Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 45, 1900

Kellogg, J. H.

Geelong, Victoria, Australia

March 12, 1900

Portions of this letter are published in WM 336-337; 4MR 429-433; 9MR 85-90. +^Note

Dr. J. H. Kellogg
Battle Creek, Michigan

12 o’clock midnight

Dear Brother:

I cannot sleep for there is a great burden on my heart. You say in one of your recent letters that you have other things that you have not sent me. Will you give me these things? You also ask me to send matter to you. I cannot send you all, for I have no liberty to do this. I will, my brother, get together the warnings given me for you since I came to this country as soon as I can. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 1

I am more than surprised when you have had the warnings so long ago that you have not appropriated them and thus avoided coming into difficult situations. The Lord has sent you warnings, but you have not heeded them, and you regard me as your enemy because I tell you the truth. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 2

I write this not knowing that I shall free to send the letter to you after it is written. I feel the condition of things keenly as it is from time to time presented before me. I shall trace upon paper the things that the Lord represents, and then it may be best, as I have done before, to lay them aside until the case may be worked out and developed. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 3

I do not have courage and hope that you will change your plans, but will do the same as you have done, until the Lord shall bring about His purposes in some other way. But lest I might be called away suddenly, as was Sister Henry, I shall leave my testimony behind written in my diary at different times. I do not think it is evidence that you want or that would be of advantage to you, for you only hurt yourself over it. That will not remedy the matter at all, therefore I shall be very cautious what I send to you. When the times comes that you have an ear to hear and a heart to receive, I shall understand that. As it is you will not heed, you will not understand, you will misinterpret and misapply anything that is out of harmony with the supposed good and great work you are doing. It is not the work God has appointed you. It is not your means you are using so abundantly, as you have been doing for years. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 4

The poverty of the missions in Africa has recently been opened before me. Missionaries were sent from America to the natives of Africa, and no provisions made for them to find support. They have suffered, and are still suffering for the necessaries of life. Think of it! God’s missionaries, ready to suffer the greatest inconveniences in order that the message of mercy might be carried to those sitting in darkness in heathen lands, are not sustained in their work. The means that should have been put into the work in Africa, in sending supplies to the sufferers in Africa has not been sent! 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 5

Of the work you have taken up in Chicago the Lord inquires, “John, who hath required this at your hands?” You have establishments in America of your own ambitious creating. As you belong to the Seventh-day Adventist people God has given you another work to do. You have not been called to do this work. Money and talent should not be diverted from the principal work for this time, which is to prepare a people who shall be brought into working order in connection with the gospel ministry. The truth of the third angel’s message that Christ communicated to John on the Isle of Patmos, upon which a blessing is pronounced on those who read, hear, and do this truth, that message is to be proclaimed to warn the world of the conflict in which every individual will have a part. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 6

The Lord is not pleased with your repressing the truth to carry another banner, and to work the works that do not bear the insignia of the work for this time. There is a people to be warned, and the very means you have used, to encourage and feed and sustain a class of people who could not honor the truth or honor the commandments of God, has been depriving the cause of God of the means which the Lord has designed should help His work to advance in clear, straight, distinct lines. The means that was to prosper His own work for His chosen people you have thrown away in place of putting it into the work of God to carry the present truth amid the opposition and persecution of its enemies. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 7

The deceptive power of the enemy has led you to leave God’s banner trailing in the dust while Dr. Kellogg has committed himself as working “undenominationally” in a work which has taken the money from a people who are decidedly a denominational people. God’s signature they bear as the loyal commandment-keeping subjects of His kingdom, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. No man’s name is to be exalted as creator. God has not set him to create. Your influence no one dares to dispute but myself. God says you are not right. You have a greater ambition to exalt self than to honor God. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 8

