Michigan Camp Meeting 2016: The Harvest is Great

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Jesus' Ministry Illuminates the Path to Optimal Health

David DeRose

1. Natural Strategies to Decrease Your Risk of Infectious Diseases

Father, can we thank you for this time that we can spend together.

How grateful we are to be able to keep us together.

We are here, Lord, not just to be personal with us, but because we know there are bleeding souls out there.

We want to know how to have a conversation.

We want to know how to find the tools for believing something, mental, physical, spiritual.

So I pray that you go to David as he shares today and you will access the wisdom and learning and mental and physical things that you are able to learn today.

Well, Vicki, thank you for the gracious introduction.

It's good to be with each of you in Michigan.

And I'm just gonna be honest with you, it was not all that long ago when we were facing a serious problem, and it may be a problem that you're facing in your churches.

I was working at the time for Weimar Institute, and we were impacting people with the powerful, life-changing health message that God has entrusted our church with.

And yet, many of those people were not showing all that great a spiritual interest in the full message that God had given us.

And so we were praying about how to connect with some of the people right in our own backyard as to how to transition them from health topics to spiritual topics.

Now, you know how it is when you're involved in health ministry at your local church.

Many of you are very actively engaged in that line of ministry.

And you're praying, you're asking God for direction, and Don't ask me sometimes how the Lord connects all the dots or why he does things the way he does, but as we were praying about it, I was impressed that God wanted us to do a series on healing insights from the Gospel of Mark.

Now I know some people kind of scratch their heads, they say the gospel of Mark, but I mean Luke was the physician.

You know, if you're a physician, you're obviously gonna do a series, you're gonna do a series based on the gospels.

You would do it on the life of Luke, the physician.

But no, for some reason, God impressed us to do a series on the Gospel of Mark.

And some 4 or 5 years later now, we've done this series in a number of churches.

We've got 8 30-minute presentations that are designed to be used for discussions in church settings.

So if your church has been doing health meetings, you can invite people to a health series, another health series.

You just had a series on addictions and you maybe had 1 on a cooking class and you're saying, well, what can we invite these people to that's more spiritual, but yet their interest is with what?

And I remember 1 of the folks who came, and being a physician, we're always very cognizant of confidentiality.

And I'm sure if I had asked this fellow before coming, he would have given me permission to use his name, but we'll just call him Ralph, okay?

And so Ralph was actually 1 of our patients at Weimar, and he got the invitation about us offering this Healing Insights series, this health series, once a week, and he came.

And what was exciting about Ralph is he had never opened the Bible before.

And so as we're reading through these stories, I mean, the way it was set up and the way we encourage churches to do it, you show a 30-minute video and then you have a 30-minute discussion group and we had probably 50 people there so we were doing the presentations live this was before it was recorded and then what we did is we actually had small breakout sessions and people were leading these discussions And so what actually happened during those discussions is you'd hear these very sincere remarks.

Like when Jesus spat and used the spittle as part of the vehicle, the tangible vehicle that he was using to heal the man.

Of course it had no healing efficacy in the spittle, but he asked this honest question, Ralph did, well is that how Jesus did all his miracles?

Did he always spit before healing people?

Well, I'm actually hoping to see Ralph in a week.

We're doing a series at the Adventist church he's been attending.

I don't know if he's a baptized member there, but I know he and his wife attend regularly, and that was their introduction to Bible study, but it was through a health series.

So what I'm gonna do in this series, because Jesus' foundation, his ministry is the foundation for our health ministry.

So as we go through a number of different health topics this week, I'm gonna throw in some illustrations that we used in this series on the Gospel of Mark.

And if some of you are interested in picking up the series, we actually do have them here in the Adventist Book Center.

And all the materials we produce are half price here.

So I'll be honest with you, Vicki, and you, you know, having developed health materials over the years, probably have this same feeling.

Whenever I go to churches, whenever I speak at seminars, we always try to reduce all the pricing on our resources.

And it's always a little disappointing to come home, And then people who are just in that venue, they go on our website and they buy the stuff for twice as much and they pay shipping and handling.

And if they're in California, they may even pay tax.

We say, well, why didn't they just buy it when they were there at the camp meeting?

And we have a whole table at the ABC just with your stuff on it.

Oh, you've got some of the stuff in the back of the room?

