Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Lt 177, 1900

Kellogg, J. H.

Sunnyside, Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

January 21, 1900

Portions of this letter are published in 1MR 233-235; 11MR 309-310. +^Note

Dear Brother:

I am at times greatly burdened on your account. You have done a strange work. I scarcely dare even to trace the matters that have been presented to me in reference to you. You state that what I have told you is not the truth, especially what I have said in regard to the way in which you have disparaged the gospel ministry. You say that it is not true that you have done this, and your colleagues bear you out in this statement. They are responsible for assenting to what is not true. Let God be true, and every man a liar. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 1

I have had meetings presented before me in which there were before you men advanced in years and experience. Because these men could not see that it was their appointed work to engage with you in the so-called medical work, because they would not support the plans and inventions and experiments that you were making, you abused them. You had no more right to do this than they had to retaliate, and abuse you. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 2

You were entirely out of place in making such sweeping censures of your brethren. The Lord did not give to you the work of laying a reproach upon them. Your actions in this respect pleased the evil angels, but the angels of God veiled their faces. Such manifestations are not prompted by the Spirit of God, but by another spirit. Your sarcasms, your witticisms, your play on words, which seemed so clever to some present, were an offense to God. You spoke sharp words to Christ, in the person of His servants, who were appointed to do a special work for the Master. Sometimes they worked under great disadvantages. This was calculated to discourage them and to weaken their hands. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 3

Your inclination to chastise the ministers as you have done, and to break out upon them with a tirade of abuse, bears the rebuke of God. Unless you repent and make a thorough change, you will do more and more of this work. Your energy is being turned into channels to which God has not directed it, and into these channels you turn the large donations that you have received from believers and unbelievers. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 4

You say that I have turned against you. The Lord has presented before me your course of action. He has shown me your dangers. Should I not do you a great wrong were I to keep silent? Shall I hold my peace when the Lord shows me that things which He cannot approve are taking place? Shall I justify you as being under the control of the Holy Spirit? I cannot do this. I must be faithful to my trust as a steward of the Lord. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 5

You are directing the efforts of those who are united with you in the medical missionary work. But the way in which you are carrying the work, and have been carrying it for years, shows that you yourself are out of line. You have been losing your faith in the truth for this time. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Your brethren have not all sustained you as they should, in proclaiming the principles of health reform. Some of the leading brethren of the conference entered into a work of opposition that God did not endorse. But you have received decided encouragement from the Lord, and from the largest portion of our ministers. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 6

You have not held firm your confidence in the truth. You have linked up with men not of our faith, and have been deceived by them. In taking as your strength those who are not keeping the commandments of God, you are surely walking in strange paths. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 7

I speak because I must speak. The work of God in America has been warped into wrong lines by the following of wrong methods. Much money has been and still is being expended in enterprises in the home field that should be used to sustain and advance the many and varied lines of work in America, and in Europe and Australia. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 8

A sanitarium should be established near Sydney. I speak often of this matter, but why should I not urge it upon the attention of God’s stewards? The Lord used me, in connection with my husband, to establish the first sanitarium ever established among Seventh-day Adventists. And afterward, the Lord instructed me to call upon the managers of the Battle Creek Sanitarium for help to establish the Sydney Sanitarium. The donations that come into the hands of the managers of the Battle Creek Sanitarium belongs to the Lord, and are to be used in establishing similar institutions in different parts of the world. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 9

We have pleaded long for help to establish an institution in Australia that will be a center for our medical missionary work there; but still there is delay. This delay is a great mistake. The Lord has made known His will, but His call has been disregarded. Why is money invested in places that are not in such great need of help, instead of being sent to this needy, destitute field? 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 10

If the mammoth sanitarium at Battle Creek was divided and subdivided, and its strength put in different parts of the vineyard where there is nothing to represent the truth, the Lord would be much better pleased. He does not endorse the sentiment and methods that have withheld means from a country so greatly in need of help as Australia is. There are able men, men of experience, on the ground, but they cannot accomplish one-half of what they could accomplish if the sanitarium were erected and ready for patients. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 11

