健康改良和保健院
1.健康改良
1871年12月10日，我再一次得到指示，健康改良是为主复临预备一班人之大工的一部分。它与第三位天使的信息密切相关，就如手臂与身体一样。人们轻视十诫的律法，但主不会立时惩罚违犯律法的人，而不先给他们传一道警告的信息。第三位天使就是宣扬那条信息的。如果世人一直顺从十诫的律法，在生活上实行这十条诫命的原则，就不会有充满世界的疾病咒诅了。{PH138 1.1}
人们放纵贪食好色的欲望，违犯自然律，就是干犯上帝的律法。所以上帝让健康改良的亮光照耀我们，以便我们看到自己干犯上帝设置在我们身体中之律法的罪。我们的一切快乐和痛苦，都可以追溯到我们顺从还是违犯自然律。我们慈悲的天父看到世人的惨境;他们有一些人是明知故犯，但许多人却是愚昧无知，过着干犯祂所设律法的生活。主本着对世人的慈爱和怜悯，赐下健康改良的亮光。祂颁布祂的律法以及违法的处罚，使众人都可以学习，并小心在生活上顺从自然律。祂清楚地宣示祂的律法，就像城造在山上。凡是有责任感的人只要愿意，都可以明白祂的律法。只有白痴是不必负责的。{PH138 1.2}
说明自然律，劝人顺从它，是一项伴随着第三位天使信息的工作，要为主的降临预备一班人。{PH138 2.1}
亚当夏娃因着放纵食欲而跌倒。基督来到世间，抵挡了撒但最猛烈的试探，为全人类的利益战胜了食欲，说明人类是可以得胜的。亚当怎样因食欲跌倒，丧失了极乐的伊甸园，亚当的儿女也可以照样藉着基督战胜食欲，通过凡事节制重得伊甸园。{PH138 2.2}
如今无知不能作为违背上帝律法的借口了。真光明亮地照耀，谁也不必蒙昧无知，因为伟大的上帝在亲自作人类的导师。人人都对上帝负有最为神圣的义务，留意上帝正在赐予他们的有关健康改良的健全理念和真实经验。{PH138 2.3}
上帝定意要提倡健康改革这一伟大的主题，激起大众的心思来加以研究，因为男男女女若养成了破坏健康，损及头脑的有罪习惯，就不可能辨明神圣的真理了;这真理原能使他们成圣，变得文雅高尚，以适应在那荣耀的国度里与天使交往。{PH138 3.1}
挪亚时代的人之所以被洪水所灭，是因为他们放纵不正当的食欲而致败坏。所多玛和蛾摩拉之所以被毁灭，也是因为他们要满足不正常的食欲，因而麻痹了理智，以致无法分辨上帝神圣的要求与食欲叫嚣的区别。叫嚣的食欲奴役了他们，他们变得十分凶残，肆意行可憎之事，以致上帝不愿容忍他们继续存留在地上。上帝将巴比伦的邪恶也归咎于她的贪食醉酒。{PH138 3.2}
使徒保罗劝诫教会说:“所以弟兄们，我以上帝的慈悲劝你们，将身体献上，当作活祭，是圣洁的，是上帝所喜悦的;你们如此事奉乃是理所当然的”(罗12:1)。因此，罪恶的放纵使人的身体不再圣洁。若不圣洁，他们便不配成为属灵的敬拜者，也不配承受天国。人如果珍惜上帝本着怜悯赐给他有关健康改良的亮光，就会藉着真理成圣而配承受不朽永生。但是他如果不理会这亮光，继续过违犯自然律的生活，就必自食其果。{PH138 3.3}
上帝起初所造的人是完美而圣洁的。但是人从圣洁的状态堕落了，因为违背了上帝的律法。自从人类堕落之后，疾病、痛苦和死亡迅速增加。然而，尽管人羞辱了他的创造主，上帝的爱依然延及人类。祂还允许亮光照耀出来，使人能明白：为了度一种完美的生活，必须与那些管理他生命的自然定律和谐一致。所以，最要紧的是他得知道如何生活，以便运用身心的能力荣耀上帝。{PH138 4.1}
当人因世人的习惯而沉湎于削弱身体、智力和道德活力的习惯时，就不可能将自己的身体献上，当作活祭，是圣洁的，是上帝所喜悦的。使徒又说：“不要效法这个世界，只要心意更新而变化，叫你们察验何为上帝的善良、纯全、可喜悦的旨意”(罗 12:2)。耶稣坐在橄榄山上，教训门徒有关祂降临前的预兆。祂说：“挪亚的日子怎样，人子降临也要怎样。当洪水以前的日子，人照常吃喝嫁娶，直到挪亚进方舟的那日;不知不觉洪水来了，把他们全都冲去。人子降临也要这样”(太24:37-39)。{PH138 4.2}
在我们这个时代也有同样的罪，人们又吃又喝以致贪食醉酒。挪亚的日子招致上帝愤怒的罪恶在我们今日依然存在。今日的男女放纵吃喝，贪食醉酒。放纵不当的食欲这种盛行的罪恶在挪亚的日子燃起了人们的情欲，导致了普遍的败坏，直到他们的强暴和罪行上达与天，上帝就用洪水清洗了这个地球上的道德污秽。{PH138 5.1}
同样贪食醉酒的罪也麻痹了所多玛人的道德感，以致罪恶成了那个邪恶城市居民所喜爱的事。因此基督用以下的话警告世人：“又好像罗得的日子;人又吃又喝，又买又卖，又耕种又盖造。到罗得出所多玛的那日，就有火与硫磺从天上降下来，把他们全都灭了。人子显现的日子也要这样”(路17:28-30)。{PH138 5.2}
基督在这里留给我们一个最重要的教训。祂并没有在自己的教训中鼓励懒惰。祂的榜样是反对懒散的。基督是一位热心的工人。祂所度的是克己、勤奋、坚定不移、勤劳节俭的生活。祂会向我们表明将吃喝置于首位的危险。祂说明放纵食欲的后果。道德力被削弱，以致在人看来罪恶并不可憎。人们假装看不到罪恶，卑劣的情欲控制了人心，直到全面堕落将美好的原则和动机统统根除，上帝受到了亵渎。所有这一切都是由于过度放纵吃喝导致的。这就是基督所宣称祂再来时的情形。{PH138 6.1}
人们会受到警告吗?他们会珍视这亮光呢，还是会成为食欲和卑贱情欲的奴隶呢?基督向我们提供了应当为之劳力的更高尚的事，而不仅仅是我们应当吃什么、喝什么、穿什么。吃、喝、穿都已过度，以致成了罪行，且被列在末后最突出的罪恶之中，成了基督快来的一个兆头。光阴、金钱和精力都是属于上帝的，是祂托付给我们的，却都被浪费在过多的服装和不正当食欲的享受上，这些只能降低人的活力，带来痛苦和衰败。我们若因罪恶的放纵而使自己的身体充满了腐败和疾病，就不可能把自己的身体当作活祭献给上帝。{PH138 6.2}
我们必须学习有关如何吃、喝、穿的知识，以保持健康的身体。疾病是由违背健康的定律引起的，是违背自然律的结果。我们对上帝，对自己和同胞的首要责任就是顺从上帝的律法，其中包括健康的定律。我们若是病了，便将令人疲惫的担子加在我们的朋友身上，也使自己无法尽对于家人和邻舍的种种本分。倘若我们由于违背自然律而夭折，便将痛苦和悲伤带给了别人;使邻舍得不到我们应该在生活中给他们的帮助，也使自己的家人丧失了我们可以给他们的安慰和帮助，且使上帝丧失了祂所要求于我们的增进祂荣耀的侍奉。因而，我们岂不是在最糟糕的意义上违背了上帝的律法吗?{PH138 7.1}
上帝是满有怜悯、恩典、慈爱的，祂悦纳那些已因罪恶的放纵而损害了自身健康之人献给祂的贫乏的祭物，而当亮光来到，并使他们服罪，他们悔改并寻求上帝的赦免时，上帝便接纳他们。祂竟不拒绝痛苦悔改之罪人所滥用的残余生命，这是何等的慈怜啊!祂本着宽厚仁慈拯救这些生灵，就像从火中救出一样。然而，我们向纯洁圣善的上帝所献上的是何等卑劣可怜的祭物啊!由于有罪放纵的不良习惯，高尚的才能被麻痹了。人的抱负扭曲了，身心也受到了毁损。{PH138 7.2}
PH138 - The Health Reform and the Health Institute
【The Health Reform】
