What is the real strength of a church? - Not its members; not those who are supposed to have knowledge and experience. A cultured intellect, unsanctified, is as nothing. Why should not the truth prevail in Nashville? Shall the truth be powerless because unsanctified hearts are seeking for the supremacy? Because unconsecrated tongues have given false representations? God calls for workers who will wear Christ's yoke. “Take my yoke upon you.” the Saviour says, “and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”SpM 288.3

I have a message for the laborers in the Southern field. Selfishness is seeking recognition and support. Other centers besides Nashville shall be created; but make this center your rallying point now. Take not the forthcoming council meeting in Graysville, but come right to the center of action. Then if all will humble their hearts in repentance and confession before God He will pardon.SpM 288.4

Those who engage in the work of uprooting things in Nashville are not led by the Spirit of God, but by another Spirit.SpM 288.5

Let the opposition develop; for such things will be seen in these last days. Amidst it all, God's work will move forward, leaving behind the elements that would block the way; for truth is truth, falsehood is falsehood. A lie is not the truth. Many misrepresentations have been in circulation, but why should the truth be blanketed? Remove the blanket. Why should not the truth prevail? Can we doubt God's word? What has He ever said that He has not done? Is it not written, My Word.... shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it.”SpM 289.1

Time is too short, our work too important, for any one to engage in an effort to tear down the work of another man whom God has appointed to service. My brethren, the schemes that seem so plausible to you, are not of God's devising. Satan will instigate all that he possibly can to discourage, to draw men of talent from the work of preaching the Word, publishing the truth, and circulating our publications in the highways and byways. You have not time to aid the enemy in his effort to drive God's workers out of the Southern field. This is not the work that God has given you.SpM 289.2

In the name of the Lord I say to the men who desire to do some great thing, Please, for the sake of your spiritual life, keep your hands off the ark of God. There is One who is ever working. He will take care of his holy work.SpM 289.3

Wherein lies the strength of the church? In unity, in humility, in perfect adherence to the Word of the Lord. In selfish superiority, men would take the throne, as if there was no God to direct and to give power to His workers. Let those connected with our publishing houses, our schools, and our medical institutions be men and women chosen of God and regenerated through His Holy Spirit. Let them seek for truth as for hidden treasure.SpM 289.4

My brethren, many of you have left your first love. “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works.” To those who do not repent, Christ declares, “I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” Put away the devisings and theories of men. No longer follow in the light of the sparks of your own kindling. Remember the words, “Except thou repent.” “I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place.”SpM 289.5

The Lord bids me say to those who are opposing the work centering in Nashville; Discern your spiritual condition. Return to the first love that you have left. Satan is seeking to entice all to leave their first love, and to devote their God-given talents to the enemy's service, tearing down that which the Lord desires to build up. I ask those at Nashville and at Graysville whose names I have not mentioned, to seek the Lord while He may be found. “Call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thought! Let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God; for he will abundantly pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”SpM 289.6

My brethren, read the seventeenth chapter of John, and see if you can not understand that you have left your first love. Christ prayed that his disciples might be one, as he was one with the Father. “As thou hast sent me into the world,” he declared to the Father, “even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their word: that they all may be one; as thou, Father, are in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one: and that the world may know that thou has sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee, and these have known that thou has sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”SpM 290.1

Opposition Against Making Nashville a Center

Light to Shine Forth