Sin Physically Manifested: The Subtle Symptom You’re Ignoring

Today on Radiating Faith, a ministry subseries of the Couple O’ Nukes Podcast, I bring a message born from personal conviction and a surprising source: a dental visit. For the first time in my life, I was told I had the beginning of a cavity. What started as frustration quickly became a lesson from God about sin, accountability, and discipline.

In this sermon, I draw parallels between the physical formation of cavities and the spiritual formation of sin. Just as bacteria and acids slowly erode enamel until deeper damage sets in, sin often begins subtly—through overindulgence, gluttony, or lack of discipline—before it breaks down our relationships, our character, and our faith. I unpack the stages of cavity development and connect them to how sin festers, spreads, and ultimately infects our lives if left unchecked.

I also explore how our environment and upbringing play a role in our spiritual susceptibility, much like genetics and oral health conditions make some people more prone to cavities. Whether it’s addiction, gluttony, or worldly indulgence, discipline remains the cornerstone of both dental health and spiritual health. I emphasize the importance of fasting, prayer, scripture, and community fellowship—our spiritual “brushing and flossing”—to prevent decay before it takes root.

This sermon should be your reminder that even small physical symptoms can reflect deeper spiritual realities. Just as dental checkups and professional care help us maintain oral health, we need accountability, pastors, and fellowship to keep our faith strong. Through reflection, prevention, and discipline, we can guard against spiritual cavities and live in obedience to God.

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Radiating Faith the Ministry Subseries on the Couple O' Nukes podcast. I'm Mr. Whiskey, and I was recently convicted. One of the things I love about God is how creative he is. You know, when we look at humanity, the sculptures outside in museums, the artwork from paintings to pencils, to just the way gardens are arranged in an artistic design, we see reflected in US creation, creativity, and that comes from the creator.

I love how creative God is and. Maybe today's sermon has done before. I thought it was a bit creative, and I love the way that this sermon came about, the conviction. Now, some people might not like this sermon, but I think it's a great call to accountability. Accountability always upsets people, but I want y'all to know that the conviction came from self-accountability.

What I'm about to preach to you came about because of my own failure. To give you a backstory, I haven't. Been to the dentist in about three years. I've gone twice now in the past month, but when I got out of the military, how it works is you have to have a final physical exam, and this includes a dental exam as well.

Within a certain timeline you have to have one, and it's about six or eight months, I'm not sure. But essentially, I didn't get it the last day before I got outta the military. I got it a couple months before that. Then the process with the VA and arranging, you know, insurance and disability and how is dental going to be paid for.

You know, that took quite a while. And then just life and the civilian transition on top of it, that's why it took three years. Now mind you, I have good dental hygienic practices at home. However, it's great to get that professional treatment, and we're gonna get into that in the sermon today as well. That being said, ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in my entire life, I've always had a perfect track record when it came to cavities, when it came to my teeth, not so much right.

My baby teeth refused to come out and I had to get 12 teeth extracted at once. So I basically was toothless for quite a little while there as a kid, I got all 12 out at once. It was a painful experience and a painful memory was eating pudding and soup and ice cream for just a couple days in a row.

And I went to the dentist recently. The hygienist said, this is amazing. Your teeth are in such good condition for three years of no professional work or examination. And I, I'll admit it, I was feeling great. I was like, that's amazing. Thank you so much. I need to, it inspired me to continue to maintain my dental habits at home and I was super excited.

She said, no cavities. So far, but the so far part did not go in one ear and out the other. It didn't go in at all. You know, I just heard, and you've never had cavities, so I assumed she was speaking inclusive of the present tense as well. But when the dentist came in, she said, oh, you've got a tiny little speck that's becoming a cavity.

And I was so. I was frustrated with the hygienist there because I was like, I thought you said no cavities. But she meant from what she could see so far on my past records, there were no cavities. I'm grateful for it because it has led to this sermon. Uh, I wish I didn't have to get a cavity to have this sermon, but it is what it is, right?

God is so good at using the results of our failures to teach others, and so I am grateful for that and so. Today, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be getting into cavities and faith. If you saw the title of this sermon, I described it as a physical manifestation of sin, a subtle symptom, often overlooked.

