—By Father David DO920 19 June 1980

1. WE ALREADY PUBLISHED SOMETHING ABOUT SUNBATHING, warning against too much sun particularly for fair-haired, fair-skinned people who are usually very sensitive & cannot take very much sun. The extremely fair-haired & red-headed & those who tend to burn & freckle easily really shouldn't have more than 10 or 15 minutes of direct sunshine at a stretch, & 1/2-an-hour an absolute limit! So if you have hair that's slightly reddish or blonde & fair skin with tendency to sunburn & freckle, you just ought to stay out of the sun except for very brief periods of exposure. Actually you shouldn't sun bathe at all!

2. SOME OF YOU PEOPLE NEVER TAN‚ YOU ONLY BURN, & while waiting for a tan you can get a very bad burn! You can get a first & second degree sunburn that'll land you in the hospital! (Maria: When it says sunburn, it really means burn just like if you have your hand on a hot stove!) I've seen people blistered all over in horrible shape with huge sores & scabs in Miami, stupid idiotic people who were very fair-skinned but insisted on trying to stay out in the sun all day!

3. YOU'LL FIND TOO MUCH SUN LIKE THAT CAN EVEN CAUSE YOU TO CATCH COLD!—It not only gives you a bad burn, but it can give you a bad headache, chills, fever, upset stomach & what they call sunstroke which can make you very sick & even kill you as it did one little boy in the Bible whom the prophet had to raise from the dead! (2Kg.4:18-37.) So direct sunlight is not good for you except for a few minutes brief exposure if you're fair-headed & fair-skinned, particularly blondes & red–heads.

4. EVEN THE DARK-SKINNED PEASANTS, PEONS & COOLIES OF THE TROPICS & SOUTHERN CLIMES OF THE THIRD WORLD with their dark skins & dark hair which can stand a lot more sun than the Northerners, even they who can stand much more sun working out in the fields all day usually wear considerable clothing & large coolie hats that shelter their heads, neck, shoulders & faces.—Almost their whole bodies are in the shade! And you'll notice that the Arabs who live in hot deserts exposed to very hot sun are completely covered with robes‚ burnooses, caftans & turbans for protection from the sun, & sometimes all you see is their eyes!

5. SINCE THE FLOOD THE SUN HAS BEEN PARTLY MAN'S ENEMY RATHER THAN HIS FRIEND! At one time there was something known as the "waters above the firmament". (Gen.1:6,7.) There were waters in the sky which filtered the deadly cosmic rays from the sun & filtered out the death-dealing blows & poisons of direct sunshine. But now since the Flood & man's wickedness, that layer of water or very thick moisture fell during the rain in the Flood‚ & that was one thing that caused the Flood!

6. IT IS SURMISED THAT IN THE DAYS BEFORE THE FLOOD YOU COULD NOT EVEN SEE THE BRIGHT DIRECT SUN as you can today‚ that will even destroy your eyes if you look directly at it. But that then the sun shone with a rather hazy, soft diffused light like a frosted bulb that you could even look at without hurting your eyes. These are some of the theories of some of the Christian scientists like Dr. Irwin Moon. The sun's light therefore was greatly softened & filtered & you could stay out in the sun all day & it wouldn't bother you, there was no sun burn.

7. BUT YOU NOTICE THAT IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE FLOOD MEN BEGAN TO DIE A LOT QUICKER. Before the Flood when they had that filtering from the heavy layer up there of the waters above the firmament spoken of in Genesis, men lived as long as a thousand years, at lest hundreds! But immediately after the Flood even the oldest patriarchs didn't live much more than 100 & man's age was cut down to the 60's, 70's & 80's almost right away!

8. SO IT SEEMS THAT GOD LIMITED MAN'S AGE AFTER THE FLOOD because of his wickedness & sinfulness so he just couldn't live so long lest he sin too much! And as the Psalmist says, "The days of our years are three score years & ten"—that's 70 years on the average & usually considered a ripe old age nowadays—"& if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour & sorrow"—& that's usually the case! (Ps.90:10.)

9. IN OTHER WORDS YOU COULD BE ALMOST THANKFUL IF YOU DIE YOUNG! But some of us have to live long enough to help the young & to help teach & train you & talk to you just like I'm talking to you now!—To teach you not to make some of the mistakes that some of us & others have made & God has warned against.

10. SO SINCE THE FLOOD TOO MUCH SUN HAS BEEN HARMFUL. Sunshine is necessary for our lives for light & heat & food & photosynthesis in plants which makes them grow & so that animals can eat them & we eat them & the animals. It wouldn't be possible to live without sunshine! It's life & health to us as well as dangerous. But since the Flood & the disappearance of the moisture or water layer which was above the firmament, or above the sky as we know it, that filtered the sun's rays & cosmic rays, too much of those rays have become very harmful & have shortened man's life from a thousand years to one hundred or less!