December 10, 1871, I was again shown that the health reform is one branch of the great work to fit a people for the coming of the Lord. And it is as closely connected with the third angel’s message as the hand is united to the body. The law of ten commandments has been lightly regarded by man. The Lord would not come to punish the transgressors of his law without first sending them a message of warning. The third angel proclaims the warning message. Had men ever been obedient to the law of ten commandments, carrying out in their lives the principles of these ten precepts, the curse of disease now flooding the world would not be.?{PH138 1.1}[1]
Men and women cannot violate natural law in the indulgence of depraved appetite, and lustful passions, and not violate the law of God. Therefore God has permitted the light of health reform to shine upon us, that we may see our sin in violating the laws God has established in our being. All our enjoyments or sufferings may be traced to obedience or transgression of natural law. Our gracious Heavenly Father sees the?deplorable condition of men while living in violation of the laws he has established. Many are doing this ignorantly, some knowingly. The Lord, in love and pity to the race, causes the light to shine upon health reform. He publishes his law, and the penalty that will follow the transgression of it, that all may learn, and be careful to live in harmony with natural law. He proclaims his law so distinct, and makes it so prominent, that it is like a city set on a hill. All accountable beings can understand his law if they will. Idiots will not be responsible.?{PH138 1.2}[2]
To make plain natural law, and urge the obedience of it, is the work that accompanies the third angel’s message, to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord.?{PH138 2.1}[3]
Adam and Eve fell, through intemperate appetite. Christ came and withstood the fiercest temptation of Satan, and, in behalf of the race, he overcame appetite, showing that man may overcome. As Adam fell, through appetite, and lost blissful Eden, the children of Adam may, through Christ, overcome appetite, and through temperance in all things regain Eden.?{PH138 2.2}[4]
Ignorance now is no excuse for the transgression of law. The light shineth clearly, and none need to be ignorant, for the great God himself is man’s instructor. All are bound by the most sacred obligations to God to heed sound philosophy and genuine?experience in reference to health reform which he is now giving them.?{PH138 2.3}[5]
God designs the great subject of health reform shall be agitated, and the public mind deeply stirred to investigate, for it is impossible for men and women, with all their sinful, health-destroying, brain-enervating habits, to discern sacred truth, through which they are to be sanctified, refined, elevated, and made fit for the society of heavenly angels in the kingdom of glory.?{PH138 3.1}[6]
