FOR THE LOVE OF BACON
People think
that I have a dietary problem, and maybe I do. To the people around me it’s not
what I eat that is the problem, it’s what I don’t eat. You see I believe that every word that God
wrote to us is relevant and to be acted on and obeyed. We need to study the
whole of His instruction, both Old and New Testament, to know His heart for us,
and we may rest assured that His heart is for us. Everything He does,
everything He says is for a purpose, and our good is that purpose. If you want
proof of that just look at this place called Earth we call home and as you
wonder at creation realize that it was created just for us. In light of that
wonder, is there anything that He asks of us that we have the right to ignore
or disobey? Really! ask yourself, honestly.
It was in
2012 when I first began to deeply study the Hebrew Scriptures that the scales
began to all fall from my eyes. As my teachers began to unravel the scriptures
and to reveal the many diversions the translators and church fathers had
created within the teachings of the church I began to understand some of the
places where we were in complete defiance of the word of God.
Today I
would like to speak about food, in particular PORK. This is a food so loved by
the western world that to give up eating bacon is seen as paramount to dying. I
heard second hand about a Jew who was willing to declare that he had a bacon
tree in his back garden rather than give up eating it. He knew the truth and he
chose disobedience. His choice, and we all are able to make choices. Good or
bad, up to us.
If you are
reading this I hope that it is with the view to discover, or at least, to
reviewing your thoughts and “knowledge” of the issue of food, good or bad. If
your only thought is to read and prove me wrong, then please move on to
something else. I am so used to people who only listen, or seem to listen, when
in reality they are simply thinking of the next hard question to ask me.
Dialogue is wonderful but aggression gets us nowhere. Then there are those who
say “I don’t share your conviction” and just walk off. I know a Rabbi who calls
these remarks “Drive Bys” shoot your mouth off and then leave before
retaliation can be voiced.
Acts 10:24
to 11:30 lay the issue out in a fairly straight forward manner, and if this
passage is read with the mindset of learning, even unlearning, then the reader
finds that Peter’s vision is not about food at all, but about the gentiles who
where to be given a status of cleanliness as they came to faith. I am a
gentile, it was all about my salvation. To my mind it is one of the most
important passages in the New Testament, and we want to make it about what we
can eat. The fact that the vision was based on food shows just how important
the issue of food is to Yeshua.
There are
many things that we get wrong, but that does not mean that we cannot learn and
get it right. In 2010, during my first visit to Israel, I stood outside the
house of Simon the Tanner in Joppa, and I declared, quite loudly, that this is
where Jesus declared all food clean for me to eat. In 2012, after sitting at
the feet of some amazing teachers, I stood outside the house of Simon the
Tanner and declared and this is where Yeshua said that I could be made
righteous. This time with great humility and gratitude. Still striving to get
it right, but a little closer to the goal now.
The issue of
food seems to be a situation where people have the answers they need and search
the scriptures to find the questions that can lead them to those answers.
Because of this I no longer seek to witness to people about food, God can
explain it so much better, their eyes just have to be opened. Conversations
within the congregation can turn quite nasty, and I have to admit that I have
grown quite weary.
But here I
am in this space, and my chosen subject today is Pork. When my eldest daughter
was four I perceived a change in her, as a mother I really sensed a change in
her and became certain that it was a health issue. We visited the doctor, but
he declined to believe me and declared that she was a perfectly healthy child.
I vividly remember begging him to do a blood test just to be sure. Eventually
he agreed and the test was done. When the results came back, he didn’t wait for
the next visit, he contacted me urgently and informed me that she was grossly
anemic. She was prescribed massive doses of iron, and we had to carefully
monitor her diet in order to feed her food charged with iron. I have to admit
that I am still in awe of that little four year old who cooperated in every way
that she could in order to get well. But the fact remained that she was still
sick and we had to find out what was wrong. More tests were done and a parasite
was found lodged in her bowel. It had come from raw pork. She used to steal raw
veg from the chopping board as I prepped the cooking, and she must have somehow
gotten some raw meat as well. We treated her, and continued to treat her for
some years and she has now grown up with a family of her own, but it could have
been so much worse. As you can imagine, I have studied as much as I can to
become as informed about pork as I can, but I stopped worrying about it and
simply stopped eating anything pork. But, I have since discovered that this
same parasite that was lodged in my daughters bowel, can make its way to the
brain, and (according to the researches I studied) is the cause of epilepsy in
94% of cases in Africa. That was very frightening to learn, but as I am
personally convicted that pork is not for me, I don’t have to take it any
further. This is a matter that people need to search and research for their own
good.
It has been
said that the pig is the biggest fake that we can come across. He looks at us
with his cloven hoofs stretched out and chews on his food as if he is chewing a
cud, but nothing could be further from the truth. Check it out for yourself, see
for yourself, read with an open mind, and believe what the Father says. He has
a reason, our wellbeing is that reason. Everything has been planned and laid
out for us, just learn God’s word, just learn God’s heart.
Isaiah
66:17
“Those
who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, To go to the gardens after an
idol in the midst, eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse, shall
be consumed together,” says the Lord.
Matthew
7:6
“Do not
give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they
trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
Matthew
8:30-32 Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding so
the demons begged Him, saying, “If You cast us out, permit us to go away into
the herd of swine.”
And He
said to them, “Go.” So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine
and suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into
the sea and perished in the water.
Now a
large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains.
So all
the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.” And
at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and
entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently
down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea. So those who fed the
swine fled, and they told it in the city and in the country. And they went out
to see what it was that had happened.
And those
who saw it told them how it happened to him who had been demon-possessed, and
about the swine.
Now a
herd of many swine was feeding there on the mountain. So they begged Him that
He would permit them to enter them. And He permitted them. Then the demons went
out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd ran violently down the steep
place into the lake and drowned.
Luke
15:15-16
Then he
went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his
fields to feed swine and he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods
that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
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