Watch the Video: “God’s Design in Our Sanitariums”

In this video, I introduce and then read the letter. You can listen to it while you drive. If you aren’t already subscribed to my YouTube channel, click the button that says, “Watch on YouTube” located on the video and you can subscribe there. For those who would like to read the letter, it can be read after the video. This way it can benefit those who can’t watch videos.

“GOD’S DESIGN IN OUR SANITARIUMS”

“And let them measure the pattern.” Ezekiel 43:10

“Yea hath God said” or did a woman say it?

“In these days He speaks to them by the testimonies of His Spirit.” 5T 661

Dear Brethren:

These pages have been compiled, prepared, and sent by a veteran sanitarium worker who has observed and has experienced much, if not all, of the changing fortunes and vicissitudes of our medical institutions. From the days of our first Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, in which I served four years, to our new Bates Memorial Sanitarium venture in Yonkers, New York, to the medical staff of which I have been appointed a member.

Seventh-day Adventists have been operating sanitariums and health institutions for almost a century; our first Health Reform Institute having opened in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1866.

Financial Investment in Sanitariums and Hospitals

We now have a church investment in sanitarium and hospital enterprises in excess of ninety million dollars. At present we are embarking upon our newest sanitarium venture, the beautiful Bates Memorial, so near New York City, for the benefit of the millions living in the nation’s greatest metropolis. This will incur an additional investment of one and a half million dollars.

Questions to Consider

Would it not seem highly fitting and might it not be very rewarding and in the end financially profitable for us to pause, carefully consider, and rediscover “God’s Designs,” “Reasons,” and purposes in directing His people in the establishment of “many sanitariums” throughout the World Field? And might we not at the same time discover just how we are measuring up to God’s ideals and designs and also carefully assess and evaluate what substantial returns accrue to the church from this large investment in personnel and treasure?

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Time of No Sanitariums

Let us not forget, there was a time when the Advent movement had no sanitariums, no physicians, no schools for the training of nurses, and no medical college. All of these had their birth in that precious Gift of the Spirit, the Spirit of Prophecy to the Remnant Church. And for all of these medical institutions and medical personnel, there was one crowning mission and objective — the Advancement of Present Truth.

Times Have Changed

“Times have changed,” world conditions have changed, medical practice has undergone a great change, S.D.A. thinking and hospital planning have mightily changed — reflected so clearly in the shift from the Spirit of Prophecy and pioneer sanitarium, healthful living and preventive medicine concept, to the city community hospital concept. But let us ever keep one point crystal clear in our thinking.

God Doesn’t Change

God has not changed. “I am God. I change not.” His “Design” for S.D.A. sanitariums has not changed. Whatever God’s design, purpose, and objectives to be achieved for His church and for the world through sanitarium ministry were at the beginning of the movement, these have not undergone a tiny shade or a tittle of change but remain identical to the present hour. but men, “wise above that which is written” reason and assert — “True, the original objectives remain the same but only our methods for achieving those objectives have undergone a great change.”

The Divine Sanitarium Pattern

Even a casual glance at the Divine sanitarium pattern would reveal that not only did the Divine medical missionary clearly indicate all of the objectives to be achieved through sanitarium ministry but pointed out in minute detail the methods which alone could be successful in reaching those objectives. And as we may now compare that which we have with the vision of that which these sanitariums were to be, we may rightly evaluate the sorry spectacle which has resulted from substituting worldly, human plans and men’s devisings for Heaven’s plans and methods of labor.

