The Story of our Health Message

Abundant Counsel From God

Reviewing the counsels that were coming to the Seventh-day Adventist Church through the Spirit of prophecy during these crucial years, one is impressed with the striking emphasis not only in subject matter, but in quantity of material, upon the subjects of health reform, the purpose of sanitariums, and gospel medical evangelistic service. In 1904 appeared Testimonies for the Church, Volume VII, with sections on “Sanitarium Work” and “Health Foods” comprising nearly one third of the contents of the book. Early in 1905 there appeared Ministry of Healing, a book beginning with a vivid pen portrayal of Christ as the “true Medical Missionary,” and setting forth the high principles that should actuate the “work of the physician,” as well as the medical missionary work to be carried on by all followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. SHM 378.4

To guide the thinking of those who were perplexed and bewildered because of the widening rift between the medical workers centering in Battle Creek, Michigan, and the denominational leaders, there were included in Volume VIII of Testimonies for the Church, also appearing in 1904, many of “the instructions, the warnings, and the great encouragements given during the last fifteen years to the leading men in our conferences and institutions,” “for the benefit of all the church.” (W. C. White in the preface to Testimonies for the Church, Vol. VIII.) Many of these counsels were grouped in the section “Letters to Physicians,” setting forth anew and forcefully God’s purpose for sanitariums, and including many earnest words of caution against the separation of “medical missionary work” “from church organization.”—Testimonies for the Church 8:164. SHM 379.1

In 1909, during the third year of the operation of the Loma Linda College of Evangelists, the ninth volume of the Testimonies made its appearance with a strong section on the “Health Work,” with pleas for “faithfulness in health reform,” for “medical missionary evangelists,” and for the support of the Loma Linda College of Evangelists. A number of the messages of counsel addressed to Seventh-day Adventist physicians, during this period and earlier, are to be found in the compilation called Medical Ministry, issued in 1932. These works should be studied by those who desire to gain a fuller comprehension of the divine purpose in the health education and practice that should mark the service and lives of those called to sound a worldwide proclamation of the soon coming of Christ and the preparation needed for that event. SHM 379.2