Mr No. 1161—Should Our Youth Go To Battle Creek?

[Battle Creek College was moved to Berrien Springs, Michigan, in the summer of 1901. However, in 1903, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg reopened Battle Creek College in the city of Battle Creek. His intention was that the school should continue to serve as a feeder institution for his medical school, the American Medical Missionary College. Ellen White strongly opposed Dr. Kellogg in this action and urged our young people no longer to look to Battle Creek for their college or medical education.]

[Written October 28, 1905, from St. Helena, California.]

As God's messenger I am to say to our people that we are not to encourage our youth to go to Battle Creek to receive an education. Fathers, mothers, the souls of your children are precious, and the warnings God has given that young men and young women should not be drawn to Battle Creek have now twice as much force as they had in the past.

The leading men who have taken a position directly against these warnings are strengthening one another to make of no effect the light God has given. Resistance after resistance to the movements that have been made against centering in Battle Creek will yet be seen. There are men teaching the Bible who have given up the truth they once believed and taught. They are teaching errors. The Lord is not pleased with this showing. He has mercifully placed in our possession several properties that can be used for sanitarium work, because He desires it to be seen that plants are made in many places.15MR 203.1

I am instructed to say to our people, Heed the warnings given you. You cannot see the end from the beginning. The great crowd of people going to Battle Creek is one of the warnings why our people should heed the warnings given to get out of Battle Creek.15MR 204.1

There are schools out of and away from Battle Creek that are in far less danger of losing their respect for the testimonies that have been coming to the people of God for the past half century. Representations are given me that the first proposition to reopen the school in Battle Creek was the first note of opposition to the light God has given. However, the result has proved as I was instructed it would be. The plausible excuses and reasons for the starting of this school were not inspired by God, but by the enemy of God, to confuse minds, and place our people where they would not know where they are standing. That this has been the result, I know. The testimonies borne are not heeded. The enemy is at work, and a neglect of the warnings sent is preparing the way for Satan to come in with his sophistries and errors.15MR 204.2

Ministers have gone to Battle Creek and are not presenting the truth but errors that strike at the foundation of our faith and our experience of the last half century. This is just as Satan meant it to be. Men are giving heed to seducing spirits and will become adept in misconstruing the Scriptures and testifying to falsehoods. Satan is looking on with great delight.15MR 204.3

I am given a message for all our people: “Believe them not, for they are working to draw minds away from the Scriptures.” They will so confuse Scriptures that many will lose their bearings. Satan is preparing fallacies of every kind to use in playing the game of life for souls.15MR 204.4

Parents, your children had better remain at home than to mingle with a mass of people who do not believe the truth. The education they receive in such a place will be so mingled with sentiments represented as wood, hay, and stubble, that the truth will lose its force upon their mind at a time when they need to have the truth confirmed.15MR 205.1

People will come to Battle Creek in great numbers. But few, if any of them, are converted, and the Sanitarium is not in a condition to show the medical missionary work that is to be done for the world. The time has come when I must say that the effort to draw our young people to Battle Creek is one of the schemes of Satan to confuse the minds of the youth and those who are older. There are ministers of the gospel who have lost their bearings, and as they lead others to walk in strange paths they are doing a work similar to that which Satan thought to carry on when the children of Israel were about to enter Canaan. Beware, beware.15MR 205.2

The Lord has opened the matter before me. Has Dr. Kellogg stated to any one, clearly and distinctly, the features of his faith? He has already mingled with unbelievers on the Sabbath, and he will need to take but half a step practically to renounce the Sabbath. I warn our people to come out from among them and be separate. The Lord will open—yes, he is opening—ways whereby your children can be given an education in medical missionary lines without endangering their souls. If the preparations in these places are not as complete as they are at Battle Creek they can do as much as was done when the work was first started at Battle Creek. We did not then have provision for sending out fully equipped physicians. In a short time we shall have facilities for giving the necessary requirements.15MR 205.3

Suppose that for a time the students cannot be sent out as fully accredited physicians. They can work in connection with other physicians and, if they follow the Lord's guiding, such valuable opportunities will present themselves that they will gain a better experience perhaps than if they had gone out with a diploma. It is the man's real value that will give him standing room and influence. The nurse or physician who works with the Lord Jesus will gain success. Read the history of the children of Israel as given in the book of Exodus, and let each soul place himself fully on the Lord's side. The experience of the Israelites is to be considered by the people of God living in these last days.15MR 206.1

God will give His presence and His grace to those who hearken to His voice and obey His commands. He will delight in all who reverence truth as a peculiar treasure. We must approach God feeling that we are sinners, and that His eyes are too pure to behold iniquity. We are to abhor everything that is opposed to God, putting away all unChristlike practices. We are to accept the yoke of Christ, asking him to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and to help us perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord.15MR 206.2

For a time after the warnings of God are given, if there is shown a careless, heedless disregard, the proving continues. The Lord bears long with the one who chooses his own way, giving him every opportunity to repent. But His judgments will certainly fall on those who go on in hardness of heart. Man may take to himself might, but if that might is opposed to God, and used to forward transgression and injustice, God will certainly punish the transgressor.—Manuscript 151, 1905.15MR 206.3

Ellen G. White Estate

Washington, D. C.,

November 7, 1985.

Entire Manuscript.