Letters and Manuscripts — Volume 15 (1900)

Ms 31, 1900

Diary

Summer Hill, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

June 18, 1900 [typed]

This manuscript is published in entirety in KC 80-82. +^Note

This has been a trying day for me. Things have been presented to me since coming to Sydney, and I cannot feel at rest until I shall give expression to the representations. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 1

Propositions may be made by Dr. Kellogg and some in Africa regarding money matters that are not to be accepted. These propositions will arrange for bonds and a party negotiation, the profits to be under the control of certain individuals who are not and have not been for some time under the control of the great Head. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 2

The word was spoken, Beware. Consider well before you use your pen to subscribe to any conditions which will place matters under the control of minds which are not guided by the Lord. Beware. You will have trials that you do not foresee. Arrangements will be proposed by the brethren in America and Africa that the Lord declares to be a snare. Leave yourselves wholly under the jurisdiction of the great Head. The Lord’s cause is too sacred to be trifled with. In no case are His people to subscribe to conditions which will lead to endless perplexity, jealousy, evil-surmisings, suspicions, and temptations. God declares, “The gold and the silver are mine, from the first penny to the last, and for the abuse or misappropriation of My money I will call men to account.” 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 3

God’s ministers, God’s missionaries, are to unite with Him. If they put their trust in Him, and commit the keeping of their souls to Him as unto a faithful Creator, He will keep that which is committed unto Him against that day. He will honor those who honor Him. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 4

The Lord has a great work to be done. Changes are continually taking place. In our association with those of different nationality, education, and experience we shall find that it is a life and death struggle to bear forward the gospel in all its purity. We are not to enter into confederacy with human agencies which will prove a snare. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 5

Race is nothing in the sight of God. Christian experience and sanctification through the truth is everything in His estimation. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 6

Venture nothing in business transactions unless the God of heaven signifies that such a venture will not prove a thorn in the religious life. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 7

I tell you that there is a life and death struggle before us, a contest with human agencies who are not abiding in Christ, who have not proved themselves in any sense God’s stewards. Men of strong temperament and almost unsubduable character will make propositions which God has shown me it will not be best to accept. Enter not into a confederacy with them, unless the propositions are conscientiously clear according to God’s Word. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 8

The only safety for the strong temperaments in Africa is to begin an entirely new chapter in their experience. Hearts must be softened. They must accept Christ’s yoke, else they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. A strong spirit bears sway in Africa, which needs to be surrendered to the Spirit of God. There are those there with strong passions, which are easily excited. They lose control of themselves and become unreasonable. God’s people must wait on Him. The welfare of the cause of God needs careful consideration. It must not, with its possibilities and probabilities, be bought or sold. We have one Master, even Christ. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 9

The presentation before me is not encouraging. Divine foresight is needed to see the result of business transactions between parties that it is next to an impossibility to unify. The missionary work is a great and grand work, and those whom God has made stewards in trust must not feel at liberty to unite in any confederacy which God, who sees the end from the beginning, cannot justify and endorse as glorifying His holy name. God must be consulted as to how His work shall be advanced without having woven into it one thread of selfishness. God will work. He will furnish means for the carrying forward of His work without entanglement. His work is not to be bound about because men choose to act out perverse human nature instead of submitting to be molded and fashioned after the divine similitude. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 10

In Africa as well as in America and Australia men have been quarried out of the world, not to be left as rough stones, but to be taken into the workshop of God, and placed under the axe and hammer and chisel of gospel truth, till all the roughness disappears, and they are made ready for the heavenly polishing. The roughness has not yet been cut away. Many are not yet subdued by the Spirit of God. Because of this, the work in Africa and America and other parts of the Lord’s vineyard has not advanced as it should. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 11

We are doing what we can, according to the light given, for Australia. A direct necessity is being met by the work of women who have given themselves to the Lord, and are reaching out to help a needy, sin-stricken world, who want the truth but do not know that they want it. Personal evangelistic work is to be done. People are to be reached by house-to-house labor. The women who have taken up this work do everything but preach the gospel from the pulpit. They carry the gospel to the homes of the people in the highways and the byways. They read and explain the Word to families, praying with them, caring for the sick, relieving their temporal necessities. They present before families and individuals the purifying, transforming influence of the truth. They show them that the way to find peace and happiness and joy is to follow Jesus. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 12

The Lord has permitted Brother John Wessels to go to Africa and Elder Daniells to accompany him. But I have been shown that there is in the hearts of the people of Africa something that will not be easily overcome, something that shows that <some> are not converted. They are not under the discipline of God. They do not accept God’s way of doing them good, but choose rather their own way. They have yet to learn in the school of Christ His meekness and lowliness. They have yet to learn with Paul that to suffer for the sake of Christ is for their present and eternal good. Paul looked upon present suffering as not worthy to be compared with the glory which was to follow. He desired heavenly treasure rather than earthly advantages. He did not see anything in the world worth living for but the joy of doing the will of God from the heart, trusting all the consequences to God. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 13

God desires to see the souls of His people in Africa mastered by heaven-born purposes. But what a work needs to be done there! The people have not learned of the great Teacher. Human nature, when unsubdued, unsanctified, and depraved, is a very curious and wonderful thing. It assumes a great many forms, because it is not worked by the Holy Spirit. But when the Lord Jesus is an abiding presence in the soul, none need to question the value of the human being, man or woman. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 14

Paul wrote to Timothy, his son in the gospel, “God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began.” [2 Timothy 1:7-9.] 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 15

Peter declares, “Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisy, and envies, and all evil-speaking, as new born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief corner stone, elect, precious; and he that believeth shall not be confounded. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 16

“Unto you therefore which believe he is precious; but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense, when to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” [1 Peter 2:1-9.] 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 17

This entire chapter should be studied. It contains instruction which will sweep back the mist and fog of skepticism, the evil thing which Satan throws across the pathway to eclipse the light which comes from the Father of light. 15LtMs, Ms 31, 1900, par. 18