Lesson 7 — Appetite and Its Control.

February 18, 1905.

Questions

  1. Upon what point was the test brought to our first parents? Give in outline the story of the temptation and fall. Gen. 3:1-5.
  2. Wherein was their weakness and the cause of their sin? Gen. 3:6. Note 1.
  3. In Eden if the physical senses, sight, taste, smell, etc., were not a safe guide to Adam and Eve, what dependence can be placed upon them now? Note 2.
  4. What has been one of Satan’s strongest points of attack upon men ever since the fall? Note. 3.
  5. What largely contributed to the conditions existing before the flood? Matt. 24:37, 38; Luke 17:26, 27. Note 4.
  6. Did man learn the lessons God designed from the flood? Gen. 13:13; Eze. 16:49; Luke 17:28, 29. Note 5.
  7. When God set His hand to deliver His people, after their sojourn in Egypt, what were the first provisions made for the supply of their wants? Ex. 16:4. Note 6.
  8. How did they regard the plans of God for their welfare? Num. 21:5.
  9. What was the result? Ps. 106:14, 15; 78:17-31.
  10. What meaning has Israel’s experience for God’s people today? 1 Cor. 10:11.
  11. Were the lessons of self-control and purity of life wholly lost in ancient Israel? Note 7.

    “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”

  12. What, besides the physical benefits to be received, was God’s object in giving the sanitary restrictions to Israel? Lev. 20:7, 8, 26.

Notes

  1. In depending upon their own physical senses, instead of a simple faith in the Word of God, was the weakness of our first parents. Eve saw that the tree was good, though God said it was not. “Eve was beguiled by the serpent, and made to believe that God would not do as He had said. She ate, and, thinking she felt the sensation of a new and more exalted life, she bore the fruit to her husband. The serpent had said that she would not die, and she felt no ill effects from eating the fruit, — nothing that could be interpreted to mean death, but, instead, a pleasurable sensation, which she imagined was as the angels felt. Her experience stood arrayed against the positive command of Jehovah, yet Adam permitted himself to be seduced by it.” — Christian Temperance, page 42.
  2. “As our first parents lost Eden through the indulgence of appetite, our only hope of regaining Eden is through the firm denial of appetite and passion… The controlling power of appetite will prove the ruin of thousands, when, if they had conquered on this point, then they would have had the moral power to gain the victory over every other temptation of Satan. But those who are slaves to appetite will fail in perfecting Christian character… As we near the close of time, Satan’s temptations to indulge appetite will be more powerful and more difficult to overcome.” — Testimonies, Vol. IV, page 491.
  3. “One of the strongest temptations that man has to meet is upon the point of appetite.” — Christian Temperance, page 42.
  4. “The inhabitants of the antediluvian world were intemperate in eating and drinking. They would have flesh meats, although at that time God had given man no permission to eat animal food. They ate and drank till the indulgence of their depraved appetite knew no bounds, and they became so corrupt that God could bear with them no longer.” — Christian Temperance, page 43.

    “The advent message to the world in this generation”—our watchword.

  5. “As men multiplied on the earth after the flood, they again forgot God, and corrupted their ways before Him. Intemperance in every form increased, until almost the whole world was given up to its sway… The gratification of unnatural appetite led to the sins that caused the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.” — Id., page 43.
  6. “When God led the children of Israel out of Egypt, it was His purpose to establish them in the land of Canaan, a pure, healthy, happy people… He subjected them to a course of discipline, which, had it been cheerfully followed, would have resulted in good both to them and to their posterity… It was His purpose to supply them with food better suited to their wants than the feverish diet to which many of them had been accustomed in Egypt. The perverted appetite was to be brought into a more healthy state, that they might enjoy the food originally provided for man, — the fruits of the earth, which God gave to Adam and Eve in Eden.” — Christian Temperance, page 118. Not only were directions given to Israel regarding diet, but the most perfect system of sanitary laws ever written was given them, as recorded in Leviticus.
  7. While, as a nation, Israel refused to heed God’s voice, there were many who gladly listened to the instruction, and, either from the standpoint of mere ceremonialism or with simple faith in and obedience to God’s Word, carried out the laws as instituted at Sinai. The story of murmuring and disobedience is not the only one left on record. The Levites, Daniel and his companions, and John the Baptist are notable examples of what obedience to the principles God laid down did for the faithful in Israel; and even today the Hebrew race is regarded as immune to certain diseases due to intemperance and impurity, as a result of the more or less rigid obedience to the sanitary laws given by Moses.

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