Our success in any religious effort depends upon our simplicity in Christ Jesus and unity and love for one another.—Letter 56, 1894, p. 2. (To Elder A. O. Olsen, October 26, 1894.)
(4MR 414.1)
Counsel Regarding Work in the Inner City
Here we were in this new world, with only a very few churches, mostly composed of poor people who were not prepared to give financial aid to the work. How could we meet the requirements in establishing churches and conferences and build up the work in medical missionary lines? We needed health foods, but we had no money to purchase material or machinery with which to prepare them.
(4MR 414.2)
Then I thought of what we had done and were doing here to help the poor, to lift up the bowed down and oppressed, to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, all of whom were just as precious in the sight of the Lord as the same class in America....
(4MR 414.3)
We helped one man pay for his place, advancing him money to be returned when he was able. Another must have money to pay the rent on his place. To another we loaned a cow. Those who were wounded and sick and ready to die we took to our own home, feeding and nursing them free.... Then came another boy with an injured knee. Sister McEnterfer gives him treatment daily....
(4MR 414.4)
God does not require the workmen to obtain their education and training in order to devote themselves exclusively to the poorer classes. Some can engage in that work, and let them draw their means largely from those outside 415of our faith. This work might be presented in such a way that every dollar would draw from our people and there be no resources for aggressive warfare in new fields.
(4MR 414.5)
Let not the work for the poor and debased draw the means from our churches so that they shall neglect the needs of the work all over our world. This has been done, and will be done again unless there is a decided change of operations. The great question of our duty to humanity is a serious one, and much of the grace of God is needed in deciding as to the best way to work in order to accomplish the greatest amount of good....
(4MR 415.1)
There is no question but that it is a duty for some to labor among the outcasts, and try to save the souls that are perishing. But there is such a thing as leading men to center all their energies on this class when God has called them to another work. Satan is inventing every kind of plan to enfeeble our churches. He seeks to place them where they will not become strong and have the work of God abiding in them so that they may overcome the wicked one. We must not be ignorant of his devices.—Letter 4, 1899, pp. 7, 28, 30. (To “Dr. Kellogg and All Who Are Connected With Him in the Sanitarium Board and Councils,” January 6, 1899.)
(4MR 415.2)
We see the work that must be done, and in every place we enter we unite medical missionary work with the gospel ministry, just as God would have with our limited resources. We labor earnestly for the poor, the distressed and the sick.
(4MR 415.3)
If we find a poor widow struggling to support her family we show our sympathy in a tangible way, and help her to help herself. We seek to awaken the missionary spirit in our churches. We appeal to the members to show their religion by their works of sympathy and do all they can.—Letter 232, 1899, p. 6. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, November 10, 1899.)
(4MR 416.1)
In all our work the law of God must be presented, with its far-reaching requirements, to lead men and women and youth to see the need of loyalty to God. The efforts put forth to rescue degraded outcasts will not be of any avail unless the claims of the law of Jehovah are imprinted on mind and heart.—Manuscript 150, 1899, p. 17, 18. (Untitled. typed October 26, 1899.)
(4MR 416.2)
These words may arouse discussion, but nevertheless I tell you the truth. I long to have our people move solidly. They have been more or less harnessing themselves to a work which has not relation to the grand work for this time. I have carried this burden of agony of soul....
(4MR 416.3)
God forbid that the purposes Dr. Kellogg has in mind should be carried out. Our work is not to be a divided work.—Manuscript 6, 1900, 12, 13. (“Words of Instruction Regarding the Medical Missionary Work,” typed January 12, 1900.)
(4MR 416.4)
He [God] has not made it the special work of Dr. Kellogg to go into the worst dens of iniquity in the large cities. The Lord does not require impossibilities of men. He gives to every man his work. The work which He gave to Dr. Kellogg was to symbolize to the world the ministry of the gospel 417in medical missionary work.—Letter 205, 1899, p. 6. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, typed December 19, 1899.)
(4MR 416.5)
I tell you plainly that you are carrying forward that which you call missionary work according to misconceived judgment and opinions. The sanitarium will be weakened and suffer because you have given yourself up to do a work for which God will call you to account.
