Chapter 16—Keep Clear God’s Connection With
      
      
        Man
      
      
        The brain nerves which communicate with the entire system are
      
      
        the only medium through which Heaven can communicate to man and
      
      
        affect his inmost life. Whatever disturbs the circulation of the electric
      
      
        currents in the nervous system lessens the strength of the vital powers,
      
      
        and the result is a deadening of the sensibilities of the mind
      
      
      
      
        Intemperance of any kind benumbs the perceptive organs and so
      
      
        weakens the brain-nerve power that eternal things are not appreciated,
      
      
        but placed upon a level with the common. The higher powers of the
      
      
        mind, designed for elevated purposes, are brought into slavery to the
      
      
        baser passions. If our physical habits are not right, our mental and
      
      
        moral powers cannot be strong; for great sympathy exists between the
      
      
        physical and the moral
      
      
      
      
        Satan exults to see the human family plunging themselves deeper,
      
      
        and deeper, into suffering and misery. He knows that persons who
      
      
        have wrong habits, and unsound bodies, cannot serve God so earnestly,
      
      
        perseveringly, and purely as though sound. A diseased body affects
      
      
        the brain. With the mind we serve the Lord. The head is the capital of
      
      
        the body. Satan triumphs in the ruinous work he causes by leading the
      
      
        human family to indulge in habits which destroy themselves, and one
      
      
        another; for by this means he is robbing God of the service due Him.
      
      
        Satan is constantly on the alert to bring the race fully under his
      
      
        control. His strongest hold on man is through the appetite, and this he
      
      
        seeks to stimulate in every possible way
      
      
      
      
        Satan’s Most Destructive Device
      
      
        Satan gathered the fallen angels together to devise some way of
      
      
        doing the most possible evil to the human family. One proposition
      
      
        133
      
      
         Testimonies for the Church 2:347
      
      
        134
      
      
         Testimonies for the Church 3:50, 51
      
      
        135
      
      
         Temperance, 13, 14
      
      
        131