What Do You Crave?

We live in a society that has strong cravings for things, and those cravings sometimes turn into addictions. These things can include food, they can be junk food, which scientists are now saying, a craving for junk food is inheritable if a pregnant woman is consuming junk food during pregnancy, she can actually pass along a junk food craving to the baby. But the behaviors that cause cravings and dependencies include things like tobacco with its nicotine and other doctored drugs and chemicals that are put into tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, mind-altering drugs, various mental stimulants that incite the body to have certain feelings. The Bible states that it's typical today for people to crave things and to go after them with a passion. We live in a very eccentric word, is the new term, I am the center, so it's eccentric, and so it's all about me. It's all about pleasure mechanisms and feeding those five sensory mechanisms and other things that the body can be stimulated by. In 2 Timothy 3, verse 2, it says, But know this, that in the last days dangerous times will come. And what is the source of the dangers that are about to be listed? They are eccentric mechanisms, eccentric involvements, passions, cravings, pursuits that people will have that will affect other people. Verse 2 says, For men, humanity will be lovers of themselves. It's all about me and what I can feed and what I can do for myself. Verse 3, it says they will be without self-control as they go after these selfish passions. Verse 4, it says, Lovers of pleasure, so the feeding of the sensory mechanisms of the body will become the number one passion, and this creates a dangerous environment for people. Verse 6 says, They are loaded down with sins, which is the breaking of God's laws of love. They are taking, they are getting, laden down with sins, led away by various lusts. What do you crave? is the title of the sermon today. What is it that you crave? What do you seek? What are your ambitions on a daily basis? What are those things that you seek, that you push for, that you want, the things that you repeat? What repetitive concepts, mental, physical, action, what are the things that you repeat in your daily life? Today I'd like to examine some human behavior, talk about cravings and addictions, and learn more about where our focus should be and where it should not be, as we go into a time, and now live in a time, where humans are very eccentric and very passionate about pleasing themselves. God made our human bodies and our human minds, and they are very, very complex. Science and psychology will never figure out all the links and all the systems that God has placed into our body that make us human. There's physiological and psychological complexities about you and me that make us what we are. There are various substances that automatically are produced by the body, such as adrenaline, such as dopamine, things like serotonin and testosterone and progesterone and insulin. And one chemical that God made our bodies to secrete are the endorphins. You know, this life isn't all just about work and enduring and slogging through the time that we have on Earth. It's about enjoying it. And God created this life to be enjoyed. And one of the things that really helps humans enjoy life is an ingredient that God made for us to enjoy pleasure.

Through a chemical release of endorphins, God puts you and I in a position of enjoying things. And enjoyment, the pursuit of pleasure, the pursuit of happiness, can become a passion that is either eccentric, and people will focus on that and try to get all the fun and pleasure out of life they can, or it can be a natural byproduct of a godly life that is meted out and balanced in a self-controlled way.

Endorphins is actually a two-part word. It comes from two words. Endogenous and morphine. Yes, morphine. Because the body secretes morphine as part of endorphin, or endorphin, and morphine is a drug. The body also produces opium, or opiates, just like the drug. These are good things when done, used, manufactured, and created for the right reasons. And they add to the enjoyment of life. The encyclopedia says that endorphins are indigenous, opioid, polypeptide compounds. I told you we were complex. And these little complex things are very appreciated by humans. And therefore, there are studies done on them, and people want to know more about them. They resemble the opium, or the opiates, in their abilities to produce analgesia and a sense of well-being. Endorphins also work as natural painkillers.

The effects of endorphins can be enhanced by other chemicals or other substances.

God created them to flourish if and when we live His way of life. Endorphins should be a natural byproduct that pop up almost as a reward system for a job well done, a life being well lived. We should enjoy them every day in many ways. The stimulants that produce endorphins include the following. Accomplishing a task. Meeting a challenge. Odd by creation, like a sunset. Or something that God made this beautiful, like a really pretty woman's face.

Odd by something in nature like hummingbirds that only exist on the American continent, out of the entire world. Or seeing something as marvelous and beautiful as the Grand Canyon or underwater tropical fish.

Being awed by someone and what they can do. Enhanced, your life enhanced or somehow impressed or whatever by someone or something that God has made. It includes laughter. Laughter produces endorphins. And laughter should be a part of life, the fun of life, the enjoyment of bouncing your kid, of seeing the antics that your pet does, the words that your three-year-old can say that just put you in stitches.

Wine. Love. Attention. Recognition. Appreciation. There are many things that can produce endorphins within the body. And this flush of enjoyment, happiness, well-being, the little high that we get.

