Chapter 4—A Message to Our Physicians

June 2, 1905.

I have a message to our physicians. Some of you have lost your bearings under the influence of the false impressions made upon your minds. You flatter yourselves that you are moving under the inspiration of divine advancement, but some are following the false inspiration that deceived the angels in the heavenly courts. Men who have been plainly warned are drinking in delusive sentiments, supposing that they are under the inspiration of truth and righteousness. They are greatly deceived in regard to the ground on which they are standing, and the self-confidence that they are imbibing. These men have been warned, but they do not believe the warning. The word has been sent them, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked,” but they are drinking in the sophistry of satanic devising.SpTB07 24.1

Should God deal with men as some who have had great light are dealing with their brethren, they would long since have been in that place where hope is unknown.SpTB07 24.2

Ponder well this statement. The hatred of some toward the ministers of the gospel is very evident. They have been caricatured and placed in a ridiculous light, because they would not be persuaded to do the things that the angel of God by their side impressed them not to do. The hatred manifested to them is recorded in the books of heaven as shown to God, not to man: for God by his Holy Spirit was influencing his servants not to be led to yield to the plans urged upon them.SpTB07 24.3

God calls upon all his ministers and all his medical workers to be on guard. Those who are following the devising and the plans and the subterfuges of the one so determined to have his own way are misrepresenting their Heavenly Father; for God is not instructing him. Evil angels are leading him on to do a work similar to that which was begun in heaven.SpTB07 24.4

I am awakened in the night season, and am given the message that was given to Isaiah: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.” Let every man stand in the counsel of God, and not in the counsel of those who have received the seducing sophistry of the science that of late has sought such a prominent place in our work.SpTB07 25.1

I present the word of the Lord: Let every soul aim at perfection of character in all the works and walks of life. This will cost us something that we may not have anticipated. It may empty our purse, but it will keep the soul fortified with clean principles. Our financial resources may be seriously affected, but it will enlarge our Christian experience, and place us on vantage-ground with the faithful of all ages. We shall be in fellowship with God, and with those who in body, soul, and spirit are serving him. Is not this worth everything to us?SpTB07 25.2

Is it not of the highest value to have the power to discern between righteousness and unrighteousness, between truth and error? Would that every man who claims to be doing God service would now realize his responsibility, and maintain that sanctified dignity conferred upon us, by our being chosen as God's representatives in this evil, selfish generation.SpTB07 25.3

To all who serve the Lord in truth and holiness, the heavenly current of grace comes in rich profusion. This grace we are to impart to others. Ever are we to keep the standard uplifted higher and still higher. Do we realize what it means to carry out the principles of truth and righteousness, what it means to repudiate every sentiment leading to high-handed injustice in dealing with God's servants? Men may mistakenly call these sentiments justice, but there is no justice in carrying out the purposes of the adversary. Does the Lord Jesus call upon us to perfect Christlike character, to be perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect? What does this mean? It means keeping the heart and soul and mind and strength in conformity to the will of God. It means obeying the principles of righteousness in this life, keeping the commandments of God.SpTB07 25.4

I am bidden to say to the church and to the whole world that unprincipled devising is being carried on. Robbery is being committed, and men say, I was given authority to do this thing. Who gave you this authority? and who urged you on in the course that for years you have been pursuing?—It was the father of rebellion, that the cause of God should stand before the world imposed upon and plundered by unprincipled, designing actions.SpTB07 26.1

The time has come when things are to be called by their right name. Sin is sin. The Lord Jesus Christ calls upon the human agencies for whom he has given his life to come to him in humility and contrition. His blood will cleanse them from all sin and every glossed-over iniquity. Some eyes will be opened. But I no longer appeal privately as heretofore to the individuals who have been cautioned and warned, and yet, though disobeying, stand forth in their apparent power and dignity, and claim to be doing the will of heaven, when they are departing from the plain principles of heaven, as given in the Word of God. Could their eyes be opened, they would see that their feet are standing on the very brink of ruin. Let every soul bow himself under the weight of the truth of the law proclaimed from Sinai's mount.SpTB07 26.2

