Ellen White: Woman of Vision

Ellen White's Messages To The Delegates

On Saturday night, March 28, Ellen White was shown in vision what she should bring to the session. This led her to request the privilege of addressing the delegates on Monday afternoon. In place of the regular business meeting she presented a sermon on Josiah's reign. ^* She spoke of the investigation that was made by the king and of the punishment for apostasy. She declared: WV 425.7

Today God is watching His people. We should seek to find out what He means when He sweeps away our sanitarium and our publishing house. Let us not move along as if there were nothing wrong. King Josiah rent his robe and rent his heart. He wept and mourned because he had not had the book of the law, and knew not of the punishments that it threatened. WV 426.1

God wants us to come to our senses. He wants us to seek for the meaning of the calamities that have overtaken us, that we may not tread in the footsteps of Israel, and say, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we,” when we are not this at all (The General Conference Bulletin, 31). WV 426.2

Sabbath morning she had said: WV 426.3

God wants to work for His people and for His institutions—for every sanitarium, every publishing house, and every school, but He wants no more mammoth buildings erected, for they are a snare. For years He has told His people this (Ibid., 10). WV 426.4

Wednesday morning, April 1, she spoke at the devotional service. She dealt with faultfinding and criticizing, backbiting and cannibalism. Then she began to deal with the church institutions and some of the problems faced by those institutions. WV 426.5

She reminded her audience of the financial embarrassment that had come to the publishing house in Christiania (Oslo), Norway. Some wanted to let the house sink in its financial problems, but she said that “light was given me that the institution was to be placed where it could do its work” (Ibid., 58). Then she came to the question of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, which was on the minds of many, for the institution was being rebuilt at a cost of two or three times what had been estimated. Large debts were accumulating. Some in the meeting were probably surprised when they heard the words: WV 426.6

Let me say that God does not design that the sanitarium that has been erected in Battle Creek shall be in vain. He wants His people to understand this. WV 426.7

He wants this institution to be placed on vantage ground. He does not want His people to be looked upon by the enemy as a people that is going out of sight (Ibid.). WV 426.8

She called for another effort to place the institution on solid ground, and declared, “The people of God must build that institution up, in the name of the Lord.” WV 426.9

One man is not to stand at its head alone. Dr. Kellogg has carried the burden until it has almost killed him. God wants His servants to stand united in carrying that work forward (Ibid.). WV 427.1

Before she closed her presentation, she declared: WV 427.2

Because men have made mistakes, they are not to be uprooted. The blessing of God heals; it does not destroy. The Mighty Healer, the great Medical Missionary, will be in the midst of us, to heal and bless, if we will receive Him (Ibid., 59). WV 427.3

Note Ellen White's relationship to situations of this kind. She knew that some institutions had been overbuilt, in disregard of counsel that God had given. But even though mistakes had been made, she contended that these were God's institutions, that the church was to stand by them and make them succeed. WV 427.4

At the close of Ellen White's devotional message on the second Sunday morning of the session, as she was stepping down from the platform, a man rushed forward and attempted to assault her. The man was Helge Nelson, who claimed to have the prophetic gift, and two years earlier had sought repeatedly for an opportunity to speak publicly at the General Conference. Of his attempted attack on Mrs. White this Sunday morning, a newspaper reported: WV 427.5

The venerable exhorter staggered against the pulpit platform steps and tottered feebly as she was grasped by a number of men who were close by, as the hand of her attacker descended upon the unsuspecting woman. Quickly, amid the scene of much commotion, “Angel Nelson” [the title assumed by her attacker] was hustled out of the church by some stout-armed elders. While others attended the stricken woman, Alonzo T. Jones, president of the California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, summoned the police and Nelson was hustled off to the city prison by Patrolman Flynn and charged with battery. WV 427.6

The report stated that “Mrs. White regained her composure shortly, and happily received the congratulations of her friends that the assault had not caused more serious trouble” (DF 586). WV 427.7

Although Nelson had not been given an opportunity to speak in 1901, he did meet with some of the leading church workers. He related to the brethren his experience and what he understood to be his call. In this committee meeting Ellen White recounted her earlier contacts with Mr. Nelson. She told of how he had come to her home in California and she had spent time listening to him. She stated: “God has not given Brother Nelson the work of acting as Joshua in connection with His people. From the light that I have had, this could not be. It is an impossibility” (The Review and Herald, July 30, 1901). She closed her remarks by saying: WV 427.8

We love our brother. We want him to be saved, but we cannot allow him to take the time of this conference. It is not his time. God has given us a work to do, and we intend to do it, under His supervision, that souls may be brought to a knowledge of present truth (Ibid.). WV 428.1