Diary
“Elmshaven,” St. Helena, California
January 20, 1904
This manuscript is published in entirety in 13MR 377-383. +NoteOne or more typed copies of this document contain additional Ellen White handwritten interlineations which may be viewed at the main office of the Ellen G. White Estate.
The past night has been one of great mental anxiety. I am cautioned to make no abrupt movements. The work that we are now doing right where we are is a work that will reach thousands. The Lord would have me place in print those things that must come before the people. Matters are becoming confused and tangled up. Dr. Kellogg’s last movement speaks for itself. He has disregarded the light that the Lord has given. And can his associates, those who are supposed to be helping him to see himself as God sees him, be standing in the light? No, no. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 1
In the past, it has been that Dr. Kellogg would make any kind of a shift or statement rather than make a full, thorough confession. The evil adviser still has power over Dr. Kellogg, who is a man that God would save and work through, if He could; but Dr. Kellogg has become self-centered, exalted by worldly policy. In order to save, as he thinks, his reputation, he will do as he has done in the past—influence men in responsible positions and then leave them to work out the difficult problems. The men who undertook to build the Boulder Sanitarium were not prepared in religious efficiency or in business capacity to carry forward the work. And Dr. Kellogg hides behind those who have made so great a mistake as to invest means so largely in one place. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 2
This is what was done. Means was tied up fast, and a very strange work was done. There has been too much human invention, and this has left the work where it consumes but does not produce. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 3
How long shall the testimonies of warning be rejected for the wisdom of men? There are many things that I have <not> wanted to specify, but I am compelled to do this by the course that Dr. Kellogg takes. The last move made—the sending out of Living Temple—is a sample of the working of the man’s mind. He makes the statements that he cannot see in Living Temple the things that I have said are there. Why can he not see them? Because his mind is being worked by the very one who seduced the angels of God in the heavenly courts. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 4
The efforts that Dr. Kellogg makes to call the youth to Battle Creek, notwithstanding the plain testimonies that have been given, show that he is working under the adviser who talked with Eve. Through this subtle reasoning the future of the cause is imperiled. I shall now have to be far more explicit than I have been in the past. I shall be compelled to make statements that I have not wanted to make, but I must be more explicit in order save the flock of God from deceptive influences. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 5
The Lord did not plan for any such company of people to be gathered at Battle Creek as are gathered there. The result will be confusion and unbelief and distrust of the messages that God sends His people. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 6
If Dr. Kellogg continues to stand in the position that he is now in, there may be a necessity of doing the very work that the Lord has in the past inspired His messengers to do, in order to save the largest number of souls from the satanic influences that would lead them astray. The world’s opinion will oppose the very work that must be done, that the safety of the flock of God shall not be imperiled. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 7
The fact that men whom I might name are imperiled by the sophistries that are coming in at this time shows that a power from beneath is making its imprint on human minds. Every movement made now is to be carefully guarded; for the forces of Satan have minds under their control and will strive through them to unsettle faith in the experience of the past, which bore the signature of Heaven. The delusive influences working upon minds are of a character to unsettle the faith of the people of God in the experience of the past, which <has borne> the signature of Heaven. The delusive influences working upon minds are of a character to unsettle the faith of the people of God in the testimonies. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 8
In His Word the Lord declared what He would do for Israel if they would obey His voice. But the leaders of the people yielded to the temptations of Satan, and God could not give them the blessings He designed them to have, because they did not obey His voice. This experience will be repeated in the last years of the history of the people of God, who have been established by His grace and power. Men whom He has greatly honored will in the closing scenes of this earth’s history pattern after ancient Israel. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 9
“Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today, if ye will hear His voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness; when your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known My ways. So I sware in My wrath, They shall not enter into My rest.) Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” [Hebrews 3:7-13.] Bear this in mind. History is being repeated. The perils that God’s people encountered in past ages, they will encounter again, intensified. Satan has obtained influence over men whom God has honored above all human intelligence as He honored Solomon. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 10
“Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things, which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken unto us by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard Him?” [Hebrews 2:1-3.] 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 11
Christ was superior to the angels; His ministry was more excellent than theirs; therefore we ought to give the more diligent, earnest heed to the words spoken. The things that had been spoken by priests and rulers had become leavened with erroneous theories. The gospel of the Old Testament had been misinterpreted by the teachers who had desired to fit the presentation with their condition spiritually in the place of exalting truth and laboring to bring the people who claimed to be the chosen of God up to the holy principles given by Him. Christ came to give the gospel in its purity and its true bearing, and all are to show their esteem of His teaching. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 12
The Lord was leading His people back to the real truth. The Scriptures show the loss they had sustained and would continue to sustain unless they went back to the Word, refusing to let anything they had heard slip from their memory. They were to remember that the words spoken by Christ in His earthly ministry in no case contradicted the words spoken by Him to Moses to be given to the people. They are to give “the more earnest heed,” to cherish every ray of light given, to eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of God, accepting and applying the words of the Old and New Testaments. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 13
Unless we give the most earnest heed to the Word of God, human minds will work up theories according to their own deficient practices and will misrepresent and misapply a “Thus saith the Lord.” A departure from the great principles Christ has laid down in His teachings; a working out [of] human projects, using the Scriptures to justify a wrong course of action, will confirm men in misunderstanding; and the truth that they need to keep them from wrong practices will leak out of the soul like water from a leaky vessel. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 14
Thus it is in our time. A departure from right principles will blind the understanding as to what is truth. The holy law of ten commandments, written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and placed in the ark, is the standard of righteousness. Before the obedient and the disobedient it will appear in the last great day, and all the wicked will be convicted. They will see that their actions proceeded from a depraved character. They will see that the part they acted served to carry on the rebellion begun in the heavenly courts. They will see all the cruelty and all the wickedness that have dishonored their Creator and brought about the wretchedness that fills the world. The law that they disobeyed was their life. Obedience to it would have made their characters as fine gold, their principles as the golden wedge of Ophir. The law that they chose to disregard and trample under foot would, if obeyed, have kept them in happiness and peace, and obedience would have borne fruit in sanctified love and beauty of character. The world would have been filled with holiness and purity. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 15
Were the church of Christ today what it should be, older and younger believers would be united in the bonds of holy fellowship, free from all the lawless, tainted sentimentalism of Satan’s creation. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 16
Those who refuse the testimonies God has sent them are not eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the Son of God. The character developed tells its history to the end. Through the refusal to receive correct principles, and the corruption of human nature, Satan works by his sophistry to deceive if possible the very elect. Through subtlety he steals away the influence of the words of life, and truth, precious truth, is not of half as much consequence to men as their ambitious purposes. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 17
After seducing Adam and Eve, Satan was sentenced to confinement to this globe. “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” [Genesis 3:15.] This curse has reference chiefly to the originator of sin, the devil, and not to the serpent, the medium. Satan and his associates fell under the curse. Unless man is given the converting grace of heaven, he will have no disposition to oppose Satan’s counsels and will become the enemy’s willing dupe. It is God alone who puts enmity to sin in the human heart. The Lord gives man a new mind. He causes the conflict that will not submit to Satan’s deceptive reasoning. It is God who makes a conflict where heretofore there has been unity of action. It is the Lord’s purpose that depraved human nature should, through His divine power, be provided with a renovating energy. 19LtMs, Ms 5, 1904, par. 18