(4MR 417.1)
I have been instructed that you have been doing a work which the Lord never appointed you to do.... The place assigned you by the Lord was under Him in the divine theocracy. You were to learn of Jesus, the great Teacher. You were to be and do after His character and example.—Letter 215b, 1899, pp. 1, 2. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, December 14, 1899.)
(4MR 417.2)
Too much commercial work has been mingled with the medical missionary work. The capabilities that should have been developed under God in caring for the sick, and doing the work of a physician of the soul, as well as of the body, have, in recent years, been used largely in launching out in various enterprises. These enterprises necessitated the carrying of many responsibilities that the Lord never intended that Dr. Kellogg should bear.
(4MR 417.3)
The Chicago work was not in all respects carried on in the right way. Too great an effort was made to feed a large class. To much money was used in doing slum work.
(4MR 417.4)
God did not lay upon Dr. Kellogg the responsibility of doing so much of this kind of work. The Lord declared, “He is My physician.” 418Letter 218, 1906, pp. 3, 4. (To “Elders of the Battle Creek Church, and to Our Ministers and Physicians Throughout the Field,” June 28, 1906.)
(4MR 417.5)
One part of the work is not to be made all-absorbing, to the detriment and hindrance of other parts. This has recently been so distinctly presented to me that I am compelled to speak....
(4MR 418.1)
You have misappropriated God’s money in doing a work you were not appointed to do, while missionary fields white for the harvest have been left without facilities. They did not receive their portion of the Lord’s entrusted capital. The enemy has blinded your eyes, so that you have not seen the necessity of cooperating with the Lord’s missionaries in fields which are ripe for the harvest....
(4MR 418.2)
You are full of ambitious projects for a class that will not, with scarcely an exception, be capable of honoring and glorifying God. You have sunk your interests deeply in a work that will not properly represent the refined, elevated character of the truth.
(4MR 418.3)
There should be no lessening of the zeal or fervor or energy shown in the work of saving souls ready to perish. But all the time and means are not to be consumed in one line of work, while the work for God’s vineyard as a whole is neglected. This disproportion is brought in and the work is swayed in wrong lines.—Letter 85, 1900, pp. 2, 5. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, May, 1900.)
(4MR 418.4)
I know that God would not have His money absorbed in Chicago as it now is.... A large amount of money has been used in a way which has 419accomplished very little. Much has been spent on a class of people who will never be fitted to receive and impart, unless the Holy Spirit shall make them entirely new, heart, mind, and body. The work done for this class has been disproportionately large in comparison with the work that has been done in fields that are waiting and longing for the truth. How many more years will the way of man counterwork that which God would have done?—Letter 92, 1900.
(4MR 418.5)
In every city there should be missionaries, evangelists appointed to work for the lower classes, who through abuse are ruining themselves. But all the resources are not to be used in this work, or the work of bringing the truth to other cities and missionary fields afar off from America will not be accomplished.—Letter 86, 1900, p. 4. (To “Dear Brother A. G. Daniells,” June 18, 1900.)
(4MR 419.1)
Those who have been placed as stewards of the Lord’s goods should see that everything is managed in such a way as to bring the Lord the greatest revenue. A wise steward will not select a few portions of the vineyard and absorb in them the means which God has intended for the entire field....
(4MR 419.2)
The vineyard must be cultivated, vines must be planted, that crops may be gathered. To every man is not committed the same task, and the work in the different lines must be done in unselfishness. The minds of the workers are first to be molded by God through His appointed agencies; the word of the Lord is to be communicated to men, to supply their minds with suggestions and methods for working the field in such a way as to present to God the very best returns from all parts of His vineyard.—Manuscript 109, 1899. (August 3, 1899.)
(4MR 419.3)
Means have been drawn from the sanitarium to erect buildings for the care of people who can never be relied on to fill places in the ministry or on councils. They have not a knowledge of the work of character-building and they cannot be relied on as men of forethought. They have ruined their mental powers and nearly destroyed their spiritual discernment by the indulgence of appetite and passion, and this makes them weak. They are fickle and changeable.—Letter 215b, 1899, p. 2. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, typed December 14, 1899.)
