Medicine VIII - Honey

“MY HONEY, MY SUGAR”
God does not use words lightly. Twenty times He tells Israel of a land He has promised for them flowing with milk and honey. God compares two of the greatest realities in life to milk and honey.

I – God compares the glorious of the Promise land to Honey.
In Exodus three Moses is taking care of his father-in-laws flock near Mount Horeb. He gazes upon the mountain and sees a very strange site. He sees a bush burning and yet, it was not being consumed.
Moses’ curiosity is stirred so he leaves the flock and heads toward the burning bush.
As Moses approaches the bush the angel of the Lord speaks to Moses and tells him to take off his shoes of for the ground he is standing on his holy ground.
Remember, the angel of the Lord always pictures the Lord Jesus Christ prior to His coming into the world. Look at what the Lord says in Exodus 3:6.
6 …I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

--The children of Israel had been in Egypt and then in bondage for 430 years. Due to their affliction, they cried out to God for deliverance. God tells Moses that He is going to use him to deliver them from their sorrows.
8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
Note that God compares the land of promise to milk and honey.
From their deliverance in Exodus to their dispersion in Ezekiel God calls His land the land flowing with milk and honey. Why?

HONEY
For thousands of years honey was used as a sweetener to nearly everything man ate but more. The nutritious value and healing properties of honey is incomparable to any other substance on the earth.
Examine the many physical and spiritually applicable qualities of honey:
1 – Honey helps cure osteoporosis.
Solomon wrote, “Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones” (Proverbs 16:24).
The Scripture makes it clear that as pleasant words are sweet to the soul, so the honeycomb promotes health to ones physical body (especially the bones) as kind words adds health to ones mental state.
-Honey is made up of 165 identifiable components that benefit the body.
-It contains amino acids, enzymes, minerals, and vitamins.
The primary amino acid found in honey is proline. (1)
Proline is a major component of collagen. Collagen holds the body together and serves as the chief matrix of which the bone is formed.
(Raw honey with the honeycomb is best. Store bought pasteurized honey is of little value.)
Spiritual application: People crumble in life. The pressures and stress literally beat people down and they break like a person’s bones will who has osteoporosis. Honey has healing properties man will never understand. It needs to be eaten inwardly and applied outwardly for the healing of the body and soul. Spiritually, the honey of God’s word especially (Psalms and Proverbs) will bring much healing to one spiritually.
2 – Honey is an antibiotic.
On March 8, 2000 CNN put on their web this article: (Health alternative.com)
Doctors turning sweet on the healing of honey - By Charles Downey
I quote, “Peter Molan, Ph.D., likes to tell the story of a woman that had a 20-year-old wound.
It was infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, (golden staff) an abscess oozed in an English woman's armpit long after it had been drained. Nothing seemed to help, and the pain prevented her from working.
Then in August of 1999, she read about the remarkable wound-healing properties of honey. She convinced doctors to apply some to the dressing to her arm, and a month later the wound healed. Now she's back at work. 2
Spiritual application: Often, Christians carry wounds around for years. They ooze filth from their lips and actions and attitudes. If man would simply apply the honey from the rock of God’s word, very shortly that Christian would be healed. If you are carrying a grudge the remedy is as simple as applying God’s honey.
3 – Honey is an all around cure.
According to May Berenbaum, Ph.D., a University of Illinois entomologist, "Honey has been used for centuries to treat a wide range of medical problems like wounds, burns, cataracts, skin ulcers and scrapes," she says. "And now various researchers worldwide are also studying -- and finding -- strong antimicrobial (prevents disease) properties in some honeys."
Honey ceased to be a wound dressing when antibiotic dressings were developed during World War II. But, today with the new research -- and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria doctors are realizing again the great healing properties of honey. 3
Spiritual application: It isn’t reasoning or debating or arguing that brings healing to our spiritual wounds. It is applying the ointment of God’s Word and God’s Word alone.
4 – Honey is pure and sterile. No bacteria can live in it.
Honey is of the best topical dressings for wounds and burns because it is sterile. It does not contain bacteria. It contains ingredients that actually fight against and kills bacterial growth.
As-long-ago as 1958 honey was believed to contain unusual healing properties. One skeptical doctor in Fort Collins, Colorado decided to put honey to the test. He placed typhoid-fever-producing bacteria in honey. The bacteria died with forty-eight hours.
He placed typhoid bacillus in honey. It died within five hours.
Other deadly bacteria that deal with bronchi infections, abdomen problems (peritonitis), pleurisy (lung infections), were placed in the honey and all died with four days.
Dysentery-producing bacteria were destroyed in ten hours.
Because honey contains inhibine (kills bacteria) and hydrogen peroxide it is impossible for bacteria to live in honey. 4 Honey kills bacteria.
Spiritual application: Sin can not grow in the life of a Christian whose life is saturated daily with God’s precious, sweet word.

