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Testimonies for the Church Volume 6
but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest
He also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity
of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if
thou continue in His goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.”
Romans 11:16-22
. Very plainly these words show that there is to be
no disparaging of the agencies which God has placed in the church.
Sanctified ministry calls for self-denial. The cross must be uplifted
and its place in the gospel work shown. Human influence is to draw
its efficacy from the One who is able to save and to keep saved all who
recognize their dependence on Him. By the union of church members
with Christ and with one another the transforming power of the gospel
is to be diffused throughout the world.
In the work of the gospel the Lord uses different instrumentalities,
and nothing is to be allowed to separate these instrumentalities. Never
should a sanitarium be established as an enterprise independent of the
church. Our physicians are to unite with the work of the ministers of
the gospel. Through their labors souls are to be saved, that the name
of God may be magnified.
Medical missionary work is in no case to be divorced from the
gospel ministry. The Lord has specified that the two shall be as closely
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connected as the arm is with the body. Without this union neither part
of the work is complete. The medical missionary work is the gospel in
illustration.
But God did not design that the medical missionary work should
eclipse the work of the third angel’s message. The arm is not to become
the body. The third angel’s message is the gospel message for these
last days, and in no case is it to be overshadowed by other interests and
made to appear an unessential consideration. When in our institutions
anything is placed above the third angel’s message, the gospel is not
there the great leading power.
The cross is the center of all religious institutions. These institu-
tions are to be under the control of the Spirit of God; in no institution
is any one man to be the sole head. The divine mind has men for every
place.
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, every work of God’s ap-
pointment is to be elevated and ennobled, and made to witness for the
Lord. Man must place himself under the control of the eternal mind,
whose dictates he is to obey in every particular.