(4MR 420.1)
We do not advise our people to open up a work in our cities, to the extent of erecting buildings to which they can invite the most depraved class of people to come and receive food and beds and treatment without money and without price. None are required to establish a work in any city which gives to an indiscriminate class an invitation to be supported by the charities of the Seventh-day Adventists people, whose special work is to bear an unpopular message to the world. The commission is given to bear the message to all nations.—Letter 90, 1900, p. 2. (To Elder and Mrs. S. N. Haskell, June 12, 1900.)
(4MR 420.2)
We are to present the truth to those in the highways. This work has been neglected. We have a work to do for the higher classes, and this work needs all our capabilities. While we are in no case to neglect the poor and destitute, we have neither men nor money for the work among the very lowest classes. We point our workers to a higher grade. All reasons for this I cannot explain now.
(4MR 420.3)
The fields ripe for the harvest have been spread before me. We must work for the higher class of people. Then we shall have strength and ability with which to carry forward in the lines which God has pointed out.—Letter 164, 1901, p. 2. (To “Dear Brother A. G. Daniells,” January 23, 1901.)
(4MR 421.1)
If men feel that God has called them to devote all their missionary efforts to the worst part of the cities, no one should forbid them to work.—Letter 3, 1900.
(4MR 421.2)
If there are men who will take up the work of laboring for the most degraded, men upon whom God has laid the burden to labor for the masses in a variety of ways, let these converted ones go forth and gather from the world the means required to do this work. Let them not depend on the means which God intends shall sustain the work of His gospel.—Letter 205, 1899, p. 6. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, typed December 19, 1899.)
(4MR 421.3)
The Lord’s poor subjects are to be helped in every case where it will be for their benefit. They are to be placed where they can help themselves. We have no question in regard to the cases of this class of poor. The best methods of helping them are to be carefully and prayerfully considered.
(4MR 421.4)
The Lord lays this responsibility upon every church.... God suffers His poor to be in the borders of every church.... They are not to pass by the Lord’s poor but they are to deny themselves of luxuries ... that they may make the suffering, needy ones comfortable.
(4MR 421.5)
After this they may reach still farther to help those who are not of the household of faith, if they are the proper subjects to be helped.—Manuscript 46, 1900. (See Testimonies for the Church 1:272-274.)
(4MR 422.1)
If the efforts, the talent, the labor, the money, which have been thrown into Chicago for the last several years had been appropriated toward acquainting with the truth of God for these last days a class of people who could have been reached with wise, well directed efforts, many would have received the truth who would now be working to give it to others of their own class.—Manuscript 46, 1900, 3. (“The Temperance Work,” typed July 25, 1900.)
(4MR 422.2)
The Work for the Present Time
I have been shown that you are in danger, in great peril, of becoming just what the enemy desire you to be—unbalanced in mind. It is not pleasant for me to speak of this by letter, but the Lord has used me to do this work, and I dare not keep silent. If I did, I should be as one who saw your danger, and lifted not up his voice to warn you.
(4MR 422.3)
Light has been given me that you have carried so-called medical missionary work altogether too far. For a long time warnings and cautions have been sent to you. You have made this work not the arm, but the body. God has instructed me that the work you have set yourself to do is not the work He has given you to do....
(4MR 422.4)
When you dipped so deeply into work in the slums, to lift up the most degraded, you were not gathering with Christ as you supposed. To you was given the special work of standing at your post of duty in the sanitarium, as 423its manager, in connection with God’s appointed agencies. But you took so many responsibilities upon yourself that it was as though one man’s brain, and that your own, was brain for all the others. If your course was questioned, you did not receive the criticism offered, till finally no one dared to say, “Why do ye so?” Their silence has been registered in heaven as unfaithfulness. Many have viewed matters in the same light in which you have viewed them.
(4MR 422.5)
In the past I have not dared to hold my peace, and all I can do now is to enforce what I have already said to you. I know that you may class me with your enemies because I tell you the truth. This truth may conflict with your ideas, but nevertheless, it is the truth. The principles upon which you are working will not stand the test. The Lord does not call upon you to create interests which will not show the best results or accomplish the work that is to be done in proclaiming the last message of mercy to a deceived, perishing world. The Lord would not have any enterprise started which would not be for the healthfulness and solidity of the work which is to perfect a people to prepare the way of the Lord.
