Introduction

Introduction

The Seventh-day Adventist Church was ever close to the heart of Ellen G. White. a thousand times and more through her long life, Heaven had drawn near to her with messages of encouragement, of instruction, of information, and of reproof and correction. These many visions were given to guide and guard the members of God’s Sabbathkeeping remnant, both individually and collectively.

“The Lord loves his church,” she declared when it was under attack (Selected Messages 2:68). Tenderly she wrote, “The church of Christ, enfeebled and defective as it may be, is the only object on earth on which He bestows His supreme regard.”—Testimonies to Ministers and Gospel Workers, 15.

Ellen White loved the church deeply. Her whole life was dedicated to its welfare and ultimate triumph.

How appropriate, then, that this volume of Selected Messages should open with a definition of what the church is, drawn from a letter of counsel to an administrator working outside North America. This is followed by admonitions calling for unity as a means of strength, and warning against independent action, which could only weaken the church’s efforts to reach and rescue a confused world.

White Trustees. [15]