Testimonies to the Church Regarding our Youth Going to Battle Creek to Obtain An Education

Carry the Light to Many Places”

Sanitarium, Cal.,

August 17, 1905.

God has not given us the work of erecting immense sanitariums to be used as health resorts for all who may come. Neither is it his purpose that medical missionary workers shall spend a long term of years in college before they enter the field. Let the young men and women who know the truth go to work, not in places where the truth has been proclaimed, but in places that have not heard the message, and let them work as canvassers and evangelists. Let the teachers of these youth take them away from the place where God has indicated by his judgments that they should not be. SpTB06 46.1

To build up a school in Battle Creek would place our young people under influences that would counteract the influence that God has declared should be exerted on his people in the last days of this earth's history. SpTB06 46.2

I am obliged to say that the making of so large a plant in Battle Creek, calling together those who should be engaged in medical missionary work in many places, is doing just what God has specified should not be done. In the Battle Creek Sanitarium the nurses will be brought into close contact with men and women of the world, who are not inclined to piety or religion. The erection of large buildings in Battle Creek is not according to the light that for years the Lord has not been giving. For years God has shown me by revelation that it is a mistake to make Battle Creek a great center. If schools are to be established, let it be out of Battle Creek. And let these schools be carried forward, not after worldly wisdom, but in harmony with the directions that God has given. SpTB06 46.3

The interests that the Lord has declared should not be in Battle Creek are not now to be brought back and re-established in Battle Creek. The force that would be needed in Battle Creek to carry forward the work of these interests, should be used in doing gospel missionary work in the various cities of America. SpTB06 47.1

“Break up the large centers,” has been the word of the Lord. “Carry the light to many places.” The nurses should understand that the Sanitarium will be conducted too much like an institution of the world to fit them for medical missionary work. SpTB06 47.2

The work of proclaiming the truth in all parts of the world calls for small sanitariums in many places, not in the heart of the cities, but in many places where city influences will be as little felt as possible. SpTB06 47.3

The fact that many patients are coming to the new Sanitarium in Battle Creek is not to be read as a sign that it was right to rebuild the Sanitarium in Battle Creek. Many men and women will come who are not really sick. Workers will be required to wait on them. But this is not the work that God has given his medical missionaries. Our charge has been given us by the greatest Medical Missionary that this world has ever seen. Standing but a step from his Father's throne, Christ said to his disciples:— SpTB06 47.4

“All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” He did not tell them to establish a seminary in Jerusalem, and gather together students to be instructed in the higher classics. “Go ye into all the world,” he said, “and preach the gospel to every creature,” “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” ... SpTB06 47.5

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Believers are not to colonize in any place. It is a sin in the sight of God for those who know the truth to settle down as has been done in Battle Creek, and then refuse to see that the time has come to change the base of operations, because there are other parts of the vineyard in need of help. SpTB06 48.1

As the Lord has presented these things before me, I have presented them to those for whom they were given. The stand that has been taken against God's plain warning may make it very hard to move away from Battle Creek. But I give the warning that just as surely as men stand in the way of God's providence, so surely will the rod of his providence fall again in Battle Creek. SpTB06 48.2