Reasons for Reform
451
Ignorance is no excuse now for the transgression of law. The light
shines clearly, and none need be ignorant, for the great God Himself is
man’s instructor. All are bound by the most sacred obligations to God
to heed the sound philosophy and genuine experience which He is now
giving them in reference to health reform. He designs that the great
subject of health reform shall be agitated, and the public mind deeply
stirred to investigate; for it is impossible for men and women, with
all their sinful, health-destroying, brain-enervating habits, to discern
sacred truth, through which they are to be sanctified, refined, elevated,
and made fit for the society of heavenly angels in the kingdom of glory.
The inhabitants of the Noachian world were destroyed, because
they were corrupted through the indulgence of perverted appetite.
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed through the gratification of
unnatural appetite, which so benumbed the intellect that they could not
discern the difference between the sacred claims of God and the clamor
of appetite. The latter enslaved them, and they became so ferocious
and bold in their detestable abominations that God would not tolerate
them upon the earth. God ascribes the wickedness of Babylon to her
gluttony and drunkenness.
The apostle Paul exhorts the church, “I beseech you therefore,
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”
Men, then, can make their bodies unholy by sinful indulgences. If
unholy, they are unfitted to be spiritual worshipers, and are not worthy
of heaven. If man will cherish the light that God in mercy gives him
upon health reform, he may be sanctified through the truth, and fitted
for immortality. But if he disregards that light, and lives in violation
of natural law, he must pay the penalty.
Testimonies for the Church 3:164-165
Christ has here left us a most important lesson. He does not in
His teaching encourage indolence. His example was the opposite of
this. Christ was an earnest worker. His life was one of self-denial,
diligence, perseverance, industry, and economy. He would lay before
us the danger of making eating and drinking paramount. He reveals
the result of giving up to indulgence of appetite. The moral powers
are enfeebled, so that sin does not appear sinful. Crimes are winked