Satan’s Counterfeit of the Tree of Life—From beginning to end, the crime of tobacco using, of opium and drug medication, has its origin in perverted knowledge. It is through plucking and eating of poisonous fruit, through the intricacies of names that the common people do not understand, that thousands and ten thousands of lives are lost. This great knowledge, supposed by men to be so wonderful, God did not mean that man should have. They are using the poisonous productions that Satan himself has planted to take the place of the tree of life, whose “leaves are for the healing of the nations.”Revelation 22:2. Men are dealing in liquors and narcotics that are destroying the human family.—Manuscript 119, 1898.
(Te 75.1)
MC
VC
The stimulating diet and drink of this day are not conducive to the best state of health. Tea, coffee, and tobacco are all stimulating, and contain poisons. They are not only unnecessary, but harmful, and should be discarded if we would add to “knowledge, temperance.”(2 Peter 1:6, 7)—The Review and Herald, February 21, 1888.
(Te 75.2)
MC
VC
Stimulants—Not Foods—Tea and coffee do not nourish the system. The relief obtained from them is sudden, before the stomach has time to digest them. This shows that what the users of these stimulants call strength is only received by exciting the nerves of the stomach, which convey the irritation to the brain, and this in turn is aroused to impart increased action to the heart and short-lived energy to the entire system. All this is false strength that we are the worse for having. They do not give a particle of natural strength.—Testimonies for the Church 2:65.
(Te 75.3)
MC
VC
The health is in no way improved by the use of those things which stimulate for a time, but afterward cause a reaction which leaves the system lower than before. Tea and coffee whip up the flagging energies for the time being; but when their immediate influence has gone, a feeling of depression is the result. These beverages have no nourishment whatever in themselves. The milk and sugar it contains constitute all the nourishment afforded by a cup of tea or coffee.—Counsels on Diet and Foods, 425.
(Te 75.4)
MC
VC