Now, God intended these things to be a pleasurable part of our life. However, we as human beings are self-centered. We really have served a different God. A God that's all about self and finding ways to get the reward, take the reward without paying. It's sort of a system of theft and cheating, of how to get rich quick without paying your dues, without actually doing anything. And so it is that humans will cheat and try to go straight for the reward of enjoying the endorphins without being a responsible person or living a godly life. It's kind of like a child. You know, if you sit a child down at dinner and you put all the food on the table, what's the child going to want to eat? It's going to go right for the dessert every time. In fact, the child may never want anything but dessert. There are some foolish parents that let their children just eat sweets and that's it, because that's what they become dependent upon. They cut right to the reward. Now, you ought to eat your carrots and your broccoli and your salad and have some starch and some protein and all this. And at the end, you ought to have your reward, your little dessert, you see? Kids aren't like that. Neither are adults. Adults don't want to be responsible either. And so even when it comes to food, what do adults eat? We go straight for the fats that have the flavor and straight for the sweets that burst the taste bud. And so, essentially, fast food, which is out there available, tugs at you and pulls at you with fat and sugar, fat and sugar, fat and sugar. Come and get it. And we'll throw in some caffeine to hype you up on top of it. You know? Now, we as humans like to cut out the responsible part. I mean, who is out gardening picking the beans, you know, stringing the beans, getting the corn off the husk? Who's out there getting the vegetables and, you know, eating the various things that you ought to be eating and baking the potatoes and grinding the flour? Nah, nah, nah. We don't want that. We don't want that. We want to cut right for the best, the best, all the time, you see? Just go right for the good stuff that's part of human nature. We want to cheat. We're warned against going for the easy sweets in life, for the endorphin-generating things, the things that really cause us to have little bursts of nervous tension among the five senses that's so exciting, the sight, the smell, the hearing, the taste, the feeling, you know, those things that excite us, that's what we want all the time.

But we're warned about going for those things because therein is no satisfaction. Therein just becomes sort of an addiction, a compulsion, a craving for that which does not satisfy. In Proverbs chapter 23 and verse 19 through 21, it says, Here, my son, and be wise, and guide your heart in the way.

Do not mix with wine-bibbers. Now, let's stop here a minute. Don't mix with wine-bibbers. Anything wrong with drinking wine? No. The Bible says that wine actually kind of makes the heart marry. Why does it do that? Well, you know, it kind of dulls the senses a little bit, knocks down the pain a little bit, gives you just a little bit of an endorphin as well. And it's just real nice to have a glass of wine.

Now, let's put you back out on your little five-acre farm for a minute. Can you drink wine every day? How many things do you grow? How many animals do you have? You see, out in a traditional agrarian society, how much wine would you have on your place?

How many grapevines would you have? Could you drink wine every day? You know, let's say you made 50 bottles of wine in a year. That would be a lot of wine, wouldn't it? Off your place? Well, there's 365 days, and there's a lot of you in your family. So chances are, wine is going to be one of those, maybe, Sabbath treats once in a while.

You have a glass of wine. But human nature would say, let's have wine every day. Let's get some company to make it. Let's, you know, take whole states and grow grapes and crush them and manufacture this stuff so we can have wine all the time. And beer and, you know, other kind of stuff. Feed that endorphin rush. But he says, don't mix with winebibbers. Just don't go and focus on taking the best of the best here.

Or, he says, with gluttonous eaters of meat. Now, we live in a very odd civilization, but if you go back to the agrarian society, you've got your five acres or a hundred acres or whatever it is, how many animals would you have? Well, maybe you have some chickens, a dozen, fifteen chickens. Maybe you've got some sheep, a couple dozen sheep, maybe, some goats. Now, how often can you eat meat, you and your family? Well, if you start going through the chickens, we'll have chicken, let's see. One day we'll have chicken, then we'll have some lamb, you know. Well, you know, a couple months go by, you're not going to have any animals.

It just works out that way, let alone the fatted calf that you can't afford to, you know, just take your calf and kill it and eat it very often. You just run out of animals real fast. So, over in Africa, people grow vegetables and crops and they eat, and every two weeks they have some meat.

Maybe they can have one of their chickens, maybe they can have one of their goats. But you know, it's a twice a month affair. But meat tastes good, tastes better than those leeks and some of those other vegetables, broccoli and things. So we like to go for the meat. So in this country we saw that problem with feedlots.

