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Permalink Reply by James Simmons on May 5, 2015 at 7:54am

Angela, welcome to Original Fast Foods and Daniel's Challenge. I am sorry that you are pre-diabetic, have suffered a heart attack, and have had other struggles with your health. I read recently of a study published in JAMA in 1999 of several thousand young Americans who had died by either accident, homicide, or suicide. A staggering statistic came out of the study. One hundred percent of these victims were found during autopsies to have heart disease, which was visible to the naked eye. One of the conclusions of the study is that in America today, one hundred percent of high school students today will have laid a foundation for heart disease and several other diseases by the time they graduate from high school.

Daniel's Challenge is a challenge to believe in God's dietary law and the promises that attended sufficient that a person wants to "try the Lord on his word" and claim his promises. This requires that we receive from the Lord a proper interpretation of his word so that we can live it with exactness. I can share my personal interpretation of God's dietary law quite simply, but it is important that you come to a well-settled conviction regarding the dietary covenant you made with God at the time you were baptized. He does not lie, and to those who obey him with exactness, he also gives any further instructions they need in their path.

As I've looked at God's dietary law, as it was first given to Adam (Genesis 1:29-30) it was a vegetarian law, both for man and animals. John Taylor said of this period of the earth between Adam and Noah that no flesh was eaten to gratify beastly appetites, but all was vegetable, and all that grew on the earth was just calculated for the food of man. This was the period of the patriarchs that lived nearly 1000 years.

A great change came over the earth with the advent of the flood. There is a lot of speculation about how that change occurred, but it is sufficient to say that before the flood there were no droughts, pestilence, famine, or otherwise to disrupt man's food supply. Yet after the flood the earth, its atmosphere, and all that affects seasons, storms, famines, droughts, pestilence, and so forth were activated. The first famine recorded in the Bible came in the days of Abraham; we see another in the days of Jacob, and there are many other recorded in the Bible that follow.

The first time God mentions food for man, after the flood, is to Noah and his sons in Genesis 9:1-5. Unfortunately, the King James Version leaves out part of the instruction given to Noah. Joseph Smith helps fill in the gaps with his translation of what happened in that meeting between God, Noah, and his Sons. Essentially, God, knowing of the new conditions that now exist on the earth, which will affect the primary food supply for man, gives permission to Noah to eat animals for food, as he has previously given the green herb or all foods that grow from seeds. In Joseph Smith's version of what occurred during this discussion he includes a warning, that the blood of beast is not to be shed, except for meat, to save your lives, and the blood of every animal killed by man must be accounted for.

To save our lives infers that the primary food supply that God has given to man, which was vegetarian, is somehow disrupted to the point that man cannot receive the abundance he needs from the plants of the earth. In this exact circumstance, man is to receive animals as food with thanksgiving and understanding that God ordained them for our use for this exact purpose, that we may have the abundance that we need to save our lives in dire circumstances that will prevail from time to time on this telestial planet. Until the world is redeemed we never will know for sure that "this years harvest" will be successful or not. We never know if food grown from seeds sown in the earth will yield food for man and beast.

Fast forward to our day. The earth is still not redeemed and the Lord has given again dietary instruction and a law with a promise to man that is essentially the same law that he gave to Noah and his sons. We are instructed that wholesome herbs are for our ordained by God for our constitution, nature, and use. What are wholesome herbs? All edible foods that grow from seeds planted in the earth. These include foods that grow both above the ground and in the grown and it also includes the various seeds (grains) of the earth including cereal, leguminous, and pseudo-cereal grains.

Being ordained for our constitution, these foods best meat the constitutions needs of the body that enable the body to survive and thrive. Being ordained for our nature (spiritually begotten nature) these foods are non-addictive and do not lead us into bondage or the destruction of common food-borne diseases. And they are ordained for our use for both food and raiment to the extent that they are available to us in sufficient supply.

In contrast, animals are ordained only for our use, and not for our constitution or our spiritually begotten natures. Specifically, they are ordained for our use, as they were in the days of Noah, to help us survive extreme conditions when the plant-based food supply is inadequate for man. Therefore, it pleases the Lord when we do not shed the blood of animals or eat their flesh except when conditions exist that require that we eat animals in order to save our lives.