11. SO THAT OUGHT TO BE ENOUGH PROOF IF YOU BELIEVE THE BIBLE, THAT TOO MUCH SUNSHINE IS HARMFUL! And if you don't have enough Biblical knowledge to know it‚ then you ought to have enough sense to know it just by your own personal experience, you fair–haired beauties, not to get too much sunshine, because you just get burned & suffer pain instead of a beautifying tan!

12. MOST TRUE BLONDES & REDHEADS CANNOT REALLY TAN VERY MUCH WITHOUT GREAT CARE. They're just not meant to live in very hot sunshine & very hot countries, they are mostly from the North. Nearly all the people in the Tropics & the Southern climes of the Third World are dark-skinned & dark-haired & they can stand a great deal more sunshine because they have thicker pigment in the skin which literally gives them shade & protects them from the sun.

13. MOST OF THE PEOPLE OF THOSE COUNTRIES WITH WHOM WE'VE HAD ACQUAINTANCE & MET & ASSOCIATED & LIVED‚ INSTINCTIVELY AVOID THE SUN! The people in the Canary Islands for example, where the tourists all to go to get sunshine & sun burn & sometimes land in the hospital with it, think the tourists are absolutely crazy for lying out in the sun baking on what I used to call the "meat racks"—the sun cots that they put around the pools on which the tourists can loll & sunbathe. I used to say,

14. "WELL, THERE ARE THE MEAT RACKS & THERE'S THE MEAT COOKING, & I don't know how many of them will land in the hospital!" But it doesn't seem that any amount of warning ever does much good. They have to have one bad experience & be pretty sick or badly burned with even second degree blistering burns that are very painful!

15. I CAN REMEMBER A FEW TIMES WHEN I WAS A KID & I GOT TOO MUCH SUN. I was very fair-haired & so blond my hair was almost white, what you call toe-head. My father was a Swede & my mother was a German Jew—both from Nordic countries & neither designed to stand direct intense rays of Tropical sunshine, but living in far North countries toward the Arctic Circle that only receive the dimmer slanting rays of the sun.

16. YOU NOTICE THAT THOSE PEOPLE, HOWEVER, USUALLY GROW TO BE OF LARGER STATURE. They used to call them the Nordic giants down in Tenerife!—The beautiful Valkyries that came there to spend their vacations blistering in the sun! They're usually bigger, stronger & healthier than the little small dark skinny weaker people who live in hot climates & Tropical belts.

17. TODAY THE SUN IS NOT AS GOOD FOR YOU AS IT USED TO BE BEFORE THE FLOOD. It's still good for you in a very moderate temperate amount, & plants & animals & the whole World still need sunshine for many reasons which I've explained before—to keep the Earth in its orbit & keep it warm & various life processes functioning. But today direct sunlight for prolonged periods is not good for the human body or human skin. And if you don't know it & don't believe it, you'll find out, if you're intemperate & immoderate & get too much sunshine!

18. AND TOO MUCH FOR MOST PEOPLE IS OVER AN HOUR A DAY, even the dark-haired ones. And for the very fair-haired, red-headed or sunburning freckling type, a half-an-hour can be too much direct sunbathing a day. And now in the days of the topless sunbathing, doctors say there's been a sharp increase in breast cancer‚ they believe stimulated by too much sun & too much sunbathing topless.—So watch out!

19. I AM NOT AGAINST TOPLESS SUNBATHING, I ENJOY IT!—Especially on other people of the female variety! It's quite beautiful with some, with some it's a little bit ugly, but you had just better watch your step & be careful not to get too much sun, & if you get sunburned, that's bad! You shouldn't get sunburned at all. You shouldn't stay out in the sun long enough that you get any kind of a burn!

20. BUT ALMOST ANYBODY WHO HAS BEEN INSIDE MOST OF THE WINTER & HASN'T HAD MUCH SUNSHINE‚ their skin's very white & not able to take very much.—Just a little sunshine at the first shot will burn & they have to be very careful. Doctors advise that maybe you take only five or ten minutes direct sunbathing the first day if you're on your vacation. Maybe stretch it out to fifteen the second day, & just increase it by about five minutes a day. This was Dr. Koger's theory also. Your skin then gradually tans & gives you a shade‚ gives your body & tissue some shade & you can stand a little bit more sunshine.

