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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
There is a variety of minds, and all need more or less cultivation
and training. Every movement in connection with the cause of God
should be characterized by caution and decision. Without decision,
an individual is fickle and unstable as water, and can never be truly
successful. All who profess Christ should be workers. There are no
drones in the household of faith. Every member of the family has some
task assigned him, some portion of the vineyard of the Lord in which
to work. The only way to meet the demand of God is to be constantly
persevering in our endeavors for higher usefulness. It is but little we
can accomplish at best, but every day’s effort will increase our ability
to labor effectually and to bear fruit to the glory of God.
Some do not exercise control over their appetites, but indulge taste
at the expense of health. As the result the brain is clouded, their
thoughts are sluggish, and they fail to accomplish what they might
if they were self-denying and abstemious. These rob God of the
physical and mental strength which might be devoted to His service if
temperance were observed in all things. Paul was a health reformer.
Said he: “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that
by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway.” He felt that a responsibility rested upon him to preserve
all his powers in their strength, that he might use them to the glory
of God. If Paul was in danger from intemperance, we are in greater
danger, because we do not feel and realize as he did the necessity of
glorifying God in our bodies and spirits, which are His. Overeating is
the sin of this age.
The word of God places the sin of gluttony in the same catalogue
with drunkenness. So offensive was this sin in the sight of God that
He gave directions to Moses that a child who would not be restrained
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on the point of appetite, but would gorge himself with anything his
taste might crave, should be brought by his parents before the rulers in
Israel and should be stoned to death. The condition of the glutton was
considered hopeless. He would be of no use to others and was a curse
to himself. No dependence could be placed upon him in anything. His
influence would be ever contaminating others, and the world would
be better without such a character; for his terrible defects would be
perpetuated. None who have a sense of their accountability to God
will allow the animal propensities to control reason. Those who do
this are not Christians, whoever they may be and however exalted their