310
Counsels on Diet and Foods
Illogical Excuses
710. When Satan takes possession of the mind, how soon the light
and instruction that the Lord has graciously given, fade away, and
have no force! How many frame excuses and make necessities which
have no existence, to bear them up in their course of wrong, in setting
aside the light and trampling it underfoot. I speak with assurance. The
greatest objection to health reform is that this people do not live it out;
and yet they will gravely say they cannot live the health reform and
preserve their strength.
[399]
We find in every such instance a good reason why they cannot live
out the health reform. They do not live it out, and have never followed
it strictly, therefore they cannot be benefited by it. Some fall into
the error that because they discard meat, they have no need to supply
its place with the best fruits and vegetables, prepared in their most
natural state, free from grease and spices. If they would only skillfully
arrange the bounties with which the Creator has surrounded them,
parents and children with a clear conscience unitedly engaging in the
work, they would enjoy simple food, and would then be able to speak
understandingly of health reform. Those who have not been converted
to health reform, and have never fully adopted it, are not judges of its
benefits. Those who digress occasionally to gratify the taste in eating
a fattened turkey or other flesh meats, pervert their appetites, and are
not the ones to judge the benefits of the system of health reform. They
are controlled by taste, not by principle.—
Testimonies for the Church
2:486, 487, 1870
Earnest Appeals for Reform
711. Many parents act as if they were bereft of reason. They are
in a state of lethargy, palsied by the indulgence of perverted appetite
and debasing passion. Our ministers, who know the truth, should
arouse the people from their paralyzed condition, and lead them to
put away those things that create an appetite for flesh meat. If they
neglect to reform, they will lose spiritual power, and become more and
more debased by sinful indulgence. Habits that disgust the heavenly
universe, habits that degrade human beings lower than the beasts, are
practiced in many homes. Let all those who know the truth, say, “Flee
fleshly lusts that war against the soul.”