5 – Honey has been approved for medicinal purposes.
In 1999 the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, which is the equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, approved honey as a medicine.
A company in Australia in 1999 began marketing medical honey as a wound dressing in pharmacies there. It's available in the United States through the Internet. (Just buy raw honey with the honeycomb))
Honey helps wounds in several ways. Its thickness provides a protective barrier. The hydrogen peroxide it contains is released slowly, killing germs in the wound.
Some as-yet-unknown ingredients reduce inflammation, while others, perhaps amino acids and vitamin C, speed the growth of healthy tissue.
Honey even makes wounds smell better, possibly because when bacteria in wounds eat honey's sugars, they give off sweeter-smelling gases. 5
WITH the rise in cases of diabetes, more and more people will suffer from foot ulcers that do not heal and may end up needing amputation because treatment of chronic wounds is so difficult.
Today, an alternative treatment based on a remedy used since antiquity is getting increased attention -- smearing wounds with honey. 6
The Journal of the American Dietetic Association published an article in 1987 suggesting that a dose of apple cider and honey three times a day would provide some relief from arthritis symptoms. 7
Spiritual application: God’s word can cure the worse case scenario in your life.
6 – Honey heals arthritis.
If you will study the text in Proverbs 16:24 you will discover that the word for health means, “Medicine or curative.”
A pastor had two joints in his left hand very stiff and nearly frozen together and arthritis in his right elbow. He began mixing butter, honey and the honeycomb together and putting it on warm whole wheat toast.
There was no immediate relief, but about six weeks later, his fingers were free and pain free and the pain in his elbow was almost gone.
Spiritual application: God’s word will lose you your spiritual joints and make you want to serve the Lord.

7 – Honey’s external healing properties are amazing.
Dozens of studies, in animals and humans, have documented such benefits. One of the most convincing reports, published in the 1998 issue of the journal “Burns”, tells how researchers from the Dr. V. M. Medical College in Maharashtra, India, compared honey with silver sulfadiazine, the standard treatment for superficial burns.
The researchers first smeared honey on gauze and used it to dress the burns of 52 patients. Another 52 patients got the same treatment but with silver sulfadiazine in place of the honey.
In the 52 patients treated with honey, 87 percent healed within 15 days, compared with 10 percent of those treated with silver sulfadiazine.
The honey-treated patients also experienced less pain, leaking of wound fluid, and scarring. 8

II – God compares the converting of the soul to Honey.
Psalms 19: 7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward.
Spiritual application: Honey heals infections, burns, arthritis and many diseases within and without the body. Apply God’s principles to your life and God will heal, cleanse, enlighten and rejoice the heart.

SUGAR
Over the pass 150 years sugar slowly took the place of honey.
In the sixteenth century sugar was as expensive as caviar.
In the eighteenth century sugar was a luxury and domestic sugar boxes often had a lock and key.
In 1850 the world produced only about 1.5 million tons of sugar.
By 1890 the production was up to 5 million tons.
By 1950, it reached 35 million tons.
In 1972 the world produced 70 million tons of sugar.
By 2006 the world produced over 110 million tons of sugar. 9
Today sugar has replaced 20% of the food we eat as part of our diet.
5 oz. of ice cream or candy has as much sugar as is in 10 average apples. 10
Most sugar comes from the sugar beet or sugar cane. God designed the plant to have a large amount of fiber to balance the sugar.
Sugar companies have removed the fiber and concentrated the sugar.