That's because I guarantee a majority of people when they get a cavity, faith doesn't come to mind. God, and sovereignty and loyalty and discipline don't come to mind. All they think is, man, I've been lacking. I've been eating too much junk food or. Ugh. I'll just go to the dentist more often, or I'll just, you know, brush my teeth more.

Maybe I'll get an electric toothbrush. Whatever your casualty response actions are to the information of having a cavity, you're gonna take those. Some people don't change their habits at all, and we'll get into that. But when I got this cavity, you know, I was convicted in my spirit. I said, this is a teaching moment for God and from the scriptures.

We're gonna talk about gluttony, we're gonna talk about fasting, we're gonna talk about discipline. That's gonna be the number one thing, discipline. I'm so excited for that. And with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, when I got that cavity, I really was inspired. And so before we get into the word of God.

I wanna share about the conviction a little bit more because.

Out of all the days that I could have done this sermon yesterday, the day before yesterday, the day before. The day before yesterday, right. I had waited and set it up for today, and lo and behold, God's timing was with me because the verse of the day for the morning, I have two abs. One at night, one in the morning.

The morning app sent me a verse. Proverbs 17. Verse one, this blows my mind. Y'all listen to this. Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife. Out of all the quotes in the Bible, thousands, hundreds of thousands of quotes that could have been sent to me this morning from the app.

Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife. It ties in perfectly to everything we're gonna talk about today. So that to me, just furthered my conviction even more. The Lord is with me. This is his timing. He wants me to put this message out there. He even sent me some extra backup for the message.

So that is just beautiful to me. Family like that is amazing. And we're gonna expound on that quote in a little bit here, but like I said, first I want to get into cavity formation. Now, for those of you who don't know, your mouth has bacteria in it. I know that sounds gross. It sounds terrible, right? But we have bacteria in it.

Some good, some bad, right? That's how, that's how life is. You get it from your food from, for some of y'all, for from, from sticking your fingers in your mouth, you know, whatever it may be, right? Your mouth naturally contains that bacteria. When you eat food or drink beverages, especially the ones that have sugars and starches, which a lot of stuff has that stuff, right, but in an excessive amount, obviously it's gonna multiply this process, right?

Those bacteria eat them, they feed on the sugars and the starches, and they produce acids. And over time those acids plus the bacteria, right? And food particles and sali, all this stuff in your mouth. All different, you know, chemicals and phs, right? They form a sticky film called plaque on your teeth. You can see it even, uh, I'm not pointing at my mouth for you to look, you know, I'll just say you can see the plaque on your teeth sometimes.

Uh, if you haven't observed that before, go ahead and, and take a closer look in the mirror tonight. It's kind of, it's like your tooth is slightly raised where it is, it's like on top of your tooth and you can kind of see it and you can go ahead and scrape that off. Uh, especially. You should do that. Um, some people use their fingernails, some people use the end of the floss.

You can get it off by brushing your teeth. Of course. Uh, sometimes maybe you want to go and buy, you know, a tool meant for that. Definitely consult with your dentist first. Make sure you're not damaging your teeth or your gums that you're doing it the right way, but you can see it. Sometimes, right? Some of it is not gonna be visible right away, and some of it, um, actually gets there to where you are gonna need professional help to get it off.

What this plaque does is that it leads to enamel breakdown and it slowly dissolves minerals in your teeth and the outer later, which is the enamel, and that weakens it and creates small openings. Then the deeper damage happens, right? So once that enamel is worn down, decay can reach the softer layer beneath called dentin, and dentin is less resistant to acid.

Boom. Now the process is sped up, right? Pulp involvement, right? So if the decay continues unchecked, it can actually reach to the innermost part of the tooth known as the pulp, and because of that, the nerves and blood vessels are in there, and that can cause pain, sensitivity and infection. Now, family, we're gonna stop right there and just kind of unpack this for a little bit.

I wanna focus on the, the second step of the process there that I talked about, the enamel breakdown specifically. That was when the acids in the plaque slowly dissolve minerals in the teeth right in that Adela, the enamel slowly dissolve. I wanna focus on those words right there, right? Because. Sin. I like to describe it as festering, as something crawling under your skin, right?

