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The Ministry of Healing
forth the praises of him who hath called you out of
darkness into his marvellous light.”
1 Peter 2:9
. “What
doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the
LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love
him?”
Deuteronomy 10:12
.
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“The Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver
thee, and to give up thine enemies before thee; therefore shall thy
camp be holy.”
Deuteronomy 23:14
.
Diet
The distinction between clean and unclean was made in all
matters of diet:
“I am the Lord thy God, which have separated you from other
people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and
unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not
make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner
of living thing, ... which I have separated from you as unclean.”
Leviticus 20:24, 25
.
Many articles of food eaten freely by the heathen about them
were forbidden to the Israelites. It was no arbitrary distinction that
was made. The things prohibited were unwholesome. And the fact
that they were pronounced unclean taught the lesson that the use of
injurious foods is defiling. That which corrupts the body tends to
corrupt the soul. It unfits the user for communion with God, unfits
him for high and holy service.
In the Promised Land the discipline begun in the wilderness was
continued under circumstances favorable to the formation of right
habits. The people were not crowded together in cities, but each
family had its own landed possession, ensuring to all the health-
giving blessings of a natural, unperverted life.
Concerning the cruel, licentious practices of the Canaanites, who
were dispossessed by Israel, the Lord said:
“Ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast
out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I
abhorred them.”
Verse 23
. “Neither shalt thou bring an abomination
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