The inhabitants of the Noachian world were destroyed, because they were corrupted through the indulgence of perverted appetite. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed through the gratification of unnatural appetite, which benumbed the intellect, and they could not discern the difference between the sacred claims of God and the clamor of appetite. The latter enslaved them, and they became so ferocious and bold in their detestable abominations, God would not tolerate them upon the earth. God ascribes the wickedness of Babylon to her gluttony and drunkenness.?{PH138 3.2}[7]
The apostle exhorts the church, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Man, then, can make the body unholy by sinful indulgences. If unholy, they are unfitted?to be spiritual worshipers, and are not worthy of Heaven. If man will cherish the light God in mercy gives him upon health reform, he may be sanctified through the truth, and fitted for immortality. If he disregards light, and lives in violation of natural law, he must pay the penalty.?{PH138 3.3}[8]
God created man perfect and holy. Man fell from his holy estate, because he transgressed God’s law. Since the fall, there has been a rapid increase of disease, suffering, and death. Notwithstanding man has insulted his Creator, yet God’s love is still extended to the race. And he permits light to shine, that man may see that, in order to live a perfect life, he must live in harmony with those natural laws which govern his being. Therefore, it is of the greatest importance that he have a knowledge of how to live, that his powers of body and mind may be exercised to the glory of God.?{PH138 4.1}[9]
It is impossible for man to present his body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, while he is indulging in habits that are lessening physical, mental, and moral vigor, because it is customary for the world to do thus. The apostle adds, “And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” Jesus, seated upon the Mount of Olives, gave instruction to?his disciples, of the signs which should precede his coming. He says, “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”?{PH138 4.2}[10]
The same sins exist in our day of carrying their eating and drinking to gluttony and drunkenness. The same sins exist in our day which brought the wrath of God upon the world in the days of Noah. Men and women now carry their eating and drinking to gluttony and drunkenness. This prevailing sin, of indulgence of perverted appetite, inflamed the passions of men in the days of Noah, and led to general corruption, until their violence and crimes reached to Heaven. And God washed the earth of its moral pollution by a flood.?{PH138 5.1}[11]
The same sins of gluttony and drunkenness benumbed the moral sensibilities of the inhabitants of Sodom, so that crimes seemed to men and women of that wicked city to be their delight. Christ warns the world. He says, “Likewise, also, as it was in the days of Lot, they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of?Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.”?{PH138 5.2}[12]
