Unity of Effort

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I know that the Lord means us good. I know that we are our worst enemies when we listen to the suggestions of the enemy. Let us not allow the truth, the precious, sanctifying truth of God, to pass by without our laying hold upon it. We are to be sanctified by the truth. The Lord will help us if we will but humble our hearts before Him, and accept Him as our personal Saviour. Only the living, acting power of our Redeemer can save us from the wiles of the enemy.

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The Word declares, «Ye are God’s husbandry.» But can He work upon our hearts unless we are willing to be worked? «Ye are God’s building.» He is willing to build up in each one of us a symmetrical character,-a character after the divine similitude. But He must have our cooperation.

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We do not reach high enough. We do not come to God with the faith that will not be denied. He says: «If any of you lack wisdom, let Him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven of the wind, and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.» We must lay hold of the promises, saying, «I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.» And when you receive the blessing, you will carry it to others. The atmosphere of heaven will surround your soul, because Christ will be with you. He says, «Let him take hold of My strength, that he may make peace with Me, and he shall make peace with Me.»

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Let us not allow the enemy to gain the victory. We are sorry that we are not standing on vantage ground, that we have not been standing there ever since the last General Conference. We are sorry that we did not make diligent work unto repentance; sorry that we did not cease our complaining and fault finding, and that we did not overcome the inclination to press others to the wall. My brethren, crowd yourselves into as small a compass as you please, but let your brethren alone. Do not try to press them into hard places. Place yourselves where God can give you the presence of His Spirit in your work. If your brethren see from your life that this Spirit is abiding in your heart, they will be led to go for help to the same source that you did. They will be led to obey the word. «I counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich: and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.»

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My brethren, clear your souls before God. Cease your criticizing and fault-finding. Satan will keep you at this till the Lord comes, if he can. He knows that thus he can most effectually hinder the Lord’s work. Backbiting is cannibalism. God calls upon His people to have nothing to do with it, but to come to Him, that they may have light and life and salvation. We need the wisdom that comes from above. Pure, this wisdom is, «peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated.» If it were not, the love of the Father would not have been so constantly exercised toward us.

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Again and again God has pardoned our transgressions. Now there are steps that we must take. And what are they? Let us try to understand. You will remember the time that the news came from Europe regarding the financial embarrassment of the publishing house in Christiania. Some in this country said that we ought to let the institution go; that the managers ought to have known better than to get so heavily in debt; that they had no right to be in such a situation. But had such advice been followed, would it have placed the workers in the publishing house in Norway on vantage ground, where they could carry on their work for the Master? Light was given me that the institution was to be placed where it could do its work. But the workers there could not do this without help. Their brethren in other lands were to help them, standing with them shoulder to shoulder, making their interests and their loss their own.

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And let me say that God does not design that the sanitarium that has been erected in Battle Creek shall be in vain. He wants His people to understand this. Now that the building has been put up, He wants this institution to be placed on vantage ground. He does not want His people to be looked upon by the enemy as a people that is going out of sight.

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We are now to make another effort to place our institutions on solid ground. Let no one say, because there is a debt on the sanitarium in Battle Creek, «We will have nothing more to do in helping to build up that institution.» The people of God must build that institution up, in the name of the Lord. It is to be placed where its work can be carried on intelligently. One man is not to stand at its head alone. Dr. Kellogg has carried the burden until it has almost killed him. God wants His servants to stand united in carrying that work forward. Because one man is one-sided, and another man is one-sided, this does not show that the work of God is to be one-sided.

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God’s people are to place the sanitarium in Battle Creek on vantage ground. How is this to be done?-I can not tell you. But I know that just as soon as the Holy Spirit shall come upon hearts, there will be unity in voice and understanding; and wisdom will be given us.

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I have given you these thoughts suggestions, trusting that they will have some influence upon you in your councils and in the movements that you will make. It is not only for that little corner in Battle Creek that we are laboring. We must stand on vantage ground before our own people and before world.

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God calls upon us to seek Him with the whole heart, and He declares that when we do this, He will be found of us. Shall we do it? In order to find Him, we must seek Him with every power of the being. A lawyer came to Christ with the question, «Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?» Knowing that he had been sent by the Pharisees, Christ laid upon him the burden of answering his own question. «What is written in the law? how readest Thou?» He asked. And the lawyer answered. «Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.»

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These principles are the foundation of Christian life. When we receive them into our hearts, when we live by them, we shall see the salvation of God. Then will His power rest upon His work as it has not rested since the first days of the message. Then we knew what it meant to see the salvation of God. We understood what God told us. God lives, and He calls upon us to come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty powers of darkness. «Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord, against the mighty.» God forbid that these words should be spoken of us!

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Because men have made mistakes, they are not to be uprooted. The blessing of God heals; it does not destroy. The Mighty Healer, the great Medical Missionary, will be in the midst of us, to heal and to bless, if we will receive Him. John said of Him, «Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.» He is waiting to come to us, to take away our sins, and fill us with His Spirit.

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A mighty host is arrayed against us. But God is on our side, and He has all power. He has separated us from the world for Himself, and He declares that we are to be a peculiar people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. He tells us not to rely upon men, but to put our trust in the Lord God of Israel. Then we shall gain the victory.