Ms 132, 1906
Remarks/At California Conference Committee
St. Helena, California
November 13, 1906
Previously unpublished.
Minutes of union council meeting of the California Conference committee, Pacific Press Publishing Company, Healdsburg College, and the California Medical Missionary and Benevolent Association, called and held pursuant to resolutions adopted by the various boards, at Crystal Springs, St. Helena, California, on Tuesday, November 13, 1906, at 12 o’clock noon.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 1
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I heard these words from Brother Daniells in regard to the work being done, and that is the way the work is presented to me always. And when I have written to Battle Creek, sometimes I have spoken Review and Herald. There has been no distinction ever presented to me in anything that was under that roof. It is one. Willie has questioned me: “What do you mean, Mother, by Review and Herald?” he would say. Well, it is everything that is connected with the building that is Review and Herald. It is the work, and it is the one work. It is not a division of departments; everything that stands under the roof that is connected with the Review and Herald is a unit of the work. It is responsible for all the work that is done under that roof. That is why I mention this, because some may realize, perhaps, or think, that because I say Review and Herald, why, I mean just nothing but that which concerns the publication of the Review and Herald. It never was presented to me in that light.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 32
Well, I want to speak of that which Brother Daniells has mentioned. The medical missionary work and the gospel—every department of the work is one, and it is represented as one. Everything connected with the work and the cause of God for a preparation for the coming of the Son of man, it is one work. It is a unit. It is not a divided work, but it is a work that is to prepare a people to stand in the last great day. And that is how the matter is presented to me. For I do not distinguish between the medical and the gospel—the gospel is a medical work. The gospel is the work of not only presenting the great truths which must be received in order to become sanctified through the truth, but it must embrace all that Christ embraced in ministering. It is ministering to the sick; it is ministering in the gospel. It is working at the right hand and working at the left hand. It is doing the work intelligently for God and suffering men, and that is the important work that is to be done at this present time. There is to be no division in that work in our institutions. It is the ministry to the sick, which ministry should embrace the salvation of the soul just as equally, just as thoroughly, just as fully as the minister. It is to be a work, for the perfecting of the saints and the preparation of the people of God, that is to stand in the last great day. All this work is one.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 33
The question has been asked many times whether the physicians should feel it their duty to open the truth or the Word to their patients. That depends very much on circumstances. There are those if you should produce anything new, that was not just in accordance with their minds, it would have an ill effect on the patients; but God can work in such a way that the truth can be presented. But it is just as much a physician’s duty to prepare a soul for eternity as to minister to the body, to prepare the soul before him for what is to take place. If you see they are in danger, it is your duty to tell them that they are in danger. You could not neglect to do this and be a faithful steward. The work that is demanded of us is to be faithful stewards wherever we are. Wherever there is a work to be done, take hold of it, and do it intelligently. And there is to be a preparedness for the work; and God will help every one of us.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 34
How is the medical missionary work?—It never has been presented in any other light before me from the commencement than the arm to the body. Here is the work, the organization of the ministry, to preach the Word of God, to carry forward that work for sick and for well. The medical missionary work, or any part of the work, is just as the hand is towards the body. That is always represented in that light and has always been presented in that light until more recently. Now they say, The Lord has shown Sister White that this work is just like the arm to the body; the Lord has shown her that. And it has been urged that because it was that work, there should be oneness of responsibility. That is so. It is as the arm is to the body. Now God wants all of us to have an interest in all the medical work. That is, Christ was bound all up in this work. It was the whole work. You see, He made no division at all. He did not feel that He was infringing on physicians, or anything like that, but He just proclaimed the truth; and when He saw the sick, He came right to them and asked if they believed that He would make them whole, or could make them whole; and some at once responded. Others hesitated. But the Lord Jesus Christ was just as ready to lay His hand upon the sick and the afflicted ones as He was to preach the gospel. And He was just as much at home in doing that work as He was in preaching the gospel. For it is a part of it.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 35
