8T 101-2, 218, 227
(Testimonies for the Church Volume 8 101-2, 218, 227)
We need keen, sanctified perception. This perception is not to be used in criticizing and condemning one another, but discerning the signs of the times. We are to keep our hearts with all diligence, that we may not make shipwreck of faith. Many who were once firm believers in the truth have become careless in regard to their spiritual welfare and are yielding, without the slightest opposition, to Satan’s well-laid plots. It is time for our people to take their families from the cities into more retired localities, else many of the youth, and many also of those older in years, will be ensnared and taken by the enemy. (8T 101.1) MC VC
January 7, 1903. (8T 101) MC VC
We have all been made very sad by the news of the terrible loss that has come to the cause in the burning of the Review and Herald office. In one year two of our largest institutions have been destroyed by fire. The news of this recent calamity has caused us to mourn deeply, but it was permitted by the Lord to come upon us, and we should make no complaint, but learn from it the lesson that the Lord would teach us. (8T 101.2) MC VC
The destruction of the Review and Herald building should not be passed over as something in which there is no meaning. Everyone connected with the office should ask himself: “Wherein do I deserve this lesson? Wherein have I walked contrary to a ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ that He should send this lesson to me? Have I heeded the warnings and reproofs that He has sent, or have I followed my own way?” (8T 101.3) MC VC
Let the heart-searching God reprove the erring, and let each one bow before Him in humility and contrition, casting aside all self-righteousness and self-importance, confessing and forsaking every sin, and asking God, in the name of the Redeemer, for pardon. God declares, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37); and those who in sincerity present themselves before Him will be pardoned and justified, and will receive power to become the sons of God. (8T 101.4) MC VC
I pray that those who have resisted light and evidence, refusing to listen to God’s warnings, will see in the destruction of the Review and Herald office an appeal to them to turn to God with full purpose of heart. Will they not realize that God is in earnest with them? He is not seeking to destroy life, but to save life. In the recent destruction the lives of the workers were graciously preserved, that all might have an opportunity to see that God was correcting them by a message coming not from a human source, but from above. God’s people have departed from Him; they have not followed His instruction, and He has come near them in correction; but He has not brought extinction of life. Not one soul has been taken by death. All have been left alive to recognize the Power that no man can gainsay. (8T 102.1) MC VC
Let us praise the Lord that the lives of His children have been so precious in His sight. He might have cut off the workers in their heedlessness and self-sufficiency. But, no! He says: “They shall have another chance. I will let the fire speak to them and will see if they will counterwork the action of My providence. I will try them as by fire to see if they will learn the lesson that I desire to teach them.” (8T 102.2) MC VC
When the Battle Creek Sanitarium was destroyed, Christ gave Himself to defend the lives of men and women. In this destruction God was appealing to His people to return to Him. And in the destruction of the Review and Herald office, and the saving of life, He makes a second appeal to them. He desires them to see that the miracle-working power of the Infinite has been exercised to save life, that every worker may have opportunity to repent and be converted. God says: “If they turn to Me, I will restore to them the joy of My salvation. But if they continue to walk in their own way, I will come still closer; and affliction shall come upon the families who claim to believe the truth, but who do not practice the truth, who do not make the Lord God of Israel their fear and their dread.” (8T 102.3) MC VC
Through the light given in the testimonies, the Lord has indicated that He does not desire students to leave their home schools and sanitariums to be educated in Battle Creek. He instructed us to remove the college from this place. This was done, but the institutions that remained failed of doing what they should have done to share with other places the advantages still centered in Battle Creek. The Lord signified His displeasure by permitting the principal buildings of these institutions to be destroyed by fire. (8T 218.1) MC VC
Notwithstanding the plain evidence of the Lord’s providence in these destructive fires, some among us have not hesitated to make light of the statement that these buildings were burned because men had been swaying things in directions which the Lord could not approve. (8T 218.2) MC VC
Men have been departing from right principles, for the promulgation of which these institutions were established. They have failed of doing the very work that God ordained should be done to prepare a people to “build the old waste places” and to stand in the breach, as represented in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah. In this scripture the work we are to do is clearly defined as being medical missionary work. This work is to be done in all places. God has a vineyard; and He desires that this vineyard shall be worked unselfishly. No parts are to be neglected. The most neglected portion needs the most wide-awake missionaries to do the work which, through Isaiah, the Holy Spirit has portrayed: (8T 218.3) MC VC
“Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” “If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: and the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.” Isaiah 58:6, 10~12. (8T 218.4) MC VC
September, 1903 (8T 227) MC VC
As I consider the state of things in Battle Creek, I tremble for our youth who go there. The light given me by the Lord, that our youth should not collect in Battle Creek to receive their education, has in no particular changed. The fact that the sanitarium has been rebuilt does not change the light. That which in the past has made Battle Creek a place unsuitable for the education of our youth makes it unsuitable today so far as influence is concerned. (8T 227.1) MC VC
When the call came to move out of Battle Creek, the plea was: “We are here, and all settled. It would be an impossibility to move without enormous expense.” (8T 227.2) MC VC
The Lord permitted fire to consume the principal buildings of the Review and Herald and the sanitarium, and thus removed the greatest objection urged against moving out of Battle Creek. It was His design that instead of rebuilding the one large sanitarium, our people should make plants in several places. These smaller sanitariums should have been established where land could be secured for agricultural purposes. It is God’s plan that agriculture shall be connected with the work of our sanitariums and schools. Our youth need the education to be gained from this line of work. It is well, and more than well,—it is essential,—that efforts be made to carry out the Lord’s plan in this respect. (8T 227.3) MC VC