In the working of the cause of God for this time the benevolent work should give special help to those who, through the presentation of truth at our camp meetings, are convicted and converted. They become the loyal subjects of the kingdom of God and unite with those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. They are to be laborers together with God as is represented in Isaiah fifty-eight. That chapter does not sustain you in the kind of work you are doing and in expending God’s revenue on that class of people found in the slums. There we obtain the least results for labor put forth in true conversions and additions to strengthen the forces of workers together with God. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 9

We must engage in the work of caring especially for those who have the moral courage to accept the truth, lose their situations in consequence, and are refused work to earn means to support their families. There must be a fund to aid the worthy poor families who love God and keep His commandments. They are not to be left without help and forced to work on the Sabbath or starve because the means that God designed for His loyal people are diverted into channels that help the most unworthy and disobedient and the transgressors of His law. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 10

These are favored while the people who are beloved of God receive no favors from the popular churches. They have trampled on God’s law themselves, made a breach in it, torn down His memorial, and what is left for the poor saints who are placed in most discouraging circumstances for conscientiously obeying the truth? God has not vindicated your course for years, and I do not want you to continue in it till the bitter end. Shall the poor among God’s people be left without any provision being made for them? Shall it be made as hard as possible for them to obtain means to live? 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 11

God wants His loyal people to reveal to a sinful world that He has not left them to perish. Special pains is to be taken for this people who are cast out from their homes, and for the truth’s sake are obliged to suffer. The Lord never gave instruction that His work should be carried for years. There will be need of large, open, generous hearts that will deny self, and will take hold of the cases of the very ones whom God loves. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 12

“And 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.” [Verses 12-14.] Read chapters 56 and 60:1-3; chapter 61:1-4. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 13

I am instructed to say to you that it is not the Lord’s Spirit that has inspired you to take up the work which other churches will do, but who will not help the people loyal to God a jot or tittle. Who will need help as the commandment-keeping people of God will need it in the conscientious discharge of their duties in becoming loyal and true to God’s commandments? Those who have thought and devised this work had their God-appointed work, but He never gave them the work of absorbing the funds that came into their hands that there should be no meat in the house-of-God’s treasury to satisfy the hungry souls, hungry for temporal bread, and hungry for the bread of life. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 14

Satan has been pleased to have means absorbed in the work that has been done, because it would hinder aggressive warfare in behalf of the truth in new territory, and leave Him, with his power undisturbed. This money invested was not yours to invest. You were not placed as a steward of funds to use after your judgment. The fields calling for help cannot have it for there is an empty treasury, and it will continue empty until those who ought to consider shall come to their senses. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 15

The work has been hindered, the cause of God should have a different showing, far different, and who is to blame for this hindrance? You give heed to men not of our faith. You delight to show what you have done, and by a free use of money that was not yours to handle, in a way that God has not appointed, fields have been left barren of the very facilities that could have been furnished them. Where are your counselors? They have not been true to advise you. God never set you to engage in gathering means, and in doing the work that the Salvation Army are doing. Let them work in that line, and you attend to your appointed work, and not spend God’s means in channels that are not doing the work of God for this time. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 16

That very means, misapplied, could have set in operation the very work which I am trying to do. It would not have been used to hide our faith, to blanket it, to hide our light under a bushel; but to uplift the standard higher and still higher. Camp meetings should have been held to promulgate the truth, not for you to make eloquent speeches, to magnify a work that God never called you to do, but to bear a living testimony for the truth, the present truth for this time. You should have united your interests with the gospel ministry, heart and soul and mind and strength. You created objects which your own good sense should have taught you would deprive the field of workers and money. Because all our ministers did not take hold just as earnestly to do a work God had not appointed them, I have heard in assemblies your pronounced censures upon the ministry. Your colleagues have heard these denunciations against the ministers. A witness was present taking cognizance of your ambition. The warnings I have been instructed of God to give you were given at the very time you were misapplying means so freely, and seeking to gather all you could grasp, and complaining because the funds were not at hand from which you could draw more. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 17

