MR No. 502—Diet and the Spirituality of Ministers

It is the variety and mixture of meat, vegetables, fruit, wines, tea, coffee, sweet cakes, and rich pies that ruin the stomach, and place human beings in a position where they become invalids with all the disagreeable effects of sickness upon the disposition. The character becomes perverted, a depraved appetite is established, and a diseased religious experience is the result.—Letter 59, 1898, pp. 1, 2. (To Dr. and Mrs. Kellogg, July 26, 1898.)7MR 337.1

God calls for reform in our churches. Satan is playing the game of life for every soul. He is seeking to brutalize humanity whom God values. But when the appetite is held under the control of an intelligent, God-fearing mind, there will be a cultivation of pure, spiritual attributes. There will be a refusal to be led into slavery that kills both physical, mental, and moral worth, and leaves the human agent, for whom Christ has paid so high a price, crippled, worthless, and tossed about with temptation.7MR 337.2

Benumb not the faculties that God has given for wise improvement by intemperate habits. Touch not, taste not, handle not, spirituous liquors in any form. But intemperance does not stop here. There are manufactured appetites which the author of our being has never created, and every departure from the simple natural laws which he has established in our being, is a departure from the law of God. This law embraces the treatment of the entire being. Every nerve and fiber of muscle of the body has been constructed by God, and so arranged as to minister happiness to the human agent. But man has sought out many inventions. He has treated the body as if its law had no such thing as penalty, and in this sin against the body, he has dishonored his Maker.—Manuscript 3, 1897, 14. (“Health Reform,” January 11, 1897.)7MR 337.3

Your self-confidence has been shown in your disregard of the light upon health reform. The Lord has given His servants a special message to bear, that His people may become intelligent upon this subject. You have had an opportunity to obtain the light; but self-denial would be a new experience to you, and you have not been willing to see that temperance in eating and drinking and in all things devolved upon you. This in itself was a reason why you should not have been ordained to the ministry. No man should be set apart as a teacher of the people while his own teaching or example contradicts the testimony God has given His servants to bear in regard to diet; for this will bring confusion.7MR 338.1

And your disregard of health reform is unfitting you to stand as the Lord's messenger. Indulgence in meat-eating, and tea-drinking, and other forms of self-pleasing, is injurious to the health of the body and the soul.—Letter 23, 1896, p. 3. (To a minister, December 14, 1896.)7MR 338.2

Released June 29, 1976.