Author’s Note: Today we are commencing a blog series which will appear intermittently. The material is based partly on a series of seven lectures which I presented in 1991. All emphasis (whether boldface, underlined, or italics) is by this author unless otherwise noted. I pray that the teaching will nourish your body, soul, and spirit!
There is an ancient maxim that asserts that “you are what you eat.” If you choose to eat a lot of fudge, cookies, pies, cakes and candy bars, and drink a lot of soda pop (especially the “diet” version!); well, don’t be surprised if you develop diabetes.
We would modify the ancient maxim to assert that “you are what you eat—both physically and spiritually.” For if you choose to frequently ingest the meat of the Word of God, you are guaranteed (by God Himself) to grow more and more spiritually healthy.
We reference that maxim to assure you that in this series we shall be presenting some information about physical food but using that as a bridge to understand the spiritual truths about this important food. Let us begin.
Picture someone in today’s modern, civilized society going into a church and, as an act of worshipping God, going up to the altar, taking a box of cornflakes and waving it up and down and back and forth there at the altar.
To most people, even to most Christians today, that would seem quite silly, ridiculous, and bordering on questioning the worshipper’s mental health. Yet that is essentially what Yahweh, the God of the ancient Israelites, commanded His people to do.
Is God silly? Well, we are certain He has a sense of humor; but we are equally certain He was not being funny when He commanded the Israelites to worship Him in that manner!
Then why would He command such an act of worship which many would deem as silly today? Did you ever wonder why God would require that the Israelites take some cereal and wave it before Him as an offering?
As Christians, we know that God has a purpose in all His ways. So, there must be some important meaning to the command to wave some cereal “before His face.” The Lord first brought this to my attention in an unusual way some years ago.
As best as I can recall, it was the summer of 1988 at a Bible camp in Colorado, where I noticed a pastor friend who was drinking a glass of green, yucky-looking liquid. I queried him: ‘‘What is that stuff? It sure looks gross!”
“It is the powdered form of the young barley leaves mixed with water,” he replied.
After learning more about this barley product, our family began using it as a nutritional supplement. After that, since I was ingesting this green barley essence every day, it happened that many times as I was reading the Scriptures, I would come across the word barley, and it would seem to rivet my attention to that passage. I began to realize that there was something spiritually important about that little word “barley” which I had not seen before.
Not long after that, the Lord brought two books to my attention. One, written in 1952, is called Plants of the Bible. It is actually rather dull reading. It is more of a botany text or a reference book. The other is a small paperback called The Spiritual Roots of Barley, written at least partially to help push a particular brand of green barley powder. To set the foundation for what we are going to be learning, let us become familiar with some of the physical characteristics and qualities of barley.
The common barley, winter barley and spring barley, have been cultivated in temperate regions of the world since time immemorial and are still today one of the principal grain foods or cereal crops of man. Barley and wheat were the two staple cereal crops of Egypt and Palestine.
Barley being the less expensive was mostly used for feeding cattle, although it was also used by itself or mixed with wheat or other seeds as food for man. It is mentioned in the Bible (KJV) some 37 times, either as a plant growing in the fields or in reference to products made from it such as barley meal, barley bread, barley cakes and barley loaves.
This is a fair indication of how extensively it was grown and used in ancient Palestine and other parts of Bible lands, where today it still forms a primary component of food for the poor.
Barley bread then, as now, was the common food of the poor people of Palestine. No grain which has been brought under cultivation by man equals barley in the extent of climatic variation under which it will grow successfully. It will survive heat and drought better than any other cereal and ripens so rapidly that the short summers of northern latitudes are sufficient for it.
The exact land of barley’s origin is unknown. It has been described as “the most universal cereal in the world.” Barley harvest takes place in March or April in the holy land depending on the locality. Barley ripens about a month earlier than wheat. It is sown any time between November and March.
Since barley was the most common food of the poor and was not too greatly esteemed even by them, it was made use of in biblical days in parables as a symbol of poverty and of cheapness or worthlessness.
