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The Ministry of Health and Healing
Diet
The distinction between clean and unclean was made in all
matters of diet: ““‘I am the Lord your God, who has separated you
from the peoples. You shall therefore distinguish between clean
beasts and unclean, between unclean birds and clean, and you shall
not make yourselves abominable by beast or by bird, or by any kind
of living thing ... which I have separated from you as unclean.”’”
Leviticus 20:24, 25
.
[157]
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
one 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 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: ““‘You shall not walk
in the statutes of the nation which I am casting out before you; for
they commit all these things, and therefore I abhor them.”’”
Verse
23
. “‘Nor shall you bring an abomination into your house, lest you
be doomed to destruction like it.’”
Deuteronomy 7:26
.
In all the affairs of their daily life, the Israelites were taught
the lesson set forth by the Holy Spirit: “Do you not know that you
are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If
anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the
temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”
1 Corinthians 3:16,
17
.
Rejoicing
“A merry [rejoicing] heart does good, like medicine.”
Proverbs
17:22
. Gratitude, rejoicing, benevolence, trust in God’s love and