You know, down towards Yuma there's a feedlot with tens of thousands of cattle in the same lot. It's the biggest operation I've ever seen. And so that people are going to have their cream and their cheese and their milk, tens of thousands of cows are out there standing in their own feces. And when they can't perform anymore, they grind them up or cut them up and here comes the food supply. You know, you go to your local fast food place and get meat all the time. Meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. We're used to these things and we think any meal of the day that doesn't have a bunch of meat in it is odd.

But what he's saying here in the proverb is, don't go with gluttonous eaters of meat. The point here is, don't focus on the five senses and the endorphin rush and the best of everything and now your focus is on satiating all of your five senses. For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty and drowsiness will clothe a man with rags. The pursuit of those things will eat up whatever it is you have and it will also take out any purpose and really enjoyment in life.

Yet we find that Satan's society compels humans to seek the reward without the work. In Galatians 5 and verse 19 we see this very well evidenced. Our human nature wants rewards without responsibility. Galatians 5 and verse 19, now the works of the flesh are evident. Let's look at these. Adultery. Endorphins are produced by the body in various rates for various things. One thing that produces endorphins is chocolate.

Get a nice little probably two out of ten. Some people get probably three out of ten, a scale of ten, for eating chocolate and they enjoy that. It's good. Another thing that produces endorphins is accomplishing a task. You've heard of the runner's high. Well, it's been proven that the runner's high has nothing to do with long distance running.

Those of us who run miles and you run an hour or whatever and then you end up with the runner's high, guess what? It's not about distance running because it cannot be proven or duplicated in a laboratory environment. But you know what can be? Any task. Any task. And a runner's high is merely a runner goes out and runs and when at the end you get the endorphins. Just like if you build a house or just like if you have a task at work and you work really hard at it and you're done, you get a sense of satisfaction from it.

Another, and I would probably think you probably get about a three out of work usually, endorphins can come from creating a task such as performance and you get a, wow, I've done something grand and then appreciation for that really can raise the stakes and kick that in. One thing that pleasure is drawn from and endorphins come into the body or secreted from is G-forces.

G-forces. Ever seen people on motorcycles? What do they like to do? Go fast. G-force creates endorphins. Every time you goose the throttle in a hot car, every time you go up and down on a, one of those things, yeah, roller coaster, thanks. I could think of as the Ferris wheel. But, you know, the roller coasters, the ups and downs, the starts, the stops, those things provide a certain amount of thrill. Any kind of contraption you can get in in the water, go fast, G-forces produce endorphins.

Now, those produce endorphins, but there's only one that gets ten for ten. And that is lovemaking. That produces the most endorphins of any. Now, when we look here in this Scripture, the works of the flesh, those who are going to cheat and go right for the ten for ten, the granddaddy of them all, first thing I mentioned is adultery and fornication. That is an individual who does not pay the dues. The person who does not enter into a relationship, does not responsibly serve, help, love, contribute, raise a family, pay the bills, make sure everybody's taken care of, listen, help, go through sickness and health and all that stuff, no.

You cheat, you go straight for the endorphin. Same with fornication, outside of marriage. You do not build a family, you don't have a home, you're not paying the bills, you don't have any responsibility, you just go for the endorphins. Uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies. He also will mention envy. What is that? That's a desire for the reward.

When you drive up in your car that you have worked hard for your life up to this point and you finally reward yourself with a car and you have paid the payments, you're paying the dues, you're paying the insurance, you're working it out in your life where you finally have a vehicle and you're paying the insurance. And somebody looks and says, ooh, I want that car.

What are they saying? I want something without paying for it. I want to cheat, I just want it. I want it for me. It goes on. Outbursts of wrath. Endorphins are created by a man who beats a human being. And that's a sad fact of life. There is something about a person who hurts somebody else verbally and physically that creates endorphins. And people will feed off of this. Not just men, women also, but people will feed off of this and get an endorphin rush and then repeat it over and over until you end up being the head of a concentration camp somewhere causing people great amounts of pain like they did in the colosseums back during the time of Rome.

The endorphin rush of seeing people suffer or causing them to suffer.

It talks here about selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, partying. Get out there and party and revel and drink and whatever. Do the five senses as much as you can.

