2T 60, 404
(Testimonies for the Church Volume 2 60, 404)
There is light and salvation for you if you will only feel that you must have it or perish. Jesus can save to the uttermost. But, Sister G, if God has ever spoken by me, you are terribly deceived in regard to yourself, and must have a thorough conversion, or you will never be one of that number who have come up through great tribulation, having washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (2T 60.1) MC VC
Chapter 6—Flesh Meats and Stimulants VC
Dear Brother and Sister H (2T 60) MC VC
I recollected your countenances as being among several that I had seen who need a work accomplished for them before they can be sanctified through the truth. You embraced the truth because you saw it to be truth, but it has not yet taken hold of you. You have not realized its sanctifying influence upon the life. The light has been shining upon your pathway in regard to health reform and the duty resting upon God’s people in these last days to exercise temperance in all things. You, I saw, were among the number who would be backward to see the light and correct your manner of eating, drinking, and working. As the light of truth is received and followed out, it will work an entire reformation in the life and character of all those who are sanctified through it. (2T 60.2) MC VC
Your business is of a character that is not friendly to an advance in the divine life, but is one that will hinder the growth of grace and the knowledge of the truth. It has a tendency to lower, to debase the man, to make him more animal in his propensities. The higher powers of the mind are overpowered by the lower. The brutish part of your nature governs the spiritual. Those who profess to be fitting for translation should not become butchers. (2T 60.3) MC VC
Your family have partaken largely of flesh meats, and the animal propensities have been strengthened, while the intellectual have been weakened. We are composed of what we eat, and if we subsist largely upon the flesh of dead animals we shall partake of their nature. You have encouraged the grosser part of your organism, while the more refined has been weakened. You have repeatedly said in defense of your indulgence of meat eating: “However injurious it may be to others, it does not injure me, for I have used it all my life.” But you know not how well you might have been if you had abstained from the use of flesh meats. As a family, you are far from being free from disease. You have used the fat of animals, which God in His word expressly forbids: “It shall be a perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings, that ye eat neither fat nor blood.”(Leviticus 3:17) “Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.” Leviticus 7:26. (2T 60.4) MC VC
I saw that the family of Brother G need a great work done for them. H and I have gone to great lengths in this crime of self-abuse; especially is this true of H, who has gone so far in the practice of this sin that his intellect is affected, his eye-sight is weakened, and disease is fastening itself upon him. Satan has almost full control of this poor boy’s mind, but his parents are not awake to see the evil and its results. His mind is debased, his conscience hardened, his moral sensibilities benumbed, and he will be a ready victim for evil associates to lead into sin and crime. Brother and Sister G, arouse yourselves, I beg of you. You have not received the light of health reform and acted upon it. If you had restricted your appetites you would have been saved much extra labor and expense; and, what is of vastly more consequence, you would have preserved to yourselves a better condition of physical health and a greater degree of intellectual strength to appreciate eternal truths; you would have a clearer brain to weigh the evidences of truth and would be better prepared to give to others a reason of the hope that is in you. Your food is not of that simple, healthful quality which will make the best kind of blood. Foul blood will surely becloud the moral and intellectual powers, and arouse and strengthen the baser passions of your nature. Neither of you can afford a feverish diet, for it is at the expense of the health of the body and the prosperity of your own souls and the souls of your children. (2T 404.1) MC VC
You place upon your table food which taxes the digestive organs, excites the animal passions, and weakens the moral and intellectual faculties. Rich food and flesh meats are no benefit to you. Could you know just the nature of the meat you eat, could you see the animals when living from which the flesh is taken when dead, you would turn with loathing from your flesh meats. The very animals whose flesh you eat are frequently so diseased that, if left alone, they would die of themselves; but while the breath of life is in them, they are killed and brought to market. You take directly into your system humors and poison of the worst kind, and yet you realize it not. You love to indulge appetite. You have this lesson to learn: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31. (2T 404.2) MC VC