Question Corner by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 7, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 43.

Question Corner

By Editor

1925.—Matters of Right and Conscience.

Will the soul who still drinks coffee be lost? Is it a sin against God or against the body?

A sin against the body is a sin against God, for God gave the laws that govern the body. He also has told us, "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?" Injuring the dwelling-place of the Spirit of God would be sin against God. As to the first question, we frankly confess that we do not know. It lies with the individual himself. We do not believe that coffee drinking is best; we do not believe that it is even good for one who drinks it in any way. It is not any benefit derived from the coffee which the body demands, but the stimulant in it which the unnatural appetite for the coffee demands. Millions who have used it as a beverage for years have certainly not made themselves any better thereby, and there are many thousands who do not use it who themselves demonstrate that it is in no way necessary, and many of them have very much better health than when they used the fragrant beverage. Many are using it unenlightened; they do not know that it is harmful; they do not feel that it is wrong. Many others have come to a very clear conviction in their own hearts that it is wrong. A man who continually violates conscience in one thing will soon come to violate it in others, and by this hardening process the conscience will finally become dead as a monitor. Other deeper, darker transgressions will follow, and the soul will be lost. When such a time as that is reached, it is beyond human ken. Those are questions we must leave with the Lord and the individuals wholly. Our anxiety should be that expressed in Rom. 14:21 and 1 Cor. 10:31. "It is good not to eat flesh nor to drink wine nor to do anything whereby thy brother stumbleth;" "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Do nothing to harden the conscience.