Well, let's talk a little bit from that perspective, give you an illustration from the Gospel of Mark as we get into some of the topics.

1 of my favorite aspects of health ministry, and I always try to share this when I'm doing a seminar in a church, is the science dealing with relationships and health.

You see, today there is so much health information out there, people could logically ask the question, why should I go to your little church and listen to the local physician or the local health educator or Dr.

DeRose on DVD or whatever you're using, why should I go there when I can watch the experts from Harvard and Stanford right on the Discovery channel, right?

Well here is 1 of the key reasons and when I'm doing a seminar in a church I tell people look around you, you've got community folks and church members, I say look around you Because 1 of the greatest resources you have is not the information, as valuable as that is, but it's the other people here.

And I want to encourage you to come back to this very same venue, because you've got a group of people who want to go on a journey with you to improve their health.

Harvard has been conducting this for years, following both nurses and they also have a male health professional study.

In this particular study, though, looking at breast cancer, they obviously were focused on the women, not that men can't get breast cancer, but it's extremely unusual.

Nearly 3, 000 women in the nurse's health study were identified as having developed breast cancer as they're following them over time.

This particular study looked at a window of time a decade between 1992 and 2002 and what they assessed in addition to a host of other factors was their level of social support.

As they looked at these women over this decade, they found something remarkable.

When they looked at their likelihood of dying from that breast cancer, If the women were socially isolated, as illustrated by that blue bar, they had over double the likelihood of dying during that decade as the women who were more socially connected.

And there was no difference in the stage of the cancers between these women.

So they looked identical if you looked at them on paper, except for their social connectedness.

So they're controlling for what we call, would say, our other confounding variables or other things that may mess up the relationships.

What was even more remarkable is if you looked at all causes of mortality, not just cancer, again there is this striking survival benefit in those women who were the most socially integrated.

This is just 1 example of many studies that tell us 1 of the powerful things that happen in community is enhanced physical health.

And so you can unashamedly say, oh yeah, you can watch someone on television, but if you come to our church, we're gonna actually, there's gonna be people going through this with you, and you're gonna have support, and we've got a group of people that really care about our community, that's why we're doing this program.

And so this is really something that you bring to your community that you don't have to apologize.

Someone could say, but that doctor said something and Dr.

Oz comes to the community, I'm gonna be there right with you.

But right now we gotta take advantage of what we've got.

Well, I so enjoyed Pastor Boonstra's meeting last night, and I decided to throw this in because as I read through the Gospel of Mark, and by the way, we go through the whole gospel in that eight-week series.

It's 16 chapters in Mark and if you do the math that comes out to about 2 chapters a week.

We don't follow it that rigidly, but the point is as we're going through Mark's gospel we look a lot at the writer, the gospel writer.

Luke was a Gentile, no question about that.

But Mark, the early church met in Mark's home.

If you read about Peter's miraculous deliverance from prison, they were praying for Peter in Mark's home.

It was his mother's house, that's the way the writer of Acts, Luke, incidentally, wrote.

But Mark went on the first missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas.

And in Acts 15, as that chapter's concluding after the Jerusalem Council, the contention became so heated between Paul and Barnabas over the future of Mark that those 2 powerful missionaries separated.

Barnabas wanted to take Mark with them on their second missionary journey and Paul didn't.

By the way, Barnabas and Mark were actually related.

2. Longevity Plus- Living Longer and Better

We are glad to be here with you, and someone's got the lights for us, wonderful.

We've been speaking about, just as Vicki introduced, how God is seeking to move people in a direction of abundant health.

And Jesus spoke these words when he was on the earth, I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly.

And so God is interested in that kind of experience for each 1 of us.

We're going to be speaking in this session about something that I call longevity plus.

Longevity plus, and perhaps you'll see why I call it that as we move through our presentation this afternoon.

But I wanna begin by asking you a question.

Have you ever felt like you were missing out on something?

This was from 1 of our recent family backpacking trips.

We live on the borders of the Tahoe National Forest.

And we don't have to drive far to go hiking out in country like this.

So these are our 3 children wearing their best hiking clothes for a picture.

But you might say, no, we don't feel like we're missing out.

We've got, You know, the place where the Lord wants us is right here in Michigan, and we've got beautiful things here too.

I lived in Michigan for several years, and appreciate this part of the country as well.