Nebuchadnezzar has been presented to me, and your danger of patterning after him, and of exalting yourself, your name receiving the glory. This warning I sent you in my own handwriting not long ago. I wrote it in New Zealand. A copy went to you in 1893. And since that time, again and again you were presented to me as carrying a banner that did not bear the signature of the true work representing the important, solemn work we are to do for time and for eternity. Those who came under this banner blanketed the very message the angel gave to be proclaimed with a loud voice. Your voice is working against the success and triumph of the truth in these last days. Our God has a message for His people represented by an angel flying through heaven proclaiming the last message to a fallen world. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 18

What is the angel proclaiming? The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This represents that God’s messengers are to hold this banner high, and with no feeble voice proclaim to a perishing world the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This banner has been exchanged, and your work is not in harmony with the workmen who are to give this message to the world. You are leading away from the very work to be done. You are presenting obstructions by diverting workers and means in a direction that God has never appointed. The sanitarium that should have been in running order today doing its work which every sanitarium erected should do, must not work in lines conducted after the world’s standard. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 19

God has plainly revealed to me that our faith as Seventh-day Adventists is to stand before the world clear and distinct in all our institutions. The truth is losing its peculiar, holy character in the Sanitarium in America. It is changing. God has held the power of rivalry in obedience to His will while you had an eye single to His glory, heeding in some measure and respecting His reproofs and counsels. But when you added the responsibilities to your work, and took up a work God did not give you to do, He no longer restrained the worldly enterprise of erecting an institution that would be an embarrassment. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 20

If you had heeded the lesson, it would have led you to your duty to humble your heart before God. You have not done that yet. Your heart is not as it was. Your spirit is not the sweet spirit that truth and righteousness imparts. It is a faction spirit, for the things you have created you cannot possibly sustain. I shall be considered your enemy because I will not have the work in this field patterned after the work you have been doing. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 21

Our camp meetings are God’s instrumentalities. The people of all denominations come out to hear, and the truth is proclaimed. God bids us to give to the people Bible truth for this time. Revelation means just what is expressed—revelation—truths revealed, and the blessing is pronounced on all who give heed to the things written in this book. [See] Revelation 1:1-3. The truths contained in the Revelation are to be taught, and we are all to learn the lessons of the fearful import of the things to transpire in the last days of this earth’s history. You have lost sight of these things. Other things introduced by you have not come in under the instruction of God. You need to be converted. You need to bear in mind that your mind and your judgment is not the great whole. God is the teacher. He has exalted you to be a wise man, to stand at your appointed post of duty. Our work we are trying to carry out just as the Lord has outlined it, years ago, and repeated it over and again and again. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 22

The camp meetings are to be conducted as the gospel ministry of the Word of the living God to the people. They are beguiled by heresies and false doctrines. Men are glorified and humanity exalted as though erring man was God. Preach the truth. The end of all things is at hand! “He that hath an ear let him hear,” not the voice of the human agent, but “what the Spirit saith unto the churches.” [Revelation 2:7.] We can force no one to believe, but we can present the light of truth in clear, straight lines, and then live the truth in clear, straight practice. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 23

This work requires money and workers. The tent remains two or three weeks, and then the camp is broken up to do work in other places. A tent must still be left, a mission home secured, Bible workers employed to go from home to home to those who become awakened, convicted, and converted. All classes of people should be labored for, the drunkard, and the tobacco devotee, the tea drinker, and the coffee user, and all are to be educated in matters of temperance, and from the Word instructed in the law of God. This is the work that God’s treasury must sustain. In this work sheaves will be gathered, souls converted and baptized and added to the church as in the days of the apostles. No one is to be neglected. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 24

Our workers find intelligent mothers of families who know not how to read. They take [that] as a part of their mission, and instruct them as they would little children, not in ABC’s, but give them lessons from the Bible, and several in Maitland have become able to read the Scriptures for themselves. Hard cases, very hard cases, have been convicted and converted, and those who know them say that the change wrought is a living miracle. Those not of our faith say this. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 25

