Manuscript Releases, vol. 20 [Nos. 1420-1500]

MR No. 1492—Danger of False Science; Dr. Kellogg in Spiritual Peril; Warning Not to Follow His Example

(Written April 22, 1905, to Dr. J. H. Kellogg.)

We have come to a time when church members grieve the Lord by searching into scientific problems that make void the past experience of the people of God. And because they cannot have the influence they desire to have over minds to sway them in the same channel, which they suppose is an evidence of higher education, they become dissatisfied. They suppose that with their superficial minds they can comprehend God and His working, when they cannot comprehend the past facts of faith. It is to such that the instruction is given that is contained in the first three chapters of Revelation. Let our churches read and study this instruction, lest they follow a course that God condemns. 20MR 346.1

I have great burden of soul for you, Dr. Kellogg. If I could see you in the road that leads onward and upward, I should be more than thankful. Were you a child, I would say that you had been spoiled through flattery, vain conceit, and self-exaltation. That which makes your case so sorrowful, so hopeless, is that you are not a man of truth. You frame for the occasion any sentiments that may come into your mind. You twist words; you misinterpret; you make assurances that are false. You have cultivated this deceptive influence until you have become an unreliable man. With what grief and sadness the Lord has looked upon you! 20MR 346.2

When a man reaches the place where he will resort to any subterfuge to accomplish his own will, and to appear to be just and righteous, his condition is grave indeed. Oh, that you would repent and turn to the Lord before it is forever too late. When you obey the truth that works by love and purifies the soul, then you will have fallen on the Rock and been broken. 20MR 346.3

Men who are ignorant of the byways you have entered, the crooked paths you have made, are in danger of following your lead. I have been compelled to bear my testimony to the church, “Enter not into that path, to follow a course of action that will leaven your faith with evil, spoil your confidence in Bible truth, and lead you to build castles that will fill you with self-confidence and separate you from God.” 20MR 346.4

There are occasions when God calls upon His people to take a firm stand on His side. If one man should bear rule, and another man should bear rule, there would be collision. What shall be done? Each may claim as much authority as the other. The Lord has His messengers to whom He has given a special message. These messages point out God's way. There must be men who take a firm stand for God and for conscience. The course of action some will pursue will be no rule for those who take the Lord as their counselor. The man who fears God, who believes and practices the Word of God with high, unbending integrity of character, will make straight paths for his feet, that the lame be not turned out of the way. 20MR 346.5

A great crisis is upon us, and all who stand under the bloodstained banner of Prince Emmanuel, girding themselves for the battle, will be led and taught of God. The world, with all its selfish projects, its burden of leaven of dishonesty and craftiness, its boasting and its desire for the supremacy, its neglect of the things of God, is not to receive our attention or our confidence. Upon all who have received light in regard to the truth for this time is laid the obligation of proclaiming the warning message. The labors of our ministers are not to be confined to the churches who have received the truth. 20MR 347.1

“Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, 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; teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Under His generalship, we are safe under all circumstances. 20MR 347.2

I have a word for you from the Lord. Take your stand for the right, and cease to suppose that you are safe where you are now standing. You need to undergo a transformation that will give you an experience which is the opposite of the experience that you now have. 20MR 347.3

Clearly and decidedly I am to bear my testimony to the people, and I am to trace this testimony on paper, that should I fall asleep in Jesus, the witness to the truth might still be borne. It is a matter of vital importance for you to become obedient to the light God has given you, and to show yourself a pattern of religious decision. We are placed where we have not the semblance of an excuse for walking in the broad path that leads to death. In the world is seen the condition of things that Christ said would come upon those who do not receive the truth in the love of Christ. 20MR 347.4

All who honor Christ and adorn the religion of the cross, will be honored by God. But the Lord will not honor you as you now stand. Those who suppose that you are worthy to be honored will give you credit that does not belong to you. You know this; I need not tell you. When you accept the obligations laid upon you as one worthy of the position you occupy, you will show an altogether different character. You have a standard to maintain that you have not maintained for years. When you come into harmony with the Lord Jesus Christ, our churches will hear from your lips a testimony of Christian strength, Christian courage, the very root and groundwork of a thoroughly Christian life. You will be steadfast in the faith. You will not see in false science the charms you now see. You will see the danger of your erroneous sentiments becoming woven into the characters of men who do not view things in a correct light. 20MR 347.5

If every physician in our ranks would separate from your influence, they would sound the keynote of Christian medical education, for the angels of God would give them life and courage in the Lord, and power to stand against your persuasive, deceiving influence. It is the privilege of every man who is converted to the truth to show moral independence, to stand firm for the truth and for righteousness. When propositions are laid before a believer to engage in business that would lead him to deviate from the principles of the law given for the guidance of every man's life, it is his privilege and duty to make a firm, decided refusal. The strongest representations that may be made should not lead him to engage in any enterprise that would pollute his conscience. He is to hearken to the Holy Spirit, who would lead him to say to the tempter, “So did not I, because of the fear of God.” I tell you, a great crisis is upon us, and those men who have united with you and sustained you have not said, “So did not I, because of the fear of God.” 20MR 348.1

In our work we need men of moral independence, uncontaminated and unshackled, so that when a principle of religion or duty is at stake, they will stand firm in defense of the truth. We need men who will not hold their peace when they see evils coming in and wrongs being done. We need men who will refuse to give consent by silence to unjust actions. 20MR 348.2