We are not to forbid each other to use any food, plant or animal, that is ordained by God for man, and those who have been ordained and are protected under the covenant, who understand the covenant understand and know what they have covenanted to, as described above. Such people will trust God when he says that grains are the staff of life, rather than be led by seducing rhetoric, lies, and doctrines of devils that are not God's dietary doctrine.

Consider today what is the most maligned food that God has ordained for our constitution, nature, and use. If you guess grains, you would be correct. Can you think of any diets today that forbid the use of cereal and leguminous grains? Are those diets enticing to believers and do they lead some believers to lose faith in God's dietary law? Paul warned of these very times to Timothy (see 1 Timothy 4:1-5). This scripture is often misunderstood when read from the King James Version of the New Testament. Why? It is because the word meat in the King James English has an entirely different meaning that the term meat in American English. Paul original wrote this letter to Timothy in Greek. A look at the Greek text reveals a warning about men in latter times of the earth that would forbid some to eat "certain foods" that are ordained by God for man. Of course such people are not ordained by God. They have not received his covenants or if they have they do not no what they have covenanted to do under the law they received through the ordinance of baptism.

In D&C 49 18-19, a similar warning was given to the Shakers. that warned of those who forbid others to eat the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, or that which cometh of the earth (all things ordained by God for our use) In this section God warns in verse 21 of woes that will come upon all men who shed blood or waste flesh without need for it. Some Latter-day saints mistakenly believe that we are commanded to eat meat and this scripture proves it. We are not commanded to eat meat as a part of our daily diet. Rather that Lord himself has invited us to abstain from it, except in times of famine and excess of hunger (See D&C 89:15)

It is my belief that the wonderful promises made available to us through ordinance, law, doctrine, and covenants with God require that we understand just what we have covenanted to do, and then we do it. In 2009 untenable conditions were found in my body that arose from having walked on a broken hip for 12 years. My doctors said that it was impossible for me to have lived through what they discovered inside of me.They were correct. My infectious conditions were far beyond lesser conditions that kill most people in a matter of a few hours. Why am I alive then? Not because I ate write, not because I did anything super this or super that. I am alive because I kept my covenants with exactness and the Lord has promise you, me, and every person of the covenant, that as we exercise our faith in the covenant, even unto exactness, that the days allotted to us will be preserved unto us. I'm alive because of the power of the covenant, and for no other reason.

Last week I missed a turn while traveling on my bicycle at high speed and went over a rocky embankment. It was an honest mistake that any mortal can make. I knew I was gong to be broken in pieces and would suffer terribly; but then, quite unexpectedly, someone who loved me from the other side, directed my course to safety. A women who witnessed what happened was stunned, as was I. It was not my time to go, nor was it my time to be busted in pieces. Satan has power to bruise our heal, but God gives us power to crush his head. He can lead us into temptation that can harm us temporally and spiritually, but if we will do our best to understand and live according to our covenants, God will give us the knowledge to crush his head.

What does this mean to you at this time. For various reasons you have gone down a path that has led to heart disease and to a pre-diabetic condition. There is a lot of false information about diet that is ultra confusing. God knows this; but if you are willing to trust him, he will take you on a journey of healing that will include endowing you along the way with knowledge that will give you power over the darkness that now resides in your body.

If you would like to speak to me about your specific condition, habits, dietary practices, and so forth, I am happy to share what understanding I have gained through my own adversity. And I am happy to share what some of the world's brightest doctors are doing to help their patients overcome pre-diabetes and heart disease. Both are benign food-borne diseases that are easily arrested and reversed.

jim

 

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Permalink Reply by Angela Huntington on May 12, 2015 at 3:26pm

Dear Jim,
Thank you so much for your insight and wonderful words. I appreciated the opportunity to meet you today and felt confirmation that the Lord has directed me to you. I would like to set up a meeting to discuss why course you would recommend. There are so many opposing voices on this issue. But I am certain that you have been an answer to my prayers. I so appreciate your philosophy that there is no one size fits all approach. But I believe you are inspired and knowledgeable and have pioneered a path that is safe and right. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Angela. 801-558-6985

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