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Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
is not the most healthful, the effects will be still more injurious. Any
habit which does not promote healthful action in the human system
degrades the higher and nobler faculties. Wrong habits of eating and
drinking lead to errors in thought and action. Indulgence of appetite
strengthens the animal propensities, giving them the ascendency over
the mental and spiritual powers.
“Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,” is the
language of the apostle Peter. Many regard this warning as applicable
only to the licentious; but it has a broader meaning. It guards against
every injurious gratification of appetite or passion. It is a most forcible
warning against the use of such stimulants and narcotics as tea, coffee,
tobacco, alcohol, or morphine. These indulgences may well be classed
among the lusts that exert a pernicious influence upon moral character.
The earlier these hurtful habits are formed, the more firmly will they
hold their victim in slavery to lust, and the more certainly will they
lower the standard of spirituality.
Testimonies for the Church 2:413-414
You need to exercise temperance in all things. Cultivate the higher
powers of the mind, and there will be less strength of growth of the
animal. It is impossible for you to increase in spiritual strength while
your appetite and passions are not under perfect control. Says the
inspired apostle, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection;
lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should
be a castaway.”
My brother, arouse yourself, I pray you, and let the work of the
Spirit of God reach deeper than the external; let it reach down to
the deep springs of every action. It is principle that is wanted, firm
principle, and vigor of action in spiritual as well as temporal things.
Your efforts lack earnestness. Oh, how many are low in the scale of
spirituality, because they will not deny their appetite! The brain nerve
energy is benumbed and almost paralyzed by overeating. When such
go to the house of God upon the Sabbath, they can not hold their eyes
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open. The most earnest appeals fail to arouse their leaden, insensible
intellects. The truth may be presented with deep feeling; but it does
not awaken the moral sensibilities, or enlighten the understanding.
Have such studied to glorify God in all things?