God’s Purpose for Sanitariums Remains the Same

From the chapter “God’s Design in Our Sanitariums,” we quote, “As our work has extended, and institutions have multiplied, God’s purpose in their establishment remains the same. The conditions of prosperity are unchanged. The human family is suffering because of transgression of the laws of God. The Lord desires that men shall be led to understand the cause of their suffering and the only way to find relief. He desires them to see that their well-being, physical, mental, and moral, depends upon their obedience to His law. It is His purpose that our institutions shall be as object lessons showing the results of obedience to right principles. In the preparation of a people for the Lord’s Second coming a great work is to be accomplished through the promulgation of health principles. The people are to be instructed in regard to the needs of the physical organism, and the value of healthful living as taught in the scripture, that the bodies which God has created may be presented to Him a living sacrifice, fitted to render Him acceptable service.” 6T 224

Special Light to Shine Through S.D.A. Sanitariums

“The Lord years ago gave me special light in regard to the establishment of a health institution where the sick could be treated on altogether different lines from those followed in any other institution in our world.” (How do our community hospitals now measure up to this “design”?) “It was to be conducted upon Bible principles as the Lord’s instrumentality, and it was to be in His hands one of the most effective agencies for giving light to the world. It was God’s purpose that it should stand forth with scientific ability, with moral and spiritual power. All who should act a part in it were to be reformers, having respect to its principles, and heeding the light of health reform shining upon us as a people (with hundreds of non-S.D.A. employees, many of whom make no profession of religion, how do we measure up on this “design”?) God designed that the institution which He should establish should stand forth as a beacon of light, of warning and reproof.” 6T 233.

Is any S.D.A. Informed?

Is there one informed S.D.A. who can really feel that we are now achieving even one of the above “designs,” “purposes,” and “objectives” in the present ambitious, wide-spreading, ostentatious, worldly program being carried on in most of our medical institutions? Thank God for the few that are still trying, against great odds, to hold the line.

Has Health Reform Degenerated?

Have not our health reform teaching, educational, enlightening, convicting, evangelical, once reformatory sanitariums, formerly conducted by humble, devoted, consecrated S.D.A. physicians and nurses, very largely degenerated into community hospitals in which hordes of Christless, Godless, infidel or atheist, Hittite and Moabite physicians, too often slaves to evil habits, call the plays, prescribe the diet, the drinks, and the drugs, and our nurses and helpers must carry out their instructions, dance to their tunes, and become mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water” to these modern Philistines. I grant there is an occasional noble exception.

How Would the Pioneers React to the Sanitarium Changes?

If our pioneers, who suffered, prayed, and sacrificed to launch these institutions, and to chart for them a safe course, could realize the incredible loss of vision, the startling change in their course and direction, and the appalling degeneration of fundamental sanitarium ideals, would they not “turn over in their graves”?

James White Would Rather Die Than See Sanitariums Mismanaged

One of these dear old pioneers, Elder James White, who with his devoted companion, Ellen G. White, whose eyes were Divinely anointed, and who had so much to do in starting the first S.D.A. sanitariums declared, “If the great adversary can mold these institutions according to the world’s standard, his object is gained — If those who stand in responsible positions are weak in moral power, and vacillating in principle, inclined to lead toward the world, there are enough who will be led. Evil influences must not prevail. I would rather die than live to see these institutions mismanaged, or turned aside from the purpose for which they were brought into existence.” 1T 107.

There are photographs that cannot be taken by a split-second snapshot. Some pictures require time exposure. In like manner, it requires time, effort, and prayerful study to get the complete picture of “God’s Design For Our Sanitariums.”

Measure the Sanitarium Pattern

“And let them measure the pattern.” Indeed, it requires time to take the full measure of the true sanitarium pattern. How long has it been since we took its measure? Herein is our apology for this incomplete but lengthy document.

A Prophet Gave Specifications for Sanitarium Work

Be it known that God gave to this people, “by a prophet,” as minute and detailed specifications regarding the objectives and methods of sanitarium work as Moses was given for making the wilderness tabernacle or as King David had “by the Spirit” for constructing the permanent temple of Worship upon Mount Zion. the King was given the weight for every basin, spoon, and flesh hook. He had minute specifications for the entire building, and for every piece of furniture. “All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern.” 1 Ch 28:19.

Check out how I did hot and cold hydrotherapy on my smashed foot using my creek for the cold water. Hot and Cold Therapy Using my Creek