The Power of Appetite
[
Testimonies for the Church 3:485-489
(1875).]
One of the strongest temptations that man has to meet is upon the
point of appetite. Between the mind and the body there is a mysterious
and wonderful relation. They react upon each other. To keep the body
in a healthy condition to develop its strength, that every part of the
living machinery may act harmoniously, should be the first study of
our life. To neglect the body is to neglect the mind. It cannot be to the
glory of God for His children to have sickly bodies or dwarfed minds.
To indulge the taste at the expense of health is a wicked abuse of the
senses. Those who engage in any species of intemperance, either in
eating or drinking, waste their physical energies and weaken moral
power. They will feel the retribution which follows the transgression
of physical law.
The Redeemer of the world knew that the indulgence of appetite
would bring physical debility and so deaden the perceptive organs that
sacred and eternal things would not be discerned. Christ knew that the
world was given up to gluttony, and that this indulgence would pervert
the moral powers. If the indulgence of appetite was so strong upon the
race that, in order to break its power, the divine Son of God, in behalf
of man, was required to fast nearly six weeks, what a work is before
the Christian in order that he may overcome even as Christ overcame!
The strength of the temptation to indulge perverted appetite can be
measured only by the inexpressible anguish of Christ in that long fast
in the wilderness.
Christ knew that in order to successfully carry forward the plan of
salvation He must commence the work of redeeming man just where
[123]
the ruin began. Adam fell by the indulgence of appetite. In order
to impress upon man his obligations to obey the law of God, Christ
began His work of redemption by reforming the physical habits of
man. The declension in virtue and the degeneracy of the race are
chiefly attributable to the indulgence of perverted appetite.
137