Section: Health Principles (Chapters 20-27)

Section: Health Principles (Chapters 20-27)

The knowledge that man is to be a temple for God, a habitation for the revealing of His glory, should be the highest incentive to the care and development of our physical powers. Fearfully and wonderfully has the Creator wrought in the human frame, and He bids us make it our study, understand its needs, and act our part in preserving it from harm and defilement.
--In order to have good health, we must have good blood; for the blood is the current of life.
--In order to have good blood, we must breathe well. Full, deep inspirations of pure air, which fill the lungs with oxygen, purify the blood.
--In the construction of buildings, whether for public purposes or as dwellings, care should be taken to provide for good ventilation and plenty of sunlight.
--The distinction between clean and unclean was made in all matters of diet: Our bodies are built up from the food we eat. The stomach is closely related to the brain; and when the stomach is diseased, the nerve power is called from the brain to the aid of the weakened digestive organs. Grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables constitute the diet chosen for us by our Creator.
"I am the Lord thy God, which have separated you from other people. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing, . . . which I have separated from you as unclean." Leviticus 20:24, 25. Many articles of food eaten freely by the heathen about them were forbidden to the Israelites. It was no

arbitrary distinction that was made. The things prohibited were unwholesome. The diet appointed man in the beginning did not include animal food. Not till after the Flood, when every green thing on the earth had been destroyed, did man receive permission to eat flesh. The use of swine's flesh was prohibited, as also of other animals and of birds and fish whose flesh was pronounced unclean. Of the meats permitted, the eating of the fat and the blood was strictly forbidden. Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating.
--Those who understand the laws of health and who are governed by principle, will shun the extremes, both of indulgence and of restriction.

Carefully consider your diet. 

Study from cause to effect. 

Cultivate self-control.

--Tobacco is a slow, insidious, but most malignant poison.

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: 

And whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

At the last it biteth like a serpent,

And stingeth like an adder."

Proverbs 20:1,32.

*Never was traced by human hand a more vivid picture of the debasement and the slavery of the victim of intoxicating drink. 

The bleared, besotted wrecks of humanity—souls for whom Christ died, and over whom angels weep—are everywhere. They are a blot on our boasted civilization. Think of the frightful accidents that are every day occurring through the influence of drink. Moderate drinking is the school in which men are educated for the drunkard's career.
--This scripture pictures the work of those who manufacture and who sell intoxicating liquor. Their business means robbery. Houses of prostitution, criminal courts, prisons, insane asylums, hospitals, all are, to a great degree, filled as a result of the liquor seller's work. The drunkard is capable of better things. He has been entrusted with

talents with which to honor God and bless the world; but his fellow men have laid a snare for his soul.
--The Bible nowhere sanctions the use of intoxicating wine. The wine that Christ made from water at the marriage feast of Cana was the pure juice of the grape. This is the "new wine . . . found in the cluster," of which the Scripture says, "Destroy it not; for a blessing is in it." Isaiah 65:8.
--The Bible teaches modesty in dress. "In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel." 1 Timothy 2:9. This forbids display in dress, gaudy colors, profuse ornamentation. Any device designed to attract attention to the wearer or to excite admiration, is excluded from the modest apparel which God's word enjoins. Almost as soon as they come into the world the children are subjected to fashion's influence. They hear more of dress than of their Savior.
--In relation to tea, coffee, tobacco, and alcoholic drinks, the only safe course is to touch not, taste not, handle not.
--Money is a trust from God. It is not ours to expend for the gratification of pride or ambition.

Intemperance lies at the foundation 

of the moral depravity of the world.

By the indulgence of perverted appetite,

 man loses his power to resist temptation.

Our bodies are Christ's purchased possession, 

and we are not at liberty to do with them as we please.