Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 23 (1908)

Lt 358a, 1908

Mackin, Brother and Sister [Ralph]

St. Helena, California

December 11, 1903

Variant of Lt 358, 1908. This letter is published in entirety in 2SM 44-45; 3SM 376-378.

Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Mackin

Dear Brother and Sister:

Recently, in visions of the night, there were opened before me some matters that I must communicate to you. I have been shown that you are making some sad mistakes. In your study of the Scriptures and of the testimonies, you have come to wrong conclusions. The Lord’s work would be greatly misunderstood, if you should continue to labor as you have begun. You place a false interpretation upon the Word of God and upon the printed testimonies; and then you seek to carry on a strange work in accordance with your conception of their meaning. You have even supposed that power is given you to cast out devils. Through your influence over the human mind, men and women are led to believe that they are possessed of devils and that the Lord has appointed you as His agents for casting out these evil spirits. 23LtMs, Lt 358a, 1908, par. 1

Your wife, in speech, in song, and in strange exhibitions that are not in accordance with the genuine work of the Holy Spirit, is helping to bring in a phase of fanaticism that would do great injury to the cause of God, if allowed any place in our churches. 23LtMs, Lt 358a, 1908, par. 2

I have been shown that just such phases of error, as I was compelled to meet among Advent believers after the passing of the time in 1844, will be repeated in these last days. In our early experience, I had to go from place to place and bear message after message to disappointed companies of believers. The evidences accompanying my messages were so great that the honest in heart received as truth the words that were spoken. The power of God was revealed in a marked manner, and men and women were freed from the baleful influence of fanaticism and disorder and were brought into the unity of the faith. 23LtMs, Lt 358a, 1908, par. 3

My brother and sister, I have a message for you: You are starting on a false supposition. There is too much self woven into your exhibitions. You suppose that all you do is for the glory of God, but you are deceiving yourselves and deceiving others. Satan will come into these exhibitions. It is high time that you call a halt. If God had given you a special message for His people, you would walk and work in all humility—not as if you were on the stage of a theater, but in the meekness of a follower of the lowly Jesus of Nazareth. You would carry an influence altogether different from that which you have been carrying. You would be anchored on the Rock, Christ Jesus. 23LtMs, Lt 358a, 1908, par. 4

My dear young friends, your souls are precious in the sight of Heaven. Christ has bought you with His own precious blood, and I do not want you to be found on a false track. You are certainly there now, and I beg of you, for your souls’ sake, to imperil no longer the cause of the truth for these last days. For your own souls’ sake, consider that this is not the way God’s work is to be advanced. The sincere desire to do others good will lead the Christian worker to put away all thought of bringing into the message of present truth any strange teachings bordering on the fanatical. At this period of the world’s history, we must exercise the greatest of care in this respect. Some of the phases of experience through which you have been passing not only endanger your own souls, but the souls of many others; because you appeal to the precious words of Christ as recorded in the Scriptures, and to the testimonies, to vouch for the genuineness of your message. In supposing that the precious Word, which is verity and truth, and the testimonies that the Lord has given for His people are your authority, you are deceived. You are moved by wrong impulses and are bracing up yourselves with declarations that mislead. You attempt to make the truth of God sustain false sentiments and incorrect actions that give the impression of fanaticism. This makes tenfold, yes, twentyfold harder our work of acquainting the people with the truths of the third angel’s message. 23LtMs, Lt 358a, 1908, par. 5