While it may sound hyperbolic, nothing about this fictitious advertisement would be inaccurate. If it were for a new drug, many people would be disbelieving. Those who were convinced would pay large sums of money for even the smallest dose. Should clinical trials back up the claims, share prices of the pharmaceutical company that invented the drug would skyrocket.

Of course, the ad is not describing some miracle new tincture or a cure-all wonder drug but rather the proven benefits of a full night of sleep. The evidence supporting these claims has been documented in more than 17,000 well-scrutinized scientific reports to date. As for the prescription cost, well, there isn't one. It's free. Yet all too often, we shun the nightly invitation to receive our full dose of this all-natural remedy — with terrible consequences.

Those who understand
something of the wisdom and beneficence of his laws,
and perceive the evidences of God's love
and the blessings that result from obedience,
will come to regard their duties and obligations from
an altogether different point of view.
Instead of looking upon the observance of
the laws of health as a matter of sacrifice and self-denial,
they will regard it, as it really is,
an inestimable blessing.
​—Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 120.

Every law governing the human machinery is to be considered just as truly divine in origin, in character, and in importance as the word of God. Every careless action, any abuse put upon the wonderful mechanism, by disregarding his specified laws of the human habitation, is a violation of God's law. This law embraces the treatment of the entire being.
—Unpublished Testimonies, ​January 11, 1897.​

“I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
—Testimonies for the Church 1:486. ​

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much:
and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
Luke 16:10 KJV

​The free use of sugar in any form tends to clog the system, and is not unfrequently a cause of disease.

The liability to take disease is increased tenfold by meat eating.

The eating of flesh meats has made a poor quality of blood and flesh. Your systems are in a state of inflammation, prepared to take on disease. You are liable to acute attacks of disease, and to sudden death, because you do not possess the strength of constitution to rally and resist disease.

When we feed on flesh, the juices of what we eat pass into the circulation. A feverish condition is created, because the animals are diseased, and by partaking of their flesh, we plant the seeds of disease in our own tissue and blood. Then, when exposed to the changes in a malarious atmosphere, to prevailing epidemics and contagious diseases, these are more sensibly felt, for the system is not in a condition to resist disease.

Rich and complicated mixtures of food are health destroying. Highly seasoned meats and rich pastry are wearing out the digestive organs.

Simple grains, fruits, and vegetables have all the nutrient properties necessary to make good blood. This a flesh diet cannot do.

The human body may be compared to nicely adjusted machinery, which needs care to keep it in running order. One part should not be subjected to constant wear and pressure, while another part is rusting from inaction. While the mind is taxed, the muscles also should have their proportion of exercise. Every person should learn how many hours may be spent in study, and how much time should be given to physical exercise.

Morning exercise, in walking in the free, invigorating air of heaven, or cultivating flowers, small fruits, and vegetables, is necessary to a healthful circulation of the blood. It is the surest safeguard against colds, coughs, congestions of the brain and lungs, inflammation of the liver, the kidneys, and the lungs, and a hundred other diseases.

If anything is needed to quench thirst, pure water, drunk some little time before or after a meal, is all that nature requires.... Water is the best liquid possible to cleanse the tissues.
 
Taken with meals, water diminishes the flow of the salivary glands; and the colder the water the greater the injury to the stomach. Ice water, drunk with meals, will arrest digestion until the system has imparted sufficient warmth to the stomach to enable it to take up its work again.

If you feel that you must eat at night, take a drink of cold water, and in the morning you will feel much better for not having eaten.

​This is one of nature’s most healing agents.
 
If you would have your homes sweet and inviting, make them bright with air and sunshine, remove your heavy curtains, open the windows, throw back the blinds, and enjoy the rich sunlight, even if it be at the expense of the colours of your carpets.
 
Every room in our dwellings should be daily thrown open to the healthful rays of the sun, and the purifying air should be invited in. This will be a preventive of disease.

Exercise, and a free and abundant use of the air and sunlight, ... would give life and strength to the emaciated.

Indulging in eating too frequently, and in too large quantities, overtaxes the digestive organs, and produces a feverish state of the system. The blood becomes impure, and then diseases of various kinds occur.

And the dyspeptic—what has made him dyspeptic is taking this course. Instead of observing regularity, he has let appetite control him, and has eaten between meals.

Scanty, impoverished, ill-cooked food is constantly depraving the blood, by weakening the bloodmaking organs.

Women especially are the victims of various maladies which might be lessened, if not entirely prevented, by right habits of life. Half their sufferings may be attributed to their manner of dress, and the insane desire to conform to the fashions of the world.

