Tea and Coffee
353
it was the reproving testimonies which made the trouble. And when
the rebellious unfurl their banner, all the disaffected rally around the
standard, and all the spiritually defective, the lame, the halt, and the
blind, unite their influence to scatter and sow discord.
Testimonies for the Church 1:222
Those who use tobacco, tea, and coffee should lay aside those idols,
and put their cost into the treasury of the Lord. Some have never made
a sacrifice for the cause of God, and are asleep as to what God requires
of them. Some of the very poorest will have the greatest struggle to
deny themselves of these stimulants. This individual sacrifice is not
required because the cause of God is suffering for means. But every
heart will be tested, every character developed. It is principle that
God’s people must act upon. The living principle must be carried out
in the life.
Testimonies for the Church 1:548-549
Some think that they can not reform, that health would be sacrificed
should they attempt to leave the use of tea, tobacco, and flesh-meats.
This is the suggestion of Satan. It is these hurtful stimulants that are
surely undermining the constitution and preparing the system for acute
diseases, by impairing nature’s fine machinery and battering down her
fortifications erected against disease and premature decay
The use of unnatural stimulants is destructive to health, and has
a benumbing influence upon the brain, making it impossible to ap-
preciate eternal things. Those who cherish these idols can not rightly
value the salvation which Christ has wrought out for them by a life of
self-denial, continual suffering and reproach, and by finally yielding
His own sinless life to save perishing man from death.
Testimonies for the Church 9:153-154
Those who have received instruction regarding the evils of the
use of flesh foods, tea, and coffee, and rich and unhealthful food
preparations, and who are determined to make a covenant with God by
sacrifice, will not continue to indulge their appetite for food that they
know to be unhealthful. God demands that the appetite be cleansed,
and that self-denial be practiced in regard to those things which are