<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Advent HOPE - Adventist History Class

Tim Arakawa

The Great Advent Awakening

Norman McNulty

The Midnight Cry

The 1888 General Conference

The Health Message and Kellogg

Madison and True Education

The History of Questions On Doctrine

The Desmond Ford Apostasy

Current Events in Adventism

Before we begin, let's start with a word of prayer.

Dear Father in heaven, you created us as whole people.

And you want us to be healthy even here on earth, but more importantly, you want us to be spiritually healthy so that we can join you and live forever in a place where sin and suffering and disease do not control.

We ask for a better picture of what that means and help us understand a little bit more about our church history this morning.

Well, today we're going to be talking about the health message.

We probably should have made this into 2 sections, but let me tell you quickly what we're going to do.

We're first going to cover the development of the health message.

Some of the visions that Ellen White received that helped to shape the unique Adventist understanding of health.

We're also going to talk about what happened with Kellogg in the late 1800s.

And so we're going to dive right in, okay?

But before we begin, I want to begin with a text.

And it's going to be found in 3 John, the second verse.

I think it adequately describes the Adventist view of health.

Just raise your hand and you'll get the mic.

Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health just as your soul prospers.

So first of all, we see here John speaking under inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

He is praying and hoping that each person will prosper and be in health, right?

But what is health linked intimately with?

Our spiritual well-being, and there's a connection there that is unique to Adventists in terms of the understanding of that connection.

And so we're going to be talking about that at first, but before we talk about how this happened within the church, I want to tell you or talk to you about what medicine was like in the old days.

Now many of you are here at Loma Linda, perhaps you're a medical professional or you know medical professionals, you're definitely in an environment where there's several major hospitals nearby, etc.

You may take for granted the medical knowledge that we have today.

But back in the 1800s, it was a different story.

In fact, I would dare say that back in those days, you were better off not going to the doctor.

And so, how many of you can think of some of the ways that they tried to cure people in the 1800s?

Bloodletting was supposed to help cure and everyone knows the story of George Washington as he was dying there.

They bled him 3 times trying to give him the best medical care that was available at that time.

He actually begged them to, yeah, for pneumonia.

He finally begged them just to let him die in peace.

Okay, so surgically they were very crude and they drilled, in fact, I think chloroform was found during this time, so before that they didn't even have chloroform.

Okay, so let me go through some of the lists and that's exactly right.

Bloodletting was very popular and also what they called Calomel, which was mercury, a poison.

Arsenic, antimony, these different kinds of metals were supposed to purge the system of whatever it was that was affecting them.

And then they would also use a lot of narcotics.

Opium was a big drug that they used all the time, as well as, of course, alcohol and tobacco.

All were used therapeutically, supposedly.

The operating phrase at that time was, bleed them, purge them, and drug them.

And so this is the times that the Avent movement began in.

In fact, here's an example taken from the Family Medicine Chest Dispensatory, published in 1835.

A doctor wrote, speaking of smoking cigars, therapeutically, he said that the patient should frequently draw in the breath freely so that the internal surface of the air vessels may be exposed to the action of the vapor.

So breathe deeply as you smoke your cigar and that will help you get better.

Back in those days, of course, there was no American Medical Association.

There was really no governing body that watched over health care.

No studies were done to see what was right.

And so, in fact, another thing to mention is that medical school was very short at that time.

Nowadays, after your bachelor's degree, you get 4 years of medical education and then you do another residency for 3 to 5 years and then depending on whether you specialize, you can go on longer than that.

Back in those days, you could spend a few months in medical school.

Courses were as short as about 4 months or so, and then that was just book learning.

And then if you wanted to, you could do an apprenticeship.

There were only 7 classes you needed to take, 4 months or maybe 4 months, you know, or 8 months depending on, you take 2 years or so.

Now, during this time, there began to be a movement in health reform.

This was not in the Adventist church per se.

It started happening just because of the sorry state of medicine in those days.

And so a couple of names I wanted to mention.

In 1858 there was a doctor by the name of Dr.

And he and his adopted daughter, who was also a doctor, Dr.

Harriet Austin, they started a, what they called a water cure establishment in Dansville, New York.

And they espoused natural remedies, especially of course water cure, which was another name for hydrotherapy in those days, a very cutting edge new treatment.

Sylvester Graham, and he was a proponent of dietary reform and especially vegetarianism, and He used a lot of unrefined whole wheat flour.

He was the 1 that developed graham bread, which we know nowadays as what?

Probably not exactly the same thing as what he developed, but he was the 1 that started all of that.

Now in the Adventist church, shortly after, in the 1840s, 1860s or so, Adventists were really studying out the present truth doctrines that we talked about a couple Sabbaths ago.

And so they were really too busy studying all these new truths to worry about health.

God doesn't throw everything on us at once.

And so Once all of these different major doctrines such as the sanctuary and the spirit of prophecy and the Sabbath had been discovered, then the church was ready to hear about health reform.

Now most Adventist pioneers at that time were not very healthy.

James White is a good example of that, but more than that, most of them ate meat, many ate pork.

I mean, they had no idea what health meant at that time, except for 1, Joseph Bates.

He was probably 1 of the first health reformers in the church, and it actually started before he joined the Adventist church.

Time limits me, I can't give you his whole story, but he gave up alcohol and tobacco even before he became an Adventist during his Millerite years.

He gave up then tea and coffee, and eventually he gave up meat and rich foods, and He began to drink only water as a beverage, and he continued that for the rest of his life.

And he was 1 of the healthiest pioneers, actually, and probably mostly because of the lifestyle changes that he made early, earlier in his life.

And he was the 1 that got the Sabbath truth, that's right.

Now in the autumn of 1848, Ellen White had a vision.

And this vision, She found that, or she was told that tobacco, tea, and coffee were harmful.

Series

Advent HOPE - Adventist History Class

The Health Message and Kellogg

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Medical Missionary Work and the Loud Cry

58m

Plenary

Ellen White Finally Exposed

51m

The Combined Work

1h 5m

The Loud Cry and Christ’s Method Alone

57m

AMEN 2010 Plenary Sessions

Historical Perspectives on Adventist Medicine

52m

WYC 2013 Seminar: Always Ready to Defend Adventism

Ellen White and Food Documentaries

47m

iShare 2013 Seminar: Cutting Edge 3 - The End of the Trilogy

Ellen White and Food Documentaries

47m

OYC 2011 Seminars

Kellogg vs. The Ministry: A Century of Collateral Damage

56m

What Is Revival and Reformation

What Is Reformation? Part 2

55m

The History of City Evangelism

1h 28m

Seminars

8 Reasons God Gave the Seventh-day Adventist Church the Health Message

1h 17m

ASI 2014 Plenary Sessions

Why Adventist? Why Now?

1h 58m

Sound Doctrine