Preaching the Word of God is ministering, and the minister is to take the people right where they are, whatever their position, whatever their condition, and try in every way possible to help them. That is, to relieve the suffering; to go right into their homes; to tell them, I am ready to help you, and I will do the best I can. I am not a physician. You may be a minister, and you can tell them that you are a minister. Those that are sick in body are nearly always sick in soul. When Christ healed the paralytic, the very first work He had to do for that man was to give him peace of mind. He knew that that man was so disturbed, because the priests and rulers had always said to him, “It is your sins, it is your sins,” and that God has cast him off. There was no hope for him because of his sins. That is what they were always saying, and the poor man was left where there was no hope; but the very first word Christ uttered was Peace, that his sins were forgiven. That very thing was what he wanted. And O what peace and joy came into his heart. In regard to Christ, they began to abuse Him at once; but, says He, “that ye may know that the Son of man hath power to forgive sins, He says to the paralytic, Take up your bed and go to thy house.” [Matthew 9:6.]21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 36
There are the two blending. It is the ministry and the healing. They both go together, and there is no more separation than there is in this very instance. And God wants that every one of His ministers should not only have that faith in the work of our institutions, but that they should go further than that. They should every one of them have that confidence in themselves and in God, that God wants them to be a living example of what it means to be well, of what it means to have health. He wants them to show that the truth has accomplished a work for every one of them. And therefore those that assemble together in our conferences, etc., they are not always in a prepared state to judge righteously, and there is a confused and congested brain. Well, what are they to do? Before they assemble to worship God, every one should to the very best of their ability and power place themselves in the right relation to God and to health.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 37
If the head is congested, find out what is the matter. Or, it is the stomach. Something about the stomach is not right, and it has telegraphed its disturbed condition to the brain. What are you to do? [You] are to find out what [you] have been eating and what has put the stomach in that state of dyspepsia; and when you find out what has made that, then you take care of that stomach. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost; and when we put that body into a condition where we cannot help it to be in a better condition, we rob God of the honor that is due Him from those for whom He has given His Son, that they might have a complete salvation. The ministers are to understand how they can keep their bodies in the most healthful condition, that they can recommend the truth of God and teach it to others in the right manner. And when they assemble together in meetings, or any council, or any of our meetings, or wherever anything is to be planned, you should understand whether they are in a condition to do it intelligently. And they have no right to go there with impressions that will lead them to speak hastily, that will lead them to look at matter in a false light. They have no right to do it. They must place themselves in a condition of healthfulness and where they can judge righteously and that they can voice the voice of God. And in those things they can advance the work of God more than by all their talking and all their preaching that they can do.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 38
God wants the ministry to stand in its high and elevated position, and that man that shall stand in the pulpit to speak to the people should practice self-denial in eating only such food as the stomach can work into good blood, and not crowd into the stomach a mass of food that will get up a quarrel and disturbance, as your words will be likely to do in any of these assembles, unless you have a clean stomach. You want a clean stomach in order to have a clean mind. Here is the union of the two. It is the minister who stands before God, knowing that in every assembly there is God; in every assembly Christ is there, and angels of God that are ascending and descending the ladder, which is Christ Jesus. ...21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 39
Now they say, We want Sister White to come to the conference; we want you to come there to Battle Creek. Well, I dare not. Not but what I would like to come. What is the reason? I do not dare go because it is not the right time to have a conference. It is not [the] right time to have it in cold weather, to have our conference and have to sit in houses with furnaces and pipes and stoves. And they come together with their beclouded brains, and they are heated through the heated furnaces, or perhaps they have to go to bed in a cold bed, as I have done again and again, and nearly cost me my life to stay all night in a cold bed—I don’t propose to do it. God has a work for me to do, and I am going to do it to the very best intelligence I have; but when we have a conference, the light has been given to me that it should be with all the pure air of heaven possible for them to breathe in; it should be within sight of the trees and the beauties of nature around them and something to be grateful for, and then they are to have this drinking in and drinking in the purifying air. You will find the decisions in that conference will be of a hundredfold more value than in a conference that there is congestion on account of heat, and there is a letting down because of the heat. Now I cannot bear a fire in my room such mornings as this.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 40
Now this medical missionary work and the gospel—there is no division in it at all. The medical missionary work has ever been presented to me as the arm is to the body. The head is Jesus Christ. And the church, the ministry, is to co-operate with the arm, or the arm with the ministry; and they are to work just as a unit, and then the salvation of God will be revealed.21LtMs, Ms 132, 1906, par. 41
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