Letters to Physicians and Ministers

Idleness is Sin

For a healthy young man, stern, severe exercise is strengthening to the whole system. And it is an essential preparation for the difficult work of the physician. Without such exercise the mind cannot be kept in working order. It becomes inactive, unable to put forth the sharp, quick action that will give scope to its powers. Unless he changes, the youth with such a mind will never, never become what God designed he should be. He has established so many resting-places that his mind has become like a stagnant pool. The atmosphere surrounding him is charged with moral miasma. SpTB01 28.4

Study the Lord's plan in regard to Adam. He was created pure, holy, and healthy; and he was given something to do. He was placed in the garden of Eden “to dress and to keep it.” He was not to be idle; he must work. SpTB01 29.1

God ordained that the beings He created should work. Upon this their happiness depends. Healthy young men and women have no need of cricket, ball-playing, or any kind of amusement just for the gratification of self, to pass away the time. There are useful things to be done by every one of God's created intelligences. Some one needs from you something that will help him. No one in the Lord's great domain of creation was made to be a drone. Our happiness increases and our powers develop as we engage in useful employment. SpTB01 29.2

Action gives power. Entire harmony pervades the universe of God. All the heavenly beings are in constant activity, and the Lord Jesus, in His life-work, has given an example for every one. He went about “doing good.” God has established the law of obedient action. Silent but ceaseless, the objects of His creation do their appointed work. The ocean is in constant motion. The springing grass, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, does its errand, clothing the fields with beauty. The leaves are stirred to motion, and yet no hand is seen to touch them. The sun, moon and stars are useful and glorious in fulfilling their mission. SpTB01 29.3

At all time the machinery of the body continues its work. Day by day the heart throbs, doing its regular, appointed task, unceasingly forcing its crimson current to all parts of the body. Action, action, is seen pervading the whole living machinery. And man, his mind and body created in God's own similitude, must be active in order to fill his appointed place. He is not to be idle. Idleness is sin. SpTB01 30.1