OBJECTION 36. — MEATS FOR FOOD
On this point the objector claims that the testimony of the visions contradictory and opposed to the Bible. We shall not follow him in all his tortuous wanderings here. His work is but a tissue of confusion. He gives that as a vision which is not, and does not purport to be such. His quotations are garbled, a sentence being detached from one page and applied to another subject on another page. And events that took place hundreds of miles, and many years, apart, are confounded together. All this is done to prove to the reader that the visions have taught that swine’s flesh is good and nourishing food. But they have never so taught. The chief point, however, over which there seems to be a disposition to cavil, is a statement on page 121, of Spiritual Gifts, Vol. 4: “And he [God] permitted that long-lived race to eat animal food to shorten their sinful lives.” This is spoken of the generations that lived immediately after the flood. A few lines that immediately precede it, read as follows: “After the flood the people ate largely of animal food. God saw that the ways of man were corrupt, and he was disposed to exalt himself proudly against his Creator, and to follow the inclinations of his own heart. And he permitted that long-lived race to eat animal food to shorten their sinful lives.” If this is so, says the objector, why did God also permit Noah and the Israelites, his chosen people, to eat of it, when the effect upon them would be the same? We answer, We have no idea that God ever did give permission to any one to partake of it in the manner that it was partaken of by the wicked soon after the flood. Mark the expression, “After the flood the people ate largely of animal food.” In that word “largely” lies, as we understand it, their chief sin. Just as eating and drinking are mentioned as sins of the last days; not that eating and drinking in themselves are sinful; but the sin is in the excess committed in these things, and the devotion of the people to them. And when God saw that that long-lived race were determined to give themselves up to every excess of lust and riot, he permitted them to go on eating largely of animal food, stimulating their passions, and rapidly exhausting their vital energies. And the Bible teaches essentially the same thing, in relation to the incorrigibly wicked, whom God gives up to their own lusts, to be filled with their doings. See the following testimonies:VEGW 95.2
“But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust; and they walked in their own counsels.” Psalm 81:11, 12.VEGW 96.1
“Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have ye offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness?” Acts 7:42.VEGW 96.2
“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves.” Romans 1:24.VEGW 97.1
“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:11, 12.VEGW 97.2
In view of such testimonies as these, why should it be thought a strange thing that God should suffer the postdiluvians who became hopeless apostates from him, to shorten their sinful lives by an excess of their own lusts?VEGW 97.3
But the objector urges further, that Abraham, when the angels came to him, ran to the herd, and killed a calf, good and tender, and set before them, and they did eat. Why was this, if meat is such bad food? This circumstance is introduced we suppose, to show that Abraham made use of meat; for the question is not what angels may eat, but what is best for man. But even here a bare thought of that commonest of all adages, “Circumstances alter cases,” would have saved any question. A well man can eat with comparative impunity what would be ruinous to a sick one. Give us the strong physical powers of Abraham, and as healthy meat as he had, and we will use it as freely as he did, if the objector will give us the requisite information as to how freely that was.(?) But in comparison with Abraham we are a puny and sickly race, and in comparison with the animal of his day, the animals of the present day are greatly degenerated, and prone to disease. Now because strong persons, nearly four thousand years ago, could eat temperately of the flesh of healthy animals without apparent injury, it is no reason why an enfeebled generation, like the present, can partake without injury of the flesh of the degenerate and sickly animals of these last days. There have been, no doubt, healthy hogs (as healthy as those animals can be), but we do not care, on that account, to run the risk of partaking of the diseased swine of to-day, and squirming into the grave with a multitude of the horrid trichina in our muscles. The meat question is all right.VEGW 97.4