The Way of Life

Editor’s Comments: This article comes from Mrs. MacDormand’s booklet, “The Way of Life” published by BIWF, Canada, in 1968. She was a great student of health matters and lived to a ripe old age. I used to talk to her by telephone on occasion, as she was also a learned Bible student on most subjects and I used her input in many of my articles. I miss here greatly.

Her son, Robert, follows in her footsteps and his articles in this magazine are well read. His current article, “Assurance of Salvation”, is a must read for any Christian a little uncertain of his/her worthiness because of temptations thrown in their journey throughout life.

“Search the Scriptures, for in them you find the way of Life and they are they which speak of me.” (John 5:39) These powerful words spoken by our Lord, cover a vast, field, much larger and broader than ever you or I could visualize, for I feel He is here giving us a lead which, if we obeyed to the full, would give us all the answers and such a peace as had never been known to us. We can be sure that Jesus was concerned with every phase and act of living on this earth.

There are two sets of laws, physical law and moral law. Physical law is God’s ordinance as to how human beings ought to act. We are given a choice in accepting the moral law, but this choice does not exist in the operation of the physical law, for whether or not we like it, we do reap the consequences unless there is interference in the way of a Divine miracle.

God’s laws are there to enable the Universe as a whole and each Being in it, to achieve what God meant. Therefore, we must seek out and learn of God’s laws, not because we fear the Creator or the consequences, but because we love the lawgiver. On the question of health the first attitude we must adopt is that God wants us to be well and to stay well. He must have a healthy happy people to accomplish His purpose and to do His work. Our Lord, Himself, was never sick.

In His laws, the Most High laid down what is food for us. He just as positively laid down what is NOT food for man. What He permitted to be eaten is food; what He forbade is not food. His laws are not ‘keep-fit’ rules for youth alone; they are law, national law, commands for the cleansing in blood and body of His kingdom priests and holy nation. “Now if you will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” Exodus 19:6.

It is yet a fact that the mercy shown unto thousands in Exodus 20:6 is law and is still in existence. The man with the invalid at home should note this and also those who come to this knowledge in later years. Commandment keeping can work spectacular results, regardless of age. Men of 75 have been known to become more vigorous and agile when in obedience to the laws of good health.

The primary food laws are given in Leviticus 11. In deal­ing with animals for human consumption, the only animals allowed are those which are cloven-footed and chew the cud. They must do both these things. These animals are known as herbivorous. The latitude given to man stops at second degree vegetarianism, that is: vegetarian animals.

Beasts of prey are all excluded. None may be eaten. Of fishes, those carrying both fins and scales may be eaten. They are wholesome, but if you have to take a microscope to find the scales, it is better to err on the side of safety. The lists of forbidden birds in verses 13 to 20 need a more careful study. It is simple and clear that birds of prey and scavenging birds are all barred. It is the line of demarcation that give a little trouble. Are geese and ducks after the kind of the swan? Modern zoology says that they are not. Common sense leaves them with suspicion.

The insect items are quite unfamiliar to the modern table and need cause no concern. Man, however, is given a brain to use. Our Lord charged us to ask, to seek and to knock. There are the best of reasons why we should set about finding out why our Lord is right. It requires just ordinary intelligence to see that that which dies of itself shall not be eaten, because the disease germs from which it died are still in the carcass.

Similarly the dead carcasses of prescribed animals are not just biblically unclean, they are medically unclean, because they throw off the germs of the disease from which they died. A familiar example of this is that bubonic plague comes from the carcasses of dead rats; live rats hold the germ quite safely and are not dangerous.

Pigs are cloven footed but do not chew the cud. The eating of them is forbidden by law and by the Lord’s contempt. They are actually very efficient scavengers; they will eat the putrid and the filthy. Broadly from the filth they eat, they build on their flanks and limbs flesh and fat the richness of which is well in excess of the capacity of man’s alimentary system to cope. This is quite common knowledge. Instead of doing the sensible thing and eliminating it from our diet, we invent all kinds of sauces and dressings for no other purpose than to overcome the gastric repugnance. Pigs are also carnivorous. They have been known to eat baby lambs and young stock must be protected from them.

