Testimonies for the Church Containing Messages of Warning and Instruction to Seventh-day Adventists

Chapter 11—A Great Opportunity Slighted

St. Helena, Cal.,

November 18, 1905.

God designed that the General Conference of 1901 should influence you [the leader of the medical work] to make a decided change in your life-purposes. The testimonies borne before vast numbers of people have as much of a bearing on your life as on any one else connected with the cause and work of God. There were things that you might have righted up on that occasion. These things were presented to me in the light in which heaven viewed them. But you did not change your sentiments. You did not humble your heart, and confess, and become converted. You did not make any radical change in your course of action. I was working hard to bring about an honest change in regard to the work with which you were connected, and in regard to yourself, fully believing that your future course of action would sustain the impression I was endeavoring to make. I fully believed that if you were an honest man, you would see the need of pursuing an entirely different course of action; that you would accept the light coming to you in the messages that had been given, and work out a thorough change in yourself. SpTB07 46.2

But instead of taking a right position, when something came that did not harmonize with your views, you said, “Somebody has told her.” Thus it has been when anything has come that cuts across your track. SpTB07 47.1

But I hoped and hoped that you would change, until I was instructed that the words meant to encourage you to take the right stand were exerting the opposite influence on you. A condition of things has come about that has opened the door to the enemy. Old thoughts, which were never killed, have had a resurrection, and the ideas set forth in “Living Temple” is the result. SpTB07 47.2

The only course that I could pursue in order to stand in a correct light before the people was to let all know that the Lord has been sending you messages all along the line, from your first connection with the Sanitarium; that your errors had been reproved by the Lord; that you had been warned that your course of action in disparaging the ministers of the gospel, was against Jesus Christ, who gave them their work to do. Your true position has been laid out distinctly, but in the past the members of the Medical Missionary Association have known little of this. SpTB07 47.3

Instruction has been given me that the light should now come in clear lines to those associated with you, lest they be led astray. It was presented before me that when you did things which your associates knew were not right, they did not act as faithful shepherds, to tell you your mistake, because you would not acknowledge that your course of action was wrong, and would not receive anything that did not harmonize with your ideas. SpTB07 47.4

When messages have been placed in your hands to correct your course of action, you failed to give your associates the benefit of the instruction received. You yourself have not been left in darkness, but your associates have been in regard to your being out of the way. Your wrongs were reproved, but they were none the wiser. SpTB07 48.1

I am now instructed to place before our people the warnings given in regard to the medical missionary work—that this work was not to be a separate work, but was ever to be the helping hand of the gospel. The enemy influenced men to devise special documents to be signed. This was a snare to those who signed, to the institutions connected with the Battle Creek Sanitarium, and to yourself. You were acting in the capacity of one of authority and of chief influence, having oversight of these institutions. There was no need for the warnings on this point to be given more than once, but they had to be repeated over and over again. The light given, unheeded, had to be repeated, more and still more forcibly, that it might be shown that these methods and plans were not after the Lord's order. SpTB07 48.2

You had your post of duty in the medical missionary work, but you were embracing responsibilities that God had not laid upon you, and men who should have obtained an experience for themselves, were being encouraged to bind themselves up with you, and to lean their weight upon you, in the place of leaning upon the great Medical Missionary, whom all physicians should make their Strength...... SpTB07 48.3

There has been growing up a spirit of criticism, and a lack of faith in the gospel ministry, and this has continued until the present time. Now the publication of “Living Temple” has brought about a crisis. If the ideas presented in this book were received, they would lead to the uprooting of the whole construction of the faith that makes Seventh-day Adventists a chosen, denominated people. SpTB07 48.4

The light that has been given I dare not withhold. The Lord has appointed me as His messenger, and I must speak the words He gives me. The testimonies that have been given by the Lord for nearly half a century in regard to the ministerial work, and the management of our sanitariums, must come before the people, that our brethren and sisters in the faith shall understand the light that God has been pleased to give regarding the different branches of the work to be carried on at this time. SpTB07 49.1

Pantheistic ideas regarding God in nature are framed by Lucifer, the fallen angel. The strange part of the matter is that these ideas have been accepted by so many as beautiful truth. But that which they think is light will lead them into dense darkness. It is a distinguishing feature of the experience of Seventh-day Adventists to give glory to God. When we give glory to human agencies, when we have unlimited confidence in man, speaking of the excellence that we suppose him to possess, we worship we know not what. Let God be exalted. Let frail, erring human beings humble themselves before Him. SpTB07 49.2

The time will come when I must speak much more plainly, and warn our brethren in plain tones not to be led astray with the false theories of “Living Temple.” I have been shown the seductive nature of the sentiments it contains, and that which has been declared over and over again, I need not repeat. These representations are said to be in harmony with the sentiments in Sister White's published works. Those who make statements such as this are doing my books great injustice. Let all bear in mind that statements from my books may be taken out of their setting, and placed in such connection as to make it appear that the sentiments in “Living Temple” are sustained by Sister White's very words. SpTB07 49.3

A sense of duty to my Lord leads me to speak. The time for action has come. I have had much to say of the glory of God as seen in His created works, but never have I left the impression that our God Omnipotent, who ruleth in the heavens and fills all the heavens, is to be found in flower, and leaf, and tree. What I have said of God's works in nature, was meant to lead the mind from nature to nature's God, to show that all the glory should be given to Him who ruleth in the heavens, controlling all things in heaven and in earth. Men are to discharge their duty to God. They are to have reverence for, and a knowledge of, a personal God. They are to praise and glorify His name as the One who has placed many beautiful things in this sin-corrupted earth, that from the child to the man and woman of mature years, all may see that God loves His family here below. He so loves us, that He gave us a tangible proof of His love, by sending His only begotten Son to bear the sin of the world, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. God desires us to think of the height and depth and breadth of His measureless love, which is without a parallel, and to remember that we are His purchased possession. “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” We are to act as in the sight of the heavenly universe, conscientiously discharging our obligations to our Creator. SpTB07 50.1

The world is to be taken captive by Satan's deceiving representations. Where then is our security? How shall we guard against Satan's bewitching artifices?—By reading the Word of God with an intensity of desire to know Him in the light of revelation which He has left on record of Himself; by meditating upon His precepts diligently. We are to obey His commands, afraid to venture out of the path of divine revelation, and to indulge in fallacious reasoning. SpTB07 50.2

We are to realize that if we work the works of Christ, we shall not unite with the world. The Holy Spirit will give us a clear, distinct message to the world. If we will come into close relation to Christ, we shall have a part to act in carrying forward the work of present truth for this time. We are to cooperate with the three highest powers in heaven,—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,—and these powers will work through us, making us workers together with God. But when a man goes forth in human sufficiency, then the enemy comes in and inspires him, and he knows not what manner of spirit he is of. The Lord saw this, and instructed me that at the General Conference held in Oakland, I should hold no conversation with you. SpTB07 51.1