Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6

Prayer

Every sanitarium established among Seventh-day Adventists should be made a Bethel. All who are connected with this branch of the work should be consecrated to God. Those who minister to the sick, who perform delicate, grave operations, should remember that one slip of the knife, one nervous tremor, may cause a soul to be launched into eternity. They should not be allowed to take so many responsibilities that they have no time for special seasons of prayer. By earnest prayer they should acknowledge their dependence upon God. Only through a sense of God's pure truth working in the mind and heart, only through the calmness and strength that He alone can impart, are they qualified to perform those critical operations which mean life or death to the afflicted ones. 6T 252.3

The physician who is truly converted will not gather to himself responsibilities that interfere with his work for souls. Since without Christ we can do nothing, how can a physician or a medical missionary engage successfully in his important work without earnestly seeking the Lord in prayer? Prayer and a study of the word bring life and health to the soul. 6T 253.1

The Lord is waiting to manifest through His people His grace and power. But He requires that those who engage in His service shall keep their minds ever directed to Him. Every day they should have time for reading the word of God and for prayer. Every officer and every soldier under the command of the God of Israel needs time in which to consult with God and seek His blessing. If the worker allows himself to be drawn away from this, he will loose his spiritual power. Individually we are to walk and talk with God; then the sacred influence of the gospel of Christ in all its preciousness will appear in our lives. 6T 253.2

A work of reformation is to be carried on in our institutions. Physicians, workers, nurses, are to realize that they are on probation, on trial for their present life, and for that life which measures with the life of God. We are to put every faculty to the stretch in order to bring saving truths to the attention of suffering human beings. This must be done in connection with the work of healing the sick. Then the cause of truth will stand before the world in the strength which God designs it to have. Through the influence of sanctified workers the truth will be magnified. It will go forth “as a lamp that burneth.” 6T 253.3