The Paulson Collection of Ellen G. White Letters

Personal Appeal

God calls upon you who are connected with his instrumentalities, to do his work according to his plans, not your own. He calls for an entire consecration of yourselves to him. If you heed the requirement, it will be a blessing to you in this life and the inheritance of life eternal. There is now a precious period, though short, allotted to you for repentance and improvement. PC 407.1

Brethren A. R. Henry and Harmon Lindsay, God is in earnest with you. Your duty is plain and imperative. Your minds need cultivation, that you may discern heavenly things, and choose them above the common and the earthly. Let not the present opportunity pass unimproved. Unless the warnings that God in his mercy is sending to you, are heeded, before a long time shall elapse you will make shipwreck of faith. You have sown the seeds of unbelief all along the line. And you have so long refused the evidence of the operation of the Holy Spirit that it is questionable whether you will ever again recognize the light from heaven. It may even appear as darkness to you, until the time shall come when every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. Instead of regarding it as your imperative duty to cultivate personal piety, with a zeal proportionate to the preciousness of the holy faith you profess and the responsibility of your position, you have suffered yourselves to drift along, your impulses controlled by unholy imaginations and prejudices, until your course is an offense to God. What wonder that you lead the minds of others into the same channels? What wonder that some, following you, turn away from the rock foundation of eternal truth, to build, as you are building, upon the sand? It is a grievous robbery of God to become so blinded as you are today because you have refused heaven's light, slighted the appeals that God has sent you, and have done your best to prove them inconsistent, and have declared them untrue. Your assertions have not made them untrue, but by your resistance against God your hearts have become hard and stubborn. PC 407.2

Again I appeal to you: Will you now be zealous and repent? You have shown your zeal in strong words and oppressive measures towards your brethren. Now I beseech you to give evidence of earnest repentance before it shall be forever too late. PC 407.3

Those who, notwithstanding the light given, have yoked up with you as men imbued with the Spirit of God, and actuated by a self denying interest in his cause, make yourselves responsible for the influence you have exerted and will exert contrary to the truth. Guilt will rest upon those who have placed increasing responsibilities upon you, when you have no living connection with God. PC 407.4

A condition of things has been brought about that, unless God in mercy shall interpose, will work disaster to his cause. Inexperienced minds are being troubled at the outlook. For reasons that you can give, God is not moving upon the hearts of his people to supply the treasury. When you shall receive the Holy Spirit's unction by returning unto the Lord with full purpose of heart, you will see yourselves in a new light altogether. You who are finite, erring, and unsanctified, have supposed that God's children were put under your jurisdiction, for you to plan for them, and bring them to your terms. The policy you have labored so hard to establish in your connection with the work is an offense to God. He has never justified any arrangement, through organization, discipline, or laws, whereby men who have evidenced that they are not susceptible to the Holy Spirit's moving, shall use their power to sustain others in a like disregard of the Spirit's work. But such has been the arrangement that has prevailed. You have made it hard for those whom you do not especially like, while others who are self serving have been favored and exalted. Partiality and hypocrisy have excluded the Spirit of God from many hearts, and left them as destitute of his grace as the hills of Gilboa were destitute of dew or rain. Let it no longer be regarded as your privilege to control God's heritage. PC 408.1

The Lord himself will turn and overturn, and set things in order. He has the responsibility of his own work, and he has not entrusted the management of his people to unsanctified human minds. PC 408.2

It is hard for men to learn their real weakness and ignorance and inefficiency. It is hard for the ambitious heart to receive God's ideas and plans with unquestioning faith and obedience. Some have very high ideas of the importance of their own individuality, and by their headstrong course are saying, We want not God's way, but our own way. PC 408.3

The time is near when God by his providence will make manifest what principles have been cherished by the men connected with the management of his work. Unless these men are converted, they will be separated from the work. But the appeals and warnings given have had no more effect upon their hearts than the messages of Christ had upon the Pharisees, and I greatly fear in their behalf, lest they shall continue to walk in the same path, manifesting the same exacting and intolerant spirit, as did the ruling Pharisees. I fear that the same judgments will fall upon them because they have rejected the Lord's reproof, and have set the stumbling block of their iniquity before their eyes. PC 408.4

My brethren, in the name of the Lord I counsel you to seek him by repentance and confession. Let your sins of omission and commission go beforehand to judgment, that pardon may be written against your names, that you may be accounted worthy to stand before him when he shall appear. PC 408.5

(Signed) Ellen G. White

(Written May 30, 1895; copied May 6, 1896.) Recopied, HER -