But go with me to the book of Ecclesiastes.
You're going to go past Proverbs, back
into the book of Ecclesiastes.
And look at Ecclesiastes 10 again, and verse number 17.
Ecclesiastes chapter number 10, and verse number 17.
We already saw this verse, but I want you to see it again.
Ecclesiastes 10, 17.
Keep your place, your finger, in the book of Proverbs.
We're going to come back to it.
Ecclesiastes 10, 17, notice what he says.
Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles,
and thy princes eat in due season.
Now he says, and not for drunkenness, right?
But I want you to notice these two words, for strength.
For strength.
And here's what I want you to understand.
Not only does eating for strength
have to do, because we saw, and not for drunkenness.
So we're talking about eating what you need,
not necessarily what you want.
But I want you to understand also,
when it says there for strength, what he's saying
is that the food that we consume should be strengthening us.
And here's what you need to understand.
Not all food will give you strength physically.
Not all food will nourish you.
And not all food will make you stronger.
Let me read for you a little bit more from this article from NPR.
It says, a study published in CA, Cancer Journal for Clinics,
concluded that everyone, regardless
of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status,
is gaining weight at about the same rate.
Grabs clearly show parallel tracks of increasing flab
among all groups.
If we want to solve the obesity problem,
we have to figure out what has changed for everybody.
And the thing that pops out is our food environment.
That's where the action is.
And it's not just that food is now cheap relatively
to income.
It's also that it's so much more convenient.
And here's what I want you to understand.
When it comes to eating, we need to be careful
and make sure that we're eating for strength and the idea
that we're eating food that will actually nourish our bodies.
You know, we should eat the food that God has provided for us.
And look, we're talking, and again, I'm not a nutritionist
and I don't desire to be one.
And that's not my goal.
You guys are smart and you can read books and you can study.
But you know, we're talking about eating meat.
We're talking about eating fruits.
We're talking about eating vegetables.
We're talking about eliminating a lot of the junk food that
is not for strength, that is not nourishing you,
that is not going to make you stronger.