SOWING FOR PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH by David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 4, 1900

SOWING FOR PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH

By David Paulson; W. S. Sadler

David Paulson W. S. Sadler

THE MINERAL ELEMENTS IN FOOD.

The mineral elements comprise but an insignificant percentage, by weight, of the food consumed, yet their extreme importance can best be understood when we learn the fact that man will die more quickly in attempting to live upon food from which organic salts (mineral elements) have been removed, than he would if he was entirely deprived of food. See Bunge’s Physiological Chemistry, page 115.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIVE MINERALS AND DEAD MINERALS.

The various mineral salts that are needed in the human system are found in abundant quantities in the soil. This has led many to believe that the body can make use of these salts without their being transformed into living salts, which is accomplished by their becoming a part of a living plant, by being grown into a plant. Careful experiments, however, have demonstrated that the human system has absolutely no power to recognize or appropriate these inorganic salts (that is, in the condition found in the earth). It is impossible for the system to in any way utilize them as food.

Chemists have attempted to feed animals upon a fluid that was prepared by mixing together the various chemical elements contained in milk in exactly the same proportions in which they are naturally found in milk. Yet these animals speedily died, thus demonstrating that the druggist or the chemist can not, by an artificial process, accomplish that which the Lord has arranged through nature to do. If a tomato be burned, and a careful analysis be made of its ashes, iron will be one of the minerals found. But this dead iron can not be used in the human system to supply the blood with the iron that it needs. In the process of burning, the living salts of the tomato were reduced again to the form in which they were originally found in the earth by the roots of the tomato plant. The organic salts have again become inorganic.

DEAD SALTS UTILIZED ONLY BY THE VEGETABLE WORLD.

The process of decay in either animals or plants changes their substances back into the elements from which nature originally constructed them. The plant has power to take these dead salts and organize them into its own structure. In this form, when we eat the plant, we are able to utilize these salts in our bodies. In this process inorganic salts become translated from the mineral kingdom into the vegetable kingdom; and when man eats the products of the plant world, they in turn are translated into, and become a part of, the animal kingdom.

SPIRITUAL LESSONS FROM THE TRANSFORMATION OF SALTS.

The plant is able to take the dead mineral salts found in the soil and organize them into living salts, as it were, perfectly adapted and suited to the use and nourishment of man. This is a most beautiful illustration of that spiritual transformation by which the soul, dead in trespasses and sins, is so transformed by the grace and power of God that it has life—everlasting life. This scientific truth that dead salts are by the vegetable kingdom organized and made ready for use by the animal kingdom, is but an illustration of how we may, by faith, reckon ourselves to be dead unto sin, and alive unto God; for the plan of salvation is a process whereby the things that are earthly may not only be transformed, but eventually translated into the heavenly.

Again: just as man is utterly unable to digest or assimilate the inorganic salts before they have been organized into plant life, so God will be unable to use us as stones in the eternal building unless we have been born again, made alive, as it were, from the dead. From the salts and ashes resulting from the death of self, God is able to raise up a new being, impart to it new life, and enable it to do a new work. These beautiful truths of the new birth and new life and the new work of the Christian are all plainly and beautifully illustrated in the natural world, in the transforming of dead mineral matter into the living, acting tissues of man himself.

AN OBJECT LESSON OF TRANSLATION.

It is an interesting fact that chemical tests are unable to detect any essential difference between what we have termed the dead salts and the living salts, or between those of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms; and yet there must necessarily be a vital difference, owing to the fact that the “dead salts” are of no food value whatever, while the living salts are a necessary part of man’s daily food. What great spiritual lesson may we learn from this? It is this: viewed from a human standpoint, the earnest, struggling Christian seems to occupy a position almost identical, as far as human besetments and shortcomings are concerned, with that occupied by the careless and indifferent sinner; for, in the words of Inspiration, “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.”

The work of preparation for the kingdom of heaven is one of faith; the daily progress can not always be discerned by sight. By faith we are to reckon ourselves dead unto sin, and alive unto God. By faith we should reckon that in Christ the victory is ours. It may be that the real change can not be discerned by human sight any more than can the difference between the mineral and vegetable salts, and yet, when used by man, there is shown to be a vital difference between the two. The humble, struggling Christian may, in the eyes of man, seem to possess few virtues or excellent qualifications as compared with the moral non-professor; and yet, when it comes to the question of the use God is able to make of these two men in his eternal plan, it will be seen that the man who, by faith, has reckoned himself dead unto sin and alive unto God, will be chosen as a being to be eternally glorified; while the other will be passed by with the terrible words, “I never knew you: depart from me.”

The Christian will have to reckon a difference between himself and his neighbors, by faith, and not by sight. By sight, there may be no striking difference. By faith, the difference may be almost infinite, even as in the case of the dead and the living salts.

In Col. 3:5 we are told to mortify our members. We have also learned that one way in which salts are produced is by the decay of animal and vegetable matter, and so it is with the spiritual mortification. As the vegetable plant can take the inorganic salts resulting from decomposition, and organize them into living salts, which the human system can appropriate; just so the plant of divine grace, growing, as it were, upon the very grave of the decomposing old man of self and sin, can organize these things, which we have reckoned to be dead indeed, into a new and living form. This transformation is in itself a promise of the ultimate translation that shall bring us into association with the heavenly beings.

Said Christ: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.” The lily is but an example of how the plant can take the lifeless mineral matter and organize it into a thing of beauty. See how the lily can grow and present its flowers of spotless purity, organized from the slime and filth of the water in which it grows. This reminds us of another Scripture statement, “He shall grow as the lily.” Hosea 14:5.

Thus it is that true science sheds light upon things spiritual; while spiritual truth should be a chart and compass to guide the scientific mind in its investigations of physical truths. Without science in our religion, we become superstitious; without religion in our science, we are doomed to skepticism.