21. OF COURSE IT'S SOMETIMES RATHER MYSTIFYING WHY PEOPLE WOULD WANT TO TORTURE THEMSELVES LIKE THAT & play with something so dangerous as direct sunshine & sunburn. But certainly I've warned the Family & especially those of fair hair & fair skin & a tendency to burn—which is called heliophobic, you're allergic to too much sunshine—that they must not stay out in direct sun at the most more than about half-an-hour exposure a day! If you're in water & your head's under water a great deal, you might be able to take an hour.

22. AND IF YOU MUST SIT OUT ON THE BEACH & WANT TO ENJOY THE SUNSHINE & WATCHING OTHERS I suggest you wear a light airy, maybe even slightly see-through gown or robe & a large floppy sun hat‚ or at least some kind of sun hat like a coolie hat that will shade your head, face, neck & shoulders from those direct burning rays. That's where you get most of it usually, on your head, forehead, nose, even ears, back of the neck, chest & particularly shoulders which take the brunt of the direction right-angle rays of the sun, but a large hat will shade you.

23. WHEN I WAS YOUNG‚ WOMEN AVOIDED THE SUN TO PRESERVE THEIR BEAUTIFUL FAIR SKIN. They thought the sun was not only dangerous but detrimental to beauty, & I think they were probably right! Most of the white women I've seen who lived a long time in very hot sunny countries like California & the Southwestern United States or Texas, their skins gets to looking like brown leather, very leathery & tough & wrinkled & they're old before their time. So don't let the ads & the resort & tour commercials fool you!

24. A LOT OF SUNSHINE IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU!—In fact it can be very bad for you & I would suggest that most of you should not get more than a half-an-hour to an hour at the very most of direct sunshine a day‚ & those who are heliophobic even less. So watch out for the sun! God bless & keep you from too much sunshine! God didn't intend for you to be out in the sun all day if you could help it.—Especially after the Flood & the filter layer of water is gone which has shortened man's life by about 900 years! So as you can see, it must be bad for you & it's better to stay out of it!

25. THE NATIVES IN THOSE SOUTHERN CLIMATES AVOID THE SUNSHINE. You'll find the Tenerifans are never sitting out in the sun, always sitting in the shade. When the sun hits one side of the street they move over to the other side & sit in the shade!—And you never see them out sunbathing!

26. YOU NOTICE THAT OUR LITTLE DAVID JUST NATURALLY AVOIDS SUNSHINE, he just doesn't even like it. He feels very hot in it & he's a typical true Tenerifan, he's allergic to sunshine & doesn't like it even though he's rather dark & dark-haired. He avoids the sun. Well, that's an inherent innate instinctive sixth sense, apparently‚ that God has given him that he shouldn't get very much sunshine.

27. SO WATCH OUR FOR THE SUN THIS SUMMER, BELOVED! We're going to repeat the article which we placed in the World News in the FN last Winter warning you about the sunshine. This warning can go any time of the year because the Northern Hemisphere gets it in the Summer & the Southern Hemisphere of the World gets it in the Winter!—They have their Summer in our Winter, so this advice is good any time of the year in some places. So watch out for the sun! God bless & keep you from too much sunshine. Amen?

28. (MARIA: ISN'T THERE SOME DIFFERENCE AS TO WHETHER YOU'RE SITTING MOTIONLESS IN THE SUN OR WHETHER YOU'RE WALKING?) Yes!—Or whether you're very actively playing, like children in & out of the water. This way your skin is constantly in various different positions & different angles of the sunrays so that no portion of the skin is at direct right angles or 90-degree angle with the sun's rays, which is the way you burn the fastest.

29. IT DOES HELP ALSO IF YOU USE A GENEROUS AMOUNT OF SUNTAN OIL, which doesn't really actually tan you, although they did put some kind of chemicals in some suntan oils when I was a little younger which actually did stain or dye your skin to give you a quicker tan. I don't know if they're still using it or not. One application & all of a sudden you have a quick tan! I don't know whether it was good for you or not, but any how you looked a little funny!

30. IT WASN'T VERY NATURAL & if you forgot to wash your hands real good after having applied it, it turned out that the palms of your hands were just as tan as the rest of you‚ & this is very unusual!—Because you'll notice the palms of your hands are seldom ever tan, & even the palms of a Negro are almost white! So to be so completely over-all 100% tanned, even around your eyes & your ears & your neck & everywhere‚ looks a little bit peculiar because you just don't naturally tan that way!

31. BUT SUNTAN OIL DOES HELP GIVE YOU A LITTLE MORE SHADE & greases your skin. It keeps it from burning so easily for the same reason that you keep basting a roast in the oven! My mother used to keep taking it out & dipping the grease & pouring it over it so it wouldn't burn too fast on the outside but would cook clear through. So if you don't want to burn too fast on the outside & just cook clear through, why use lots of suntan oil!

