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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
coffee. If they are brought into straitened circumstances while exerting
themselves to do the best they can, it will be a pleasure for their wealthy
brethren to help them out of trouble.... God’s people should be subject
one to another. They should counsel with one another, that the lack
of one may be supplied by the sufficiency of another. I saw that the
stewards of the Lord have no duty to help those persons who persist in
using tobacco, tea, and coffee.
The Facts of Faith 2:36-37
The facts relative to Korah and his company, who rebelled against
Moses and Aaron, and against Jehovah, are recorded for a warning to
God’s people, especially those who live upon the earth near the close
of time. Satan has led persons to imitate the example of Korah, Dathan
and Abiram, in raising insurrection among the people of God. Those
who permit themselves to rise in opposition to the plain testimony,
become self-deceived, and have really thought that those upon whom
God laid the burden of His work were exalted above the people of
God, and that their counsels and reproofs were uncalled for. They have
risen in opposition to the plain testimony which God would have them
bear in rebuking the wrongs among God’s people. The testimonies
borne against hurtful indulgences, as tea, coffee, snuff, and tobacco,
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have irritated a certain class, because it would destroy their idols.
Many for a while were undecided whether to make an entire sacrifice
of all these hurtful things, or reject the plain testimonies borne, and
yield to the clamors of appetite. They occupied an unsettled position.
There was a conflict between their convictions of truth and their self-
indulgences. Their state of indecision made them weak, and with
many, appetite prevailed. Their sense of sacred things was perverted
by the use of these slow poisons; and they at length fully decided,
let the consequence be what it might, they would not deny self. This
fearful decision at once raised a wall of separation between them
and those who were cleansing themselves, as God has commanded,
from all filthiness of the flesh, and of the spirit, and were perfecting
holiness in the fear of the Lord. The straight testimonies borne were
in their way, and caused them great uneasiness, and they found relief
in warring against them, and striving to make themselves and others
believe that they were untrue. They said the people were all right, but