A work that takes much money to keep it in operation has been allowed to consume the means that God designed should be used in opening new fields and planting the standard in new territory, in the unworked parts of His vineyard. Dr. Kellogg, you have been pouring so much money into one channel, that the work in new fields has been hindered. The Lord did not tell you to take upon you the burden that you have taken—a burden that has prevented your doing a work that needed your attention. The determination to do a work that has been neglected, a work that all the church should have united in doing, led you at first to take this burden. But you have gone too far. You have made this work the whole body, instead of only the arm and hand of the body, and misapplied your forces. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 12

For the last fifty years the Lord has given me instruction as to how His work should be carried forward. Camp meetings and tent meetings are to be held, and meetinghouses are to be erected. Special efforts are to be made to reach the higher classes. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 13

Not all our means and talent are to be spent in the effort to reach those in the lowest depths of degradation. The enemy would be pleased with this class of work, because the representation would in no case be favorable to the truth. God does not design that His work should be thus carried forward. Money and talent are thus consumed with so little being produced. One-twentieth part of the means thus consumed, used where it should have been, would have set men and women at work in God’s appointed way, and the truth would have reached people in the darkness of error who are calling and praying for light, people who are hungering and thirsting for the bread of life and the water of salvation. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 14

Shall these people be left out of our plans? Shall all our means and all our efforts be expended for a class from which very few will be brought into the truth? We cannot depend on converts from this class to represent the people of God as a wise, noble people. Very few of them will become lightbearers to the world. God does not choose them as men of dependence. Some of them will become sons and daughters of God, but the number saved will be small in comparison with the efforts put forth. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 15

Unless care is taken, the work of God will be bound up just as Satan will be pleased to have it bound up. Were all our means spent in labor for the lawless, depraved, corrupted class, where would be the work that should be done to bring into the truth a class of people who would properly represent the truth for this time? How could we show that we are a chosen, God-fearing people, who are loyal to God’s commandments. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 16

The Lord has a work to be done for rich and poor. There are honest souls to be reached who have not so corrupted body, soul, and spirit that there is no soundness in them. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 17

In Revelation the messages that are to be given to the world are plainly stated. When the Lord’s servants fail, as they will, to gain admission to the churches, they are to reach the people by holding camp meetings and by distributing our literature. The truth for this time is to shine forth in clear, steady rays. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 18

Those who are of the household of faith come first, not the depraved, polluted men who have destroyed themselves, filling soul and body with iniquity, as did the antediluvians, and as did the inhabitants of Sodom. Yet for these Dr. Kellogg has labored, while those with whom he should have linked up in perfect harmony he has treated as offensive. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 19

My brother, over and over again I have written you this. Why, my dear brother, have you refused to receive or hear the word of the Lord? Why have you pressed on in the face of the warnings that God has given? You have blanketed the third angel’s message until, to many, it has lost its significance. Your spiritual perceptions are in need of cleansing. They are sick, diseased. Like many others who have departed from God, you refuse to hear the reproof that He sends, and turn from His counsel. You think that your ambitions and desires have been free from selfishness, but they have not. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 20

I have this message for you. You unite with ministers who you think will be a prevailing power, but who are not men that can be trusted. They have no idea of what the work of God for this time is. My prayer is, Lord, open Dr. Kellogg’s eyes, that he may see all things clearly. He is full of selfish ambition. If His zeal were exercised in a proper channel, if he would see that plants are made where they should be made in the vineyard of the Lord, God would be honored. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 21

O John, John, what are you doing, and what do you mean? The work that is coming from your hands is not pure and sanctified. The work that should be done is not done. The Lord does not endorse the work that you are doing. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 22

I was in a meeting where matters were being discussed in regard to the College View school. Dr. Kellogg, with a number who were imbued with the same spirit, was present. Angels of light and angels of darkness were on the ground. Dr. Kellogg and his party revealed what men can be and do when they are under the inspiration of a spirit that works counter to the gospel of Christ. Neither the doctor nor those united with him realized the character of the spirit that was controlling them. Their reasoning, their determination, their demands, showed an absence of the love of God. Their victory was a victory gained by oppression. Angels of God looked with sadness upon the scene. Dr. Kellogg’s witticisms, his sharp, keen speeches, grieved the angels of God, but they delighted the evil angels. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 23