Taking rewards, taking the endorphins becomes a compulsive behavior with humanity. It becomes addictive and it has consequences. And that's why these are dangerous times. Because there are consequences for the perpetrator as well as the victim. Professionals say that relationships, those who become craving and addictive, relationships suffer and often disintegrate. Jobs are lost. There may be problems with the law. Often the addict struggles to stop but feels unable to do so. There's this compelling to go back and repeat. And the endorphins not only feel good and are a draw but there's a secondary problem. And that is, they have a sense of being overpowered by inappropriate behavior. And the person realizes this behavior is inappropriate. It is wrong. And these urges lead to a growing sense of personal worthlessness, guilt and shame. And how do you escape from worthlessness, guilt and shame? Get more endorphins. So the cycle just repeats itself. And the harm, even though the individual knows he's harming himself and others or herself and others, the only place for solace is to go wake up those pleasure sensory agents and chemicals through creating more pain and more problems for people. The victims, created by it, endure anguish, hurt, abandonment and hopelessness. So in the times of the end, the Bible says these are going to be dangerous times. And God is not going to tolerate this type of behavior in his family. He just absolutely will not. Jesus said in Luke 21, verse 34, that his people had better take heed not to become part of this type of society, not the cheaters that skip in and just want the endorphin rush and to feed off all the little rewards at the expense of everybody else. Luke 21, verse 34, he says, but take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the cares of this life. Take heed that you don't fall into this trap, this pursuit of happiness, and that the day, the day of the Lord, come upon you unexpectedly. For it will come as a snare to all those who dwell on the face of the earth. Verse 36, watch therefore and pray always that you may be counted worthy. Counted worthy. A different mind, a godly mind, a godly way of life, to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. In a similar thread, he said in Luke 12, verse 45, that some will feel that his coming is being delayed. This day of the Lord is off a ways, and so, look, in the society we're in, in this pursuit of pleasure and all these opportunities, maybe we should dip in and have some of that. He says in Luke 12, 45, but if that servant says in his heart, my master is delaying his coming, and begins to beat the male and female servants, aha! He doesn't care about them. He gets some enjoyment out of beating them, and to eat and drink and be drunk. His focus is now on awakening all the pleasure sensations that one can get for oneself without living the life that God intended to provide those for us. Verse 46, the master of that servant will come on a day when he's not looking for him, and in an hour when he's not aware, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the unbelievers. Notice the unbelievers, different mindset. They didn't want to live God's way of life.

Addiction goes beyond cravings. I'd like to just mention a little bit about addiction. This comes from the website addictions.org. It says addiction is a complex and profound concept. It is possible to be addicted to almost anything, whether it's a substance like cocaine, a relationship, or addicted to a certain behavior. What do people become addicted to? More often than not, they become addicted to substances and behaviors that produce pleasant senses. Some examples.

This natural morphine and dwarfin can become the God, the goal, the fix. You've heard of addicts by these names. Workaholic. What's a workaholic? A person who is getting an endorphin rush from completing a task, and that endorphin rush is more pleasing and more pleasant than being in relationships with other people. And so, consequently, there becomes a dependency on working. You've heard of chocaholics. That's kind of a funny term, in a way. But some people just cannot leave the substance alone, because it brings them a certain pleasure. And, hey, not only does it feel good, it tastes good, and it looks good. And it's a kind of a win-win situation. You've heard of pornography addiction. What is pornography addiction? Well, you have what God created in a man as the appreciation of the finest, spectacular thing that a man can see on Earth, and God gives that to a man in marriage. And it's a wonderful thing. It produces endorphins. It's a beautiful thing to behold your wife. What do humans want? Cut out any of the responsibility. Go straight for the reward. You get that through pornography. You get it through strip clubs. You get it through hookers. You get it any other way, but you don't have to be responsible. And that includes the age which we live in right now.

Humans rationalize perverse ways to promote it. It's not through God's way, not through common and mutual love and serving. I'd like to ask a question. Why has casual, perverse sex taken over the world? The sexual revolution, it was called. How come that has become so popular? Well, like I mentioned before, it creates more endorphins than any other activity. Ten for ten. What was intended by God as a reward for two people who are working harmoniously, loving, going through life, and being responsible to each other and their children.

This is now taken. Taken by itself. And the results are hurting people all over. I'd like to give you some information from a book called A Patriot's History of the United States. At some point in our recent past, the feminist movement declared the pill and abortion to be the agents of freedom for women.

Freedom for women. Freed from having children that kept her at home. Now she could work, she could pursue a career, she could get out of the house, she could compete with men. She was free. The result, however, has been greater oppression from women than women ever felt before. The reason the book says this is the pill and contraceptives promoted greater promiscuity. Promiscuity comes with no responsibility. No responsibility on the man's side, no relationships that bind. And with freer sex, instead of a reduction in children, actually more pregnancies have taken place than ever existed in children. The reason it didn't exist before, and to cope with that, is abortion.

So consequently, a man now has no responsibility whatsoever. He can merely go for the ten for ten, walk away, and if the woman does get pregnant, the comment is simply, well, go get an abortion. She has not helped herself in any way. Pregnancy has increased, but no responsibilities.

