Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 100, 1900

Wessels, John

“Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

June 16, 1900

Previously unpublished.

My Brother John Wessels:

I have some things to say to you. Be very careful how you move. You were represented to me as in a position of great danger. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 1

The influence of your relatives threatens to be much greater over you than your influence is over them; while yours should be greater over them. Your eyesight is clouded, and in the attitude which you now occupy you cannot see things clearly, and you will make grave mistakes. The atmosphere surrounding your own people at Capetown is not calculated to help you. Your mind is not clear. You are in a mist and fog, and your judgment is not being correctly preserved in the strain of the discouraging state of your finances, and the influence of the many voices and strong spirits that would seek to carry things in certain lines in the way they choose. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 2

This matter was presented before me. Propositions were made in business transactions, to cooperate in carrying out certain conditions to secure certain results. Unseen by you all, the angels of God were present. One of them laid his hand upon John Wessels, saying, “No; that means perplexity, entanglement, complications, and the taking of large responsibilities which will injure all who act a part in these transactions rather than advance the work. There must be no binding up with parties in accordance with the suggestions that have been contemplated. There is a binding up and subscribing to fulfill certain conditions which should not be done. There is no justice in it. Better let the cause and work in Australia struggle on in complete freedom, trusting in God, than to accept the propositions made.” 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 3

Said the angel, “Ye are bought with a price from Satan’s claim, because the laws of God’s kingdom have been broken, and through Adam’s transgression the human family was numbered with the subjects of the enemy. Christ was their only deliverance. He, the sinless One, numbered with the transgressors on the cross of Calvary, released the captives, sinful, lost, and ready at any time to die, through Satan’s power. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 4

“It is within the power of man to become free from Satan’s wiles and destructive influence. ‘Let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me, and he shall make peace with me.’ [Isaiah 27:5.] Man is not compelled to be saved. He has been bought with an infinite price, and it rests wholly with himself whether his soul is saved or lost. His course of action determines his future, whether he will be a subject of Satan’s kingdom or a subject of the kingdom of God, an heir of God and a joint-heir of Jesus Christ, a loyal, royal subject of Christ’s kingdom, a member of the heavenly family, a child of the heavenly King.” 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 5

This action of yours is not the proper way out of your difficulties. Man has to choose whether he will be created anew in Christ Jesus, not to live for show or for his own pleasure, but that he may become a fitting agent for Christ’s employ. Every soul that Christ has ransomed for time and for eternity exists for a purpose! He has his appointed place, and is to cooperate with his Redeemer, living always for His name’s glory. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 6

No other being in the universe has the shadow of a claim upon Christ’s purchased possession, beyond that which his new proprietor may consent to grant. Every part of the man, with all that God has lent him in trust, his God-given possessions, his God-given capabilities, his time, every moment of his existence, belongs to the Master; for it has been purchased, bought with a price, paid for even with Christ’s most precious blood. Men who think that they can be supreme in making suggestions and carrying matters in their own way might better stop and pray. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 7

He who consents, from his own choice, to be Christ’s servant, cannot consent to be ruled or controlled by any human influence that will interfere with whole-souled service to God. He has devoted himself unreservedly to God, to serve Him with an eye single to His glory, because he feels the power of the great sacrifice made upon the cross, and realizes that by most faithful service he is to acknowledge his obligations. Every day, in whatever business he is engaged, he is charged with a sense of Christ’s ownership. No man is to interpose between his soul and his God. He has been recalled from the denunciations of death to a probationary period of service which will test his faith in regard to the law of God, violated by our first parents. His guilt of transgression unto death must be changed by himself to obedience and loyalty. From the very tomb of Christ he has received. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 8

By faith in Christ he can conform to the will of God, for Christ proclaimed over the rent sepulcher of Joseph, “I am the resurrection and the life.” [John 11:25.] He holds himself as a redeemed property. He is not to serve or to glorify himself. He is himself a part of the cross; for by that cross his life is hid with Christ in God. His whole being, body, soul, and spirit is Christ’s property. He is a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. His reason, his hearing, his sight, his intelligence, are gifts from God, to be held in precious trust for the Master. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 9