In the past 150 years the consumption of sugar has increased from an average of about 1-3 pounds of sugar per person per year to the current average of 120-350 pounds per person per year.
On the average normal diet with 2,000 calories a day a person consumes 135 pounds of sugar.
In 1890 when a person consumed very little sugar cardiovascular disease and cancer was virtually unknown. 11

THE DANGERS OF REFINED SUGAR
Spiritually speaking, as man has taking the fiber out of sugar, so in many churches, the fiber, yea the doctrine, principles and the whole truth of God’s word is not being preached.
Many people want preaching to just be sweet, not nutritious.
Too many preachers are trying to make sermons sweet and attractive rather than healthy.
Look at the following physical and spiritual damage than can take place if we don’t eat God’s way spiritually and physically.

1 – Sugar promotes heart disease.
“Patience with coronary disease and peripheral vascular disease often consume more than twice as much sugar as control groups who show no signs of vascular blockage. 12
*** Many doctors believe it is sugar and not fats which increase the rate of heart disease.
Illustration: Research in India found that heart disease is 7-times more common in the south than the north. This is in spite of the fact that the northerners eat 7-times as much fat than the southerners.
Research found the southerners ate 48 pounds of sugar per person per year while the northerners ate virtually none.
Illustration: Heart disease has increased tremendously the past 70 years in the Unites States. In those 70 years fat consumption rose by 12% whereas sugar consumption rose by over 700%.13
Note: When people eat sugar they get a high, they feel good for a while. They have a burst of energy because the blood sugar rises. When it lowers, weakness, fatigue set in again. The solution is they want more sugar, (a coke, cookie, tea, and candy).
The repetitious cycle can cause many physical and mental problems.
Spiritual application: The honey of God’s word will keep you sound minded, faithful, stable and secure.
You won’t be up and down, up and down. You won’t feel saved one day and lost the next day. You won’t have mood swings.
All of this takes place in Christians that are eating the sugars of God’s word and leaving out the fiber. In other words, many want preachers to preach on the positive and leave the negative alone.
They want the happy messages, the jokes, and the praise times. They want sermons on heaven and hope and wonder and glory. This type of Christianity will produce highs and lows and very little spiritual health.
-Many of them live one thing at church and another thing at home.
-Eat the honey and the honeycomb of God’s word and be a faithful, joyful, loving, stable and sound minded Christian.
There is nothing wrong with joy and laughter and praise and positive preaching, but it needs to be balanced within the context of the message. It is only part of our spiritual diet. It is not all of our spiritual diet.

2 – Sugar promotes intestinal bacteria.
The intestines contain billions of bacteria. When we eat healthy the good bacteria (acidophilus, disbiosis, good micro flora) reigns supreme in our colon.
When we eat sugars it breaks down our immune system and the more harmful bacteria strains such as C & D difficile and E-coli increase by billions. Sugar kills off much of the good bacteria. 13
When we eat to much sugar the bad bacterial takes control. Things which multiply bad bacteria are items such as: alcohol, processed foods, excess anxiety, lack of fiber, birth controls, drugstore laxatives, medications, antibiotics, candy, etc. 14
Sugars play a role in appendicitis, diarrhea, and urinary tract infections.
Scientist performed the worm test.
A study group placed worms in sugar and the worms wouldn’t even eat it.
Spiritual application: when we replace the truth of God’s word with man-made humor and fun, a spiritual imbalance builds up inside of us that will eventually destroy or spiritual health. Our ability to resist temptation breaks down.
We must eat right spiritually if we are to think right and understand this world we live in. Life is not a bowl of cherries friend. It is filled with much love and joy and surrounded with many trials and temptations.
If we are to benefit others we must be well balanced in God’s Word.
3 – Sugar may promote gallstones.
Too much sugar in the intestinal tract can trigger the growth of certain bacteria. This causes the liver to secrete too much cholesterol or too few bile salts. This imbalance allows the cholesterol to come out of the solution and form stones. 15
Spiritual application: If a Christian just wants the joy, praise, positive lifestyle, he or she will develop a hard heart when the whole council of God is preached. Yea, they will reject much of God’s word.

4 – Sugars may produce ulcers.
Sugar rich diets can increase stomach acidity by 20% or more and the digestive enzyme known as pepsin by nearly 200%.
This imbalance of gastric juices can produce ulcers.
Due to the lack of fiber, the sugars mix with the enzymes of the stomach and move quickly into the duodenum harming both the stomach and digestive tract. 16
Spiritual application: God’s word takes time to digest. Any person who wants to get in and get out of church quickly will surly have spiritual ulcers when the truth is preached.

5 – Sugar promotes hyperactivity.
A test study at Yale University Medical School found that sugar intake dramatically increases the blood level of adrenaline in children and is clearly related to hyperactivity in children. 17
When children eat pop-tarts, sugar cereals, syrups, etc for breakfast their sugar level increases ten times. Within five hours, their blood level drops, their concentration drops, they feel weak.
Spiritual application: As children have their highs on sugar, what gives you a high? What is it that makes your day? What do you long for? What do you live for each day?
Is it a soap opera, food, shopping, a hobby or what? If your answer is, “My time with Jesus,” then you are truly eating the honey out of the rock.
Psalms 81: 13-16 Oh that my people had hearkened unto me… I should soon have subdued their enemies… He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.
HOW TO CALCULATE DAILY SUGAR INTAKE
Nearly everything you buy has sugar added to it and 70% of it is hidden. There is sugar in canned soups, baked bens, pasta, canned meats, breakfast foods, salad dressing… Ketchup has 30% sugar. Bouillon cubes are 15% sugar.
A group of rats were fed sugar and a group or rats weren’t. Those that did not eat sugar lived 33% longer than those who ate sugar.
If that is applicable to you and me, it could add many years to your health.

Anything that says, corn syrup, dextrose, corn syrup, fructose, lactose, maltose, sugar… it is still sugar.
Splenda, aspartase, sorbitol, nutrasweet, and artificial sweeteners are more deadly than sugar.

How much sugar are you eating a day?
Soft drink 12 oz 8-11 tsp
Lemonade 8 oz 6 tsp
Tea 12 oz 11 tsp
Hot Cocoa 8 oz 4-6 tsp
Jello ½ cup 5 tsp
Glazed doughnut one 7 tsp
Pie avg. piece 5-12 tsp
Cake 4 oz 8-10 tsp
Syrup 1tbsp 3 tsp
Jelly beans 10 7 tsp
Low fat yogurt fruit 1 cup 7.5 tsp
Frozen yogurt 4 oz 6 tsp
Corn flakes 1 cup 2 tsp
Frosted flakes ¾ cup 4.5 tsp
Froot Loops 1 cup 4.8 tsp
Oat meal cookie (cream) 1 7 tsp
Orange juice 6 oz 5.5 tsp
Potato chips 1 oz 3.5 tsp
Milk 1 cup 2.8 tsp
Hard candy 1 oz 7 tsp.
Check the grams of carbohydrates and sugars on foods and add them together and divided by four. That will give you the teaspoons of sugar in what you are eating.







Bibliography
1 -Medical Training Institute of America, Basic Care Bulletin 13, 1991
2 -On March 8, 2000 CNN (Health alternative.com)
Doctors turning sweet on the healing of honey - By Charles Downey
3 -www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060407151107.htm -
4 -Medical Training Institute of America, Basic Care Bulletin 13, 1991
5 -www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/05/051302_honey.jhtml
6 -www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-woundlab10sep10,1,7976092.story
7 -Medical Training Institute of America, Basic Care Bulletin 13, 1991
8 -www.medbc.com/annals/review/vol_9/num_1/text/vol9n1p33.htm -
9 -America: Drowning in Sugar" www.cspinet.org/new/sugar.html
10 – Ibid
11 - Medical Training Institute of America, Basic Care Bulletin 13, 1991
12 -Ibid
13 - Enzymesarticles.com
14 -Ibid
15 –Ibid
16 –Ibid
17 - www.yalemedicalgroup.org/news/diabetes_