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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
decidedly forbids, that they can be ranked as his helpers—working
with him to destroy the image of God in man.
Through the strong temptations of principalities and powers, many
are ensnared. Slaves to the caprice of appetite, they are besotted and
degraded....
“What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your
own. For ye are bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your
body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Those who have a constant realization that they stand in this re-
lation to God will not place in the stomach food which pleases the
appetite, but which injures the digestive organs. They will not spoil the
property of God by indulging in improper habits of eating, drinking, or
dressing. They will take great care of the human machinery, realizing
that they must do this in order to work in co-partnership with God. He
wills that they should be healthy, happy and useful. But in order for
them to be this, they must place their wills on the side of His will.
Manuscript 93, 1901
The Lord has instructed me that as a general rule, we place too
much food in the stomach. Many make themselves uncomfortable by
over-eating, and sickness is often the result. The Lord did not bring
this punishment on them. They brought it on themselves; and God
desires them to realize that pain is the result of transgression.
Many eat too rapidly. Others eat at one meal food which does not
agree. If men and women would only remember how greatly they
afflict the soul when they afflict the stomach, and how deeply Christ
is dishonored when the stomach is abused, they would be brave and
self-denying, giving the stomach opportunity to recover its healthy
action. While sitting at the table we may do medical missionary work
by eating and drinking to the glory of God....
What a pity it is that often, when the greatest self-denial should be
exercised, the stomach is crowded with a mass of unhealthful food,
which lies there to decompose. The affliction of the stomach affects
the brain. The imprudent eater does not realize that he is disqualifying
himself for giving wise counsel, disqualifying himself for laying plans
for the best advancement of the work of God. But this is so. He cannot