This fact also explains the use of a small amount of barley meal instead of wheat meal in the jealousy offerings described in Numbers 5: 15. If a man suspected his wife of infidelity, here was part of what he was obliged or permitted to do.
Numbers 5:15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
This indicated plainly to the Hebrews whose minds are geared to see symbolism in everything. [Indeed, we do!] This indicated plainly to our forefathers the low regard in which the implicated parties were held. It also renders more forceful the exclamation of shocked insult in Ezekiel 13:19. (- from Plants in the Bible)
Ezekiel 13:19 And will ye pollute Me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?
Ouch! What a rebuke of ministers from the Father!
The following facts about barley’s nutritional characteristics will be seen as spiritually significant later in our study. [Excerpted from The Spiritual Roots of Barley]
Alkalinity
In order to understand the outstanding qualities of the green barley leaves as a food with power, let’s begin with its virtue as an alkaline food. To understand alkalinity, you need to understand the symbol “pH” which is the measurement used to express the ratio between acids and alkalines in our body fluids.
The scale indicates acidity from 0 to 7.0 and alkalinity from 7.0 to 14.0. Barley grows very well in alkaline soil. So it comes as no surprise that the green leaves of barley test in the laboratory as one of the most alkaline of all natural foods. Spinach is its next nearest rival in alkalinity, but it is only about 40% as alkaline as [barley].
It is well known in medical circles that many diseases thrive in an acid medium. In other words, if your body is on the acid side, you are more likely to develop diseases. Recently an M.D. made the statement that the pH of the average American is 5.4 instead of the ideal 7.35-7.45...
It is commonly known in medical circles that cancer cells definitely will not live in a pH that is 5.7 or higher.... Because the juice of young barley leaves is so effective in neutralizing our acid pH balance, a teaspoonful or two per day is a healthful habit to establish...
[Back when we first heard about the barley green powder, we drank it for a number of years. Over the years, I have tried various other similar drinks. The one in the picture above is called Ningxia Greens and it contains over 60 botanicals including the Ningxia wolfberry. It is produced by the Young Living Essential Oils company with which I have been affiliated since 1998.
I met a man at a Bible conference back in the early 1990s, as best I recall. We roomed together for the conference. Frankly, he looked very unhealthy, and I did not expect him to be around much longer. A few years later when next I saw him, he looked much better and I told him so. I asked him to what he attributed the turn-around in his health.
He told me that for several years he had begun taking that barley powder once a day, and he added a level teaspoon of capsicum powder to the green barley powder mixed in water. The capsicum, he explained, was to “supercharge” the barley and drive it deep into the blood stream and ultimately to the cells. He lived several more decades, passing away in his mid-90s only about two years ago.]
Chlorophyll
Chlorophyll is the green color in plants and is designed to function as the blood of the plant. Without chlorophyll there would be no plants and without plants there would be no animal life on earth—including us! ...
Enzymes
One of the unique characteristics of dried barley leaves is that there are hundreds of live enzymes. Until you understand the significance of this, you can’t appreciate either health or healing... Enzymes are the body’s labor force in performing all chemical and biological processes in the body.
We are born with a given limited amount of enzyme activity. We must learn how to conserve it. Depleting our enzyme supply results in a weakened immune system. Weakening our immune system makes us prime targets for cancer, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, AIDS, allergies and a whole host of other degenerative diseases.
Some of the best news about the green barley is the presence of several dynamic enzymes and these particular enzymes neutralize poisons and they resolve all sorts of cancer causing, petroleum-based nitro compounds, strengthens the body to resist and counteract mutations (which are damaged cells which can cause birth defects, cancer and so forth). It can heal ulcers and other inflammatory lesions—and that is only a partial list.
Most importantly, one enzyme in the dried barley juice is known to stimulate the repair of DNA, the genetic material involved in birth defects, cancer and lots of other things. Research recently also confirms that a certain enzyme in barley leaves helps the body to maintain youthful characteristics.
