Testimonies for the Church, vol. 8

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The Importance of Medical Missionary Work

There is great need of an increase of knowledge in every line of health reform. Those who have had the privilege of hearing the truth are to give the trumpet a certain sound as they proclaim the third angel's message. Special lines of work are to be taken up, such as the medical missionary work. This work should be carried forward in connection with the gospel message for this time. Genuine medical missionary work is the gospel practiced. Those who cannot see the bearing of this work should not feel authorized to control any phase of it until they do understand its bearing. 8T 168.2

I wish to say decidedly that the Lord has accomplished great good through the medical missionary work, and that He has used our leading physician as His appointed agent. Not everything in the medical work has been without a flaw. With it have been blended many things that have marred its sacredness. But the Lord will take supervision of His cause, and will see that it does not become disproportionate in this one branch. The work will not be marred if the church will arise and shine, making it manifest that her light has come, and that the glory of the Lord is risen upon her. 8T 168.3

The medical missionary workers are to be purified, sanctified, ennobled. They are to rise to the highest point of excellence. They are to be molded and fashioned after the divine similitude. Then they will see that health reform and medical missionary work are to be bound up with the preaching of the gospel. 8T 168.4

The reason why church members do not understand this branch of the work is that they are not following the light, walking step by step after their great Leader. The medical missionary work is of God and bears His signature. For this reason let man keep his hands off it and not desire to manage it according to his own ideas. 8T 169.1

Our message is a world-wide message. And while means is not to be absorbed in one line of work, so that the last gospel message cannot be carried into new fields, the medical missionary work is not in any wise to be disparaged; it is not to be represented as an inferior work. The world is a great lazar house; it is corrupted under the inhabitants thereof, and misery is universal. The Lord has given our leading physician a work in aiding to prepare a people to stand in the great day of God. But he is to work under the supervision of God. There are some things in his labors that will have to be modeled more closely after the principles of the head worker. 8T 169.2