(4MR 423.1)
The Lord has not led you to take upon yourself such large responsibilities. I was made to understand that all available resources had been drawn upon to sustain the many interests you have set in operation. This hinders the advancement of the work. When accomplished, the work you have started would not have the best results, if carried forward in the way in which it is being carried. Had a portion of the means thus used been used in holding camp meetings, in lifting the banner of truth, in educating workers in regard to carrying on the work after the camp meetings, God would 424have been glorified. We are following the direction of God as to how the work shall be done....
(4MR 423.2)
Your students are not receiving an all-round education. The minds of men and women must be disciplined in such a way that they can carry forward the work solidly. The work in all parts of the Lord’s vineyard is to be built up. In every gathering of our people there should be those who can plan and devise how to build up the work upon a sure foundation.
(4MR 424.1)
The enemy has been working and will continue to work to take advantage of circumstances. Thus he tried to create an emotional experience. He has tried to bring about a condition of things which would lead men to belittle the ministers of the gospel and criticize their work. This has already been done. A wild spirit of speculation and adventure will hurt the very work which should be regarded as most sacred.
(4MR 424.2)
The work done for outcasts may be so managed that it will not bear the very best aspect. Unless those rescued are taught that sin is the transgression of the law, unless they are educated to know what is truth, what will the work done for them amount to? It will be work done with very little result....
(4MR 424.3)
Some of the work that has been done is represented as being like men rolling large stones up a hill with great effort. When nearly at the top of the hill, the stones rolled again to the bottom. The men only succeeded in taking a few to the top. In the work done for the degraded—what effort it has taken to reach them, what expense, and then to lead them to stand against appetite and base passions! Is this work to be permitted to swallow up all 425the workers and all the money needed to sustain the various branches of the work of the cause of God? I answer, No.
(4MR 424.4)
Camp meetings are to be held; not one mammoth camp meeting, but small camp meetings in different localities. After the camp meeting is over, let a house be hired for the accommodation of the workers, and let these workers go out among the people and ascertain who are willing to take their position on the Lord’s side. One thing is certain: We have a work to do similar to the work done in the early history of the message. This work we are trying to carry forward in this country [Australia].
(4MR 425.1)
But the Lord does not give us directions to erect buildings for the care of babies, although this is a good work. But it is not the work for the present time. Let the world do all it will in this line. Our time and means must be invested in a different line of work. We are to carry the last message of mercy in the very best way to reach those in the churches who are hungering and praying for light....
(4MR 425.2)
We are to give to the people the warnings contained in Revelation. But many workers are engaged in a line of work that is disqualifying them to preach the word and do the very work God has appointed them to do. The truth in regard to the Sabbath of the Lord is to be proclaimed. The Seventh-day is to be shown to be the seal of the living God. People are to be shown what they may expect from the papal power. The time has come when the Protestant churches are reaching out to grasp the hand of the power that has made void the law of God.... [Here follows lengthy quotations from Revelation 18 and brief comments.]
(4MR 425.3)
This is the message Satan would have silenced.... Shall this message be considered an inferior matter?
(4MR 426.1)
I am commissioned to speak to all those who are engaged as physicians in our institutions. A reformation is required in regard to the management of these institutions. They are not to be conducted as the world would conduct them.... The work done in our medical institutions is to correspond with the words “medical missionary work.” We do not want the Lord to think ill of us because we misrepresent the work of Christ. God has not given us permission to do a work which will not bear the investigation of the judgment.—Letter 232, 1899, pp. 1-7, 9, 10. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, November 10, 1899.)
(4MR 426.2)
Appeal For a Balanced Work
Dear Brother and Sister Irwin,
(4MR 426)
A happy new year to you.... I am so very much interested in the work that I have told you was presented before me. I saw large companies and small companies stretching out their hands and saying, “Come and help us. We want you to open to us the word of God.” In all my experiences I have not seen so general inquiring interest to be taught the truth. There have been some backsets, but the Lord has not left His people....
