Copyright © 2006 by The Voice of Prophecy

P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

An Open Secret about Your Health

I’m glad to be with you today with our new series on the book of Daniel.
John Glenn earned his niche in history and the affection of his fellow Americans in 1962 when he became the first American to orbit the earth. In 1998, near the close of a distinguished career in the Senate, he didn’t need to do anything more to ensure he’d be long remembered. But he always had a hankering to go back into space, and when the opportunity came, he jumped at it.

NASA justified Glenn’s inclusion in the crew because, as they said, they wanted to research the effects of space travel on a 77-year-old “senior citizen.” When they blasted off from the Cape, the rest of the crew was half Glen’s age! During the trip Glen gave 17 blood samples, and wore a mini data recorder to keep track of his heart rate. He even swallowed a tiny capsule with a radio transmitter embedded to report internal temperatures. But the main interest of researchers centered on the effect of zero gravity on the elderly. On each of four nights in space, he slept in a wired space suit. After his return to earth and a seemingly endless battery of tests, Dr John Charles joked that Glenn did pretty well for a 40-year-old!

Several of the scientists on the project confessed that the results led them to conclude they must take better care of themselves. Glen suffered no more bone or muscle loss than the younger crew members, and his heart rate was slightly better than his on-board companions. Dr Alfred Rossum, who participated in the cardiovascular tests, concluded: “The take-home message is ‘good nutrition and exercise.’ Here we had in John Glenn someone who has done nothing but take care of himself for a lifetime and we get these surprising results.”

And Surprising Results could be the title of the story of Daniel chapter 1. Yes, it’s the beginning of a book that has a great deal to say about the end of the world, but it starts off with some pointed references to a healthy lifestyle.

If you missed yesterday’s broadcast, let me share a few words about why I think the old book of Daniel is so important for contemporary society. First, there’s more about Jesus here than anywhere else in the Old Testament. For example, Daniel coined the title that Jesus used to describe Himself continuously, a title you read frequently in the Gospels, the “Son of Man.”

Daniel sets down in a detailed way the chronology of Jesus’ three-and-a-half years of public ministry on earth.

Daniel tells us when that ministry would begin.

Daniel also describes how Jesus sustains us through every struggle of life.

And Daniel elaborates His return to earth to rescue us and take us to our heavenly home, where, with the angels we'll “shine like the stars,” as he put it.

There’s no richer picture of Jesus in the entire Old Testament than what you discover in Daniel.

In yesterday’s broadcast we found three Jewish teenagers that had become POWs, after being removed from their homes in Jerusalem, and taken to the capital city of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, the young king of the empire of Babylon. The king had a special purpose in mind for these three teenagers. They were to become his leaders to influence fellow captives to stray from their historic Jewish religion and lifestyle, and to adopt the Babylonian religion and lifestyle. One issue of lifestyle, their diet, is noted in Daniel chapter 1. And it illustrates the lengths to which the Babylonian court would go to try to change these young Jewish lads and make them “Babylonian” to the core.

Daniel spoke to his supervisor and asked that he and his companions be permitted to decline the rich food from the royal kitchens and in its place to eat simple vegetarian fare. It took some persuasion but ultimately the supervisor agreed to a 10-day trial. I read here in Daniel 1: 16 and 17:

So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables instead. To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning.
The opening chapter of Daniel is an illustrious illustration of the Old Testament's concern about whole-person health. The point is: you can't segment your life into watertight compartments, it doesn't bring the results we all crave. The story of the Titanic reminds us of that.

If I eat the way I should, exercise the way I should, think the way I should, work the way I should, and relate with others the way I should, in other words if I truly integrate the mental, physical, emotional, relational and spiritual dimensions of my life, I will live about a decade longer, and my life will be richer, fuller, and healthier. There’s excellent recent research from Loma Linda University, School of Public Health to demonstrate this fact. The research involved thousands of subjects, and the results can be generalized across North America. IN fact they were part of an article on longevity in the prestigious National Geographic Magazine in November, 2005.

You see, the opening chapter of Daniel addresses the healthy lifestyle God desires for us all. You may have read a book by Dr Dean Ornish in Southern California. He brings people with heart disease into his facility, some of them too sick to walk, and with a vegetarian diet, daily supervised exercise, and daily meditation, he reverses the heart disease. It’s an integrated approach. And that’s the bottom line with Daniel too.

East Pasco Medical Center in Florida has developed The Wellness Challenge, a 12-session program to establish a healthy lifestyle. The approach is summarized in the Weimar Institute acronym NEW START: Here are the eight elements.

N stands for Nutrition: a balanced, vegetarian diet.
E stands for Exercise: to promote cardio-vascular health
W stands for Water, pure water: used freely both internally and externally
S stands for Sunshine; for Vitamin D, from a brief exposure every daily. And we need to emphasize brief, about 15 minutes is enough considering the risk of skin cancer from long exposure
T stands for Trust in God: for He is the only source of our hope and salvation
A stands for Air, fresh air, in order to get the oxygen we need to live
R stands for Rest: both daily sleep, and weekly Sabbath rest
And the second T stands for Temperance: or balance, in every aspect of life, as we undertake a truly broad integrated or wholistic approach to health.

This approach is now been accepted by many healthcare professionals including, for example, Dr Larry Dossey. In his book, Healing Words, he writes, “Over time I decided that not to employ prayer with my patients was the equivalent of deliberately withholding a potent drug or surgical procedure” (p. xviii, emphasis added).

Today, Harvard University (that bastion of spirituality at its birth, but now a hot bed of secularity) is taking the lead in promoting integrated health, and accenting the role of spirituality in health. How remarkable! Much of this work is being funded by John Templeton.

Christianity Today published an article in January, 1997, titled “Doctors Who Pray,” in which it reported the earliest scientific study to demonstrate the power of prayer in the recovery of the sick. It reported:

“The landmark study that began generating new interest was conducted by Randolph Byrd in 1984 and published in 1988. Byrd’s objective was to evaluate the effects of intercessory prayer on patients admitted to a coronary care unit. Using the randomized, double-blind protocol for ten months, Byrd studied approximately 400 patients at San Francisco General Hospital. Each entrant was assigned an initial severity score according to likely outcomes: bad, intermediate, or good. One hundred and ninety-two patients were entered into the intercessory prayer group while 201 were entered into a control group.

“Byrd discovered that the people in the intercessory prayer group ended up with fewer patients suffering from congestive heart failure during recovery, and they had to use fewer diuretics, were less frequently intubated, and experienced fewer cases of pneumonia and cardiopulmonary arrests.”

Prayer obviously makes a difference! As if we didn’t know that already. But how interesting to have scientists say they’ve demonstrated it scientifically! As we close our broadcast today, let me read 1 Corinthians 6:19:

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own . . .

That being a reality, we need to do all in our power to keep our bodies operating at the highest levels of efficiency, giving appropriate daily attention to the physical, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions of life. Daniel and his friends did it, and the results were staggering. And we can do it too.