Guidance by Chance Methods
299
Will it furnish us with experiences that will glorify God, for us
to decide what is His will by the dropping of a card or a coin, and
observing how it falls? No, no. Such tests as this will spoil the religious
experience of the one who adopts them. Everyone who depends upon
such things for guidance, needs to be reconverted. [
Inserted by Mrs.
E. G. White when reading this report
.]
After the great disappointment of the Adventist people in 1844,
we had all these things to contend with over and over again. Then I
was raised up from a bed of sickness, and sent to give a message of
reproof for such fanaticism. They used different methods. They would
select a sign, and then follow the course indicated by the sign.
In one case they would not bury a child that had died, because they
understood from the sign that they had set, that the child was going to
be raised from the dead.
I was sent to bear my testimony regarding the fallacy of these
things that they were using as signs. According to the light that God
has given me, there is no safety for us except to take a “Thus saith the
Lord”....
W. C. White: Suppose it comes to a business transaction. I see a
property that looks good to me, I ask the Lord to tell me whether to
buy it or not. Then I adopt the manner of tossing up a piece of money,
[328]
and if it comes one side up, I buy it; and if the other side comes up, I
will not buy it.
E. G. White: God has given me the message that no such thing
is to come into the work of His cause. It would lower it into the dust.
This is how it was presented to me. It would divert the mind from
God and His power and His grace, to commonplace things, and the
enemy would use these commonplace things so as to show something
wonderful as the result of following these man-made tests....
W. C. White: Sister Harris says that Brother Harris always prays
before he tosses up his coin. Would not that make some difference?
E. G. White: Not a whit of difference. Did not the fanatics of
whom I have spoken always pray when they were going through those
awful experiences in the State of Maine? This plan leads to trusting
in what the human can do. What we want is not less of the power of
God, but more. We want a solemnity that will come alone from the
God of heaven. Then we shall work in accordance with His divine
teachings....