In some cases, sin can be big, loud, and proud, right? It can be something very obvious in your life, but sin can also be a lot of small actions and that slowly dissolving that acid. I wanna describe it as a few things that acid can represent multiple things. The first being. If you are a godly person, if you're feeling conviction, if you're feeling anything, that guilt is slowly going to eat away at you.

Right? It is slowly going to, I'll say, distant you from God in the sense that nothing can separate us from God's love, right? But we are going to feel further away from God because of our guilt, because of this frustration with ourselves, especially if this is a sin that we are constantly fighting with.

And it's slowly dissolving away, you know, our life and our relationships and our relationship with God. It could be something that's pulling us away from the scripture where every day we're reading the scripture, less and less. Maybe we're fasting less and less, we're praying less and less. We're showing up to church less and less.

This is something slowly dissolving away. Now there are sins that will rapidly break down your enamel, right, so to speak. But this is that, that guilt and those internal emotions that are going to isolate you, they're going to lead you into negativity, into a distancing relationship with God on your end.

But on the other hand, the acids that are breaking down this enamel, these acids in the plaque that are slowly dissolving, it's not just your inner feelings. It's the outward and internal consequences of sin. So let's look at addiction, drug abuse and alcohol abuse. Your body is slowly breaking down, deteriorating, saying with smoking, with injection, whatever it may be that you're wrestling with.

That is a sin because of its abusive nature. The way you're using it, it's actually physically breaking you down. Let's say it's something different. Maybe it's not a physical sin in that form of manifestation of addiction, but maybe it's the way you're treating your spouse. Maybe it's the way you're treating your kids, your coworkers, and that marriage is slowly dissolving.

That relationship with your children is slowly dissolving, right, because of the way you're making them feel, because of your sin or because of the consequences. Maybe you're slowly being dissolved financially because you are spending all your money on addiction or on ungodly things, on earthly things, on these worldly secular things.

So no matter what your sin is, in some way, it's going to slowly dissolve and break down if it's not something that instantly destroys your life. Again, sometimes sin does that. After that I talked about once that enamel was worn down, the cake can reach a softer layer beneath that dentin and it's less resistant to acid.

So then the process speeds up, right? We reach a certain point, and for some of us, we numb it. We just like immune ourselves to it and. Maybe that dent represents your inner, godliness, your inner righteousness, your inner conviction and discipline now is wearing down even faster, right?

They said, and this is paraphrase, he who is trusted with a little can be trust with a lot. If you are sinning with a little and it's slowly breaking down your moral character, you might start sending more and more, right? Look at some of the work I've done with guests on my show. A couple of nukes in terms of pornography addiction.

It started out with just watching what they call vanilla porn. Then it developed into, I need something more exciting, I need something more dangerous, something more immoral, and then it gets more and more consistent in the frequency of watching, the quantity, the quality, and then not a lot of cases, not all cases, but in most cases, the people I have spoken with who had a pornographic addiction.

It then went into adultery, right? Sins build upon themselves sometimes as they deteriorate your moral character or as you begin to love that sin more than other stuff, including God more than your family, more than your life, right? That deeper damage. And then I like with the pulp involvement, that innermost part of the tooth, once that gets damaged, well, that has the nerves and the blood vessels in it, pain, sensitivity, and infection.

All three of those words. I wanna unpack all three of those words. Sin causes pain. It does. And if you're someone who still has your moral character, it's gonna cause you Godly sorrow. It's always gonna cause worldly sorrow. But if you're someone who is conscious of that sin and has a relationship with God, hopefully most likely is causing that godly sorrow.

And, and godly sorrow is a good thing because it means you still know what is right to some degree and you can pursue repentance in, in a relationship with Christ sensitivity. I think sin does make us more sensitive sometimes. When we're dealing with a lot of inner emotion from our sin, makes us more likely to snap at others to lash out.

If our sin is causing us financial stress, if we're not sleeping, if it puts us in ant altered state of mind, we're gonna be more sensitive. Right? That's how it works when you're trying to eat. A cavity or cavities, you can feel it physically. You're more sensitive to to food. So now what was a normal process is difficult.