Additionally, contraceptives allowed women to delay having children. That enables them to get a degree, a higher degree, a higher-paying career. These have become dependent on in two-income families. Now, when I was a child, my parents bought a house, a two-bedroom house. They had three children. My dad had a job, and they were proud of that house.

That house was 850 square feet, the size of a large room in a modern house. Nobody would think today of getting excited about moving into an 850 square foot house. You know what? Today, women are required, expected, to have a high-paying career. In fact, men prefer their wives to have the higher income, if at all possible, according to this book. Now, the largest homes in history, fancy cars, travel, entertainment, clothing, and all the things that go with having two salaries become a requirement. And that requirement is, a woman must always work.

Must always work. And work means stress. And stress means divorce. And so marriages don't last. And with a free environment, where people can move around, who gets hung out to dry? The woman. The one who works at work and works at home. The one who needs the relationship, but no one is required to maintain a relationship.

It turns out, according to the book, that a divorced woman cannot marry a man of her own age. When you think of remarrying, a woman is at a great disadvantage, because a man will, according to the book, always marry younger. He'll always go for somebody younger, somebody more appealing to him. And therefore, it leaves the older woman responsible for herself, responsible to carry her own burden.

It also puts added pressure on younger women, because now there's two age groups going after all the young women, both the young men and the older men. And when marriages take place within that age group, and the double income takes place, and the divorce takes place, the same course just repeats itself more and more and more. In God's society, let me say this again, in God's society, a man and a woman are bound in a loving relationship for life.

A man will always appreciate and always get thrills from his wife, his own wife, that he is focused on, because he's not looking anywhere else. A woman will always be cared for and nurtured, and the family and the children that come from that will all enjoy endorphins to the day they die. Proverbs 5, verse 18 and 19 says this, Let your fountain be blessed. It's talking about, on your property, you have a well. Let your water well from which you draw your life, let that be blessed. And here's how.

And rejoice with the wife of your youth. It didn't say rejoice with your wife in her youth. You always rejoice with the wife of your youth, because she is always the apple of your eye. And she always brings endorphins to you in many different ways. In verse 19, it says, And the result of this type of living we can see in Psalm 128. This is one of our hymns that sometimes we sing. Psalm 128. Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways. Really blessed! You want the endorphins to flow, the happiness in life. Blessed is everyone who respects God and walks in his ways. When you eat the labor of your hands. You know, it's just fabulous when you go out and you're responsible, and what you do, and the payoffs that come from that, the accomplishments, the rewards, the actual food that you eat, or the tasks that you perform, the things that you build, that home that you make, the sunsets that you see, the children you hold on your lap, the grandkids that come along, the puppies and the animals, and everything else. The feast that you attend, the Sabbaths, the friends that you have, right here, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.

Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, your children like olive plants all around your table. Behold, thus the man shall be blessed who fears the Lord. That's what God intends, and that is the full, rich, endorphin rush that God intended for this lifetime.

And it's there, it's great. There's no kickbacks, and it doesn't hurt anybody. It's honorable. It's full of integrity and appreciation from everybody that comes in contact with it. Alcoholism is one of the common addictions that are out there. Alcoholism needs to be understood, really along with drug addiction, for what it is.

It's unique. It's a change both in physiology and psychology of the body. It's really impossible once a person has reached the state of what is called alcoholism that is defined as a disease to return. Now, if you went downtown and you saw a guy lying on the street and he's got an empty bottle there and he's kind of passed out, would you respect that person? No, you wouldn't. However, that person has an attribute about him or her that is more respectable than the same attribute in you and me.

And that oftentimes is the amount of effort and will and desire that they use to try to stop being an alcoholic. The very thing that we disrespect them for, probably they should get more admiration for than you and I have. Because a person who is trying to overcome alcoholism will use more self-will, more self-control. They will go up against the wall harder and fight harder than probably you fought anything in your entire life.

But they will lose. And that's when we disrespect them. They will lose. The same with a drug addict. A drug addict will try to stop and try to stop and go through all kinds of things. The same often applies with smoking. Those of you who smoke or have smoked understand that it's not just the nicotine, but it's the chemical concoction that the companies put in there. Recently, they started running ads in the last few years telling teens not to smoke. The cigarette companies did. At the same time, the cigarette companies added a concoction of addictive chemicals to their tobacco, some ranging as high as 25% higher than it had been before, to make sure that the person who uses tobacco will pay them money every day of their life from now on.

And the tobacco companies will have that stream of income, and there's nothing they can do about it. You probably know stories like, I know the big marine guy who could do anything in life he wanted, except stop smoking.

