08_07 Temperance

The next document, #08_07, Temperance, is a necessary piece about how to stay
strong, healthy, and able to be wise unto salvation, in the warfare against Satan and his host. He has a very great army: not only a third of the angels who fell from heaven with him, but a huge number of those humans he possesses, whether they know it or not. All of the worldly are liars and makers of lies, who mislead the children of God into more and more sin. Are you afraid to fight such an army against you? “Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world!” We are more than conquerors through Jesus! The foe is already defeated in his own mind! Put on the whole armor of God, and enter the fray boldly! Jesus is our captain of the host, and we are not so few as we think!
Be a good soldier, and eat and drink for strength and health and energetic clarity of mind. These are necessary to battle strategy, and defense against their many darts. We cannot overcome if we are weakened by bad habits – laziness, fat, gluttony, partying, drug and alcohol abuse, or even overwork!

“And every man that striveth for the mastery (of self – the fallen human nature) is temperate in all things. Now they (athletes – context) do it to obtain a corruptible crown: but we an incorruptible.” I Corinthians 9, verse 25
Temperance: from the book “The Sanctified Life,” by Ellen White.

“Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul,” is the language of the apostle Peter in 1st Peter 2:11. Many regard this text as a warning against licentiousness only, but it has a broader meaning. It forbids every injurious gratification of appetite or passion. Let none regard with indifference the health of the body, and flatter themselves that intemperance is no sin, and will not affect their spirituality. A close sympathy exists between the physical and the moral nature. Any habit which does not promote health degrades the higher and nobler faculties.
Paul wrote, “Every man that striveth for the mastery [of self] is temperate in all things…I therefore…keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1st Corinthians 9:25-27).
Paul also wrote, “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1st Corinthians 6:19,20).
When the apostle writes to the believers, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service,” (Romans 12:1), he sets forth the principles of true sanctification. It is a living, active principle, entering into the everyday life. It requires that our habits…be such as to secure the preservation of physical, mental and moral health, that we may present to the Lord our bodies, not an offering corrupted by wrong habits, but, “a living sacrifice; holy, acceptable unto
God.”
Peter’s admonition to abstain from fleshly lusts is a most direct and forcible warning against the use of all such stimulants and narcotics as coffee, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. These indulgences may be classed among the lusts that exert a pernicious influence upon moral character.

They will lower the standard of spirituality.

Bible teaching will make but a feeble impression upon those whose faculties are benumbed by such self-gratification. Thousands will sacrifice not only their health and life, but their hope of heaven before they will wage war against their perverted appetites for these things.

Every depraved appetite becomes a warring lust. Everything that conflicts with natural law creates a diseased condition of the soul. The heart cannot preserve consecration to God while such appetites are indulged at the expense of health and life. Says Paul, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2nd Corinthians 7:1).

In this age of Christian light, how often the lips that take the precious name of Christ are defiled by tobacco and the breath polluted with the stench. Surely, the soul that can enjoy such uncleanness must also be defiled! As I have seen men who claimed to enjoy the blessing of sanctification, while they were slaves to tobacco, polluting everything around them, I have thought, How would heaven appear with tobacco users in it? God’s word has plainly declared that “there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth.” (Rev.21:27). How, then, can those who indulge this filthy habit hope to find admittance there? Men professing Christianity who indulge this habit, offer their bodies upon Satan’s altar, and burn incense of tobacco to his satanic majesty! Does this statement seem severe? Certainly, the offering is presented to some deity. As God is pure and holy, and will accept nothing defiling in its character, He must refuse this expensive, filthy, and unholy sacrifice; therefore we conclude that Satan is the one who claims the sacrifice!

An enormous sum is yearly squandered for this indulgence. Professed Christians rob God in tithes and offerings while they offer on the altar of destroying lust, in the use of tobacco, more than they give to supply the wants of God’s cause. The Christian is to overcome every hurtful lust. Then this needless expense will be turned to the Lord’s treasury, and they will have treasure in heaven!

The user of tobacco and other stimulants has a hungering of body and soul, not for God’s presence, but for his cherished idol.

“Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life… knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin… Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body,that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof… For sin shall not have dominion over you…Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?… As ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness… even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” (Romans, the 6th chapter).

Self-centered thinking [mind – the fallen nature of man] must be submitted to the Divine nature [“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 2, verse 5)] Join the good fight of faith, NOW!

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