72
Testimony Studies on Diet and Foods
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.
God created man perfect and holy. But man fell from his holy
estate, because he transgressed God’s law. Since the fall, there has been
a rapid increase of disease, suffering and death. Yet notwithstanding
man has insulted his Creator, God’s love is still extended to the race;
and He permits light to shine that man may see, that, in order to live
a perfect life, he must live in harmony with those natural laws which
govern his being. Therefore it is of the greatest importance that he
know how to live so that his powers of body and mind may be exercised
to the glory of God.
It is impossible for man to present his body a living sacrifice, holy,
and acceptable to God, while, because it is customary for the world
to do so, he is indulging in habits that are lessening physical, mental
and moral vigor. The apostle adds, “And be not conformed to this