a marvelous opportunity to obey Jesus’ command: Love your neighbor!

An Acquired Taste

For instance, after my post about salty snacks, three people pointed out that our appetite for salt is an acquired taste. That “good point!” has really stayed in my thinking. Thank you! With that good point in mind, I’d like to share this excerpt from a January 4, 2001 study cited in the New England Journal of Medicine. This footnote really gives you practical advice with a reminder of how many people are affected.

Fifty Million People

“Hypertension affects almost 50 million people in the United States and places them at higher risk for cardiovascular diseases.1,2 Furthermore, this risk increases with progressive elevations in blood pressure, beginning at even normal levels of blood pressure.3 The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) trial demonstrated that a diet that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products, that includes whole grains, poultry, fish, and nuts, that contains only small amounts of red meat, sweets, and sugar-containing beverages, and that contains decreased amounts of total and saturated fat and cholesterol lowers blood pressure substantially both in people with hypertension and those without hypertension, as compared with a typical diet in the United States.4 The DASH diet is now recommended in national guidelines.1,5 Clinical trials have shown that reducing the sodium chloride content of typical diets in the United States or northern Europe lowers blood pressure,6,7,8 and guidelines recommend reducing the daily dietary sodium intake to 100 mmol (equivalent to 2.3 g of sodium or 5.8 g of sodium chloride) or less.1″

Here is a puzzle for you:

         Before you stand a big Hittite and a little Hittite. The little Hittite is the big Hittite’s son, but the big Hittite is not the little Hittite’s father. Who is the big Hittite? Read the rest of this entry »