Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 18 (1903)

Lt 306, 1903

Kellogg, J. H.

Circa 1903

Previously unpublished. Not sent.

[To Dr. J. H. Kellogg:]

To regenerate yourself—[that] you cannot do. That God must do if you will obey the commandments of God. Much of your labor has been in vain, for God would not present you to embrace that work [which] you had no fitness or qualifications to do. The money you have misapplied you cannot take in and account for, because you have supposed yourself a perfect whole in undertaking and doing a work that was not appointed to you. [You] have had no orders or directions from Christ. If you had fulfilled the part the Lord had given you to do, that embraced enough without your trying to carry so many things and finding fault with others because they did not help you to accomplish the things God never gave you to do. Your Saviour has not told you to do only that which God could do. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 1

Your labor has indeed been in vain to carry the business of the documents you have invented that were not given you of the Lord. You have mistaken your duty, and did not learn that you do not have qualifications as financier and designer of plans. You have found your labor has been in vain. Your Saviour did not tell you to do it. You have mistaken your duty in a large degree. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 2

Christ came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill. The Lord does not give you grace to make void the law as you have done repeatedly in leaning upon worldly lawyers. The Word is very explicit in forbidding it. For one jot or tittle to depart from the principles of the law of God to fulfill your own natural propensities is not establishing the law and making it honorable. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 3

You have spent your labor in vain, grasping responsibilities you had no capabilities to carry. You are to keep in mind what you have no talent to accomplish and learn what you ought not to do, and not spend your powers in vain and in a haphazard way. You are not [to] suppose you can do God’s work and undertake it as you have done again and again. He does not give grace to you to make void His law by tyrannical actions and suppose you are doing the work you should do, for it is a work that you know not how to accomplish. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 4

When you are pure in heart, mind, and soul, and devote time to study your Bible [while] consuming your magical books that treat on science to perfect your education, you make a great mistake. The Lord holds you accountable for binding about minds to fulfill your will and accomplish your designs whatever the outcome may be. You pass [right] on after doing wrong and your faculties of repentance and confession have never been cultivated. There is only one way for you to save your soul now: take the yoke of Christ. Begin now in His service and consider it is your business to serve—not rule—others’ minds and convert others’ minds. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 5

J. H. Kellogg, go to your closet and make diligent work for repentance, and on your bended knees repent and continue to repent and reform, for it is your only hope. This would [be] learning lessons that would lead to confession and reformation. Your covenant that you have been [making] for years—that others should pledge themselves to perform—now take that burden on yourself and make a covenant with Christ that you will burn your magical books which has spoiled your mind for the faithful discharge of Christian duties. Begin this work now, bewildered fellow-sinner, for this you are decidedly. There is to be [no] metaphysical mummery about this matter, for it is a life and death question with you to be an honest man in obedience to the law of God. There is [to be] no jargon, no clashing. Should your will be allowed to predominate makes you a tyrant. The Lord has mercy on you. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 6

The years you have been studying your science that suited your mind to obtain power over minds—all that time you needed—is time you should have spent in most earnest prayer to God. Now give yourself over to Jesus Christ, for you will never learn what is God or what is Christ as you have represented in The Living Temple, for it is a farce Satan has created in your mind. Take Christ’s yoke; adopt His service; break away from J. H. Kellogg. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 7

I warn my brethren to stand aside and not bolster you up in your own mistaken ideas of yourself, and to give you a chance to stand before the Judge of all the earth. Your path is plain, your work is simple. Break away from J. H. Kellogg. Take the yoke of Christ. Become meek and lowly of heart. You have thought yourself to be something in Christ’s estimation. In your present standing you are nothing but an offense to Him. What is Truth? This is to be your study if you ever see the kingdom of heaven. Put away your sophistries with which you have tried to influence human minds. Test your own character by the Word. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 8

You are saying to your soul, Peace, because you have been the subject of religious impressions and you flatter yourself that you are a Christian. You have not an earnest, true, spirit of prayer. You take little heed to the commandments of God in your dealing with His work, and in your devisings self has the intriguing faculty. You do many things that lead your brethren to suppose you are honest and true in word and deed, when it is a falsehood. You are performing many things that you suppose are laudable and hold fast the corner of piety, but your mind is constantly active in your ordinary business transactions. Do you have the garments of Christ’s righteousness in your ordinary business contracts? 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 9

In your negotiations of the loans of means to the Sanitarium do you pay all your contracts? The book of God has a statement of the monies that have passed through your hands. Have you done the honest and just things in all your payments? What will the estimate be in all these private transactions? Do your heart and life respond to the justice, the mercy, and the love of God? Bear in mind the commandments of God holds its claims upon you. God calls you now to put yourself in His scales and be weighed. How stands the measurement? Are you weighed in the balance and found wanting? Do you refuse to comply with the conditions of God’s commandments? Do you inquire day by day, How is it with my soul? The fabric of your hope today is but a bubble. Be not deceived; God is not mocked. If you take not Christ’s yoke, if you put not out of your life every thread of your scientific strategies, your salvation will soon vanish like the mist of the morning. Now, just now, fall on the Rock and be broken. This is your only hope. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 10

I have not given you up, for hope revives in your behalf. But your pronouncing sentence upon all who do not serve you is not just and cannot be conscientiously done. It [is] a work you have practiced for years, but I cannot and will not deceive souls to hold you up as a man that can be trusted. I know the time is now when the wicked prevail. Many things transpire which [are] positively productions of evil. But the truth is effectual. The truth will bear away the victory. We know that all things work for good to those who love God and keep His commandments. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 11

I tell you in the name of the Lord, unless you be born again, you will never see the kingdom of God. I write these things for your soul’s sake, for this is a life and death question for you. If you will now be a converted man, peace, hope and the love of God will take possession of your soul. But if heaven is worth anything to you, lay hold of the Almighty arm of Jehovah. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 12

If all your associate physicians shall bolster you up as a man that loves and obeys the truth as it is in Jesus, I should tell them their estimate of you is defective and if one deceives you on this vital question he has participated in the loss of your soul. I have things sealed up concerning the death of my husband—things that transpired in his treatment—I hope I shall never have to reveal. But I have hoped you would make decided movements to save your soul before it is forever too late. Some sins confess to God alone, for it will not be best to tell how far Satan has led you with his arts. But I have had the words spoken, Let him alone. 18LtMs, Lt 306, 1903, par. 13