32.—BUT GOD ONLY KNOW WHAT IT'S DOING TO YOUR INTERNAL ORGANS cooking clear through too long in the sun! But suntan oil is a help & some good oils do keep your skin from burning too readily. But it won't help you heliophobes too much because you just can't take it & you might as well make up your mind to it & stay out of it if you don't want to suffer & therefore even cause God's Work to suffer from lack of your usefulness!

33. SO STAY OUT OF TOO MUCH SUN THIS SUMMER & ANY SUMMER—& WINTER TOO FOR THAT MATTER! You can even get bad sunburn skiing on clear days up in high mountains where the air & the putrefaction pollution is thin. So watch out for it!—And bright sunshine can also damage your eyes! That's why many mountain climbers go snowblind if they don't wear very thick dark glasses. It could do the same for you on the beach in very bright sunshine where you're getting sun from both directions, from above & from the water. Reflection on the water increases the light of the sun about two-fold & if you don't wear good sunglasses can damage your eyes as well!

34. SO WATCH OUR FOR THE SUN! A little is good for you & the World needs some, but you don't need too much! For babies & little children they say five or ten minutes a day of sunshine is sufficient. They should never have more than that until they grow older. In fact, Dr. Koger used to say that five or ten minutes a day of sunshine was all anybody needed, really, to manufacture sufficient Vitamin D & C or whatever it is that has to be activated by sunshine!

35. INDOOR PLANTS CAN GROW EVEN BY REFLECTED SUNSHINE just inside a window or a window door where they never get direct sunshine at all but just the reflected light of the sun, that's all they need! Even for the process of photosynthesis a plant does not have to have direct sunshine, & therefore you can do very well without ever getting a single direct ray of the sun just by sitting near a window & getting lots of light like I do all day long doing my work! As anybody knows, plants are grown in sheltered & shaded hothouses, & indoor plants never need direct sunshine if they sit near a window, an open door or a glass door where they get plenty of light.

36. AS LONG AS YOU GET LIGHT IT WILL DO THE JOB!—And that's all the World used to get & it was sufficient for life, vegetation & animal life in the days before the Flood when the World was protected by that layer of water. Now the World gets too much sunshine & it won't last very long at this rate because of it. It's lasted about 4000 years since the Flood, but it has shortened the life of man & has no doubt affected animals & plant life as well. There are gigantic deserts that did not exist before the Flood & there are many things which are different now because of the sins of man & the devastation he has brought on the Earth because of his wickedness. So watch out for the sun!

37. THE SUN WHICH WAS ONCE ONLY A FRIEND HAS NOW BECOME A PARTIAL ENEMY if you stay out in it too long! I remember when we were living in the deserts of Arizona & Texas on our famous national tour, one of our prophets when he saw the sun rise in the morning—he knew how hot it was going to get during the day living out in caravans & trucks & buses—so he used to say, "Here comes the enemy!" as he saw the sun rise! So watch out! It may be your enemy & you had better look out for it, it may attack you! As the doctors say, sunburn is an attack by the sun upon the skin, so watch out for the sun!

38. (MARIA: BUT IF YOU DO GET A BURN YOU CAN APPLY VITAMIN E OIL FROM A CAPSULE.) These little sunny glowing yellow golden capsules of Vitamin E oil they say is good for any kind of a burn including sunburn! It helped David's cheek burn that he got from a light bulb once very much & to heal quickly! It seems to feed & heal the skin.

39. MY GRANDFATHER USED TO SAY THAT GOD HAS MADE REMEDIES FOR ALMOST EVERYTHING! He's made remedies for our natural enemies. He's made natural remedies & certain herbs & there seems to be a remedy for almost everything! An old Arab was telling him this once in the desert when he got a very bad thorn in this thumb from a thorn bush travelling in the desert of Egypt. It immediately festered just like poison & got very sore & bad!

40. THE OLD ARAB SAID THAT GOD HAS A REMEDY FOR ALL THESE THINGS, & he just took my grandfather & walked him over to the nearest camel—the camels upon which they were riding through the desert at that time—& he stuck his thumb in the camel's mouth! The camel sucked on his thumb & something about the camel's strong saliva completely dissolved the thorn which was a barbed thorn that he couldn't pull out & he didn't want to cut out because it was pretty bad & big & sore! But immediately it dissolved the thorn completely, removed it entirely & the camel's saliva seemed to have a healing effect on his thumb as well, sucked out the poison, & his thumb healed up completely, the soreness gone almost immediately!

