Relation of Diet to Health and Morals
45
It is as truly a sin to violate the laws of our being as it is to break the
ten commandments. To do either is to break God’s laws. Those who
transgress the law of God in their physical organism, will be inclined
to violate the law of God spoken from Sinai.
Our Saviour warned his disciples that just prior to his second com-
ing a state of things would exist very similar to that which preceded
the flood. Eating and drinking would be carried to excess, and the
world would be given up to pleasure. This state of things does exist at
the present time. The world is largely given up to the indulgence of
appetite; and the disposition to follow worldly customs will bring us
into bondage to perverted habits,—habits that will make us more and
more like the doomed inhabitants of Sodom. I have wondered that the
inhabitants of the earth were not destroyed, like the people of Sodom
and Gomorrah. I see reason enough for the present state of degeneracy
and mortality in the world. Blind passion controls reason, and every
high consideration is, with many, sacrificed to lust.
To keep the body in a healthy condition, in order that all parts of
the living machinery may act harmoniously, should be a study of our
life. The children of God cannot glorify him with sickly bodies or
dwarfed minds. Those who indulge in any species of intemperance,
either in eating or drinking, waste their physical energies and weaken
moral power.
The apostle Peter understood the relation between the mind and the
body, and raised his voice in warning to his brethren: “Dearly beloved,
I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts,
which war against the soul.” [
1 Peter 2:11
.] Many regard this text as
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a warning against licentiousness only; but it has a broader meaning.
It forbids every injurious gratification of appetite or passion. Every
perverted appetite becomes a warring lust. Appetite was given us for a
good purpose, not to become the minister of death by being perverted,
and thus degenerating into “lusts which war against the soul.” Peter’s
admonition is a most direct and forcible warning against the use of
all stimulants and narcotics. These indulgences may well be classed
among the lusts that exert a pernicious influence upon moral character.
When Paul wrote, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly,”
[
1 Thessalonians 5:23
.] he did not exhort his brethren to aim at a
standard which it was impossible for them to reach; he did not pray
that they might have blessings which it was not the will of God to give.