Those who, when reproved by God, stop to reason in regard to the possible humiliation to result from confession and repentance, will never, never travel the narrow path or enter the strait gate. These words were spoken by the messenger of God. Every human agency, man, woman, and child, must be in that spiritual condition that will enable him fully and unreservedly to acknowledge the power and authority of the truth of the words of God, which all must eat and drink in order to have eternal life. The words of God are the bread of heaven. If we would be saved, we must make them a part of the daily life.SpTB07 26.3

Those who justify their course of action in going to law, and that with their brethren in the church, are acting out the spirit that developed the rebellion in heaven. God calls upon those who have light and are followers of Jesus to represent the perfect model upon which every character should be formed. But men have misrepresented God's character by adopting in their life practise a course of action militating against the truth, while at the same time claiming to be loyal. Some are loyal to the enemy of righteousness, but not to the God of truth.SpTB07 27.1

I have seen the caricaturing of men bearing burdens in the cause of God, and that before ministers of the gospel and those who pass under the name of medical missionaries. I have seen the satanic mimicking of God's servants. The actions of the one who did this showed him to be an accuser and an opposer of the servants of God, and yet those present did not reprove nor rebuke him, but by their silence justified the wicked ridiculing of the ministers of God, men who believe in God, and are acknowledged by him as his sons. This sacrilegious misrepresentation is an offense to God, which, if not repented of, will exclude the actors in it from the society of the redeemed in the heavenly courts: for they have perverted the way of the Lord.SpTB07 27.2

Those who claim to be children of God are to place themselves under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Thus only can they become His representatives, His children by spiritual regeneration. They are required to be conformed and assimilated to His character. His utterances of truth are to be their utterances, and His ways their ways. They are to be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.SpTB07 27.3

We need to study the message given to the church at Sardis. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Dead, and having the name of being alive—what a terrible condition!SpTB07 28.1

Of the one who has been working with intensity of effort to keep up a name, God says, “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” He has been so occupied with keeping up a name that he has neglected responsibilities of a most solemn character. God looks upon the name as dead, so far as correct influence is concerned. Those who follow in his tread will be dead, destroyed by false representations. There is nothing more dangerous to a professing Christian than to have merely “a name.”SpTB07 28.2

If any man in the service of God is devoting brain, bone, and muscle to the getting of a name, the enemy will step in, and will lead him to swell to such proportions that he is useless in the service of God. He may be an excellent evangelist, a gifted teacher, an attractive writer, a man of eloquent prayer, but the enemy takes advantage of his desire for self-exaltation, and leads him to make shipwreck of faith.SpTB07 28.3

An entire transformation is needed in the lives of those who have been in sympathy with the ones who have been and are still striving for a name, and to do those things that God has never appointed them as ministers of the gospel or medical missionary workers to do.SpTB07 28.4

A man standing in the high position of a leader, and yet setting an example of wrong-doing, advancing principles that God repudiates, will be taken in the snare of Satan. He may say wonderful things. He may visit the sick, help the poor, and go through the entire list of activities, and yet never bring honor to God.SpTB07 29.1

When the ambitious leader empties himself of self-glory, when he repents and confesses his sins, when he brings himself into subordination, then there will be hope of him. Until he gains this experience, the Lord has no use for him. Self must die. The character that he has been forming for years must be changed; for his own purpose has been to gain his own way and carry out his own purposes.SpTB07 29.2

It is a miserable delusion to have a name, and yet be without a connection with God, without spiritual life, without Christ, without a sense of God's presence in the soul. “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”SpTB07 29.3

To him whose ambitions have reached to the ends of the earth, whose activities have followed these ambitions, whose commercial enterprises have been so numerous, I must speak. To those who have for years sustained a course of action that God forbids, I would say, It is time for you to repent before God. Unless you do repent, whatever may be your calling, you will never see the kingdom of heaven. “Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come”SpTB07 29.4

“Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My Lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of.”SpTB07 29.5