Fasting
145
encouragement for every soul who is struggling against temptation.
Christ has made it possible for every member of the human family
to resist temptation. All who would live godly lives may overcome
as Christ overcame, by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their
testimony. That long fast of the Saviour strengthened Him to endure.
He gave evidence to man that He would begin the work of overcoming
just where ruin began,—on the point of appetite.—
Letter 158, 1909
297. When Christ was the most fiercely beset by temptation, He ate
nothing. He committed Himself to God, and through earnest prayer,
and perfect submission to the will of His Father, came off conqueror.
Those who profess the truth for these last days, above every other
class of professed Christians, should imitate the great Exemplar in
prayer.—
Testimonies for the Church 2:202, 203, 1869
[
For context see 70
]
298. The Redeemer of the world knew that the indulgence of
appetite would bring physical debility, and so deaden the perceptive
organs that sacred and eternal things would not be discerned. Christ
knew that the world was given up to gluttony, and that this indulgence
would pervert the moral powers. If the indulgence of appetite was so
strong upon the race that in order to break its power, the divine Son
of God, in behalf of man, was required to fast nearly six weeks, what
a work is before the Christian in order that he may overcome even as
Christ overcame! The strength of the temptation to indulge perverted
appetite can be measured only by the inexpressible anguish of Christ
in that long fast in the wilderness.—
Testimonies for the Church 3:486,
1875
[187]
As a Preparation for Study of the Scriptures
299. There are in the Scriptures some things which are hard to
be understood, and which, according to the language of Peter, the
unlearned and unstable wrest unto their own destruction. We may
not, in this life, be able to explain the meaning of every passage of
Scripture; but there are no vital points to practical truth that will be
clouded in mystery.
When the time shall come, in the providence of God, for the world
to be tested upon the truth for that time, minds will be exercised by