That's what sin does for us. It turns something that is normal routine and something enjoyable. A timeout. Eating is enjoyable, a marriage is enjoyable, but you've got all this sin now that is breaking stuff down and now it's painful trying to do the normal processes and infection. I, I don't think I even need to unpack that word.

Sin leads to infection. It can lead to condemnation in hell, right? It can lead as a gateway to worse sin. Right? And I hope I don't sound like a broken record, but that's so important so. You might be saying to yourself, well, look, Mr. Whiskey, I know about cavities and I also know that sometimes it's not our fault.

So that's why I want to go over now the risk factors and talk about those medical situations that you must be thinking to yourself. Maybe you're trying to defend yourself. You say, Mr. Whiskey, but I have dry mouth. I'm more susceptible because I have a reduced saliva flow. Or I have teeth that have deeper grooves that they're more pit forming, and so they trap food more easily.

I, I have oral, oral hygiene because I just, it's just the way my, my life is but let's focus. On the first two, right? Because poor oral hygiene is gonna be lumped with frequent consumption of sugary foods and drinks, because that is a choice to the most part. There are cases where maybe you can't afford dental care, either professionally or at home, and we're gonna talk about that as well.

But I wanna focus on the dry mouth and the deep grooves and pits in the teeth, right. You're saying, and I, in, in opposite of dry mouth, I've actually known people who had, um, excessive acidity in their saliva or excessive saliva, and that also made their teeth break down more easily. But whatever it may be, whether it's any of those situations, my thing is, look at it from this way.

Some of us are born with the dry mouth, with the deeper grooves to trap food and that is something that is out of our control for the most part but get this, listen to this. This is so important. I, I want y'all to hear this. When we are aware of our medical conditions that make us more susceptible to cavities, it is then our duty to perform at a higher level of discipline and care to prevent cavities.

Some of us are born into homes. Where sin abounds more, maybe addiction, maybe alcohol's more accessible. Maybe drugs are more accessible. Maybe you're in a neighborhood where there is a lot of sin, a lot of immorality. Some of us are born with just like the people who were born with the medical conditions that worsen cavities.

Some of us are born into households where sin abounds more because of the environment, because of our parents, because of the lack of faith in the community. And when we are in those situations, what do we do? We see godliness, we read the word, we pray we fast. We are disciplined, right? It, some of us are wired and born in a way that certain sins are more tempting to us than other people.

Some of us struggle because the way we're grown, right? I know men who struggle very bad with loss, specifically pornography. I know men who have never even once been tempted. To watch porn, but maybe that man has always had a craving for alcohol in an abusive way the other person hasn't. Some of us just seem to lean towards certain sins more, or born in an environment that is more breeding of certain kinds of sins.

We can make excuses or we can say, Hey, we have the knowledge. We know we're weaker in this area of life. We know we struggle with this part of faith, whatever it may be, or these sins are more tempting for us, or these sins are more likely to happen in our environment. We need to be on guard for that

if you know you have dry mouth or you had these deeper grooves, what do you do? You gotta go get the tools to clean those out or to balance out your mouth, whatever it may be that you have to do. There are medical. Opportunities for improvement, both professional help and at home. And that's what I wanna mention.

Since we're here. I've mentioned the professional help the hygienist, the dentist, and then also at home. Look at your life in terms of faith. Now we have at home by ourselves, reading the Bible, praying, right? But then there's fellowship, there are priests and pastors and people who have spent more time studying this.

What's the difference between me and a dentist? A dentist has spent more time studying the mouth. What causes cavities? How to take care of cavities. Now, I'm not saying any pastor or preacher or a priest is better than you but I'm saying they have spent more time studying the scripture, working with individuals in sin

just like a dentist or a hygienist. So it is important. If you are someone who has dry mouth or these deeper grooves in your life of faith, and you are born into a more sinful environment or are born with certain tendencies, that then those people probably maybe need more professional help. So you might need to spend more time in fellowship and at the church or at a faith-based community, whether that's online or in person.

And at the same time, those people know they had to do more work at home. So maybe they brush their teeth three times a day. Most people brush their teeth two times a day in the morning and at night. But if you're one of these people, you might have to brush your teeth more times. You might brush your teeth three times a day, four times a day, five times a day.