But often in our lives, we feel that we're missing things on a spiritual level.

And I told you that as we go through this series, I'm going to be sharing with you some insights from a series that we call Healing Insights from the Gospel of Mark.

If you weren't here yesterday, it's 8 30-minute presentations that go through the entire gospel of Mark, especially looking at health implications.

And so 1 of the stories we look at there is actually 1 that comes to us from the context of Mark chapter 10.

In Mark 10, Jesus has been blessing the children.

And there's someone that observes Jesus blessing the children and feels a tremendous sense of lack, even though from a human perspective we would see this man as seemingly having it all together.

We often refer to him as the rich, young ruler.

Boy, you talk about things that our culture values today, right?

Everyone wants to be younger, richer, and have more influence, at least in the secular world.

I know many of you are content right where you're at.

But this man who seemed to have everything came to Jesus.

It says he came running and he kneels to Jesus and he said, good master, What shall I do that I might inherit eternal life?

And most of you know the dialogue that follows.

Jesus knew he was good because he was God.

He was trying to see if this young man realized who he was.

And then Jesus, as he addressed this man's question, longing really for assurance of eternity, Jesus spoke about obedience to a number of the commandments that deal with our relationship with other people.

And yesterday we were speaking some about social health, you could say, well this fits right in with that type of perspective.

But Mark records this detail, that if you don't read all the Gospels, Mark's included, you miss this salient point, It says Jesus looking at him what?

I think it's especially important to realize what the scriptures tell us about Jesus' attitude to this young man Because often as we see the dialogue play out, you know where it's going, we often think in terms of people who love us giving us things, not asking us to leave things.

1 thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven.

And come, take up the cross and follow me.

Now, if I told you something like that today, if I told you to give up a bunch of things, a lot of people would walk out and they'd say, who does that guy think we are?

More importantly, telling us that we've got to give up all these things.

But this is Jesus speaking, and why is he telling this man to leave something?

And that man, that young man, when he hears Jesus' words, it says he left grieved for he had great possessions.

You know, We know in the spiritual realm, accepting Jesus' gift of salvation is tied.

You can't separate it from accepting Jesus as the Lord of our lives.

I remember some years ago, I was teaching in the public college system in New England.

And I visited 1 of the interdenominational Christian groups there on the campus.

And the person facilitating the discussion was telling about how she had accepted Jesus as her savior but not as her Lord.

And this is something that people in evangelical circles talk about.

But I don't read any such experience in the Bible.

If Jesus is your Savior, He's your Lord, right?

And that means that we will be surrendered to Jesus' voice.

I'm not saying we have a perfect walk and every time God asks us something we do it, but the point is, if we accept Jesus as our savior, we're accepting him as our Lord.

And what this young man was being asked to do was to sacrifice and to follow the 1 who he identified as the good master.

So sure there's a spiritual dimension that's first and foremost in this story, but the question I have is, does God sometimes ask us to give up other practices in order to better serve him?

You know, and we have to be careful in health circles.

Tomorrow We'll speak about this in more detail as we speak about brain health.

We're going to look tomorrow, just so you have a preview.

We actually have the DVD, maybe even floating around back there, called The Brain Health Revolution.

But We'll open with the topic dealing with BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

We'll tell you about this amazing compound that your brain makes itself that helps protect you from a host of diseases like Alzheimer's and depression and Parkinson's disease and even stroke.

And in that context, we'll take some time and I'm giving a preview because I want you to see where we're going.

I'm gonna explain to you that no matter how high your BDNF levels are though, you can still have a stroke, you can still have depression, you can still have Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

The point is Jesus is interested in our walk with Him first and foremost and when He asks us to to lay aside certain things, he especially, just like he did with this rich young ruler, is trying to help us have a more dynamic relationship with him.

Now it just so happens that those very same practices increase the likelihood of us living a longer time and having less disease.

But if you don't realize it, we're in a battleground, aren't we?

And there are drunk drivers that crash into people who are following the health message and they end up with complications.

There are diseases that knock on our doors.

So as we speak about healthful living, I remind people this is not a context from which to judge other people.

So we speak about longevity today, as we'll go through some things that can help you live longer and better.

Don't go back to church and say, well look at that person, obviously they look, you know, I mean they're only 30, they look like they're 70.