Dr. Kellogg, as you have dealt with others, so God will deal with you, unless you repent and change your course of action. He can not serve with injustice. There is not a vestige of justice in the position you so firmly maintained. Your wit and sarcasm were inspired by a spirit from beneath. Where you should have shown benevolence, kindness, love, and tenderness, as a representative man, you manifested traits exactly the opposite of these. I cannot find words to describe the way in which God regards such a course. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 24

Will you stop to consider that the judgment will reveal this selfishness in its true character? Will you, before it is everlastingly too late, retract the work which, if allowed to stand, will bear fruit of which He will be everlastingly ashamed? 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 25

I was instructed that in answer to many prayers the Lord has opened the way for the school at College View to do its work, and that He would help and bless them, if they would seek to bless others, and to impart the light of present truth. “Ye are laborers together with God; ye are God’s husbandry; ye are God’s building.” [1 Corinthians 3:9.] Was God working with those who sought to deprive the school of the few resources that it had? Was envy and covetousness to be suffered to cripple and harness and impede the work God would have done in the school, because of the overbearing and oppressive course of Dr. Kellogg? 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 26

I have words to speak to our ministers, and other representative men. Be very careful of your words and spirit. Do not give Dr. Kellogg any excuse for separating himself from the conference. For some time it has been his purpose to do this. Time and again, the enemy has put in men’s hearts a desire to do this. But the Lord has given Dr. Kellogg ability to do a great and a grand work in and through the sanitarium if he will work with a humble, contrite heart. This work he can do if he will work with an eye single to the glory of God. I have always stated that the Lord would be with Dr. Kellogg, just as long as Dr. Kellogg would be with the Lord, to walk in His ways and obey His statutes. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 27

I was instructed that the enemy would try to make him feel that he was himself a complete whole, and would try to lead him to embrace altogether too much as his work and exalt himself. Dr. Kellogg would be in danger of exalting himself, and of trying to bring those whom he was educating under his control. For some time he has been resisting the Spirit of the Lord. If he continues to follow his own judgment, as if he were the only one that God is using, he will lose the influence that God has given him. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 28

The case of Nebuchadnezzar was presented to me. God permitted him to go to such lengths that his influence was counteracted by his own course of action. I wanted to save Dr. Kellogg from taking the very course that he is now taking. He has become exacting, dictatorial, overbearing to those whom he cannot bring to his terms. The Lord is not in the terms he is making, and I cannot sustain him in trying to enforce them. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 29

Unless he changes, he must meet the sure result. Without the Lord he cannot be a success. He is only a man. If he allows his natural temperament to control him, he will work away from cooperation with the Lord’s people and will be left to his own way. When he follows in the lines of God’s working, he will understand that greatness in the sight of God differs greatly from greatness in the sight of men. Those who are co-workers with Christ must give up the seeming greatness of this world. He who would be pronounced a good and faithful servant must be true to the eternal principles of righteousness, which are from everlasting to everlasting. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 30

The God of heaven is guarding the interests of His people. He will vindicate His trusting, believing children. They may be intimidated and treated unkindly, as unworthy believers, but the Lord has an interest in them, and He will regard as shown to Himself any contempt shown for them. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 31

No matter how greatly we may desire a certain thing, if we cannot obtain it without hurting or injuring another, let us let it go. It is far better to suffer injustice than to commit one wrong action. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 32

Angels who always has access to the presence of God minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. God will not suffer wrong upon His children without punishing the wrongdoer. He will vindicate justice and truth and righteousness. Let us be true to principle. Let us in all our dealings reveal mercy, justice and love. These are the attributes of God. Selfishness and oppression are abhorred of Him. The course of the oppressor will react upon himself, whatever may be his standing or position. It is written in the books of heaven. Let no one think that he is beyond the domain of God. 15LtMs, Lt 177, 1900, par. 33