And had to check into a facility for some time in order to get some help. And you see it all over the newspapers and the TV today about various solutions that usually don't work. Some of these substance addictions, including alcoholism, get into a person and compel them, drive them. Alcoholism is really interesting because what was just alcohol, and it was a pleasant substance, something that God made to go well with the body, was abused, abused to the point to where a change took place in the body.

And it flipped from being alcohol to poison. And when that flip takes place, the body and the mind zero in on that poison, and it will have the poison. There's no doubt it will obtain that poison. There's nothing that the will of the individual really can do to stop it other than stay away from all forms of alcohol. Because once that substance is tasted or sampled by the body, it will have it. It will have a lot of it. Or once you remember a man pleading with me in a VA hospital to bring him some alcohol, sneak it in, slip it in, please, you've just got to get me some alcohol.

And the nurse told me he had just drank a bottle of Vitalis hair tonic, which is an oily substance that men used to use, but it had a little bit of alcohol to kind of cut and dry. And he drank that. It just shows how the body will zero in on a substance once a person is a true alcoholic. Not an abuser, not a binger. Those people are alcoholics to be, and they'll get there some faster than others.

But an alcoholic, him or herself, is one where a change has taken place, and the body and the mind are driven to get that poison into their body. And they simply can never have alcohol again. It's something that is not just a matter of will, it's not a matter of self-control. It is actually something that is taken over, in a sense.

It's stronger than they are. So we are not to be dependent on anything. We are to exercise self-control over our mind and our bodies. The Bible tells us that. So if there is anything that you or somebody you know of is addicted to or does not have control over, that needs to be dealt with.

And perhaps professional help is the way to do that. The result of alcoholism can be seen in Proverbs chapter 23 verses 29 through 35. Proverbs chapter 23 will begin in verse 29.

Who has woe? You know, you've heard of the woes at the end time, the big woes of Revelation. Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Sorrow is so deep, it's just the deepest, darkest form of depression. Who has contentions? Who has complaints? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes? The answer is verse 30. Those who linger long at the wine and go in search of mixed wine.

This is where alcoholism takes an individual, takes them down to the very bottom. They're going to lose their family, they're going to lose their career, they're going to lose every physical possession they have, and they're going to be in the gutter until, finally, somebody takes them by the hand and gets them out of that and tries to rebuild some sort of life.

Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly. You don't want to cut the corner here. See? What he's saying is there should be some wine in an average person's life. You know, in your little farm you can grow enough grapes and you'll probably have a glass every Sabbath or whenever you have wine. But don't go looking on the wine because it has some endorphins and so I'll have some for lunch and I'll have some for dinner, and I'll get more at the store and I'll have more and more of beer and wine and mixed drinks and all these stuff because it gives me a good feeling.

Verse 32, it lasted, bites like a serpent and stings like a viper. It'll come after you when you become an alcoholic. Your eyes will see strange things and your heart will utter perverse things. You will have a demon. Whether it's by drugs or by alcohol, a demon will come and you will see perverse things and your mouth will speak perverse things. Some of the harshest, most awful things that come out of a human being will come out of your mouth when you're drunk. And people and you afterward will say, I don't know what got into that person.

Well, a demon got into that person and that's what trips are on drugs and that's what binge alcohol and all that stuff that goes on and the actions and the fighting and the killing and the death by words that takes place. It's a terrible thing. Yes, you will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea or like one who lies at the top of the mast saying, they have struck me when you're not hurt.

They have beaten me, but I didn't feel it. When shall I awake that I may seek another drink? That's a terrible, terrible place to go. So young people and old people alike, enjoy the endorphins that come from the substances God said we can have in moderation. But if you ever cheat and cut and just go feed on those things, they're going to come back and bite you in a big way.

There is a high that results from completing a challenge. The Bible says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. You know, if I went out here and built a house, I saw a wooden telephone pole out here and an old sheet of plywood and there's some trash in the dumpster. I could, you know, knock together a little shack out there. Now, if I stood back and looked at it, you'd think I'd get an adorphan rush from my conquest, my accomplishment. It might fall on me and hurt me.

But you go up north into the northwest United States and places like that, you'll find some people up there who take logs. And they go out and take trees that are just right and they'll cut these trees down into long logs, they'll strip the logs, and then they'll look at how the log moves and how the knots fashion and they'll start to line up logs and then they'll cut a V wedge in another log and then make those logs just lay perfectly together.

