Irwin, Brother and Sister [G. A.]
“Sunnyside,” Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia
January 1, 1900
Portions of this letter are published in 3MR 403-404; 4MR 133, 426-429.
Dear Brother and Sister Irwin:
A happy new year to you, my brother and sister. I feel very thankful to the Lord for all His goodness, His mercies, and His love to me. I love my Saviour because He first loved me. I love the Lord because He is my heavenly Father. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 1
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 experience 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. I have just received a letter from Sister Wilson stating that a man and his wife have taken their position upon the Sabbath, and a young woman also has decided. So decisions are being made and the work is moving forward. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 2
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. These people are not of the depraved class, but their souls are of just as much value as are the souls of the most abandoned characters. If Satan can work to turn the whole current of the waters of life into the most polluted channels, it is the very work he would rejoice to see the whole Seventh-day Adventist people engaged in. He desires us to use up in this way all the available means, so that there is nothing left to sustain foreign missions. But God wants His work to go in the very way He has ordained for it to go. He has not inaugurated a new plan or arrangement to save the world. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 3
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. (See the enclosures I have sent.) 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 4
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. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 5
God calls upon His church that know the truth to arise and shine, for their light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon them. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 6
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. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 7
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 special 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. 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. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 8
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. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 9
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. With this means we could be provided with facilities to do missionary work which would tell with great power in this country. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 10
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.” [Isaiah 58:1.] 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 11
Consider the scene presented in the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. Such a delineation needs to be carefully considered. When those who are set for the defense of true religion in our world become middlemen, leading the people to a knowledge of the truth, but failing to show the sanctifying power of truth upon their own hearts, the churches of Seventh-day Adventists are in danger of becoming corrupted and through their defective characters leading others astray. But notwithstanding the deplorable lack of vital godliness, there is a faithful remnant who sigh and cry for the abominations done in a land of professed knowledge and piety. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 12
God is already writing the record of some cases, “Incurable.” “He is joined to his idols, let him alone.” [Hosea 4:17.] The time is soon coming when the work of God’s judgment will begin at His sanctuary. God Himself is now drawing the separating line. He says, “As for me also, mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity, but I will recompense their way upon their own heads.” [Ezekiel 9:10.] What carefulness should this work [be] in every soul who is striving for eternal life. “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine,” Christ says, “no more can ye, except ye abide in me.” [John 15:4.] Keep this in mind. Every living branch is fruitful. What is the character of the fruit borne? It is the most precious fruit—love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. 15LtMs, Lt 3, 1900, par. 13