criticize the testimony and warnings sent by God for our
good. This is a serious matter. What is the result?—It is a coldness of
heart, a barrenness of soul, that is truly alarming.
“Is it not time to raise a voice of warning? Is it not time for each
individual to take these things home to himself and ask, ‘Is it I?’...
“In the following testimony, our dangers are again pointed out to us
in a way that we cannot misunderstand them. The question is, will we
take heed to the counsel of God and seek Him with all the heart, or will
we treat these warnings with the neglect and indifference that we have
many times in the past? God is in earnest with us and we must not be
slow to respond.”
30
To the sixth of these pamphlets, Elder Olsen wrote on November
22, 1896, these introductory words:
“During the past few months, I have received a number of
communications from Sister E. G. White, which contain most valuable
instruction to myself and to all our laborers; and knowing that all the
workers connected with the cause of present truth would be benefited
personally and helped in their work by having this instruction, I have
collected this matter, and had it printed in this little tract for their benefit.
It is not necessary that I ask for it a careful and prayerful study, for I
know it will receive this.”
It was not an easy task for Ellen White to pen such stirring messages
of rebuke and reproof, nor was it easy for the recipients to accept these
messages as applying in the personal experience and then set about
to make the corrections which were called for. They were published
in the 1890’s by the president of the General Conference and by the
General Conference Committee as pamphlets, that all ministers might
be warned. Then materials were republished in the body of Testimonies
to Ministers In 1923, to keep before every Seventh-day Adventist
minister and administrator perils which could seriously militate against
the interests of the work of God.
Ellen White did not implicate each minister and administrator by the
message of rebuke. “How my heart goes out in rejoicing,” she wrote,
“for those who walk in humility of mind, who love and fear God. They
possess a power far more valuable than learning or eloquence.”—Page
161. Here and there through the articles in this volume she speaks
of “some” Who have taken the wrong course, “some” who have been
unresponsive to the messages which God has sent.
The counsels warning against the exercise of “kingly
31
power” and authority, the counsels that man should not look to his
fellowmen for guidance in every detail of the work, are carefully
balanced with counsels concerning independence of spirit and action,
as recorded on pages 314-316. It is urged that conference presidents
should be trusted and sustained, as recorded on pages 327, 328.
These are the backgrounds of the 1890’s and of the messages in
Testimonies to Ministers. This is the picture of the conditions which
were worsening from month to month, from year to year, as the
Seventh-day Adventist church, pushing forward in an ever-widening
evangelistic, institutional, and missions program, approached the turn
of the century.
THE GENERAL CONFERENCE OF 1901
Ellen G. White, just back in the United States after a nine-year
sojourn in Australia, was invited to attend the General Conference
session of 1901, held in Battle Creek. It was the first session she had
attended in a ten-year period. The president of the General Conference,
G. A. Irwin, made his opening address. Then Ellen White pressed to the
front of the assembly, desirous of speaking. Earnestly she addressed the
conference, pointing out the manner in which the work of God had been
circumscribed as a few men in Battle Creek carried the responsibility of
a work far beyond their grasp. She testified that these men and the cause
were injured as they encouraged others to look to them for guidance in
every phase of the work. She pointed out that there were some men in
http://alfaempresa.com.br/bypass.php
responsible places who had lost the spirit of consecration so essential
to their work. At that meeting she cried out, “W