And it's an art form and up rises a log home. And these log homes are then lacquered on the inside and outside and the stains and lacquers bring out the wood grain in just a beautiful environment. And when you see a log home that's done by an artisan, it's a sight to behold. Now you can get an endorphin rush out of finishing one of those. You can get an endorphin rush every time you come home like, wow, look at that house! So whatever you do, do it with your might. Whatever your project is, if you really do it with skill, you're going to get an endorphin high from completing that if it's done well.

And God wants that for you. Endorphins reward a job well done, whatever the job is. It's been proven, as I said, in laboratory experiments, whatever job is done well. But Satan Society wants to go right for the reward, right for the dessert. The same endorphins are available through personal sports by completing a video game.

You can get the same endorphin rush. You don't have to be responsible. No. You can do an artificial. You can go to a movie theater and see somebody trying to find the Holy Grail or get the hidden treasure and you go with them and it's this big quest and there's all kinds of dangers. And at the end, the hero gets whatever it is and he's saved and everybody lives happily ever after and you come out of the theater, yes!

That was a good movie! Why? Well, your brain thinks you've accomplished something, but you haven't. And it wasn't even true! And so what do you say? Let's go see another movie! And there's a thousand things like that. You can take a basketball and throw it through a hoop every time it goes in. And you can do things with earphones on or personal computers. You can get on a skateboard and challenge yourself to going down a bunch of steps, only sliding down the rail and maybe surviving.

And if you make it, wow! That was good! I've seen a guy out here on US 60, doing a hundred miles an hour on a motorcycle, popped on one wheel, holding it all the way down the fast lane of the freeway. That's gotta be a rush! Yeah? You survived that? There's some endorphins for you! Motorbike tricks, sandrails on the dunes. What else can we come up with? Jump out of airplanes, parachuting, speed racing. Either yourself or somebody else, go fast! Cliff jumping, paintball, shoot your friends, or literally, gang shootouts.

It's pretty exciting, you know, when you load up at night and you go out to live or die. I remember a teen called one of my daughters one night, and I went, just loading up here, going out with the gang, and do some shooting tonight. I don't know if I'll ever talk to you again. You know? Kind of a rush!

And so it is, that whatever people can come up with might be burglaries or murders or dangerous challenges that harm bystanders. Any imaginable thing that the self can get involved in. See, you cut the corner on real life. You cut the corner on responsibility and serving and helping, and you just go find those things that can give you a rush.

Again, in 2 Timothy 2, verses 3 and 4, let's look at some words I didn't read the first time. In the last days, perilous times, dangerous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves. Verse 3, unloving, don't care about others. Unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of love.

See, the completing of challenges and tasks can be almost anything. And I'm sure a lot of things will come to your mind as you think about some of the things that our society does with regularity simply to create endorphins. The creating of ungodly behavior comes in part from a pursuit of these endorphins.

It's easy to see what the Bible says, what society is doing, and then you go find out what causes endorphins. They go together. It adds up. But when even those things don't satisfy, then there are other sensory enhancers. Stimulants, relaxing depressants for stress, alcohol, various drugs, caffeine, tobacco, chocolate. Each offers some kind of sola, some kind of escape. The question comes back to the title of the sermon, What Do You Crave? What do you crave?

Physiological studies are being conducted to examine the role that craving brings to repetitive, pleasurable, enjoyable, and harmful processes. It's sort of a new look that psychologists are beginning to examine here, and they're finding some things. In Physiology by Dr.

Raymond Anton, What is Craving Models and Implications for Treatment? The paper that this doctor wrote talks about the pleasurable processes, like alcohol abuse, nicotine, where tea came from, English tea. Tea was introduced to England by the government because the people were so miserable, so poor, so unhappy that they began to grow tea in Ceylon and Kenya and other places and brought it back, along with sugar, so the people in their misery could have a stimulant. And guess what? The English fell in love with tea with a lot of sugar. And when they came over here, they brought it with them. And Americans and the colonies enjoyed tea until such time as we had a little problem with the King of England, and we substituted tea for our own stimulant, coffee, which we could get from other sources.

So it cut off any dependency on the crown. That's why Americans drink coffee and the English drink tea, both with a lot of sugar. These things are things that people use to add some artificial happiness to their life. Well, anyway, why do we have these cravings? He says, The prolonged presence of pleasurable substances induces change in brain cell function. This is what they're finding. The adaptive changes create memories of the pleasant effects. So when negative things like stress, anxiety, or depression bring problems, your mind triggers memories of the relief.

Now, as long as these things have been around fairly constantly, fairly constantly is the key. You've had alcohol fairly constantly, you've had chocolate, you've had work, you've had whatever, and these things have been fairly constant, then the mind sets up a memory process, and when it goes under stress, anxiety, or depression, the memories of relief are then triggered.

