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The Retirement Years
us His covenant. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him”
(
Psalm 25:14
). We shall be instructed more deeply in the mystery of
God the Father and of Jesus Christ. We shall have visions of the King
in His beauty, and before us will be opened the rest that remaineth
for the people of God. We will soon enter the city whose builder and
maker is God—the city we have long talked of.—
Selected Messages
2:230, 231
.
[126]
Adequate Diet and Rest
Dear Brother Bates,
[
Written to Joseph Bates in the last year of his life. He died at the
age of eighty.
]
I have been informed that you have taken but one meal a day for a
period of time; but I know it to be wrong in your case, for I have been
shown that you needed a nutritious diet, and that you were in danger
of being too abstemious. Your strength would not admit of your severe
discipline.
You should not carry the burden of leading the church in meetings.
Younger hands should do this, and you should not bear the respon-
sibility. You should not feel that you are required to hold meetings
yourself, having the charge in different places, for your mind and
your physical strength are not equal to the task. You are in danger of
heaping responsibilities upon you and feeling that the Lord requires it
of you, after He has released you from active, physical taxation. You
should gracefully and honorably lay the burden down, and seek for
quiet rest, fitting up for your last change. You feel much tried and
grieved if your Advent brethren do not look to you to lead, when I
have been shown it is wrong for them to let the leading of the church
rest on you.
I think that you have erred in fasting two days. God did not require
it of you. I beg of you to be cautious and eat freely good, wholesome
food twice a day. You will surely decrease in strength and your mind
become unbalanced unless you change your course of abstemious diet.
I have advised Brother Charles Jones not to encourage or allow
[127]
you to go into different churches to labor. You are not in a condition
of body and mind to labor. You must stop and rest and be happy, and
not worry your mind about the responsibilities of the work and cause