(4MR 426.4)
I think that so far twelve have taken their stand at Maitland; but we must have more, and shall have many converts who believe. The best of house-to-house labor is being done. There is a wide extended circle to be worked. Such kindness and courtesy as we have received from the people makes us more urgent for their souls, and we will labor to the utmost of our ability. 427These people are not of the depraved class, but their souls are just as much value as are the souls of the most abandoned characters....
(4MR 426.5)
I see that your difficulties are becoming more settled and pronounced because Dr. Kellogg refuses counsel and chooses to do the very things that God has told him not to do. But the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. If Dr. Kellogg refuses to change his methods of labor, then the sure result will come....
(4MR 427.1)
Seek to save Dr. Kellogg from himself. He is not heeding the counsel he should heed. He is not satisfied because the Lord has signified that the missionary work does not consist alone in the slum work in Chicago. That work, thought to be the great and important thing to be done, is a very defective and expensive work. It has absorbed the means, and has deprived our poverty-stricken foreign mission fields of the help God designed them to have. The use of means in what is called the medical missionary work needs most thorough investigation. Means have been consumed and will continue to be consumed in a work which is not the greatest or most important to be done in our world....
(4MR 427.2)
The Lord has signified that the missionary, health-restorative gospel shall never be separated from the ministry of the word. The Lord Jesus has in His own example shown us the way in which His work is to be done in the restoration of suffering humanity. It is the Lord’s purpose that in every part of our world health institutions shall be established as a part of the gospel work. If men feel that God has called them to devote all their missionary efforts to the worst part of the cities, no one should forbid them to work. But the Lord has in His own wisdom established sanitariums as a 428special illustration of the gospel work to be done in magnifying the truth. But medical missionary work is not to be made a separate work, under a separate organization from the gospel ministry, after one man’s mind and one man’s judgment. The work in all its branches is to be one.
(4MR 427.3)
The medical missionary work God has set in operation as a practical illustration of the gospel, but there is not to be in any place a mammoth settlement to be supported, while in many other places there is the very same need of a representation of the gospel truth.
(4MR 428.1)
Plants must be made in all parts of the world. America is not all the world. The expenditure of means to set in operation the medical missionary work as it now stands has not been made under the divine theocracy. There needs to be a decided change. The money consumed in one line has brought a great dearth of means in other lines where it should be invested to make the medical missionary work the very thing God designed it should be.
(4MR 428.2)
Dr. Kellogg must understand that God is not best glorified by his all-absorbing interest in the past, the present, and the future of the medical missionary work after the same practice. The sanitarium needs all that there is of him to keep its healthful position and standing. This has been greatly neglected in carrying out a work that God has not ordered. The means coming into the sanitarium have been devoted to a work that was not after the Lord’s order. This was why I was bidden to call upon the sanitarium for means to establish a health institution in this new world [Australia]. With this means we could be provided with facilities to do missionary work which would tell with great power in this country.
(4MR 428.3)
Donations large and abundant have come into the hands of Dr. Kellogg. These should not have been swallowed up in doing that which the world would do largely, but the world will not do the work which God has committed to His people. He requires us to be wide awake in preparing the way for Christ’s second coming. This work is included in the commission Christ gave to His disciples. He bids us, “Lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.”—Letter 3, 1900, pp. 1-5. (To Elder and Mrs. G. A. Irwin, January 1, 1900.)
(4MR 429.1)
Before the World Clear and Distinct
I am more than surprised when you have had the warnings so long ago that you have not appropriated them and thus avoided coming into difficult situations. The Lord has sent you warnings, but you have not heeded them....
(4MR 429.2)
Of the work you have taken up in Chicago the Lord inquires, “John, who hath required this at your hands?” You have establishments in America of your own ambitious creating. As you belong to the Seventh-day Adventist people, God has given you another work to do. You have not been called to do this work. Money and talent should not be diverted from the principal work for this time, which is to prepare a people who shall be brought into working order in connection with the gospel ministry. The truth of the third angel’s message ... is to be proclaimed to warn the world of the conflict in which every individual will have a part.
(4MR 429.3)
The Lord is not pleased with your repressing the truth to carry another banner, and to work the works that do not bear the insignia of the work for 430this time. There is a people to be warned, and the very means you have used to encourage and feed and sustain a class of people who could not honor the truth or honor the commandments of God, has been depriving the cause of God of the means which the Lord has designed should help His work to advance in clear, straight, distinct lines. The means that were to prosper His own work for His chosen people you have thrown away in place of putting it “into the work of God to carry” the present truth amid the opposition and persecution of its enemies.