You might get special tools to clear out those grooves, to clear out those pits. Maybe you have a special scraper, right? So for some of y'all in your faith life, you might need to spend more time praying. You might need to spend more time in the word, you might need to set up different systems of accountability.

So I think it's so important that we do not justify sin or excuse sin because of preexisting conditions to a degree. We know that with our knowledge of those. Ailments of those things that are set up against us, that we need to be more cautious, that we need to be more thorough, that we need to be more disciplined, same in our faith life.

So I think that's so important. It really is. And that means getting into the other two things I mentioned earlier, which are the risk factors, frequent consumption of sugary foods and drinks, and then poor. Oral hygiene, which we kind of just went over

some people. Let's let I, I think addiction is such an easy one 'cause I work in addiction recovery, so I apologize if I keep going there. But think about this, some people can drink or do drugs. I don't recommend doing either, to be honest. But some people can do it and they're fine. Some people can't do that stuff.

Or they have to do it in a more moderation. So if you're someone who is more susceptible to sin, then perhaps you shouldn't drink as much. Right? And I say this in parallel with the, if you are more susceptible to cavities, maybe you need to limit your intake of sugary foods and drinks more, then the person next to you.

Maybe you need to be in an environment where, hey. I can't go out with people who can consume so much sugar, but I'll go out with them when they're going out for regular food, whatever it may be. You need to understand your limits. You need to know your discipline. And here's the thing with the professional dental help, the reason you go is because they can see things that you can't.

They can tell you and diagnose you with stuff that you can't see or find on your own. You might be suspicious of it. You might understand the symptoms of it, but you might not understand how to take care of it. Same thing with, again, the pastors and the priests. They might be able to give you insight that you're not getting on your own.

I'm not saying don't pray by yourself. Don't fast by yourself. Don't read the Bible by yourself. Of course, it starts with the you and God. That's where it starts. But sometimes we need consultation from an outside source to verify. Sometimes you might go to more than one dentist because you don't trust them, and that's okay.

You could do the same with faith. If this church or if this pastor is you feel like maybe is harping on your sin too much and you don't agree, go check. But if all the pastors are saying, Hey, you've got a problem with X, Y, Z, and all the dentists are saying you've got a cavity in tooth A, B, C, then it's something to consider.

It really is. So I think that this also goes into temptation because look at America, especially any country, but America more than any other country, we are promoting sugary foods and drinks everywhere. We have more sugary cereals in one aisle of a supermarket in America than most stores on a whole block in like another country.

We promote it everywhere. Our children crave it because they are born and given all this artificial sugar. Now here's the thing, you are less likely to develop. Cavities consuming a natural diet based off what's in in the wild. Then someone who is spending their time indulging in all of these sugary drinks, candies, ice creams, all this artificial stuff.

I'm not saying it's not natural, right? It's made from stuff outside relatively nowadays, you can't tell. You read the back of the label and it's got a hundred different ingredients and they all have like an X or a Y or a Z in there, right? But my point is that what God gave us naturally, it is relatively pretty good for us.

You still have to be disciplined, and that goes into your sin life, the natural life that we have. In this fallen world, you can develop sinful habits or consequences of sin even. Just living naturally in a, in and abundantly, right? But when you're indulging in the stuff of this world, the sodas, the sweet, I love sweet tea, but the sweet teas, the ice cream, the candies, right?

That is stuff that maybe it's not bad, not everything that men and women make is evil, but you can tell the difference. The way the sugar is made, the way the sugar impacts you so I say all that to say, again, this all goes back to discipline. That's what it all goes back to, is knowing what is of the world and not of the world and what is of God and not of God.

And that's not to say that a life with God is sin free. You can still get cavities living the righteous life. Because at the end of the day, it's about discipline. And because we live in a fallen world, if we were in the garden avid, I guarantee you there would be no cavities. Right?

That's what is written. But we live in a fallen world, so we can stick to as close to God and naturalness as we can, but there's still a chance for those cavities to form. But the indulgence and. There are plenty of Bible quotes about gluttony in my book, God versus The Human Spirit coming out soon.

