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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
and uplifting of the soul. They were an honor to God, and a bright and
shining light in the court of Babylon.
In this history we hear the voice of God addressing us individually,
bidding us gather up all the precious rays of light upon this subject of
Christian temperance, and place ourselves in right relation to the laws
of health.
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Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 37
Through appetite, Satan controls the mind and the whole being.
Thousands who might have lived, have passed into the grave, physical,
mental, and moral wrecks, because they sacrificed all their powers to
the indulgence of appetite. The necessity for the men of this generation
to call to their aid the power of the will, strengthened by the grace
of God, in order to withstand the temptations of Satan, and resist
the least indulgence of perverted appetite, is far greater than it was
several generations ago. But the present generation have less power of
self-control than had those who lived then.
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 42-44
One of the strongest temptations that man has to meet is upon the
point of appetite. In the beginning the Lord made man upright. He
was created with a perfectly balanced mind, the size and strength of
all his organs being fully and harmoniously developed. But through
the seductions of the wily foe, the prohibition of God was disregarded,
and the laws of nature wrought out their full penalty....
Since the first surrender to appetite, mankind have been growing
more and more self-indulgent, until health has been sacrificed on
the altar of appetite. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world were
intemperate in eating and drinking. They would have flesh-meats,
although God had at that time given man no permission to eat animal
food. They ate and drank till the indulgence of their depraved appetite
knew no bounds, and they became so corrupt that God could bear with
them no longer. Their cup of iniquity was full, and He cleansed the
earth of its moral pollution by a flood.
As men multiplied upon the earth after the flood, they again forgot
God, and corrupted their ways before Him. Intemperance in every
form increased, until almost the whole world was given up to its sway.