314
Counsels on Diet and Foods
own preferences in this matter, eating and drinking as they please, will
gradually grow careless of the instruction the Lord has given regarding
other phases of the present truth, and will lose their perception of what
is truth; they will surely reap as they have sown.
I have been instructed that the students in our schools are not to
be served with flesh foods or with food preparations that are known
to be unhealthful. Nothing that will serve to encourage a desire for
stimulants should be placed on the tables. I appeal to old and young
and to middle-aged. Deny your appetite of those things that are doing
you injury. Serve the Lord by sacrifice.
Let the children have an intelligent part in this work. We are all
members of the Lord’s family, and the Lord would have His children,
young and old, determine to deny appetite, and to save the means
needed for the building of meetinghouses and the support of mission-
aries.
I am instructed to say to parents: Place yourselves, soul and spirit,
on the Lord’s side of this question. We need ever to bear in mind
that in these days of probation we are on trial before the Lord of the
universe. Will you not give up indulgences that are doing you injury?
Words of profession are cheap; let your acts of self-denial testify that
you will be obedient to the demands that God makes of His peculiar
people. Then put into the treasury a portion of the means you save by
your acts of self-denial, and there will be that with which to carry on
the work of God.
There are many who feel that they cannot get along without flesh
foods; but if these would place themselves on the Lord’s side, reso-
lutely resolved to walk in the way of His guidance, they would receive
strength and wisdom as did Daniel and his fellows. They would find
that the Lord would give them sound judgment. Many would be sur-
prised to see how much could be saved for the cause of God by acts of
self-denial. The small sums saved by deeds of sacrifice will do more
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for the upbuilding of the cause of God than larger gifts will accomplish
that have not called for denial of self.
Seventh-day Adventists are handling momentous truths. More than
forty years ago [
Written in 1909.
] the Lord gave us special light on
health reform, but how are we walking in that light? How many have
refused to live in harmony with the counsels of God! As a people we
should make advancement proportionate to the light received. It is our