The effects produced by living in close, ill-ventilated rooms are these: The system becomes weak and unhealthy, the circulation is depressed, the blood moves sluggishly through the system because it is not purified and vitalized by the pure, invigorating air of heaven. The mind becomes depressed and gloomy, while the whole system is enervated; and fevers and other acute diseases are liable to be generated.... The system is peculiarly sensitive to the influence of cold. A slight exposure produces serious diseases.

Stomach, liver, lungs, and brain are suffering for want of deep, full inspirations of air.

Nature will restore their vigor and strength in their sleeping hours, if her laws are not violated.
 
Those who make great exertions to accomplish just so much work in a given time, and continue to labor when their judgment tells them they should rest, are never gainers. They are living on borrowed capital. They are expending the vital force which they will need at a future time. And when the energy they have so recklessly used, is demanded, they fail for want of it. If all the hours of the day are well improved, the work extended into the evening is so much extra, and the overtaxed system will suffer from the burden imposed upon it. Those who do this often lose much more than they gain, for their energies are exhausted, and they labor on nervous excitement. They may not realize any immediate injury, but they are surely undermining their constitution.

​God designed that the living machinery should be in daily activity; for in this activity or motion is its preserving power.

Healthy, active exercise is what you need. This will invigorate the mind.
 
The proper use of their physical strength, as well as of the mental powers, will equalize the circulation of the blood, and keep every organ of the living machinery in running order.

We have seen that the power abiding in the word of God is sufficient, only upon the speaking of that word, to create worlds. It is likewise sufficient, now that it is spoken to men, to create anew, in Christ Jesus, every one who receives it.

In the eighth chapter of Matthew it is related that a centurion came to Jesus, “beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. ... And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”

Now what was it that the centurion expected would heal His servant? It was “the word only,” which Jesus would speak. And after the word was spoken, what did the centurion depend upon—to what did he look for the healing power? It was “the word only.” He did not look for the Lord to do it in some ways apart from the word. No. He heard the word, “So be it done unto thee.” He accepted that word as it is in truth the word of God and expected it, depended upon it, to accomplish that which it said. And it was so. And that word is the word of God today as certainly as in the day that it was originally spoken. It has lost none of its power, for that word “liveth and abideth forever.”

Again in John 4:46-52 it is related how a certain nobleman whose son was sick at Capernaum came to Jesus at Cana of Galilee and “besought him that he would come down and heal his son; for he was at the point of death. Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe. The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die. Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, Thy son liveth. Then inquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So the father knew that it was at the same hour in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth.”

This is the power of the word of God to the man who receives it as it is in truth the word of God. This is the power that “effectually worketh also in you that believe.” This is the way that the word of God accomplishes that which He pleases, in those who will receive it and let it dwell in them. Notice that in both instances the thing was accomplished at the very time when the word was spoken. Notice also that the sick ones were not in the immediate presence of Jesus but some distance away—the latter was at least a day’s journey away from where Jesus was spoken to by the nobleman. Yet he was healed at once when the word was spoken. And that word is living and full of power today, as certainly as it was that day, to every one who receives it as was done that day. It is faith to accept that word as the word of God and to depend upon it to accomplish the thing that it says. For of the centurion when he said, “Speak the word only and my servant shall be healed,” Jesus said to them that stood around, “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” Let Him find it now everywhere in Israel.

Jesus says to every one of us, “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.” It is through the word that this cleansing is wrought. The Lord does not propose to cleanse you in any way apart from His word, but through the word which He has spoken. There and there alone are you to look for the cleansing power, receiving it as it is in truth the word of God which effectually worketh in you and accomplishes that which He pleases. He does not propose to make you pure except by the power and indwelling of His pure words.

A leper said to Jesus, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” And Jesus answered Him, “I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.” Are you mourning under the leprosy of sin? Have you said or will you now say, “Lord,if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”? The answer is now to you, “I will; be thou clean.” And “immediately” you are cleansed as certainly as was that other leper. Believe the word, and praise the Lord for its cleansing power. Do not believe for that leper away back there; believe it for yourself here, now, immediately. For the word is to you now, “Be thou clean.” Accept it as did those of old and immediately it worketh effectually in you the good pleasure of the Father.

​Let all who have named the name of Christ receive His word today as it is in truth the word of God, depending upon that word to do what the word says. Then as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it, “that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish,” even so it will be now to the glory of God.

Excerpt: 'The Power of the Word-II' by A.T. Jones; Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Oct. 27, 1896​