--------------
Meat and Dairy Consumption; Does it affect our Salvation?
--------------------------------------
By Stephen Billiter
A great many in the 7th Day Adventist Church, despite the counsel from the Spirit of Prophecy, and overwhelming scientific evidence that meat and dairy are very unsafe, do continue to have a head-in-the-sand agenda concerning this vital topic; or perhaps have had no time to study our health message and think that “if I leave off the red meat I’m fine.” While that may be an improvement, it hardly addresses the topic at hand.
Time must be considered when reading Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, which give permission to eat clean meats, because in these last days of overreaching, overspreading greed within livestock and dairy producers; the filth and corruptions now present in all meat and dairy is of very serious, life-threating proportions. For example, dairy cows are fed hormones to produce milk in herculean quantities, which causes infectious mastitis, and the cows are given antibiotics as the pus from the infections flows into the milk they produce.
So-called scientific evidence cannot counter the real scientific evidence because many times it consists of a Ph.D. simply saying to “drink milk to get your calcium,” which is merely a commercial for the dairy industry. It simply cannot be both ways; it’s either terribly harmful, or it isn’t. Scientific evidence abounds for those who desire to search. Dr. Walter Vieths‘s video presentation on cow’s milk is quite eye-opening: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9014552245997479572#
When Ellen White, the LORD's prophet for these end days gives warnings, then we should listen and take heed. However, it’s a choice; we all have the free will of choice, can God do no less than to allow His creatures the right to say no? To anything? Think about this; do we smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, don't exercise, eat steaks on the grill, and egg omelets because of our selfishness (or laziness) and the sense of “I will do what I want” regardless of the consequences?" Do you not think some smoked grilled chicken breast appeals to me? The smell is quite tempting; but one opens the door to more.
God has given to us our bodies and being as precious gifts, and in order to be healthier and enjoy life, and serve Him the best way; we should do everything we can to keep our bodies in optimum health to God's glory which is what the Bible says to do; “Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”(1Cor.3:16).
1Cor. 3:17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple you are (AKJV).
1Cor. 6:19 What? Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?
1Cor. 6:20 For you are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
Are we not bought with a price, with the precious blood of Jesus? Had Christ not died on the cross, human beings would have died out with Adam and Eve unless God would choose to start another human race, to give those first (once again) humans a chance to obey Him and not fall for Satan’s snares, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die” (Gen 2:17). But God the Father and God the Son in His perfect foreknowledge and wisdom had long since agreed on another plan; “And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8). Everyone who has ever lived owes their very existence to the fact that the Son of God condescended to become a man and die on the cross for all humanity.
So how does God feel when we deliberately eat meat loaded with cancerous germs? Do we not count the blood of Jesus Christ and the everlasting covenant an unholy thing to be despised?
Ellen White was just as much a prophet as Moses, Paul, or any of them. No, she did not give canon of Scripture, but neither did John the Baptist, and notice what Jesus said about him;
Mat 11:11 Truly I say to you, Among them that are born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
God has always sent his prophets to prepare the way for a major event. He sent Noah to prepare people for the flood; and Methusalah, who lived 969 years; the name means "when he dies it will come." On the day he died the flood came. He called Abraham out who prophesied the Jews in Egypt for 400 years. He called Moses to lead them out. He called Jeremiah to prophecy of the 70 years of Babylonian captivity, and Daniel to call them out. God raised up John the baptist to prepare the way of Jesus, and Ellen White to usher in Present Truth and to prepare God's people for translation to heaven and to be ready for Jesus to come if they die first, and rise to behold His face in glory.
Does God forbid smoking cigarettes in the Bible? No Alcohol? Yes. Methamphetamine use? No. Using strange unhealthful fad diets? No. Never exercising? No. Meat eating? No. However, Ellen White speaks of all of these things (not specifically meth use, but morphine and narcotics) including when the time came to go completely vegan, leaving off the meat and dairy, as well as white sugar....the combinations of custards with milk sugar and eggs oxidizes the bad cholesterol and wreaks havoc in our blood stream and body.
Certain young people sometimes have a sense of almost "immortality;" thinking nothing bad will ever happen to them because now they are so healthy. How many have cancerous germs residing in their body just waiting for their immune system to break down and the germ to kick in giving them cancer if they eat meat all the time? Nearly all of them; perhaps me too.
