The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials

Chapter 97—To O. A. Olsen (cf. Lt 43, 1890)

O-43a-1890

[variant of Letter 43, 1890]

Lynn, Mass.

December 18, 1890

Dear Brother Olsen:

Our meeting at Danvers is closed. I spoke five times, four times at length, speaking two evenings and Sabbath and Sunday morning at the missionary meeting, and again Sunday afternoon. I am fully satisfied, beyond a question or a doubt, that the Lord has a message for me to bear to the people. I have felt the sustaining power of God while standing on my feet in speaking. I know the power of God has spoken through the human instrument. I know that there is a reception of the word, and hungry souls are fed. Day and night I have a spirit of intercession that the Lord will clothe me with the spirit of the work, and [give me the] meekness and the gentleness of Christ, and that I may be clothed with the righteousness of Christ. 1888 750.1

Since the Brooklyn meeting I no longer talk of feebleness and infirmities. I never had such freedom from pain. I am sleeping nights as I have not slept for twelve years. The peace of God abides in my heart. To speak the words God has given me is more than my meat and my drink. There is a thankful heart full of praise ascending to God all the time. Sabbath, that blessed Sabbath in Brooklyn, from early morning hours all through the day and constantly since, I have been eating of the heavenly manna. 1888 750.2

My heart is full of earnest sympathy and love for the churches that are ready to die and are merely struggling for an existence. I say over and over, He has bought the church with His own blood and is longing to clothe her with His righteousness and salvation. He has made her the depository of His precious doctrines, holy truths, and He wants to make them participants of His glory. 1888 750.3

We have had a most precious meeting in Lynn and Danvers, but especially in Danvers. Last Sabbath all in the house came forward for prayers, converted and unconverted—except two, an aged colored man and one poor, timid soul who dared not move forward. The angels of God were in our midst. All the ministers place themselves as seeking the Lord, and the supplication was heard in heaven. Oh, how thankful was my heart! How glad I was to be able to feed the flock of God, through the grace given me of God. 1888 751.1

I tell you, the churches are hungering and starving, and how readily they grasp the word of God and the encouragement He gives them. I cannot hold back and refuse to visit the churches, for I know I have a message for them from the Lord. After the season of prayer we asked those who had a desire to testify, and although many had been in the church from nine o'clock in the morning until night without anything to eat, they were in no hurry for the meeting to close. There were many testimonies borne. Earnest supplications were made to God for ministers and people, and the testimony of many was, The Lord is in this place. 1888 751.2

The presence of the Lord was in the meeting. I felt the power of the Lord upon me. Elder Fifield was greatly blessed. He grasped my hand after the season of prayer and praised the Lord for His goodness and His rich blessing. The universal testimony was that they had been blessed of the Lord, that this was a visitation for Danvers that they had never had before. When I see how much the testimony God has given me is really needed, and with but one or two exceptions duly appreciated, I feel wholly reconciled to visit these places where I have never been. 1888 751.3

I am treated with respect and confidence and faith, after the trials and severe labors I have borne in Battle Creek, and the resistance and refusal to receive the message God has given me, by those who most needed it. I have a deep-seated conviction that my work is not to be in perpetual conflict, to brace and push for every inch gained. The men who ought to hold up my hands in the work have, some of them, been laboring to the best of their ingenuity to weaken my hands and discourage my heart, and wear out my strength and energies in beating against the walls of wicked prejudice and opposition. They do not see, and I feel sometimes that they never will. 1888 752.1

If in Christ's day they had known that He was the Prince of life, they would not have crucified Him. Again the statement is made, “He could not do many mighty works” in certain places “because of their unbelief.” If Jesus, the Source of all power and light and life, was bound about and His way obstructed by unbelief, what could be expected of those who are finite instruments? 1888 752.2

I know time and again the Lord Jesus has longed to communicate the Holy Spirit in rich measure, but there was no place for it to rest. It would not be recognized or valued. The blindness of mind, the hardness of heart, would interpret it as something of which they should be afraid, or [they would] use it to exalt themselves. Some will think [that] some hidden evil lies lurking in the revealings or manifestations of God's power, that would harm them. When things come to this pass, the Spirit does not descend. 1888 752.3

I know that if the way were only prepared, there would be in Battle Creek such a sacred kindling of love and zeal commenced upon the hearts of the very men who need this work but who have themselves barred the way that it shall not come, and men who are now in unbelief would receive communications from heaven and would be proclaiming, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord and make His paths straight.” 1888 752.4

When the leaders get out of the way, the work will be progressive in Battle Creek. The missionary spirit will revive, exist, and increase, and the church will act from a calm, simple sense of their obligations. They will as a church become in the highest sense a missionary field. The Lord has sent again and again His Holy Spirit to change the attitude by infusing a living, working principle into the church, but there have been unconsecrated elements at work to rock the church to sleep in the cradle of carnal security. 1888 753.1

