Food for Life – Westphal’s Pickles

Withstanding Temptation

A few potent thoughts for this month from the little book “Confrontation” beginning with page 10: “Adam and Eve came forth from the hand of their Creator in the perfection of every physical, mental, and spiritual endowment. God planted for them a garden, and surrounded them with everything that was lovely and attractive to the eye, which their physical necessities required. This holy pair looked upon a world of unsurpassed loveliness and glory. A benevolent Creator had given them evidences of His goodness and love in providing them with fruits, vegetables, and grains, and in causing to grow out of the ground every variety of tree for usefulness and beauty.” [Emphasis supplied.]

Has the cost of your salvation ever entered your mind? “Satan followed Him [Christ] from infancy to childhood and from childhood to manhood, inventing means and ways to allure Him from His allegiance to God, and overcome Him with his subtle temptations. The unsullied purity of the childhood, youth, and manhood of Christ, which Satan could not taint, annoyed him exceedingly. All his darts and arrows of temptation fell harmless before the Son of God. And when he found that all his temptations prevailed nothing in moving Christ from the steadfast integrity, or in marring the spotless purity of the youthful Galilean, he was perplexed and enraged. He looked upon this youth as an enemy that he must dread and fear.

“That there should be One who walked the earth with moral power to withstand all his temptations, who resisted all his attractive bribes to allure Him to sin, and over whom he could obtain no advantage to separate from God, chafed and enraged his satanic majesty.” Ibid., 28.

Have you ever considered how much He endured for your sake and for mine? Look at our sins, the ones that so easily beset us—the common, little ordinary sins that will keep us out of Heaven unless we overcome them completely— like impatience, a harsh tongue, and gossiping. Even the smallest will bar our way to the mansions He has gone to prepare for us.

“When Christ bore the test of temptation upon the point of appetite, He did not stand in beautiful Eden, as did Adam, with the light and love of God seen in everything His eye rested upon; but He was in a barren, desolate wilderness, surrounded with wild beasts. Everything around Him was repulsive. With these surroundings, He fasted forty days and forty nights.” Ibid., 37.

“For forty days He ate and drank nothing. This made His suffering greater than anything which man would ever be called to endure.” Signs of the Times, August 7, 1879.

In light of the shortness of time, does this not behoove us to watch more carefully everything we do and say, that we might give all the glory and honor to Him alone? Let us pray for one another that we will remain faithful until Jesus comes.

Recipe – Westphal’s Pickles

1 gallon distilled water

1 cup salt (ice cream or pickle salt)

Bring this to a boil until salt is well dissolved. Pack small fresh cucumbers tightly in a jar.

 

Add: 3–4 cloves of garlic

2–3 grape leaves

Fill jars with the boiling salt water and seal

 

Happy Cooking, Marjorie