This excerpt from Testimonies for the Church, volume 6, pages 145-147, reflects God’s direct interest in the success of Seventh-day Adventist educational programs. Ellen White wrote this in 1900, just as the church was establishing colleges and worker training schools in many places, including Nebraska and Washington in the United States, as well as Australia, South Africa, and Denmark. —Editors
I call upon our school faculties to use sound judgment and to work on a higher plane. Our educational facilities must be purified from all dross. Our institutions must be conducted on Christian principles if they would triumph over opposing obstacles. If they are conducted on worldly-policy plans, there will be a want of solidity in the work, a want of farseeing spiritual discernment. . . .
We are not to elevate our standard just a little above the world’s standard, but we are to make the distinction decidedly apparent.
Many today have veils upon their faces. These veils are sympathy with the customs and practices of the world, which hide from them the glory of the Lord. God desires us to keep our eyes fixed upon Him, that we may lose sight of the things of this world.
As the truth is brought into practical life, the standard is to be elevated higher and higher to meet the requirements of the Bible. This will necessitate opposition to the fashions, customs, practices, and maxims of the world. Worldly influences, like the waves of the sea, beat against the followers of Christ to sweep them away from the true principles of His meekness and grace; but we are to stand as firm as a rock to principle. It will require moral courage to do this, and those whose souls are not riveted to the eternal Rock will be swept away by the worldly current.
We can stand firm only as our life is hid with Christ in God. Moral independence is wholly in place when opposing the world. By conforming entirely to the will of God, we shall be placed upon vantage ground, and shall see the necessity of decided separation from the customs and practices of the world.
We are not to elevate our standard just a little above the world’s standard, but we are to make the distinction decidedly apparent. . . .
Many teachers permit their minds to take too narrow and low a range. They do not keep the divine plan ever in view, but are fixing their eyes upon worldly models. Look up, “where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God,” and then labor that your pupils may be conformed to His perfect character. Point the youth to Peter’s ladder of eight rounds, and place their feet, not on the highest round, but on the lowest, and with earnest solicitation urge them to climb to the very top.
Seventh-day Adventists believe that Ellen G. White (1827-1915) exercised the biblical gift of prophecy during more than 70 years of public ministry.
