Special Testimony to the Oakland and Battle Creek Churches

The Work Hindered

God in his own good time will give the message to men whom you least expect to come from men's policy to the policy of God. These will find there is something more they should have contended for in purity and honesty and straightforward working which is of an hundred-fold more value than their criticisms of words lest the great fundamental doctrines be departed from. The doctrine of justification by faith and the righteousness by faith was opposed, and masterly efforts made through opposition and denunciation by a formal church, whose attitude was of a character to discourage integrity and faithfulness and good works. And the result is just as it was in Christ's day. Those who were blinded by the enemy would, from their standpoint, pronounce judgment against the living principles of truth as heresy, and if they dared would make the press voice their sentiments with warnings and anathemas because their own preconceived opinions were not considered supreme and without a flaw. PH157 18.1

God has given his Word power, but at what a cost! What labor and pain, and anguish of soul have been endured! What time and money have been bestowed! And how much of God's talents has been wasted under misconception in counterworking the work of God, at the very time the message was to go with a loud voice and ripen off the harvest of the earth! Men in high places of trust have gone from place to place as agents, working on the enemy's side. While the workers of God, sent forth with a special message, have prosecuted their work as men who must give an account, they have not been appreciated. Their way has been hedged up, and their labor counterworked as far as possible. PH157 18.2

The work offered to the church at Battle Creek was not accepted. But the Lord increased the faith of some, and stirred Dr. Kellogg up to work for the souls and bodies of men through the medical missionary work, in ministering to the apparently lower orders, in striving to work a reformation through correct principles. And blessed results have been seen. Among those who have been rescued, there are some, not all, who shall embrace the truth. It is the loudest proclamation of the gospel that reaches men where they are, and accomplishes a grand work for time and for eternity. PH157 19.1

If the schools in Battle Creek, if the publishing office, if the Sanitarium workers, in the place of looking on to criticise and denounce, had humbled their souls before God, and had allowed the Holy Spirit to work them, to soften their hard, icy hearts, had they worked on Bible principles in the place of studying up new methods and wonderful inventions and schemes, they would have discerned the work to be done and brought all their powers into the work. There would have been less ministerial institutes, and every minister would have devoted his time and talents, and worked to save souls by communicating to them the light from heaven. This would have had a purifying effect upon the church, and the duties God has plainly revealed in his Word would have been performed. But many are too blind spiritually to discern these duties, and they are left undone, in order to take up a work which the Lord has not so much as intimated to them to do. PH157 19.2