Protein
Young barley leaves are an excellent source of all the essential amino acids .... [The barley leaves] are more than 40% protein by weight which is about 90% usable. To give you a comparison, a hamburger is about 20-22% protein and has the added disadvantage of being about 40% or more of fat with cholesterol building properties in addition to it...
Vitamins and Minerals
The barley leaves provide a wide spectrum of vitamins and minerals in balanced form making it a significant source of these essential nutrients for good health...
The author then goes on to state that vitamins and minerals are not in the barley plant in great quantities, but it is the ratio and balance which is more important than the megadose of synthetic vitamins which many Americans have become accustomed to.
Now refer back to what was just stated about the chlorophyll in the barley as we paraphrase further material from The Spiritual Roots of Barley and adding our own remarks.
We have all been made, as the book of Genesis tell us, from “the dust of the earth,” that is, the chemical elements found on this planet. Our bodies are marvelously nourished by the food products which in turn derive their life-giving power from that dust of the earth.
These foods will sustain, maintain and renew our bodies for decades if we consume the right types of foods in the right amounts. However, the foods we consume do not directly sustain our bodies.
The food must be broken down and converted into usable form first. What form is that? In other words, by what specific means does God sustain these physical bodies of ours which He made? It is by means of that substance we call blood!
The creation narrative in Genesis tells us that the grasses were made first. We know that all of the various cereal grains come from grasses. Hundreds of generations of our forefathers have lived and flourished on grasses. Let’s now peer into one of the chemical engineering marvels that the Master Designer has crafted into the relationship between plants and our blood.
In the grasses, chlorophyll is the blood of the plant. The plant’s blood is a result of the interaction of the soil, the air, the water, and the sun. Now consider this carefully. It is the blood of the plant that gives life to the creatures that feed on it and it is the light of the earth—sunlight—that is required to make chlorophyll.
Just as the blood of the plant (the chlorophyll) is the life of the plant; so too the blood of man is also his life. Leviticus 17:11 tells us that “the life [Hebrew: nephesh: literally, soul] of the flesh is in the blood.” How does man get his blood? A recent scientific discovery gives a more complete answer than ever before.
The molecular structure of the basic unit of the blood (the chlorophyll) in the plant has nearly the identical molecular structure as the basic unit of blood in man. That basic unit in man is called hemoglobin. The only difference is the center atom of each molecule. The center atom in the plant’s chlorophyll is magnesium and in our hemoglobin it is iron.
When man eats green plants, the blood molecule of the plant can become the blood molecule of man by a process which biochemists call porphyrin biosynthesis. This then, is part of the marvelous and unique story about blood.
What a Creator! God in His marvelous wisdom provided perfectly for the self-repairing, self-rejuvenating, and self-energizing of the physical man through the blood (chlorophyll) of plants.
We also have a spirit. God therefore also provided perfectly for the repairing, rejuvenating, and energizing of man’s spirit through the blood of Jesus Christ.
It takes the light of the earth—the sun in the sky—to make the blood of the plant for the life and health of physical man.
It took the light of the world—the Son of God, Jesus Christ—to shed His blood and thereby give eterna1life and ultimately perfect health to spiritual man. Both of these are fully and freely provided by our God, and He, by His son, holds together everything in the universe, from the tiniest atoms to the grandest galaxies, as Paul assures us.
Colossians 1:1 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
With such marvelous and free provisions, then why are we such a sick people, full of physical ailments and diseases? Obviously, the general answer is that it is all due to the fall of Adam and our inherited mortality.
True, but why are we so dreadfully unhealthy? And why are we as a nation forgetting our spiritual roots in government, education, agriculture, family life and in almost every profession you can name? The answer is very simple. Collectively and as individuals, many of us have not applied the blood in our lives.
In the physical realm, we have abandoned a healthy diet where fresh green plants abound and instead we are eating skeletonized, dead, drugged, embalmed, cold tarred, waxed, sprayed, irradiated, impure and unclean “foods” which were forbidden by God.
In the spiritual realm most Americans either have no spiritual food whatsoever, or they are fed a diet which is seriously lacking in the meat of the Word.
(To be continued.)
~END~