The position taken at Battle Creek has been the pulse-beating of many churches. The power of God, the rich graces He longs to bestow, is not desired unless they themselves shall mark out the way in which God shall work. The Lord God of Israel has opened the windows of heaven to send the earth rich floods of light, but in many cases there was no place made to receive it or give it room, when every man—ministers, pastors, and those who stand in responsible positions—should have welcomed the truth, old or new, and with missionary tact and glad thankfulness should cry, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.” 1888 753.2

The influence of individuals has not been to act faithfully their part, but these barriers have been thrown up, and the streams of salvation turned aside into another channel. Success is seldom the result of scattered individual effort. The weight of every individual church member is required. The influence of ministers, of pastors, of workers in all our institutions, is required to prepare the way for the welcome reception of the light and glory of God. 1888 753.3

The whole treasures of heaven are at our hand for the work of preparing the way of the Lord. Providence has prepared sufficient power in the universe of heavenly agencies to make the missionary work a wonderful success, if human agencies will qualify and fully equip themselves for the great work. Our success thus far has been fully proportioned to our efforts. God lays every soul who claims to believe in Jesus under tribute to employ his capabilities in His service. 1888 754.1

There is no need of despondency, of vain apprehension, if those who have an experience in and a knowledge of the truth will keep themselves beneath the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness, for the Lord is gracious and the prayer of Christ for His disciples was that they may be one as He was one with the Father. “That the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one” [John 17:21, 22]. 1888 754.2

The influence of hopefulness is a wonderful help to the worker, and [especially] as we are now approaching a period when principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness will increase, when the deceiving power of Satan will be so marked that we are warned in the Word of God that if it were possible he would deceive the very elect. The discernment of the people of God must be sharpened by divine illumination to know what spirit is of God, and to not be ignorant of Satan's devices. 1888 754.3

There will be an accumulation of divine agencies to combine with human effort that there may be the accomplishment of the work for the last time. The work will most assuredly be cut short in a most unexpected manner. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and no one will be able to say when the movings of God's Spirit will be realized or what direction or through whom it will manifest itself. But I speak not my own words when I say it will pass by those who have had their test and opportunity and have not distinguished the voice of God or appreciated the movings of His Spirit. There will be thousands converted to the truth in a day, who at the eleventh hour see and acknowledge the truth and the movements of the Spirit of God. “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed” [Amos 9:13]. 1888 754.4

The accessions to the truth will be of a rapidity which will surprise the church. God's name alone will be glorified. Finite man will wonder and adore. The church is now highly privileged to bear a vigorous part as active agents with heavenly instrumentalities. Every Christian now should become men and women of intercession with God. They will evidence how much they love Jesus and the soul that He has purchased with His own blood. 1888 755.1

Men and women in the church are privileged with the golden opportunity now to obtain an experience higher and holier, beautified with the attributes of Christ. They have a decided part to act in holding up the hands that are ready to fall. This is the work which must be done if the church is a living, active, working church. They must as a whole and as individuals tread Satan under their feet. The habits, the conversation, the daily life must be wholly consecrated on the Lord's side, and they must hold communion with God. He must be their divine Counselor, and there must be by the church as a whole and by its individual members a spirit of intercession and wrestling with our covenant-keeping God in behalf of themselves and also for the watchmen on the walls of Zion and the workers in the cause of God, that they may be clothed with the garments of salvation and may have at this time power to prevail with God, that many souls may be the fruits of their ministry. God will answer the earnest supplications that are sent to Him in faith. 1888 755.2

Oh, how tenderly Jesus looks upon the simple-hearted, the humble, contrite, self-denying followers of Jesus. His eye is especially upon all those who are willing and obedient and who are learning the lessons in the school of Christ. There is wisdom which God gives the humble and contrite ones which He does not bestow upon the wise and the prudent, so prudent in their own self-conceits that they know not the things which make for their peace. He passes these by, but imparts His wisdom to babes. He lays in the dust all human pride; He lifts up with the tenderest care those that are cast down; He recognizes the weak and the humble, and He imparts to them His comfort and grace. Oh, how true [it is] that he that walketh in spiritual blindness knoweth not whither he goeth nor at what he stumbleth. How many need to become fools in their own estimation that they may have true wisdom. 1888 756.1

Elder Olsen, I urge you to be of good courage. I beseech you to confide wholly in God. I entreat you to carry every burden to Jesus. He can and He will give you help and spiritual power. But have faith in God. Do not be depressed. Do not mourn in secret places, as I have done because of the pastors of the flock, because of the unfaithfulness of the watchmen on the walls of Zion. Lie in the channel where the blessed full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shall shine upon you and into all the chambers of the mind and into the soul temple. God will make all the faithful in the church radiant with His light and strong in His power. His Spirit is to be communicated to human instrumentalities, and the blessed illumination before which moral darkness must be chased away [is to be imparted], for Christ has ordained that His church should be the light of the world. 1888 756.2

I must close this epistle. I send my sincere love to your wife and your children. May the Lord bless you as a family, is the prayer of your sister. 1888 757.1

Ellen G. White

grammatically edited KHW
retyped nc/April, 1986