Gluttony Series

7 Deadly Sins Series

July 13, 2008

Gluttony

Have you ever been to Lamberts cafe? If not I highly recommend it, Lamberts is a nice sit down four star restaurant that serves food on this nice elegant plates, waiters are all well dressed in tuxes. It is a wonderful experience. Actually the waiters wear suspenders and bow ties, the meals are served on metal skillets. The drinks come in the largest plastic cup you will ever see, and there are peanuts on the floor. It is the home of the throwd roles and a haven for gluttony. The portions at lamberts are about 3 times the size of what a normal person could consume. In addition to that they continually toss rolls at you, offer you fried okra, potatoes, and various other side items. As if that was not enough however everything is all you can eat. If you order a steak and somehow manage to eat it all they will bring you another one.

A few months ago my wife and I were out of town at a marriage seminar in Branson. One of the nights there was a date night. So we went to Lamberts cafe for dinner. I ordered a steak and some how managed to eat all of it. I had 4 barrel sized glasses of sweet tea and a small mountain of fried okra. The waitress brought out another steak as if to say: I bet you cant eat this. Oh yea, you can eat that steak sure¦but can you eat this steak? I like any reasonable male would looked at this and said, no, I dont need it. I am full. No need to try and challenge me to eat more I am bigger than your games. Actually I dove into that steak like a diver into a pool at the Olympics. I was not about to be scared off by a second steak and I ate almost all of it. Bad move. I ate WAY more than I needed to. As a result my stomach was killing me. By the time we got back to the hotel I thought I was feeling better. So we went to the hot tub to relax. Instead of relaxing though, the hot tub broiled the two steaks I had eaten and left me feeling really nauseous. It was terrible. I could not get up in the morning for the first session of the conference on account of my unbearable stomach pain, and it was all Lamberts fault.

This week we are talking about the sin of Gluttony. Gluttony is defined as excessive eating or drinking. That is also how it is understood by our society. A glutton is someone who eats and/or drinks too much. Gluttony then results in an increase in obesity, a trend that we have seen growing in our American culture over the years. The CDC has some statistics that are actually very shocking: Figures In 1990 show that only just over 10% of Americans were obese. By 1995 it was about 15%, by 2000 it was 20%, and by 2005 it was nearly 25%. The percentage of obesity in America seems to be rising on average by 1% every year. This is not just being overweight 61% of Americans are what the CDC calls overweight. Obese is more than that it is being so overweight that you are unhealthy enough to be putting yourself in danger. 1 in every 4 Americans is obese. So this problem is growing rapidly in our culture. Sloth and gluttony have tag teamed us and very effectively. We love food so we eat more than we should but we are lazy so we dont exercise as much as we should. Its no wonder that this sin of gluttony is so rampant in the United States.

There is this wonderfully entertaining story in the Bible about a man who might be considered a glutton. Turn in your Bibles to Judges 3:12. During the period of the Judges there is a trend. Israel does evil, God punishes them by sending foreign rulers to rule over them, Israel cries out for a deliverer, God provides a deliverer, there is a short time where Israel does right in the eyes of the Lord before they turn around and do evil and start the cycle all over again. This story, the story of Ehud and Eglon is one of the earliest events in the cycle of Judges.

Jdg 3:12 Once again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and because they did this evil the LORD gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel. Jdg 3:13 Getting the Ammonites and Amalekites to join him, Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms. Jdg 3:14 The Israelites were subject to Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years. Jdg 3:15 Again the Israelites cried out to the LORD, and he gave them a deliverer Ehud , a left-handed man, the son of Gera the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab. Jdg 3:16 Now Ehud had made a double-edged sword about a foot and a half long, which he strapped to his right thigh under his clothing. Jdg 3:17 He presented the tribute to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. Jdg 3:18 After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way the men who had carried it. Jdg 3:19 At the idols near Gilgal he himself turned back and said, I have a secret message for you, O king. The king said, Quiet! And all his attendants left him. Jdg 3:20 Ehud then approached him while he was sitting alone in the upper room of his summer palace and said, I have a message from God for you. As the king rose from his seat, Jdg 3:21 Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the kings belly. Jdg 3:22 Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it. Jdg 3:23 Then Ehud went out to the porch; he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. Jdg 3:24 After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the house. Jdg 3:25 They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead.