Balancing Cautions

Our Threefold Ministry—God works by means of instruments, or second causes. He uses the gospel ministry, medical missionary work, and the publications containing present truth to impress hearts. All are made effectual by means of faith. As the truth is heard or read, the Holy Spirit sends it home to those who hear and read with an earnest desire to know what is right. The gospel ministry, medical missionary work, and our publications are God’s agencies. One is not to supersede the other.—Letter 54, 1903.

Attach the Word “Medical”—The work of the gospel ministry is not to decrease in efficiency, but is to increase until it becomes the great enlightening agency in our world. Everything possible should be done to send more laborers into the field. No influence should be exerted to turn young men aside from qualifying themselves for ministerial missionary work. To this we may attach the word “medical”; for it is essential that the gospel minister shall have a knowledge of disease and its causes. He should know how to give help to the sick. He should be able to teach the people how to treat the house we live in. This is a part of the gospel.—Letter 123, 1900.

Our Work as Distinctive as Muller’s—God does not now lay upon His people the same work which was laid upon Muller. [George Muller, Bristol, England.] Muller did a noble work. But God has given His people a work to do after a different plan. To them He has given a message for the whole world. They are to enter territory after territory, and make aggressive warfare against soul-destroying sins.—Letter 33, 1900.

A Balanced Work—for Rich and Poor—Of late [1899], a great interest has been aroused for the poor and outcast classes; a great work has been entered upon for the uplifting of the fallen and degraded. This in itself is a good work. We should ever have the spirit of Christ, and we are to do the same class of work that He did for suffering humanity. The Lord has a work to be done for the outcasts. There is no question but that it is the duty of some to labor among them, and try to save the souls that are perishing. This will have its place in connection with the proclamation of the third angel’s message and the reception of Bible truth. But there is danger of loading down everyone with this class of work, because of the intensity with which it is carried on. There is danger of leading men to center their energies in this line, when God has called them to another work.

The great question of our duty to humanity is a serious one, and much of the grace of God is needed in deciding how to work so as to accomplish the greatest amount of good. Not all are called to begin their work by laboring among the lowest classes. God does not require His workmen to obtain their education and training in order to devote themselves exclusively to these classes.

The working of God is manifest in a way which will establish confidence that the work is of His devising, and that sound principles underlie every action. But I have had instruction from God that there is danger of planning for the outcasts in a way which will lead to spasmodic and excitable movements. These will produce no really beneficial results. A class will be encouraged to do a kind of work which will amount to the least in strengthening all parts of the work by harmonious action.

The gospel invitation is to be given to the rich and the poor, the high and the low, and we must devise means for carrying the truth into new places, and to all classes of people. The Lord bids us, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that My house may be filled.” Luke 14:23^L. He says, “Begin in the highways; thoroughly work the highways; prepare a company who in unity with you can go forth to do the very work that Christ did in seeking and saving the lost.”

Christ preached the gospel to the poor, but He did not confine His labors to this class. He worked for all who would hear His Word—not only the publican and the outcasts, but the rich and cultivated Pharisee, the Jewish nobleman, the centurion, and the Roman ruler. This is the kind of work I have ever seen should be done. We are not to strain every spiritual sinew and nerve to work for the lowest classes, and make that work the all in all. There are others whom we must bring to the Master, souls who need the truth, who are bearing responsibilities, and who will work with all their sanctified ability for the high places as well as for the low places.

The work for the poorer classes has no limit. It can never be got through with, and it must be treated as a part of the great whole. To give our first attention to this work, while there are vast portions of the Lord’s vineyard open to culture and yet untouched, is to begin in the wrong place. As the right arm is to the body, so is the medical missionary work to the third angel’s message. But the right arm is not to become the whole body. The work of seeking the outcasts is important, but it is not to become the great burden of our mission.—Medical Ministry, 311, 312 (1899).

A Proportionate Work—The medical missionary work must not become disproportionate. It must be a work that is in order with the rest of the work.—Letter 38, 1899.

Health of Workers—Those who put their whole souls into the medical missionary work, who labor untiringly, in peril, in privation, in watchings oft, in weariness, and painfulness, are in danger of forgetting that they must be faithful guardians of their own mental and physical powers. They are not to allow themselves to be overtaxed. But they are filled with zeal and earnestness, and they sometimes move unadvisedly, putting themselves under too heavy a strain. Unless such workers make a change, the result will be that sickness will come upon them, and they will break down.

While God’s workers are to be filled with a noble enthusiasm, and with a determination to follow the example of the divine worker, the great Medical Missionary, they are not to crowd too many things into the day’s work. If they do, they will soon have to leave the work entirely broken down because they have tried to carry too heavy a load. My brother, it is right for you to make the best use of the advantages given you of God in earnest effort for the relief of suffering and for the saving of souls. But do not sacrifice your health.

We have a calling as much higher than common, selfish interests as the heavens are higher than the earth. But this thought should not lead the willing, hard-working servants of God to carry all the burdens they can possibly bear, without periods of rest.

How grand it would be if among all who were engaged in carrying out God’s wonderful plan for the salvation of souls, there were no idlers! How much more would be accomplished if everyone would say, “God holds me accountable to be wide awake, and to let my efforts speak in favor of the truth I profess to believe! I am to be a practical worker, not a day-dreamer.”—Medical Ministry, 292, 293 (1904).