Following the Light by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 17, 1913

Following the Light

By F. M. W.

In the human family the ill effects of man's disobedience are everywhere apparent. Men's bodies have become dwarfed, enfeebled, diseased. The human race to-day is the prey of numberless maladies, and each year affords new diseases or new complications in old ones. And we must conclude from the testimony of Scripture that these conditions will grow worse until they culminate in the terrible pestilences of the last days.

In view of these conditions it naturally would be expected that the gospel message for this time should embrace not only the quickening of men's spiritual natures, the transformation of their character, but that there should be connected with it that which would offer some relief from the terrible effects of sin as seen in the physical degeneracy of the human race. This it does. The message represented by this movement is a message of reform which calls men to a higher standard of both spiritual and physical living.

Instruction has been given this people for many years through the servant of the Lord regarding the principles of healthful living. Again and again through the testimonies of the spirit of prophecy have these principles been urged upon the attention of our people. Some have given to this instruction careful study. Consistently and faithfully they have endeavored to apply the principles of health to their own families and to their own individual needs, and God has blessed in this effort. Others have indifferently turned from the instruction and persevered in disobedience to the laws of life and health. These have suffered great loss.

Surely when light is sent the people of God, it is important that they give to it diligent heed. It is not enough to argue that it is inconvenient to do so, that it is easier to follow the old beaten paths. The children of Israel felt this way in the wilderness, and longed for the dietary of Egypt. Their course brought darkness and backsliding.

Nor does it avail to point to some misguided member of the church, who, in perversion of judgment, has wrongly applied the principles, and becoming extreme in his conceptions, has made his own standard of living a test and gage by which to judge the Christianity of others. Every movement has had its misguided votaries. The unwise course pursued by extremists does not lessen our responsibility to follow the light which God has given. We find some professed Seventh-day Adventists who take extreme positions with reference to Sabbath observance, the coming of the Lord, and other cardinal features of the message we hold. This by no means detracts from the force of these truths. Nor does the unwise course of others in dietary reform lessen our individual responsibility to obtain, from better habits of living closer, observance of the laws of our being, the blessings which God designs we shall receive.

It is not for us to judge our brethren in meat or in drink. It is not for us to erect some personal standard of reform and by it seek to gage the conduct of our fellows. But it does behoove every Seventh-day Adventist to take the light and counsel which have come to this people on this important question, and make of the principles involved a faithful and earnest personal study, and in his own life apply them just so far as circumstances will permit, and as God gives him wisdom. We are confident that to those who do this there will come rich blessing.

Without this how can we expect to be kept in the times of peril upon which we have entered? How can we expect the protection of heaven from disease and pestilence if we walk contrary to that which we know, or to that which it is our privilege to know?

Ignorance of the subject can not consistently be urged as an excuse for neglect of the principles. It is the duty of every child of God to become acquainted with the laws of his being, to study the questions of health from a scientific and a physiological standpoint. No large amount of erudition is necessary for this work. A knowledge of the simple principles of hygiene and physiology may easily be obtained. The science of proper cooking and dietetics may be made to come within the range of knowledge of the ordinary housewife. Much valuable instruction is afforded in our health journals, in the Home and Health department of the REVIEW, and above all in the “Testimonies for the Church,” to say nothing of the treatment of these questions from a scientific basis as contained in scientific books to which all have access.

Our sisters,—especially wives and mothers,—the teachers in our schools, our ministers, in fact all who stand before the people as leaders and instructors, have a duty to become intelligent on the question of healthful living. They owe it to their position; they owe it to those who look to them for guidance.

Let us walk in the light of God. Then we can take hold of him with confidence, with no mountain of transgression and condemnation arising before us to eclipse our faith. Let us honor God by obedience to the principles of truth, and then God will honor us in the fulfilment of the promises of his Word in relation to our physical well-being. Then will the Lord fulfil to us the promise made to Israel of old: “If thou wilt diligently harken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.”

F. M. W.