SERVING TABLES by H. C. MILLER.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 10, 1867

“SERVING TABLES.”

By H. C. MILLER.

“Labor not for the meat that perisheth.” While many have learned to do without meat and grease, and condiments, they yet fail in one very important point, temperance in quantity and variety. Not long since I sat at the table of one, who, before we sat down had been telling of his success in living out the Health Reform. On the table were six kinds of bread, nearly as many of vegetables, ripe apples, three kinds of sauce, butter, honey, syrup, cream, milk, and a milk-gravy. Nearly all are good in themselves; but while the word of the Lord exhorts us to eat that which is good, Isa. lv, 2, it nowhere teaches that we should eat all good things at one meal. On the contrary, it teaches temperance in these things, as we shall try to show.

But before doing this we want to mention some of the effects of the course above described, as observed in the case mentioned. The poor wife was nearly the whole time “cumbered with her much serving.” All the members of the family were impatient and fault-finding, the labor of the day dragged slowly, the worship was not spirited. That “woman's work is never done” was nearly true in this case. Often did she find herself encroaching upon the first hours of the Sabbath, and so wearied on that day as to be unfitted for the worship of its holy hours. That overloaded table had the largest share in causing all this. Now the Bible, from Genesis to the end, instructs us to do differently. Let us turn to some of its examples.

Passing by the order given in Eden, we will notice the example of Abraham when he had celestial guests to entertain. We read his invitation in Gen. xviii, 3-5, closing thus: “I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts, and after that ye shall pass on.” The invitation is accepted. The good wife does not keep them long waiting in order to set a table full of delicacies; she quickly prepares it. Served up, it consisted of unleavened bread, veal, milk and butter.

Next is the example of Lot entertaining two of the same persons. We read: “And he made them a feast.” Judging from the feasts now-a-days we might expect that here, with guests so noble, there would be a rare and varied feast, with many courses. But we read that “he did bake unleavened bread; and they did eat.” Gen. xix, 3.

Take again the food God supplied the children of Israel in the wilderness for forty years, and we get no sanction for complexity. Yet on this simple diet, health and strength were preserved. Only when they fell a lusting for variety did disease, weakness, and death come. We need to consider these examples more closely, lest we fail of entering into that rest that remaineth, through the same example of unbelief.

I believe this preparing of so many kinds for a single meal is but the gratifying of the same old unholy appetite. We believe the third message is to go in the spirit and power of Elijah; the work of God in that message is to prepare the erring ones for the great day. We think He is preparing a people for translation, without seeing death. Has he not set forth in the case of Elijah his manner of doing the preparatory work? Let us consider the case of Elijah, and while we look on the path he trod, call to mind what we have passed through and have yet to pass through as revealed by the Spirit.

Wickedness has increased in Israel until the priests of Baal are numbered by hundreds, and their groves are on every high place. The prophet has warned, reproved, rebuked, and exhorted. The Lord has seen it all, and is about to take his faithful servant to Heaven. Pinching want is about to visit Israel. The Lord will make sure the bread of the righteous. “And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying: Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook: and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.” 1 Kings xvii, 2-7. He has here bread and flesh twice a day. Verse 7. Two meals, of that simple fare, were enough. For a while he partook of this; but God proposes to cut off the flesh from his diet, that he may be pure in spirit and in body. We read that the brook dried up and he is sent to Zarephath to the widow's. Here on coarse bread and the mild oil (from the olive-tree probably), he subsists for many days (a full year, margin). Not a murmur arises from his heart. No anxious “What next?” no fear of starvation, no lusting for hurtful things once relished, but humble, earnest trust in God, and obedience to his commands. After this came the test between the true and the false by which a just God demonstrated his truth before a rebellious and wicked people, and showed which of the prophets he was with. The wicked begin to press the righteous on every side, thirsting for his blood. But God cares for his chosen one. And as he lay weary and hungry in the wilderness to which he had fled, and seeing no way of escape from the wicked, pray that he may die. God sends him sleep, while angels watch him. A repast is spread by an angel who rouses him from his refreshing sleep, and bids him eat. Now the grease is entirely dispensed with, also the flesh; a cake baked on the coals, and water, compose the repast. He rests again, and again the angel spreads his table and serves him. In the strength of that meat he went forty days and nights unto sublime manifestations of God's glory. Chap. xix.

Oh! that we might be earnest to be thus temperate, cutting off the hurtful things one by one, simplifying our desires, and hastening unto that preparation we so much need to fit us to endure the work before us. Health Reform in this, temperance in quantity and variety, does not mean starvation, but is summed up in the words of Isaiah, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.” Isa. lv, 2.

We have again the example of Daniel's simple fare of pulse and water, of John the Baptist, with his meat of locusts and wild honey; models of temperance in eating we may safely imitate. Also the example of the multitude whom Jesus fed, Matt. xiv, and last the repast spread on the shores of the sea of Galilee before the hungry fishermen who had toiled all night. Jno. xxi, 9-13. May the Lord help us to be wise in these things, and return to that primitive simplicity so pleasing in his sight. H. C. MILLER. Monroe, Wis.