Chapter 4—Indulgence of Appetite
Dear Brethren and Sisters,
I have been shown some things in reference to the church in---
--. Individual cases were presented to me which in many respects
represent the cases of many others. Among them was that of Sister
A and her husband. The Lord convicted him of the truth. He was
charmed with the harmony and spirit of the truth, and was blessed in
confessing it. But Satan came to him with his temptations upon the
point of appetite.
Brother A had long indulged his appetite for stimulants, which
had had an influence to becloud the mind, weaken the intellect, and
lessen the moral powers. Reason and judgment were brought into
bondage to depraved, unnatural appetite, and his birthright, his God-
given manhood, was sacrificed to intemperate habits. Had Brother A
made the word of God his study and his guide, had he trusted in God
and prayed for grace to overcome, he would have had strength in the
name of Jesus to baffle the tempter.
But Brother A had never felt the high claims that God has upon
him. His moral faculties had been enfeebled by his habits of eating
and drinking, and by his dissipation. When he embraced the truth he
had a character to form for heaven. God would test and prove him.
He had a work to do for himself that no one could do for him. By his
course of life he had lost many years of precious probationary time,
when he might have been gaining an experience in matters of religion,
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and a knowledge of the life of Christ, and of the infinite sacrifice made
in man’s behalf to free him from the fetters that Satan had bound upon
him, and enable him to glorify His name.
Christ paid a dear price for man’s redemption. In the wilderness
of temptation He suffered the keenest pangs of hunger; and while
He was emaciated with fasting, Satan was at hand with his manifold
temptations to assail the Son of God, to take advantage of His weakness
and overcome Him, and thus thwart the plan of salvation. But Christ
was steadfast. He overcame in behalf of the race, that He might rescue
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