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APPETITE

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 11, 1877

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 50, No. 15.

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APPETITE

By S. M. Spicer

“Tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin.”
OFTEN, in the varied trials and perplexities of life, the afflicted soul cries out, “Surely never did any other one have trials and burdens like mine.”
It is true that the heart knows its own bitterness, but quite as true that it may little know the anguish that wrings another sufferer’s heart. Hence, though sympathy is really one of Heaven’s most blessed gifts to soothe a sin-cursed, a sorrow-stricken race, yet it must ever fall far short as a balm for afflicted humanity. While realizing this deficiency, how cheering to look away to Jesus for help that is all-sufficient, feeling the assurance that he not only knows all our sorrows and needs, but has all power to heal every woe, and that power moved by a heart of infinite love.
What greater consolation to the afflicted than to know that he was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” to one overwhelmed with a sense of human weakness, to know that the Saviour once bore about the frail clay of humanity; to one crushed beneath the burden of poverty, to know that Jesus, even in the earth he had created, had “not where to lay his head;” but more especially to the tried and tempted to know that he was “in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
It is impossible to comprehend and appreciate the complete fullness and sufficiency of this divine friend of man; yet a careful study of the brief earth-life of the Saviour, while he wore the common garb of humanity, might greatly assist to discover those beneficent attributes which point him out so peculiarly as the friend of the lost and ruined race. The few years of his earth-mission, commencing at his baptism, seem crowded with a wonderful fullness of experiences, labors, and instructions most perfectly suited to the needs of man, each particular of which cannot be too often or too carefully studied.
We wish at this time to consider somewhat the series of temptations which marked the opening of Christ’s public ministry. Immediately after his baptism, on which occasion he was proclaimed the Son of God, he was led into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The three successive temptations as recorded in Scripture would really seem to comprehend all the various besetments common to humanity.
The first temptation appealed to the natural appetite, in the urgent demand for food after forty days’ fasting. The tempter says, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” How plausible and wily this attack of the enemy. While pressed with extreme hunger, how fitting it might seem that the Son of God should manifest his divine power in changing stones to bread for the innocent supply of nature’s demands. But did Jesus put forth that power to satisfy nature’s craving? Nay: He became instead not only the greatest exemplar of self-denial and abstinence, but declared, at the same time, that faith in the word of God has power to sustain man. He replied to the tempter, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” Here, then, we have two great, comprehensive lessons—self-denial, and confidence in the sustaining grace of God.
“Tempted like as we are”—Is it not true that the most common and powerful temptations of the human family are those that appeal to the appetite? Even the first,—that fatal temptation presented to our parents in Eden, was addressed to the taste.—“When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,” she did eat—ate the forbidden fruit, and that act of disobedience, simple and natural as it might seem, caused the fall of the human race. Fearful, infinite consequence of the indulgence of appetite! And, chief among the curses that came with sin, followed all the terrible, wide-spread results of perverted appetite. How few among earth’s millions through the ages up to this time, have passed through this temptation “without sin!”
To say nothing of all the concomitant evils and miseries, attending what is usually styled intemperance, we should be greatly astonished at a true estimate of the number who might justly stand condemned as transgressors in regard to the sin of improper indulgence of appetite.
We all feel to despise the glutton, given up to beastly excesses that seem to stupefy every noble impulse of nature; but we little realize how the same influence of perverted appetite, though in a less, yet a criminal degree, prevails like a deadly incubus throughout society. Even among good Christian people who would be shocked at the charge of intemperance, few can claim that they have not probably during all their lives eaten greatly to excess, besides often including articles positively detrimental to health. We pity and sometimes despise the slave of strong drink, and wonder he does not put forth the will-power to free himself from his chains, and escape the drunkard’s grave; yet we ourselves, as much slaves, cannot restrain the cravings of an excessive appetite, or easily forego any of the luxuries of food or our favorite beverages of tea and coffee, if not wines. This is not passing through temptation “without sin”; but, although we have never perhaps viewed it in this light, these indulgences involve sins of serious account,—the sin of impairing the health so as to disqualify for efficient life-work,—the needless waste of food, one of God’s best gifts committed to our keeping and disposing according to his will,—the waste of much precious time in excessive preparation of luxuries for the pampered taste. How long, and to what a fearful extent, have many of us thus wasted the good gifts of Heaven, instead of dispensing to the needy. What extreme selfishness leads us to give our chief care and labor to provide simply for our own pampered appetites, reserving the smallest pittance of time and strength for God’s service. Can God bless such selfish toil? Nay, verily; curses may follow in disease and suffering upon the transgressor and upon his posterity. Yet God holds to account for stewardship in all these particulars. He has given us years of active life; have most of the precious hours been wasted in selfish worship of appetite? He has given us means; has too much of this been squandered on the altar of depraved appetite? He has made us almoners of his bounty. Says the Saviour, “Ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will, ye may do them good.” Have our daintily spread tables left scarce a morsel for the perishing needy by our door? and, besides, left not one spare moment, to spend in seeking out the actual distress of suffering humanity? Have our excesses often benumbed the sensibilities and destroyed the mental energies so as to disqualify for acceptable service to God, even when we would give our attention thereto?
Do we expect God will demand the talents we have thus lost in table-feasting? What a legion of evils follow in the train of improper indulgence of appetite! How many of us can truly say, we pass through this temptation “without sin?”
S. M. SPICER.