Hopefully I have a whole chapter dedicated to gluttony talking about it. It is, I think, one of the most overlooked sins because we have normalized, weight. In an effort to protect people's emotions, to not hold people accountable. We have glamorized weight gain. We have said fat is beautiful, right?

It's not that fat people aren't beautiful spiritually. It's very ugly because you are indulging, you are doing more than what you need. The Bible says to. It uses harsh language for a reason. Take a knife to your throat, right? If, if, if you're gluttonous, it says that gluttony is a trap that is overindulgence

people overeat, people eat more than what they need. And I'm not here to quote fat shame or to be quote, fat phobic, but gluttony is a sin and the weight gain and all the health issues that come with it, those are the consequences of sin. And again, I expound on that in the chapter of that book a lot more, in much more detail with a lot of scripture to back it up.

I'm not saying being fat is a sin, it's a consequence. Of sin. It's kind of like that slow dissolving we were talking about earlier. Again, some people medically or, or, or on the heavier side, right? I'm talking about, as I've said on a couple of, and every episode with fitness, we have shared, I have always shared that fitness is about self alignment

fitness isn't a state of health. You can have a fat person who is athletic and pursues exercise daily, and you can have a skinny person who never works out and smokes and drinks and does all this other stuff. I digress though. That's, that's getting us off track. My point is just about indulgence, about pursuing all these worldly sugars so much.

I'm not saying they're evil I eat plenty of ice cream. I drink sweet tea. I have candy. But I know that there are consequences to that, that I have to be disciplined in it. I can't just give my life fully to that and not also be combating it. So if you are doing worldly things or participating in the world, which you have to, we live in this fallen world, unless you go become a monk and you go live in a, you know, somewhere that is really cut off from society, you're going to be consuming.

These sugary artificial things of the world through social media, through the news, the radio, television, through books, through conversations with people who aren't believers, through conversations with people who are believers. So what do you do? You brush your teeth you floss, and I wanna start right there.

Most people say they know God and they pray. We'll call that the brushing your teeth. Most people brush their teeth, right, but you go deeper level flossing. Not a lot of people floss, and I like to liken that to the reading, the scripture and fasting. I would dare to say it's, it's really the fasting because most people do read the scripture to some degree.

They hear it preached in church or they see clips of it online, or they get a verse of the day I'm talking about reading, reading the Bible, reading it from end to end, which most people haven't done. Most believers haven't done, but the fasting, I like to liken that to flossing and I bring it up because fasting and cavities go pretty well together because the more you fast, the less you eat, the less likely you are to have cavities, as long as you're still taking care of your teeth.

Fasting is a great spiritual discipline. And it also is one of those things where you have to hold yourself accountable. No one forces you to brush your teeth every day. No one forces you to floss, right? You could choose to not go to the dentist. You could choose not to brush your teeth. You could choose not to floss.

This goes down to free will so I think it's so important, and I wanna go back to that proverb that I shared earlier, proverb 17 one, because. When talks about better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife. It's like, I want to equate that to the strife being the, the, in this case, the cavities and I, I wanna expound, it's more than just the cavities.

The cavities are a symptom of sin that then lead to some kind of medical procedure. Getting feeling done there's more to it than just like, oh, I have a cavity in my tooth. There's pain, sensitivity, infection, as we said earlier. Now you gotta get a dental procedure done. Now that's costing money and time, time and money that could have been spent ungodly matters.

So it's more than just having a cavity. Cavity is just one symptom, one part. A series of consequences of sin, which can lead to eventual tooth. If, if, if left unchecked, you might have to get all, you might have to get your tooth pulled out. You might have to get a fake tooth. And it speaks to the idea that this world almost promotes sin because they have ways to mitigate the consequences

look at getting silver or gold teeth or getting this, you know, plastic based filling. The world is saying, oh, well if you get a cavity, it's no big deal because we can just, you know, kind of fix it or cover it up. But you can never get that whole tooth back, I don't want you to equate that and say, well, there's, there's no forgiveness from God, then that'll fix that tooth.

That's not true. What I'm saying is the world will. Try to mitigate the consequences of sin to have you think that it's okay to keep doing it. If, if, if the dental practices said, Hey, if you get a cavity, you're on your own, you'd probably start taking better care of your teeth if the world instantly punished you for sin and didn't glorify and glamorize it and, and love idolatry, it would just say, Hey, no, but it does.