If you examine carefully you will find a small abrasion behind the front foot of the pig. Rub it off clean and press the leg, just above the abrasion and you may squeeze a tea­spoonful of dirty matter from it. It is an outlet to a sewer pipe that may be traced all through the animal’s body. It helps to drain off the teaming filth which the system is filled. If this external opening becomes clogged, the animal will run about and grunt and rub his leg on anything, and manifest great pain. He seems to know that he will sicken and die of so-called cholera and blood-poisoning unless he keeps this sewer open.

I am constantly being told by people “yes, but the pig, will keep his bed clean. He is one of the cleanest animals in that respect.” yes, of course he does, but so does a cat a lion or tiger, or any other carnivorous animal. That is one of their characteristics, and we are expressly told we must not eat them.

RODENTS: The eating of rabbit and hare is forbidden. The Lord made the law. He left the study of the biology of the matter to man. Rabbits are particularly vulnerable to venereal diseases. They are rodents, they will mate with other rodents, rats in particular, and one is never sure how much is rabbit and how much is rat. A problem presented by the importation into Britain some years ago of Australian rabbit rats. British butchers either refused to handle them or gave them away, a free rabbit with a pound of steak.

Our Israel countries have food laws and food inspectors but one wonders how far these laws are carried out. As a result, we have tuberculosis, heart troubles, arthritis, blindness and nerve trouble and ever growing numbers of spastics and lunatics, and bigger and more hospitals are being built. Fine careers are built from the wrecks in medicine, surgery and pharmaceuticals.

FISH: Fish without fins, crab, lobster, shrimps, etc. are all unclean. Why? They are scavengers. Those without scales are also generally scavengers, All these fishes, mackerel, oysters, cockles, mussels and the less common scaleless fish have a common characteristic; they eat filth! Putrefaction begins in their flesh very quickly after death, so quickly in fact, that it is virtually impossible to get them into the cooking pot before it begins. They are all dangerous to health.

Kidney and liver are internal organs containing blood, Leviticus 3:4. The eating of fat and blood is prohibited again and again and emphasized for all generations. Note Lev. 3:17; 7:26; Deut. 12:16 and 23, 24. The blood is the life, but if it is the life, it is also the death, for blood carries disease. The command is that it must be spilled on the ground.

It has been told that during the first war when the dread flu germs were around, a Jewish family, so orthodox in their belief always soaked their roasts of beef for two hours in salt water, to remove the blood, before cooking it. A very good idea and one that, we might all follow. This family escaped the dread germ. If we think this is just an Old Tes­tament law, we are mistaken for St. Paul warns against the eating of anything with blood in it. Acts 21:35.

The eating of kidneys and fat of any beast is similarly banned, the details are in Lev. 3. They recur in chapter 4, and again in chapter seven. They are elaborated to an extreme in Temple ritual for the kidneys. The fat and the mid­riff of all beasts sacrificed are ordered to be separated and ceremoniously burned on the altar. The kidneys are classed in the Bible as the organ most likely to be diseased in any animal for they are the filter.

THE FAT: The idea that the Lord demands the dissection of all meat and the removal of every particle of fat hardly makes sense, but the kidneys and fat are almost yoked biblically like the law and the prophets. It happens that the kidneys of any beast lie in a leaf of inner fat of consider­able size. It is coarser and harder than any other. We call it suet. Revoltingly, we render down the kidney leaf of the pig and call it lard. Suet makes good axle grease, but the effect of eating it is to make the bloodstream thick and sluggish, and as a result you have heart trouble, blood pressure and seizures. Beware of Your pastries and pies in your favorite restaurant. Our frying pans are full of it and our suet puddings especially at Christmas time are rich with it. These fats, a characteristic of which is their low boiling point, are so evil that the Lord made his prohibition of them features of Temple ritual in order that it should be imprinted on our minds and we would have no excuse to forget them.