Protests and Appeals

The Spirit of prophecy writings, like the burning words of the prophets of old, abound in solemn protests and appeals. This is an outstanding characteristic of the personal testimonies. If we neglect to read them we miss one of the great and most urgently needed parts of these divine messages. As the individuals to whom they were given are gone and unknown, we can the more readily apply them to ourselves and others living today. There are flaming protests against injustice of every kind and oppression of the poor and blind. (See Testimonies for the Church 3:514-516.) There are appeals for the needy and aged. (Read the story of Hannah Moore in Testimonies for the Church 1:666-680.) We find stirring appeals that we refrain from novel reading, a deadly plague of our time that ruins both mind and morals. How often have we observed the evil fruit of fiction in the home, especially in the daughters and wives, not only of lay members but of ministers among us. And that wicked thing is growing today. (See Testimonies for the Church 3:151, 152, 471, 472, and many other places.)FSG 398.1

There are most stirring warnings against all impurity in heart or home or life. The results of yielding to the indulgence of sensual pleasures are vividly portrayed. There are appeals for honest, sturdy, useful lives and above all for converted lives in genuine holiness. But space forbids mention of other matters just as timely. Our people need now to read and heed the warnings and appeals. No minister among us does his duty to the advent church or to himself if he fails to study and reread these solemn personal messages to this generation so weak in moral fiber and spiritual vision. To sense the sinfulness of sin and to discern the beauty of holiness is today a lost art with nearly all.FSG 399.1

These personal testimonies are a divine mirror in which we may see our own hearts and know what we and others really are. There is nothing like them in present-day literature. Popular novelists give a perverted view of the lusts and evils within men and women, that often does harm. But in these testimonies we get God’s view of what we and our brethren and mankind in general really have come to in this sinful age. I maintain that in our day no one can fully preach the gospel in the best way to help sinners unless he studies these divine messages.FSG 399.2

We must never yield to the trend that would put these aside as obsolete products of a crude age or frontier life. Every minister should study them over and over again and learn to think of himself and his fellows as revealed in these divine photographs of modern man. Not only do they reveal what human hearts today are, but they also make plain God’s love for the erring, and bring the comfort, courage, and warnings so greatly needed now.FSG 399.3

A large number of these personal testimonies came to ministers and other church workers. We have known many of the men who received them and can testify that the results of this individual help was most excellent. These messages when addressed to ministers often emphasized two points the danger of spiritual pride and our failure as leaders to train other younger laborers, and to be willing to share responsibility with them. The keynote in them all was that Christ should be exalted and sinners saved. They urged and urged that the life of every minister must be a godly example.FSG 400.1

There have now and then been members and even ministers who have given the writings of the Spirit of prophecy a place they were not designed to fill. It is not the Lord’s plan that we should take striking extracts from these messages and use them as a text for our sermons. Mrs. White always preached from the Bible as the basis of all faith and duty. We should do likewise. Then, too, we should never read from the Testimonies as doctrinal proofs for non-Adventists. Every Adventist doctrine is founded wholly on the Word of God.FSG 400.2

Another thing, it is not God’s purpose that the Spirit of prophecy books should be made the basis of ministers’ or missionary conventions. The Bible is the blueprint for such institutes or gatherings, and they are to rest on the Word of God. As a young minister I attended a workers’ meeting where every speaker read only from the Spirit of prophecy books, and the Bible was scarcely used. Even though it seemed a good meeting, and although there was unity of spirit and earnest prayer in the services, somehow the plans proposed miscarried and the outgrowth of that meeting was a great disappointment. I asked one of the veterans in the cause concerning this, and he said that he had seen such meetings now and then, though not often, and it was his experience that God did not recognize or bless an institute when the leaders built on the Spirit of prophecy instead of building on the Bible. This man has unbounded faith in the prophetic gift, but from years of experience he felt that although the Testimonies should be used in institutes and by departmental leaders, they must not in any way take the place of the Bible.FSG 400.3