So how does God feel when we deliberately eat meat loaded with cancerous germs? Do we not count the blood of Jesus Christ and the everlasting covenant an unholy thing to be despised?
All through the life we live; God asks us to sacrifice everything for Him including our very lives if need be. We are Christians 24/7 not just in church or at other convenient times. The soon coming mark of the beast will reveal many martyrs for Jesus;
Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
So if we are selfishly hanging on to anything that we know we should sacrifice upon the altar of truth and service to God; will we have the courage to refuse the mark of the beast having first accepted God's seal? Can we even be sealed with God's final seal eating meat and dairy and refusing to give it up? A very interesting question, is it not? What does God say we should do?
Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service
Rom 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
We should not make any serious errors when it comes to Ellen White, because God has sent us a prophet whom we very much need in these trying end times. Science has confirmed every statement of hers that conforms to healthful living. Why should we reject what God in His love has sent us?
2Ch 20:20: "......Believe in the LORD your God, so shall you be established; believe his prophets, so shall you prosper"
Giving Up Faith in the Testimonies.—“One thing is certain: Those Seventh-day Adventists who take their stand under Satan's banner will first give up their faith in the warnings and reproofs contained in the Testimonies of God's Spirit” {3SM 84.3}.
Those who eat flesh are but eating grains and vegetables at second hand, for the animal receives from these things the nutrition that produces growth. The life that was in the grains and vegetables passes into the eater. We receive it by eating the flesh of the animal. How much better to get it direct, by eating the food that God provided for our use! {CG 382.2}
Flesh was never the best food; but its use is now doubly objectionable, since disease in animals is so rapidly increasing. Those who use flesh foods little know what they are eating. Often if they could see the animals when living and know the quality of the meat they eat, they would turn from it with loathing. People are continually eating flesh that is filled with tuberculosis and cancerous germs. Tuberculosis, cancer, and other fatal diseases are thus communicated. {CG 382.3}
Effects Not Immediately Realized.—“The effects of a flesh diet may not be immediately realized, but this is no evidence that it is not harmful. Few can be made to believe that it is the meat they have eaten which has poisoned their blood and caused their suffering. Many die of diseases wholly due to meat eating, while the real cause is not suspected by themselves or by others” {CG 382.4; Recall 1 Cor. 3:16}.
Greater reforms should be seen among the people who claim to be looking for the soon appearing of Christ. Health reform is to do among our people a work which it has not yet done. There are those who ought to be awake to the danger of meat eating, who are still eating the flesh of animals, thus endangering the physical, mental, and spiritual health. Many who are now only half converted on the question of meat eating will go from God's people to walk no more with them. {CD 382.1}
If we persistently reject the counsel of the Holy Spirit; we are none of Christ’s; we are deceiving ourselves of a certainty. And we are also in the wrong church. 7th Day Adventist Belief # 18 says;
18. The Gift of Prophecy: One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is prophecy. This gift is an identifying mark of the remnant church and was manifested in the ministry of Ellen. G. White . As the Lord's messenger, her writings are a continuing and authoritative source of truth which provide for the church comfort, guidance, instruction, and correction. They also make clear that the Bible is the standard by which all teaching and experience must be tested.(Joel 2:28, 29; Acts 2:14-21; Heb. 1:1-3; Rev. 12:17; 19:10.)
Please don't miss this point; yes the Bible is the only rule of faith and doctrine. But God has sent us Testimonies to lead us back to that Word we have rejected that sheds light upon its precepts and amplifies the prophetic Word revealing clearly the snares of Satan. Let all 7th Day Adventists stand strongly upon the undiluted 3 angels messages as we stand on the very edge of entering the Promised Land!
We give glory to God also in the way we treat our bodies. Original sin by Adam and Eve was predicated upon intemperance, and when Jesus gained the victory over Satan in the wilderness of temptation; He also gained it for us by overcoming Satan in the area of appetite when He had fasted for 40 days and declared to Satan, "It is Written."
Php 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me."
http://everlasting-gospel.blogspot.com/2010/08/ellen-g-white-gods-end-time-messenger.html