Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 20 (1905)

Ms 75, 1905

Building the Waste Places

Takoma Park, Maryland

May, 1905

This manuscript is published in entirety in MR760 13-14. +^Note

I will not now try to describe the experience through which I passed during the night. I slept, and many things were represented to me. The instruction given me I wrote out in the night season while others were sleeping. I have much more to say, which will be said to our people with pen and voice. 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 1

We are to give special attention to the conversion of sinners. Now is the time for every soul to test his own case. It is the prevailing custom to look to human agencies for sympathy. There is called for a much stronger element of moral power. God’s people are to live in the clear sense that they have a God to whom they are to go with all their troubles. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven of the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” [James 1:5-8.] 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 2

We need to walk humbly before the Lord. His truth is to be substantiated and magnified. We are warned that heresy of every kind will be brought in among the people of God in these last days. One heresy leads to many other heresies in the explanation of the Word of God. Let our meetings in this Conference be times for the investigation and building up of the waste places. “They that be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day, and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” [Isaiah 58:12-14.] 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 3

The Lord would have us at this time bring in the testimony written by those who are now dead, to speak in behalf of heavenly things. The Holy Spirit has given instruction for us in these last days. We are to repeat the testimonies that God has given His people, the testimonies that present clear conceptions of the truths of the sanctuary and that show the relation of Christ to the truths of the sanctuary so clearly brought to view. 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 4

If we are the Lord’s appointed messengers, we shall not spring up with new ideas and theories to contradict the message that God has given through His servants since 1844. At that time many sought the Lord with heart and soul and voice. The men whom God raised up were diligent searchers of the Scriptures. And those who today claim to have light, and who contradict the teaching of God’s ordained messengers, who were working under the Holy Spirit’s guidance, those who get up new theories, which remove the pillars of our faith, are not doing the will of God, but are bringing in fallacies of their own invention, which, if received, will cut the church away from the anchorage of truth and set them drifting, drifting, to where they will receive any sophistries that may arise. 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 5

Our work is to bring forth the strong reasons of our faith, because there are men who, never established in the truth, will bring in fallacies which would tear away the anchorage of our faith. God sends no man with a message that leads souls to depart from the faith that has been our stronghold. We are to substantiate this faith rather than tear down the foundation upon which it rests. 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 6

There will be many converted from among the Jews, and these converts will aid in preparing the way of the Lord and making straight in the desert a highway for our God. Converted Jews are to have an important part to act in the great preparations to be made in the future to receive Christ, our Prince. A nation shall be born in a day. How? By men whom God has appointed being converted to the truth. There will be seen “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” [Mark 4:28.] The predictions of prophecy will be fulfilled. The day of the Lord will come suddenly, unexpectedly. 20LtMs, Ms 75, 1905, par. 7