One young couple embraced the truth. The mother-in-law of the young man was favorable. The father-in-law was a drunkard, and the son-in-law supported him. When he was baptized he seemed to be transformed. A new zeal and light and power took possession of him. His father-in-law turned him out of the home. He rented a humble place and went to work. His employer let him continue to work. Word comes that the young man seems never to tire. He works with a surprising energy and accomplishes a third more work than before his conversion. Such evidences of the grace of the truth is a convincing power in favor of the truth. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 26

One whole family embraced the truth with two young ladies grown to womanhood. They would walk three miles to come to the meetings in the tent. They seemed hungry and eager to learn Bible truth. Next the mother was converted. The daughters went forward in the first baptism. The mother had hoped the father would give his heart to the Lord. I visited them in their home the last time I was in Maitland. We had a good opportunity to see the family alone. The man told me his experience. He said his father’s family were strictly temperate all except himself. He used tobacco. His father had told him he would give him fifty pounds (£50) if he would stop smoking, but he could not give it up. He was an inveterate smoker. He consumed a pound of tobacco a week. He heard my talk on temperance, and said, “I will not use tobacco any more.” Three weeks after, he said, “I have not touched it since.” This man and his wife were to be baptized last Sunday. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 27

The Scobie family are musicians, and this man is intelligent, pleasant, and agreeable in every way. We expect other members of this family will embrace the truth. The opposition from the ministers is beyond description. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 28

There are several excellent people just taking their stand. There has been two baptisms, and the third was to take place last Sunday. Three men and their wives have about decided. One took his stand last Sabbath, when we were there, and bore his testimony for the truth. Still another man and his wife have decided. The reporter who attended the opening of this term of school, who gave the report of the meeting, is searching the Scriptures day and night and reading Great Controversy. We expect he has, before this, decided to obey. Thirty more are converted. Now there will have to be a church built. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 29

Maitland is only twenty-seven miles from Cooranbong—a beautiful city. It is surrounded by an agricultural district so there is nothing to hinder them from doing as they please in a farming district. Greta is six miles from Maitland, another suburb in a mining district. Meetings are being held every week among the miners. I give them reading matter. I have spoken to them one evening. Brother Hickox and his wife have this place in charge. There are twelve whom I understand wish to be baptized, and there is excellent ability among them as they belong to a higher class of miners. The interest is still stronger since the ministers’ discourses are published weekly by Elder Colcord who carries the burden of the work in West Maitland [and] East Maitland, and the suburbs are yet to be worked. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 30

The sisters in the mission walk three miles and back to give Bible readings. I have a horse I now furnish them, and have written to Brother James to secure them a carriage and take it to them. These faithful workers have an unflagging interest. Now the mission is not properly furnished. Its furnishings are very meager in every respect. Why? Because we can’t expend money to make the place hardly respectable. These noble men and women are doing their uttermost to save perishing souls. They are told not to come again to some places. Canright’s miserable tracts are scattered all through the place, thus there are things that make the work go hard. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 31

Newcastle has no less than twenty suburbs to be worked, but we have no means to say to men and women: “We will give you a humble wage if you will take hold of the work.” These self-sacrificing women work for one pound per week and pay their share of family expenses which is ten shillings per week each, and they make no complaints. They study strictest economy, and thus they make a little means go a great ways. They help the poor and the sick out of this little that they receive. They are happy in their work. This work is to continue, for there are suburbs to be worked. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 32

We hope to obtain a company sufficiently strong so we can begin to talk meetinghouse to them. The tent top is no longer of any use in rainy weather, for it leaks like a sieve. We must have a new tent top, and we must build a house of worship, and all that have embraced the truth will do their utmost. The conference must do the rest. We count on quite a church of actual members, and nearly all are converts from the world. I think there are two who were Christians before. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 33

