(Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers 86-7, 199, 208)
We ask of those who have had great light in Battle Creek, Has the truth of God lost its hold upon the soul? Has the fine gold become dim? What has been the cause of this fanaticism and enthusiasm? A fearful accountability rests upon world-loving, selfish parents, for sin lies at their door. How much more favorable it would be if the school buildings that are now in Battle Creek were far off from the city, and separated from so large a colony of professed Sabbathkeepers!
(TM 86.1)
MC
VC
The conviction is gaining ground in the world that Seventh-day Adventists are giving the trumpet an uncertain sound, that they are following in the path of worldlings. Families in Battle Creek are departing from God, in planning contracts of marriage with those who have no love for God, with those who have lived a frivolous life, who have never practiced self-denial, and know not from experience what it means to be laborers together with God. Strange things are being transacted. False phases of Christianity are being received and taught, which bind souls in deception and delusion. Men are walking in the light of the sparks of their own kindling. Those who love and fear God will not descend to the world’s level in choosing the society of the vain and trifling. They will not become charmed with men or women who are not converted. They are to stand up for Jesus, and then Jesus will stand up for them.
(TM 86.2)
MC
VC
Some of those who know the truth, but do not practice it, are trampling upon the law of God in their business transactions. We should have no intimate association with them, lest we catch their spirit, and share their doom. The patriarch Jacob, when speaking of certain deeds of his sons, which he contemplated with horror, exclaimed, “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.”Genesis 49:6. He felt that his own honor would be compromised if he associated with sinners in their doings. He lifts the danger signal to warn us away from such associations, lest we become partakers of their evil deeds. The Holy Spirit, through the apostle Paul, utters a similar warning, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”Ephesians 5:11.
(TM 87.1)
MC
VC
The eternal God has drawn the line of distinction between the saints and the sinners, the converted and the unconverted. The two classes do not blend into each other imperceptibly, like the colors of the rainbow. They are as distinct as midday and midnight.
(TM 87.2)
MC
VC
Those who are seeking the righteousness of Christ will be dwelling upon the themes of the great salvation. The Bible is the storehouse that supplies their souls with nourishing food. They meditate upon the incarnation of Christ, they contemplate the great sacrifice made to save them from perdition, to bring in pardon, peace, and everlasting righteousness. The soul is aglow with these grand and elevating themes. Holiness and truth, grace and righteousness, occupy the thoughts. Self dies, and Christ lives in His servants. In contemplation of the word, their hearts burn within them, as did the hearts of the two disciples while they went to Emmaus, and Christ walked with them by the way, and opened to them the scriptures concerning Himself.
(TM 87.3)
MC
VC
Those who are the chosen of God are required to multiply churches wherever they may be successful in bringing souls to the knowledge of the truth. But the people of God are never to collect together into a large community as they have done in Battle Creek. Those who know what it is to have travail of soul will never do this, for they will feel the burden that Christ carried for the salvation of men.
(TM 199.1)
MC
VC
Everyone who is chosen of God should improve his intellectual powers. Jesus came to represent the character of the Father, and He sent His disciples into the world to represent the character of Christ. He has given us His word to point out the way of life, and He has not left us simply to carry that word, but has also promised to give it efficiency by the power of the Holy Spirit. Is there need, then, that any should walk in uncertainty, grieving that they do not know and experience the movings of the Holy Spirit upon their hearts? Are you hungering and thirsting for instruction in righteousness? Then you have the sure promise that you shall be filled. “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”1 John 5:20.
(TM 199.2)
MC
VC
Who can tell the work that might have been done in our churches, if those who had advocated the truth had not left these feeble churches, to crowd into Battle Creek? If all our people had been faithful, diligent, God-fearing servants of Christ, and had put forth efforts to make their influence as far-reaching as possible at home, where they were, how many souls might have been saved! One taper kindled in one place might have been the means of kindling many others, and the result would have been that the voice of praise and thanksgiving would have been heard, and many would have said: “What hath God wrought! He hath done exceedingly abundantly above all that we asked or thought.”
(TM 208.1)
MC
VC
It is not in the order of God that any man, or any class of men, should assume that God has made them conscience for their brethren, or put forth their finite hand in a patronizing manner to control the Lord’s delegated workers, thus endangering the safety of the Lord’s heritage as well as their own, and retarding the work of God. God does not confine Himself to one man, or to a set of men, through whom to accomplish His work, but says of all, Ye “are laborers together with God.”1 Corinthians 3:9. This means that every believing soul should have a part to act in His sacred work, and every individual believer in Jesus Christ is to manifest to the world a symbol of Christ’s sufficiency, to represent to His church the higher laws of the future immortal world, and in obedience to the mandates of Heaven that are without a parallel, they should reveal a depth of knowledge independent of human inventions.
(TM 208.2)
MC
VC