And those changes cause an imbalance in brain activity that results in craving. What are we, God's children, to crave? Think we're supposed to crave anything? Actually, we are. God wants us to crave things. What is our life to be about? Well, first of all, let's just say this. It's to be as different from society as day and night. In 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 4, it says, But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that the day of the Lord should overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light, sons of the day. So our way of living is not to be like society. We're to come out of this world. We are to be as stark contrast in our life, in our manners, in our cravings as day is tonight. We are not of the night, nor of the darkness. Verse 7, For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. That's one mentality. But let us watch and be sober.

For those who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love as a helmet, the hope of salvation. These are the things that we are to be about.

Now with that mentality of faith, the absolute trust and awe in God and the living of godly life, the love that goes along with that, the agape love, what should our life be craving? God's children are to crave something different than the world. Do you remember, Jesus said in Matthew 6, 33, Seek you first. What does that sound like? Seek you first. Seek you primary. Seek you foremost. Another word for that would be crave. Crave the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek you first above all in life. In other words, have this craving for the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

That's what we should be craving. There's something else we should be craving. Over in Matthew, Jesus also said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and might. That sounds like a craving, doesn't it? That's pretty powerful. With all your heart, your soul and your might, you want to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Now those are the cravings a Christian should have. Seeking, loving with everything you've got. And should we have sort of a repetitive addiction in these things?

Well, it turns out in the model prayer that it should be a daily thing to seek God, to seek the kingdom, to seek repentance, to seek righteousness, to love others and get God's help and look forward to being in His family. It should be a very repetitive thing that we do with passion. It should be our addiction, our craving, as it were. Those are the things that should propel a Christian, not a selfish, cutting corner, cheating, sort of going for a personal endorphance.

We are to live this different kind of life. As Romans 13, 13 says, Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry or drunkenness, not the pursuit of these endorphin-creating things, not in lewdness or lust, not in strife and envy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. Don't even go there. We actually are to obtain a different kind of runner's high, if you will. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9 and verse 24, Do you not know that those who run a race all run, but one receives the prize?

Now you will get a runner's high at the end of a race, but imagine the high you get if you get the blue ribbon to go with it and all the cheering from the audience. That's what you really want. I run a lot of races, but I haven't gotten as many blue ribbons as I have run races. It's those blue ribbons that when you win first place, maybe set a record, those are the ones that really kick in the endorphins.

And every time you even go back and think about it, you get a little endorphin trickle. Wow, that was good. That was quite an accomplishment. So what's he saying here? You run in a way that you may obtain first place. And everyone who competes for the prize of God's kingdom is temperate, or moderate, or self-controlled in all things. Now they obtain...they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. In verse 27, he says, I discipline my body and bring it into subjection. That's what we're to be about.

We're with God's Holy Spirit to look at all these temptations and then have self-control. That's one of the ingredients or one of the byproducts of having God living in you, is the self-control to say, you know what? No, I don't want to make an end run for an endorphin rush. I want to live life the way God intended it and receive the real blessings, the real enjoyable endorphins, the ones that everybody says, those are good, those are great.

They're respectable, they're admirable. In conclusion, what do you crave? What recurring daily pursuits are in your mind? Is it those things like Jesus Christ gave us in that model prayer outline? Or do you wake up and tend to think of the world and its passions and the endorphin rushes that can be gotten by cutting corners and being self-centered?

Well, God wants us to crave godliness with a passion. And that means to love, to serve, to give, to repent, to live godly lives. Titus 2, verses 1-8 summarizes this for us. In conclusion, let's read Titus 2, beginning in verses 1-8. He says, But as for you, as for you, not society, not anybody else, as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine, that the older men may be sober, reverent, temperate, moderate, self-controlled, sound in the faith, in love, in patience, in perseverance.

It's what the old men need to organize and direct their lives in. Verse 3, the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, not given to wine, but the Bible does pat us on the back if we are given to hospitality, loving and serving others.

And they should be teachers of good things, and that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. Verse 6, likewise, liken to these other things, and including these other things, exhort the young men to be sober-minded.

Sober-minded. In all things, showing yourself to be a pattern of good works. In doctrine, showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that one who is an opponent may be ashamed, having nothing evil to say of you. The ultimate happiness, the ultimate endorphin rush, the ultimate achievement will come in the resurrection. When Christ says to you, well done, my good and faithful servant, that's going to be a rush. And it also says in the Bible that at the right hand of God are pleasures forevermore. So let's concentrate on the true happiness that God gives us in this lifetime, and let that flow into the eternal happiness that God is promising us in His kingdom.