I have written thus fully to give a sample of the work to be done in our world just in the order the Lord has presented to me it should be done. There are two small churches to be built. At Dora Creek about forty attend the Sabbath meetings. Sunday meetings we hold in the open air, for the private house is too small. At Martinsville, in an opposite direction six miles, a church has been promised them sometime. There are first class men in this place in the country, and we have not a place to meet except in the open air. I have spoken several times. Brother Robinson has spoken both at Dora Creek and Martinsville. This work brings responsibilities upon us. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 34

There are families who have lost their situations which they have held for twenty years. One man and his wife have a large family of children which we have been caring for. I am paying the expenses of four children in school from this one family. We see many cases we must help. These are excellent men we have helped. They have large families, but they are the Lord’s poor. One man was a coach-builder, a cabinet maker, and a wheelwright, and a gentleman of superior order in the sight of God who reads the hearts of all. This family we provided with clothing from our family for three years. We moved the family to Cooranbong. We hoped to help them get a home this winter. I let them live in my tent, and they put an iron roof on it and have lived in it a year and everyone loves this man, his wife and children. We must help them. They have a father and mother they must support. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 35

Three families, of this same order are on the school premises, and O, if we only had money to help them build a cheap wooden home, how glad they would be! I use every penny I have in this helping work. But it makes a difference with me who I help, whether it is God’s suffering poor who are keeping His commandments and lose their situations in consequence, or whether it is a blasphemer treading under foot the commandments of God. And God regards the difference. We should make these men and women all workers together with God. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 36

We see many we can provide with work, and this is just as it should be. The wicked are not to be supported, and God’s chosen passed by. The Lord does not give into the hands of Sabbathkeepers the work of supporting the disobedient and transgressors of His law, while the needy, suffering ones of God’s people are left without provision because of wrong conceptions of duty. We are not called upon to make it a special business to reward the disobedient and transgressors of God’s law who continue in sin, and who are educated to look for help to those who will sustain them. We shall find a rich blessing when we do our duty to the Lord’s suffering, needy ones. We should not pass them by and reward the unholy and sinful, as it has been represented to me has been done and is being done in Chicago. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 37

God’s work is a high and important work, one above every other work, and it is to be carried to all parts of the world. Foreign mission fields have been neglected and the work of God hindered from accomplishing the purpose God the Lord designed. His people are not to be left to suffer for the words of truth and to die in want and need because means is placed where God has not ordered. His name is not honored or glorified. But whenever a church is established we are to do the very work that should be done for the needy believers. The church should look after and relieve the sufferings of believers and unbelievers, irrespective of their faith, and some will embrace the truth as the result. But the haphazard work that has been done is not after God’s way. I have now presented to you the plan of God. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 38

We are not to hunt up the wicked masses to make the recipients of our means and employ our time in this kind of work. There is a work to be done which has been outlined here, and God’s memorials are to be established in every city. The Lord’s work will move with reference to all parts of His vineyard. One particular field is not to receive largely under the devising of any one man’s mind or devising. Every man is a connection with other men, and their minds are to be used to compare one with another. They are not to work after one man’s ideas, for whenever this is done it is out of God’s order. The men who have sustained Dr. Kellogg in his management of means need to repent before God for their unfaithfulness. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 39

In the medical mission pamphlet, issued March 1893, quotations are found from my writings in January, 1891, when I was in America. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 40

There is nothing in these testimonies that encourages a line of work for the class that has been absorbing money in building institutions and supporting them, making them dependent upon Seventh-day Adventists in the place of being self-supporting. Such a work God has not given Seventh-day Adventists to carry. As far as the promulgation of the truth and the results obtained in converts to the truth are concerned, these interests might as well be carried on by other parties as by Seventh-day Adventists, and thus save the thousands upon thousands of dollars used to sustain this consuming and never-producing element. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 41

