MR No. 840—Not Processed

MR No. 841—Ellen White's Deep Conviction of Her Prophetic Call

[Requested for publication in the Adventist Review. Most of Letter 86, 1906, has been released before and may be found in Manuscript Releases 213, 295, and in This Day With God, 76. The paragraphs below are the only parts of Letter 86, 1906, not previously released.]10MR 343.1

Elder George I. Butler: My dear brother, I have written a long letter to you, and to our people in Nashville and Graysville, and to all the churches in the South, I am greatly burdened because of the disunion coming in among our people. Even the words of warning that the Lord has given to poor souls to save them are made a cause of contention. Why will they not receive them and work to the point of becoming one in Christ Jesus? Why will they not cease fighting against God and despising the messages He has sent?10MR 343.2

I feel deeply over these things by day and by night. During the past night I could not sleep after eleven o'clock. I have an intense interest that this testimony shall be received, for it belongs to all our people. You are well acquainted with my work. Before you were converted you believed the messages sent by God. You accepted the evidences that the Lord Jesus had selected me to do a special work and had entrusted me with communications for His people. You saw that the Lord had made a frail instrument a channel for the communication of light to His people, who were in need of reproof and instruction in righteousness....10MR 343.3

Elder Butler, how can I express the thought of the strength that my faith has gained from the experience of trusting the Lord, and in venturing to do that which He has bidden me to do in writing and in standing before audiences large and small? These occasions are my witnesses that Christ is helping me. I endeavor at all times to speak in the simplicity that Christ gives me, and when on my feet before a congregation, I know beyond a question that Christ is revealed to me with such marked distinctness that there is no more excuse for doubt and fearfulness than if He stood revealed before the whole congregation. Truly I can say, “I know in whom I have believed.”10MR 344.1

I feel so sorry for those who are being misled in their Christian experience, because they do not need to be. God is true. He says, “My grace is sufficient.” God is faithful, who will not suffer any soul to be tempted above that he is able. God weighs every trial before He permits it to be allotted. He knows every circumstance, and He will give the light essential to resist temptation, unless the one tempted refuses to discern the truth because he does not wish to know. Then God leaves him to his own choice. If he chooses the darkness, he will have it. Every time he yields to Satan's dictation, in order to maintain his own objectionable dignity, he is placed where he does not choose to know and to understand the truth. It is not God's way that he wants, but his own way, for God's way would not glorify self.—Letter 86, 1906, pp. 1, 2, 4. (To George I. Butler, from Sanitarium, California, March 8, 1906.)10MR 344.2

White Estate

Washington, D. C.,

March 25, 1981.