AY Honors/Temperance/Answer Key

1. Memorize and sign the Temperance Pledge:

“Realizing the importance of healthy body and mind, I promise, with the help of God, to live a Christian life of true temperance in all good things and total abstinence from the use of tobacco, alcohol, or any other narcotic.”

2. Memorize two of the following Bible texts and two of the following quotations from the writings of Ellen G. White:

Bible Texts

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
— Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
— 1 Corinthians 10:31 (NIV)

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.
— 1 Corinthians 6:19,20 (NIV)

Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.
— Proverbs 20:1 (NIV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
— Galatians 5:22,23 (NIV)

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
— 3 John 2 (NIV)

Writings of Ellen G. White

a. “True temperance teaches us to abstain entirely from that which is injurious, and to use judiciously only healthful and nutritious articles of food.” Temperance, p. 3.

b. “The only safe course is to touch not, taste not, handle not, tea, coffee, wines, tobacco, opium, and alcoholic drinks.” Counsels on Diet and Foods, p. 428.

c. “...temperance alone is the foundation of all the graces that come from God, the foundation of all victories to be gained.” Temperance, p. 201.

d. “A pure and noble life, a life of victory over appetite and lust, is possible to everyone who will unite his weak, wavering, human will to the omnipotent, unwavering will of God.” Temperance, p.113.

e. “Tobacco is a slow, insidious, but most malignant poison, in whatever form it is used, it tells upon the constitution; it is all the more dangerous because its effects are slow and at first hardly perceptible.” Ministry of Healing, p. 327-328.

4. Know and explain:

a. The reason behind the warning on the cigarette packet: “Warning—smoking is a health hazard.”

The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act is a United States federal law passed in 1970 that required a stronger health warning on cigarette packages.

The warning read: "Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined that Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health."

The act also banned cigarette advertising on radio and television.

Smoking has been linked to lung cancer by medical research institutions throughout the world (through the use of observational studies). Smoking men are 22 times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smoking men and smoking women are 12 times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smoking women. Cigarette smoking increases the risk for many types of cancer, including cancers of the lip, oral cavity, and pharynx; oesophagus; pancreas; larynx (voice box); lung; breast; uterine cervix; urinary bladder; and kidney.

b. Seven ingredients of tobacco smoke:

(1) Nicotine

Nicotine, the stimulant and active ingredient in cigarettes, is highly addictive.

(2) Arsenic

This is a notoriously poisonous metalloid. Arsenic is not found free in nature, but its compounds are widely distributed in minerals. Arsenic and its compounds are used as pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and various alloys.

(3) Formaldehyde

At concentrations above 0.1 mg/kg in air, inhaled formaldehyde can irritate the eyes and mucous membranes, resulting in watery eyes, headache, a burning sensation in the throat, and difficulty breathing.

Large formaldehyde exposures, for example from drinking formaldehyde solutions, are potentially lethal. Formaldehyde is converted to formic acid in the body, leading to a rise in blood acidity (acidosis), rapid, shallow breathing, blurred vision or complete blindness, hypothermia, and, in the most severe cases, coma or death. People who have ingested formaldehyde require immediate medical attention.

In the body, formaldehyde can cause proteins to irreversibly bind to DNA. Laboratory animals exposed to large doses of inhaled formaldehyde over their lifetimes have developed more cancers of the nose and throat than are usual. Formaldehyde is classifed as a probable human carcinogen by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and as a known human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

(4) Carbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide poisoning occurs after the inhalation of carbon monoxide gas. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a product of combustion of organic matter under conditions of restricted oxygen supply, which prevents complete oxidation to carbon dioxide. Carbon monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and non-irritating, making it difficult for people to detect.

(5) Cyanide

Cyanide is an irreversible enzyme inhibitor. Tissues that mainly depend on aerobic respiration, such as the central nervous system and the heart, are particularly affected.

(6) Phenolbenzophyrine

is a highly carcinogenic and mutagenic compound which is formed during the incomplete combustion of organic matter. Tobacco manufacturers have experimented with combustionless vaporizer technology to allow cigarettes to be consumed without the formation of carcinogenic benzopyrenes.

(7) Amonia

During the 1960s, Tobacco companies such as Brown & Williamson and Philip Morris began using ammonia in cigarettes. The addition of ammonia serves to enhance the delivery of nicotine into the blood stream. As a result the reinforcement effect of the nicotine was enhanced, increasing its addictive ability without actually increasing the portion of nicotine.

5. Read the chapter “Stimulants and Narcotics” in Ministry of Healing. Be able to discuss briefly or provide a written summary approximately two or three paragraphs in length.

If you do not have a copy of "Ministry of Healing", you can get one through AdventSource. You can also read this chapter (as well as many of Ellen White's other writings) online at http://www.whiteestate.org/books/mh/mh26.html.

6. After studying the following materials, list three things that contribute to temperance and good health. (Other than abstaining from that which is harmful.)

The texts below discuss temperence in labor, diet, study, and fashion.

a. Temperance page 139 paragraph 1

We should practice temperance in our labor. It is not our duty to place ourselves where we shall be overworked. Some may at times be placed where this is necessary, but it should be the exception, not the rule. We are to practice temperance in all things. If we honor the Lord by acting our part, He will on His part preserve our health. We should have a sensible control of all our organs. By practicing temperance in eating, in drinking, in dressing, in labor, and in all things, we can do for ourselves what no physician can do for us.

b. Counsels on Diet and Foods, page 406 paragraph 1

We are health reformers, seeking to come back, as far as possible, to the Lord's original plan of temperance. Temperance does not consist merely in abstaining from intoxicating liquors and tobacco; it extends farther than this. It must regulate what we eat.

c. Temperance page 140 paragraph 2

Intemperance in study is a species of intoxication, and those who indulge in it, like the drunkard, wander from safe paths, and stumble and fall in the darkness. The Lord would have every student bear in mind that the eye must be kept single to the glory of God. He is not to exhaust and waste his physical and mental powers in seeking to acquire all possible knowledge of the sciences, but is to preserve the freshness and vigor of all his powers to engage in the work which the Lord has appointed him in helping souls to find the path of righteousness.

d. Temperance page 143 paragraph 3

The drunkard sells himself for a cup of poison. Satan takes control of his reason, his affections, his conscience. Such a man is destroying the temple of God. Tea drinking helps to do this work. Yet how many there are who place destroying agencies on their tables.

e. Counsels on Health, page 127 paragraph 4

Those who have received instruction regarding the evils of the use of flesh foods, tea and coffee, and rich and unhealthful food preparations, and who are determined to make a covenant with God by sacrifice, will not continue to indulge their appetite for food that they know to be unhealthful. God demands that the appetites be cleansed, and that self-denial be practiced in regard to those things which are not good. This is a work that will have to be done before His people can stand before Him a perfected people.

f. Temperance page 148 paragraph 2

Through his devices, Satan, in many respects, has made the domestic life one of care and complicated burdens, in order to meet the demands of fashion. His purpose in doing this is to keep minds occupied so fully with the things of this life that they can give but little attention to their highest interest. Intemperance in eating and in dressing has so engrossed the minds of the Christian world that they do not take time to become intelligent in regard to the laws of their being, that they may obey them. To profess the name of Christ is of but little account if the life does not correspond with the will of God, revealed in His word. . . .