The matter has not been previously outlined in these features to me concerning the way the work has been carried on, as it is now presented. The churches that are planted of the Lord are to be kept in order, and disciplined according to the gospel rule. They should not be composed of such elements of evildoers as will taint and corrupt the whole church with their unconverted, unsanctified elements of character. The money spent in behalf of the people that have consumed it has displeased God, for it has been an unwise appropriation of funds. There are many places where the means should have been appropriated to make aggressive warfare in cities and towns in America with tent effort, and [to] raise up churches which should be as memorials of truth and righteousness. Every stroke should tell for God and His holy Sabbath. That is to stand out in all our work distinctly and pronounced, to be a witness that the seventh day is the sign, the seal of God. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 42

The Sabbath is to be exalted and made prominent more than is done now. Again the churches, the plants of the Lord, must take up experimental religious work, not only for the church members, but for those whom their experience may benefit in personal labor. They should not only do what they can with God’s simple, natural remedies in the education of the sick but may teach them how to benefit by the use of natural remedies—water, pure air, healthful food, and those things appropriate to the condition of the sick. They are to work for their neighbors whether believers or unbelievers. They may obtain the confidence of the suffering ones, and in offering prayer in their behalf should pray that they may feel their accountability to God to serve Him who died to redeem them. The patient self-sacrifice of these church members should carry out the instruction of Christ to His disciples. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 43

Christ ordained the twelve to preach the gospel of His kingdom. It was in the same line as giving Bible readings. “As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” [Matthew 10:7.] Read the chapter. “And into whatsoever city ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into a house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it; but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.” [Verses 11-13.] There must be peace in the houses where their call is given. Their labor was not to be lost, producing no good results. They must use judgment and discrimination as to whether the master of the house was of those to whom they should give their labor, and not waste their precious strength and time. They were not to remunerate all they visited, but to be provided for by the houses they visited, and this was to be the test as to where they should give time and instruction. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 44

“And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than that city. Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils and they will scourge you in the synagogues.” [Verses 14-17.] This would be experienced in the fullest sense. [See] verses 18-25. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 45

A similar charge and endowment was to be theirs, and the same commission given to the seventy as to the twelve. They were to be fed and entertained, and they were to impart the riches of the grace of Christ. They were not to devote time or money to building large institutions [to] house and feed and clothe the unworthy, but as wise stewards do just as Christ told them to do. There was a large work to be done, and the means to do the work was not to be spent [on] the promiscuous masses, for then the worthy, needy ones would fail to receive that which He had appointed His stewards to bestow. They were to be faithful stewards of their Lord’s goods. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 46

There were places where Christ could not work. [See] Mark 6:1-6. Christ sent forth His disciples two and two, and commanded that they should take nothing for their journey. And they went out and preached that men should repent, and they cast out devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them. But they must depend on those whose homes they visited to give them food and a comfortable chance to rest. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 47

This building up of institutions to feed the people was not God’s devised plan. When churches were raised up through the preaching of the gospel, the members were not to have this personal work done by proxy, and not come close to the sick, visiting them and showing their love and care for the Lord’s property by ministering to them, and not lavish upon them the means from the Lord’s treasury. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 48

The church should have certain wise men and women chosen to look after the poor and then report and counsel as to what should be done. They should not be encouraged to think they can have their eating, drinking, and sleeping in a place provided for them all free, as though there was an inexhaustible fund to provide for them. Men of God should be appointed, men of discernment and wisdom and care, to look after the wants of the saints of God, the household of faith, first. The Lord commands that His commandment-keeping people shall have relief first, and then every case is to be examined, and not teach them that a work is to be done for them free or nearly so. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 49

Many will depend as long as they have anything to depend on, and God knows better than short-sighted mortals what is best for the creatures He has created. He would not have transgressors and the worst kind of humanity consuming the revenue He has appointed to sustain those who shall be refused work because they keep the law of God. The widows and orphans of those who are the saints of the Most High are not to be passed by, nor should their pittance be taken as contributions to support those who could, if they conducted themselves properly, support themselves. 15LtMs, Lt 45, 1900, par. 50