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

The Deceptions of Satan

The light given me is that we shall be tested and proved, that Satan will come to us as he came to Christ,—as an angel of light. The heavenly universe is looking upon us with intense interest. We have been regarded as a people moving under God's guidance, and enjoying a remarkable record of success and prosperity. But a new chapter has been opened. There are among us those who are binding up with the world. They are not standing out in moral independence, trusting to the Lord to carry his work to completion. SpTB06 60.1

I have been instructed to place before our people the instruction given by the Lord to Israel to keep them separate from the world.... SpTB06 60.2

It is not he Lord's plan that sanitariums as large as the one in Battle Creek shall be erected. When so large a number of patients are gathered together, it is impossible to give them the religious instruction that God designs the patients in our sanitariums to have. And the erection of so large an institution centers in one place a work that should be distributed to several places. SpTB06 60.3

The nearer we approach the end of this earth's history, the stronger and more numerous will be Satan's temptations. He will work “with all deceivableness of unrighteousness,” that, if it were possible, he might deceive the very elect. He will bring in every device to hinder our preparation for that which is to come upon the earth. SpTB06 61.1

In order to fulfill God's purpose for us, we must be taught by the Holy Spirit. Those who have not been taught by the Spirit, however great may have been their advantages in other respects, can not discern spiritual things. They are ignorant, whereas, if they were worked by the Spirit, they would be wise, able to understand the things of God. These things can be understood by those only who are partakers of the divine nature, those who eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God, receiving and obeying his word.—Extract from letters to a Conference President, April 22, 1902. SpTB06 61.2