DeRose's lecture and we better give them our DVD and tell them, you know, brother, sister, I think you are missing the information Dr.

You know, I've noticed over the years, sometimes people that are the most conscientious, sometimes have things that happen to them.

So God is trying to lead us into an experience that invigorates our service for him, no matter what the future holds.

How about most of the disciples, with the exception of John?

Now we say, well sure, you know, Herod was chopping off heads and people were being crucified, but the point is Satan works through disease processes as well.

So let's not forget that as we go on our journey.

And we want to look today at turning back the clock, but we want to realize that it is not totally our prerogative to determine how long we'll live, even though we do have an influence.

Let me tell you 1 more thing while we're speaking about this.

3. The Brain Health Revolution- Optimal Mental Performance of Life

So we're going to be talking right now about the third in our series of 5 topics on brain health.

So in our first meeting together, we spoke about infectious diseases, how lifestyle choices can help decrease your risk of infectious illness.

Yes, hemorheology, blood fluidity and longevity and quality of life, how those things can be enhanced.

And now we're speaking about the brain health revolution.

Well, it truly was a strange place for a church.

It was not a building that looked anything like this or any of the places where you meet.

But if a church is a place where the gospel is presented, there was perhaps no more powerful church any time in the history of this planet, but it did not look at all like a church.

I'm referring, of course, to Golgotha's Hill, where as Jesus was being crucified, he spoke some of the most powerful words ever spoken.

Very little said from the cross, but life changing messages.

And Jesus' example, dying, not just his example, but His actually death on our behalf.

The words of Jesus are recorded in the Gospels, things that actually have some profound social connections.

We've been speaking about social health and how that has a role in our physical health.

It's interesting, as Jesus was on the cross, much of what he spoke really was focused on socially healing.

Forgiveness, a foundational concept as far as social relations and social health.

What about speaking to that thief on the cross, saying that you will be with me in paradise, assuring him and us by extension that he has a place for each 1 of us in his kingdom.

And then his words to John, the disciple John, looking at John and his mother at the cross, pointing to his own mother, entrusting her care to the disciple John.

So these amazing words of social healing come from the cross, but it's interesting to me, as we've been giving you some insights from my series, Healing Insights from the Gospel of Mark, that not 1 of these statements is found in Mark's gospel, which I've been trying to have you believe is a relational gospel, is very concerned about relationships.

And the question might be, well why would none of this, why would none of this find its way into Mark's gospel?

What was Mark concerned about when He was describing what Jesus experienced at the cross.

Actually, it's quite interesting what Mark's emphasis was.

Mark's emphasis at the cross was on the cost of healing.

And I think it's actually an important topic that we discuss as we're here together because we often think about health just being something that we have a choice about.

We talked a little bit about this yesterday.

And ultimately, all of us, you could say, should have died long ago because of sin.

The whole human race should have, but the cost of healing is seen there at the cross.

And so the only words that you hear Jesus speaking in Mark's gospel are very limited.

This 1 here, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

What does this say about what Jesus was experiencing at the cross?

That's right, he was experiencing separation from the Father.

And you know, for us to feel disconnected from God is 1 thing, but for Jesus, who had been 1 with the Father from eternity, to feel the weight of sin and the separation that that entailed, we have no comprehension of what Jesus was experiencing at the cross.

And it's interesting that Mark, twice in his gospel, made reference to the cross when it related to other people.

We looked at this yesterday in dealing with the rich young ruler.

And after Peter made his great confession, Jesus there again spoke of believers taking up our own crosses and following him.

Well, What's so interesting to me about all of this is many of you realize, and we touched on this briefly in my first presentation, the Gospel of Mark is often referred to as the Gospel of Peter.

Peter and Mark were closely aligned, And in fact, Peter called Mark his own son in the faith.

And so many believe that as Mark was writing his gospel, he was especially giving us an insight into what Peter experienced during his walk, those 3 and a half years with Jesus.

But it's so interesting to me because Peter and Mark both struggled with the same problem.

Remember, Mark bailed on the missionary team of Paul and Barnabas during their first missionary journey.

And just as Peter betrayed his Lord, you could say Mark shirked his responsibilities as well, and they really, if you will, in a spiritual sense, demonstrated a lack of self-denial.

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5. Reversing Hypertension Naturally

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