Sermon Tone Analysis

The last of the Seven Deadly Sins is gluttony.

This is an appropriate Sunday to preach on it.

Most of you know that this last Wednesday was Ash Wednesday which, in the traditional church calendar begins the Easter Season.

What you may not realize is that the day before Ash Wednesday is Shrove Tuesday.

The name most of you know it by better is Mardi gras.

In Southern Europe it was a time of universal partying and gluttony.

People would gorge themselves before the long Lent fasting period.

It is a sin we obviously don't hear much preaching about it these days.

Maybe because too many American preachers are over-weight from too much fried chicken and trips to Ryan’s.

It is a sin that strikes a little too close to home, and most preachers like preaching on their congregation’s sins and not their own!

Gluttony is one of those sins we assume other people – big people, I mean really big people – are guilty of.

But I submit to you this morning, that it is a sin more of us are guilty of than cares to admit.

While it may not be a sin you or I commit on a regular basis, it is, never-the-less a sin most of us have committed in the past.

And, in the era of 72-ounce big-gulp cups, super-sized burgers and fries and all-you-can-eat restaurants, it may be a sin we commit this week.

What is gluttony?

One quote I found said, A glutton is the person who takes the piece of pastry you wanted.

The dictionary defines a glutton as "A person who eats or consumes immoderate amounts of food and drink."

And, if we go by the pure letter of the law, most of us would not be considered gluttons by that definition.

Praise God!

But notice that the definition does not say: "A person who constantly eats or consumes immoderate amounts of food and drink."

We may not be habitual gluttons, but it is a sin that most of us have been guilty of at one time or another.

Let me put you to the test by asking you a series of diagnostic questions.

Have you ever heard these words coming from your lips?

"Whew I ate too much!"

If so, then maybe you've committed the sin of gluttony.

Or how about this phrase: "If I take one more bite, I'll bust"?

If so, then maybe you've committed the sin of gluttony.

Or how about his famous phrase, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing!"

If you've used that phrase, then maybe you've committed the sin of gluttony.

Why was over-eating considered a deadly sin by our spiritual forefathers?

They believed, and rightly so, that self-indulgence is the enemy of gratitude.

The early church fathers believed that a person's appetites are linked.

Full stomachs and quenched palates take the edge from our hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Ultimately, gluttony is not about over-eating; it is about overindulgence.

It is the mad pursuit of the bodily pleasures that never completely satisfy.

That means that gluttony can apply to too much television watching, too much shopping, too much computer usage, as well as too much food consumption.

Gluttony – in whatever form it takes – spoils one's appetite for God.

This is exactly the situation found in the text I read a few moments ago and provides the foundation for my first point .. .

! I. GLUTTONY FOCUSES OUR ATTENTION ON THE SUSTENANCE RATHER THAN ON THE PROVISION OF THE LORD

#. the people of Israel have been wandering in the desert for only a few months if not just weeks

#.

every day, God miraculously provided a substance called manna, to sustain them during their march to the Promised Land

#. but very quickly they became tired of manna

#.

I’m sure there are just so many ways you can fix manna

#.

I can just hear some Jewish husband complaining, “Manna casserole again!?”

#. the blandness of the manna compared with the spicy food of Egypt prompted a wholesale rebellion against Moses and the Lord

#.

God was angered, but He is also longsuffering

#. the Scriptures tell us that God caused a wind to blow which brought flocks of migrating quail right through the camp of the Israelites

#. all the Hebrews had to do was knock the birds down and pick them up

#. and they did it by the bushel basket full

#.

Numbers 11:32 tells us that every person who caught quail collected no less than 10 homers of quail each

#. if you have a good study Bible it probably has a footnote that tells you that 10 homers is equal to 60 of our bushel baskets!

#. now, Exodus 12:37 tells us that 600,000 men took part in the exodus from Egypt along with women and children

#. do the math: lets assume that just the men caught quail: AND if each man caught 60 bushels worth of quail, that equals 36,000,000 bushels of quail, AND if one bushel basket will hold 50 quail THEN that equals 1,800,000,000 birds!

#. talk about a pig-out party!

#. and that is exactly what the Israelites did – they pigged out

#. instead of giving God the glory for the miracle of providing the people such a bounty, they began an binge of lustful gluttony that focused instead on the meat instead of the Master

#. they failed to give thanks

#. they neglected to recognize God for the miracle

#.

God became angry

#. the bible says that while the meat was still between their teeth, the Lord unleashed His wrath against them and sent a severe plague that killed many of them

#. the place where this happened was named Kibroth-Hattaavah which means graves of craving because there they buried the people who had craved food more than God who had given them the food

#.

we also have a plague in America due to overeating and over-indulgence

#. it’s called coronary heart disease!

#. 14,000,000 Americans suffer from it

#.

almost 500,000 Americans die from it every year making it the leading cause of death in the United States

#. and while smoking plays a part as well as stress and even heredity, the biggest culprit is the American diet

* ILLUS.

A Jewish Proverb says, /“Gluttons dig their graves with their teeth.”/

#. our early spiritual fore-fathers considered gluttony a sin because it focuses our attention on the sustenance rather than on the provider of the sustenance

#.

I submit to you that to eat anything without giving thanks to God for it or recognizing God as the provider of it, makes us a glutton

!

II.

GLUTTONY IS A DISTORTED EMPHASIS ON FOOD THAT VALUES FEEDING THE BODY MORE THAN THE SOUL

#. the early Christian theologians understood gluttony in different ways than we do

#. the first is the obvious – simply eating too much

#.

another was simply giving eating too much attention

* ILLUS.

Most of you are familiar with the stories that revolve around a bear named Pooh.

Pooh Bear's favorite thing in the world to do is eat – especially honey.

In one conversation, Rabbit asks Winnie the Pooh, "When you get up in the morning what is the first thing you think of?" Pooh Bear ponders the question for a moment and answers, "The first thing I think of in the morning when I get up is, What am I going to have for breakfast!'"

#. in the Old Testament we find a man named Esau who had a distorted emphasis on food

* Genesis 25:28-34 /"Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob.

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished.

He said to Jacob, Quick, let me have some of that red stew!

I'm famished!"

Jacob replied, First sell me your birthright."

Look, I am about to die," Esau said.

What good is the birthright to me?"

But Jacob said, Swear to me first."

So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.

Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew.

He ate and drank, and then got up and left.

So Esau despised his birthright."/

#. he valued a full stomach even more then his birthright which was his spiritual heritage

#. was Esau really about to die from want of food?

#. it is very doubtful

#.

Esau was expressing the very same sentiments we do when we exclaim, /"Honey, when will dinner be ready?

I'm about to starve to death."/

#.

Esau's philosophy is echoed by the attitude of the rich man Jesus preached about in Luke's gospel

#. the man looked at his abundance and said to himself: /"You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.

Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."/