It says it's okay, we'll just fill it in. We'll just replace it. We'll just fix it with more artificial stuff. The world enables sin. We are in a fallen world. Don't fall for this enablement. I want you to be like me. I had this little piece of plastic in my, in my tooth now. Um, and it's not plastic in, in that sense, you know?

But. Part of me now is, is always gonna be thinking about like, wow, you know, I, I did that, that was my fault, and I need to seek the Lord more and be more disciplined. So I hope you, you take that away from it. But I love the dry morsel with quietness rather than a feasting with strife, because I wanna relate that back to company, to social pressure, to social expectations.

To consumption, right?

You want to hang out with people, but the only people around you are ungodly people and they love to drink. They love to do drugs, they love to bang women. That's gonna lead to strife. It's feasting, right? Because you've got the company that you want. You've got these friends that are super cool, it's gonna lead to strife.

Or you can be a godly man, outcasted from them. Just have a dry morsel and quietness, but that quietness is where the Lord and you can speak and have a good relationship. So that's why I say this quote being sent to me this morning was no coincidence. It is tied in perfectly with this. We love the feasting and that goes into, the Bible says, it talks about what kind of person the companion of gluttons, drunkard, and fools are.

Right. You're, you are a fool if you are. Gluttony is a trap. It is a sin, and it has always been since historical times, a sign of sin because who has all the food? It's always been the people and power of money and they often feasted and left people to starve, starvation, fasting, and. Giving your food up for others that has always been associated with godliness.

So as we wrap up this sermon, what I want you to think about is not just the cavities, but anywhere else on your body, physically, anywhere in your marriage, in your family, in your relationships. What are some of the symptoms of sins in this physical world that you're not picking up on that maybe the world has said it is?

Okay. Because we'll just fill it in. We'll just replace it. We'll just take these actions to mitigate it. So I really want you to reflect church and family on what could be in your life right now that is actually a physical manifestation of sin and, and my physical, yes. On your body or, or, or someone else's body.

But it could also just be. The way actions are changing in your relationships, that might actually be a symptom of sin. You know, we are a society afraid of the word sin because of the legalistic actions of certain churches and religions and groups that people are so scared to talk about sin because they're afraid of being labeled as someone who fear mongers or is legalistic or controlling or, you know, people just want to hear that Jesus loves you.

The reality of sin cannot be excluded from the gospel or from preaching, and there are consequences to sin. There are symptoms of sin, and we need to combat those. We need to prevent those by being disciplined, by being faithful, by studying the word, by getting the professional treatment of the dentist and the hygienist.

That community of faith, whether it's pastors, priests, bishops, if it's, you know, maybe just someone in your community or your friend group who studies the scripture more or has a gift from God and if your past that prevention stage, if you have a cavity, now you need intervention. Right. But more importantly, you need reflection and a mindset of not letting this happen again.

So allow me to close this out in a word of prayer named Father, son the Holy Spirit. Amen. El should die Heavenly Father. That is Hebrew for the mighty one and mighty you are. And you know, we live in this fallen world. And we don't often recognize the symptoms of sin in our life. We don't recognize the consequences of sin in our life.

Some of us are born into an environment that is more likely to have sin abounding, and we may be affected by that, or just give us the strength and the knowledge to combat that, to know where we are at environmentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. That we may best combat sin, that we may intervene and prevent, and that we can be pursuing a relationship with you and your son, Jesus Christ.

And I just pray for everyone at the dentist and hygienist today, tomorrow, and the next day, that they would have good reports, Lord, and that if they got a bad report, I want them to reflect. I don't want them to have fear and anxiety. Because we can take care of it. You will be with us. But I want them to know that this isn't the life you want for us.

You don't want us filling in our teeth with these metals and plastics. You want us to be living a life not of gluttony, but of humility and of obedience and a faith. And I just pray that everyone at the dentist would be reflective. And that a good report is not just a time of celebration, but a reminder of the fruits of labor and of following your law, Lord, and of pursuing a relationship with you.

Amen. And followers and

well everyone. I hope you enjoy that sermon and God bless.