(4MR 429.4)
The deceptive power of the enemy has led you to leave God’s banner trailing in the dust while Dr. Kellogg has committed himself as working “undenominationally” in a work which has taken the money from a people who are decidedly a denominational people. God’s signature they bear as the loyal commandment-keeping subjects of His kingdom, a peculiar people, zealous of good works. No man’s name is to be exalted as creator....
(4MR 430.1)
In the working of the cause of God for this time the benevolent work should give special help to those who, through the presentation of truth at our camp meetings, are convicted and converted. They become the loyal subjects of the kingdom of God and unite with those who keep the commandments of God and have the faith of Jesus. They are to be laborers together with God as is represented in Isaiah fifty-eight. That chapter does not sustain you in the kind of work you are doing and in expending God’s revenue on that class of people found in the slums. There we obtain the least results for labor put forth in true conversions and additions to strengthen the forces of workers together with God.
(4MR 430.2)
We must engage in the work of caring especially for those who have the moral courage to accept the truth, lose their situations in consequence, and are refused work to earn means to support their families. There must be a fund to aid the worthy poor families who love God and keep His commandments.
(4MR 431.1)
They are not to be left without help and forced to work on the Sabbath or because the means that God designed for His loyal people are diverted into channels that help the most unworthy and disobedient and the transgressors of His law. These are favored while the people who are beloved of God receive no favors from the popular churches. They have trampled on God’s law themselves, made a breach in it, torn down His memorial, and what is left for the poor saints who are placed in most discouraging circumstances for conscientiously obeying the truth? God has not vindicated your course for years, and I do not want you to continue in it till the bitter end. Shall the poor among God’s people be left without any provision being made for them? Shall it be made as hard as possible for them to obtain means to live? ...
(4MR 431.2)
I am instructed to say to you that it is not the Lord’s Spirit that has inspired you to take up the work which other churches will do, but who will not help the people loyal to God a jot or tittle. Who will need help as the commandment-keeping people of God will need it in the conscientious discharge of their duties in becoming loyal and true to God’s commandments? Those who have thought and devised this work had their God-appointed work, but He never gave them the work of absorbing the funds that come in their hands that there should be no meat in the house-of-God’s treasury to satisfy the hungry souls, hungry for temporal bread, and hungry for the bread of life.
(4MR 431.3)
Satan has been pleased to have means absorbed in the work that has been done, because it would hinder aggressive warfare in behalf of the truth in new territory, and leave him, with his power undisturbed. This money invested was not yours to invest. You were not placed as a steward of funds to use after your judgment. The fields calling for help cannot have it, for there is an empty treasury, and it will continue empty until those who ought to consider shall come to their senses.
(4MR 432.1)
The work has been hindered, the cause of God should have a different showing, far different, and who is to blame for this hindrance? You give heed to men not of our faith. You delight to show what you have done, and by a free use of money that was not yours to handle, in a way that God has not appointed, fields have been left barren of the very facilities that could have been furnished them. Where are your counselors? They have not been true to advise you. God never set you to engage in gathering means, and in doing the work that the Salvation Army are doing. Let them work in that line, and you attend to your appointed work, and not spend God’s means in channels that are not doing the work of God for this time....
(4MR 432.2)
Your voice is working against the success and triumph of the truth in these last days. Our God has a message for His people represented by an angel flying through heaven proclaiming the last message to a fallen world. What is the angel proclaiming? The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. This represents that God’s messengers are to hold this banner high, and with no feeble voice proclaim to a perishing world the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus....
(4MR 432.3)
You are leading away from the very work to be done. You are presenting obstructions by diverting workers and means in a direction that God has never appointed....
(4MR 433.1)
God has plainly revealed to me that our faith as Seventh-day Adventists is to stand before the world clear and distinct in all our institutions. The truth is losing its peculiar, holy character in the sanitarium in America. It is changing.—Letter 45, 1900, pp. 1-8. (To Dr. J. H. Kellogg, March 12, 1900.)
(4MR 433.2)