Nehemiah is an example of the standard that must be maintained at any expense. Neither danger nor difficulty would shake his adherence to the just, holy, righteous principles of truth. The honor that must be maintained in the work to be done for this time requires staunch determination. Men are needed who will say, “The hand of God is good upon me; I will arise and build.” [See Nehemiah 2:18.] There are today too many Pliables, as in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Beware of the inclination to follow your own impulses. Adam, hiding himself from God, encompassed himself in obstructing darkness. 20MR 348.3

My brother, unless you change square about, calling sin sin, and deception by its right name, you will continue to deny God, and the hindrance to right doing will become stronger and stronger. Yield no longer to the deceptive power of sin. Let your scientific researches be turned into a wholesome channel. Do not pretend to have fellowship with God while you are an alien from him. Fellowship it is impossible for you to have while you yourself make it impossible to recognize what God is and what you are. 20MR 349.1

The Lord is too pure to behold iniquity. So long have you refused light that I do not know that it is in your power to see yourself as you are. 20MR 349.2

And your associates, bewildered by your scientific problems and your presentation of good works, mingled with false statements, need to study the message given to John as recorded in the third chapter of Revelation. [Revelation 3:11-22, quoted.] 20MR 349.3

I have a message for those who have sustained Dr. Kellogg in his deceptive science. Those who have received and voiced his words have greatly hindered the work of God. To these I am instructed to say, Take your stand upon the platform of eternal truth that God has laid. Christ has pronounced a distinct blessing upon those who day by day accept and follow His teaching. His beatitudes are for those who receive the word into good and honest hearts. 20MR 349.4

God calls upon His people to unify, that the harmony among those who love him and keep His law may convince those in the world that He sent His Son to save sinners. Christ calls upon those who love God and keep His commandments to unify on the truths that have called us out from the world as God's denominated people. God is love, and all who are truly practicing the truth will bear the precious fruit of love. Today Christ is standing at the right hand of God. He will teach every earnest seeker the true science, which is Christ within, the hope of glory. 20MR 349.5

The testimony borne by the apostles confirms the teaching of the Old and New Testaments. The testimonies that they have borne come down the ages to our time, that we might have fellowship with the men who bore these testimonies. Before Christ left His disciples, He declared that the Holy Spirit would bring all things to their remembrance. 20MR 349.6

“I will pray the Father,” He said, “and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.... Yet a little while, and the world seeth Me no more; but ye see Me; because I live, ye shall live also.” [1 John 1:1-10, quoted.] 20MR 349.7

Let your efforts be put forth to become acquainted with the science of pure, undefiled religion. Come into line; come into line. No man who dishonors God is worthy of praise or honor. 20MR 350.1

These words the angels stood repeating with deepest power. “I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their words; that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me. And the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me” (John 17:15-23.) 20MR 350.2

If these words were believed and practiced, a powerful influence would go forth from the Lord's commandment-keeping people. [Verses 24-26, quoted.] 20MR 350.3

There is a great work to be done in a short time. The Lord will take men from the plow, even as He took Elisha, and will give them a part in the closing work. John the evangelist was called from his fishing-boat, and made a fisher of men. It is he who says, “And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” Can we lay hold of this greatest of all science? Is our fellowship with the Father, and with Christ? 20MR 350.4

The Lord will not much longer allow Dr. Kellogg to pursue the course of deception that he has pursued for years. He will take his case in hand. He has borne long with him, but the medical missionary work, so long controlled by him, shall not always bear the marks of his defection. God would have made Dr. Kellogg a man after His own mind, but Dr. Kellogg refused to place himself under God's control. His crooked ways and deceptive works are a great dishonor to the truth. I have seen that Satan's power over him has not been broken. 20MR 350.5

Those who choose to sustain the man who so greatly dishonors God and stood directly in the way of His work, will themselves become so deceived that their work will not be accepted by God. I have felt reluctant to say these things, but I know that the Lord would not have souls endangered any longer by Dr. Kellogg. Tares have been sown in the minds of God's people, and as a result of this, some have given up the truth. Some have become infidels; the misrepresentations that Dr. Kellogg has made of the work that God has given me to do has made them infidels. 20MR 350.6

If the crisis must come, let it come while I am alive. There are those who have been diligently gathering together what appear to them to be contradictions in the Testimonies given me. But God stands at the helm. Let Satan be rebuked. Dr. Kellogg has followed strange devisings to keep from acknowledging his course as wrong. He has not yet fallen on the Rock and been broken. Unless he does this, the Rock will fall upon him and grind him, with all his pretensions, to powder. I dare not sustain him in his course. I would not have the crookedness of his ways brought before the world, if it can possibly be avoided; but unless he renounces his companionship with Satan, and links up with Christ, the break must come. 20MR 351.1

I have tried to keep silent, but as I have seen him exercising his subtle influence over the men who do not seem to realize that he is wrong, who do not understand the work that Satan is carrying on through him, I am constrained to speak. These men are binding up with Satan's sophistry, fastening their leader and themselves in Satan's snare, to practice the works of the enemy. God demanded of them truth in showing Dr. Kellogg his peril, but those whom we believed would receive the warnings given them have rejected them, and have given him encouragement in an erratic course of action. 20MR 351.2

I am now to say to our brethren, Cut loose, cut loose. Take your stand decidedly if you would save your souls; take your position for truth and righteousness. [The following lines, not in Ellen White's file copy, are found in a copy at Andrews University: Judge Arthur is spoiled. His discrimination has been corrupted through the influence of Dr. Kellogg. He did have a good experience when he was at the sanitarium in St. Helena. Our hearts blended in the truth. He could see then, and understand. But the confusion and his faith in _________ has cut him away from God.]—Letter 116, 1905. 20MR 351.3

Ellen G. White Estate

Silver Spring, Maryland,

March 8, 1990.

Entire Letter.