Christ has left us here a most important lesson. He does not in his teaching encourage indolence. His example was the opposite of this. Christ was an earnest worker. His life was one of self-denial, diligence, perseverance, industry, and economy. He would lay before us the danger of making eating and drinking paramount. He reveals the result of giving up to indulgence of appetite. The moral powers are enfeebled, so that sin does not appear sinful. Crimes are winked at, and base passions control the minds, until general corruption roots out good principles and impulses, and God is blasphemed. All this is the result of eating and drinking to excess. This is the very condition of things he declares will exist at his second coming.?{PH138 6.1}[13]
Will men and women be warned? Will they cherish the light? or will they become slaves to appetite and base passions? Christ presents to us something higher to toil for than merely what we shall eat, and what we shall drink, and wherewithal we shall be clothed. Eating and drinking and dressing are carried to such excess that they become crimes, and are one of the marked sins of the last days, and constitute a sign?of Christ’s soon coming. Time, money, and strength, which are the Lord’s, that he has entrusted to us, are wasted in needless superfluities of dress, and luxuries for the perverted appetite, which lessen vitality, and bring suffering and decay. It is impossible to present to God our bodies a living sacrifice, when they are full of corruption and disease by our own sinful indulgence.?{PH138 6.2}[14]
Knowledge in regard to how we shall eat, and drink, and dress, in reference to health, must be gained. Sickness is caused by violating the laws of health. Therefore, sickness is the result of nature’s violated law. Our first duty we owe to God, to ourselves, and our fellow-men, is to obey the laws of God, which include the laws of health. If we are sick, we impose a weary tax upon our friends, and unfit ourselves for discharging our duties to our families and to our neighbors. And when premature death is the result of our violation of nature’s law, we bring sorrow and suffering to others. We deprive our neighbors of the help we ought to render them in living. Our families are robbed of the comfort and help we might render them, and God is robbed of the service he claims of us to advance his glory. Then, are we not transgressors of God’s law in the worst sense??{PH138 7.1}[15]
God, all pitiful, gracious, and tender,?accepts the poor offering rendered to him from those who have injured their health by sinful indulgences, and when light has come, and convinced them of sin, and they have repented and sought pardon, God receives them. Oh! what tender mercy that he does not refuse the remnant of the abused life of the suffering, repenting sinner. In his gracious mercy, he saves these souls as by fire. But what an inferior, pitiful sacrifice at best, to offer to a pure and holy God. Noble faculties have been paralyzed by wrong habits of sinful indulgence. The aspirations are perverted, and the soul and body defaced.?{PH138 7.2}[16]
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