41. SO GOD HAS PROVIDED WAYS TO HELP ALLEVIATE THE CURSE & HEAL US FROM ITS SUFFERINGS. (Maria: But is sunburn exactly the same as other kinds of burns?) Exactly the same kind of burn, in various degrees. You can get a second degree burn just from direct sunlight, same as you can get from a hot pan or a hot dish or fire!—A burn that will turn whatever part of your body that got burned very red & actually blister!

42. I HAVE SEEN PEOPLE ABSOLUTELY COVERED WITH HORRIBLE BLISTERS FROM GETTING TOO MUCH SUN & in such pain & agony they had to take them to the hospital & sedate them! They were in screaming pain from horrible sunburn just like they'd been scalded or had boiling water poured over them!—And some of them died & didn't survive. This was very common in Miami when I was a kid‚ with the stupid tourists who came down from the North all white‚ & baked out on the meat racks & burned before they even got well done! They had to take them to the hospital with horrible blisters all over & skin peeling off & gigantic sores & had to put them in special intensive care units & cover them with oils & sedative things to try to stop the pain!

43. I CAN REMEMBER MANY A TIME WHEN I WAS YOUNG WHEN I GOT A SUNBURN from staying out too long. I usually ran around in a pair of shorts in the Summer time on the beach & in & out of the water nearly all day, it's a wonder it didn't kill me!—It did make me sick quite a few times.

44. YOU GET SO HOT FROM THE WARMTH OF THE SUN THAT YOU GET A KIND OF A FEVER. Though the sun is very hot, the air is very cool, & if you go immediately into the shade without putting on a robe or more clothing to keep you warm, you can get a chill & a fever & catch a very bad cold! They used to call that a "sun cold" in Florida—you actually catch cold & your eyes run & your nose runs & you sneeze & blow & sniffle & have fever & all the rest just from too much sunshine & then suddenly going into the cooler air of the shade!

45. THE DOCTORS USED TO WARN AGAINST CHILDREN GETTING OVER TIRED PLAYING IN THE WATER & then coming out into the direct sunshine to lie on the shore or poolside & dry off in the sun. The sun has a very weird effect then. First of all, the sun will burn you quicker through a layer of water on your skin because it acts like a lens or prism that concentrates the sunshine.

46. YOUR SKIN WILL BURN QUICKER IF IT'S WET. Also the rapidly evaporating water on your skin will sometimes chill you, though lying right in the sun!—Especially a child. You'll see a child lying there shivering, its lips blue, & this is something that doctors call "freezing weather". Even in the hot Tropics & lying out in the sunshine & hot summer weather, it's called freezing weather & can give a child a bad cold or even pneumonia from getting chilled after swimming!

47. THE SUN'S EVAPORATION OF THE WATER HAS A CHILLING EFFECT & it takes a little while for the water to dry off & the sun to sufficiently warm the body, & when they first come out of the water they feel quite cold with all that water on the skin. So swimming & sunshine can even be very dangerous & cause you to get chilled & catch cold or even pneumonia! Lots of people used to have pneumonia in Florida, believe it or not, from getting chilled after swimming.—Even in the sunshine! So too much sun is bad for you. Watch out for the sun!

48. (MARIA: WILL SUNBURN SCAR THE SAME AS DAVID HAS A SCAR FROM HIS BURN?) Oh yes! A bad second–degree sunburn can scar your face or scar your body very badly! Some women have had very bad scars from sunburn which have disfigured their skin badly. So girls, it can destroy your beauty as well as your health, so watch out for sunburn!

49. WHEN YOU OR YOUR CHILDREN COME IN OUT OF SWIMMING OR SUN BATHING & INTO THE SHADE‚ immediately put on a robe & dress very warmly or you're apt to catch cold & have fever & get sick! Because after some time in the sun sunning, you're very very warm, your skin's very hot & if you come immediately into the shade, most places the air is cooler inside or in the shade, & you or the child can suddenly cool off too rapidly & actually chill & catch cold that way if you don't put on a robe or extra clothing immediately! Keep warm or keep the child warm with more clothing & warmer than what you would normally have to wear inside or in the shade of a tree or in your caravan.

50. AFTER SWIMMING & SUNBATHING YOU MUST BE VERY CAREFUL TO KEEP WARMER THAN USUAL when you come inside. Your body has adjusted itself to that terrible heat‚ that attack on the body by the sun, & if you go suddenly from one temperature to the other it's just like walking out of an oven into an icebox & it can almost kill you! It can chill you, give you a fever and a cold & make you sick! So God bless you & protect you from the sun!—And give you enough sense to try to protect yourselves! Watch out for the sun!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family