He is one with Christ, bound up with Christ, and he has no right to dispose of God’s blood-bought possession by signing contracts which will be liable to hinder his life in the least degree from becoming altogether what God designed it should be. He who is Christ’s property is not to be bound. He is to be perfectly free to heed the voice of God, whenever it may speak, saying, Do this, or, Do that; Thou shalt, or, Thou shalt not. Because the Lord may speak, and His words must command the course of action His servants shall pursue. In the work of God for these last days man is therefore to be very cautious not to allow any man to command his course of action. Whatever may be his position, he is to co-operate with Christ in carrying forward the work of the Lord as God has specified, that it may be done at the very time of the greatest necessity. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 10

The ministers of Christ and those who have been placed in positions of responsibility are not faithful stewards unless their characters are representations of Christ’s character in the management of all business transactions. If the converted man binds himself up with men who profess to be children of God, but who are not thus in reality, who in their human judgment suppose they have been given the power of controlling lines of business which would work at cross purposes with God in regard to His ownership of all properties and all service, there will be a command, a Thus saith the Lord, I have work to be done in such a place; memorials to be established. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 11

Hearts that are shown to be fickle in their service to God and not reliable, will be worked by another spirit, which will say to them, You have obliged yourself to be under the control of such a committee or such a person. Thus the Lord’s work is bound about because the Holy Spirit does not control these directors. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 12

John, you scarcely know what it means to work unselfishly, with a sense that you are amenable to God. When there is a favorable chance to obtain a good bargain, you need to feel deeply solicitous for the souls for whom Christ has died. Too often the human agent has ambitious projects of his own to serve, and he does not feel the sacred partnership which he should maintain with a faithful and true God. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 13

The workers in our institutions are never to be kept in darkness for fear the people will know their plans and refuse to consent to the propositions they may make. The Lord calls for those who are stewards in trust to move very guardedly in their course of action, lest they shall do that which will betray sacred trusts and imperil the work and cause of God. Their intentions may be the best, but they are not wise. Their intentions need to be closely investigated by other minds that God is working. They need to be cautiously and critically examined, lest through the enthusiasm of human minds Satan shall in some form introduce plans that shall bind about God’s work. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 14

“When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do always err in their heart; they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest. Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” [Hebrews 3:9-14.] “Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” [Hebrews 4:1, 2.] 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 15

God’s ambassadors are to do their work faithfully. By fervent prayer they are to keep close to God, lest they fail in faithful and just dealing with their brethren of like faith. Whatever may be their position, they are to carefully and steadfastly hold to the faith once delivered to the saints. God’s ambassadors must not spare themselves in the faithful discharge of their duty toward their brethren, in their connection with the work and cause of God, whatever may be the rank and standing of men who in any line shall work away from the divine principles which God has given to be maintained and strictly guarded from the invasions of man’s imaginations. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 16

There must be spiritual eyesight in the church. All the important movements in the working of the cause of God—movements which involve principle—should be above secrecy and concealment. They should be as open as the day, that the minds and ideas of others may be brought forward and compared with the minds and ideas of the few leading ones and their associates. Grave blunders will be avoided if there would be an investigation and comparison of the devisings and calculations of men which would materially affect the cause of God in any of its bearings. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 17

We are living amid the perils of the last days, and we need to watch diligently unto prayer, lest the enemy shall take advantage of our natural traits of character. I was shown your peril, my brother, and I hope, for your soul’s sake, that you will strive for the Holy Spirit’s working in you and by you and through you, and that you will be a wise counsellor to your brothers. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 18

I write to you because, as you know, I have felt an intense interest that your family relations should be broken up, and that you should change your location to a more safe atmosphere. I desired you to come to Australia, that you would not make shipwreck of your faith. That last investment in the sanitarium was a trick of the enemy to destroy you, and I beg of you, for your soul’s sake, Let not your soul be imperilled. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” [Mark 8:36, 37.] 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 19

I must place this immediately in the hands of my copyist, and I will say, Pray, pray, and be steadfast and true to righteousness. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 20

P.S. This letter, which was written some weeks ago, was mislaid, and only found by me today. 15LtMs, Lt 100, 1900, par. 21