The Beginning of the SDA Message – 2

If you remember from last month, John Wessels, a wealthy businessman living in South Africa was
instrumental in bringing missionaries to South Africa to preach the Seventh-day Adventist message. He financed the missionaries travel expenses and after they were settled, he built a sanitarium because he was convinced that medical missionary work was a key element in the preaching of the SDA message. When everything seemed to be going well, according to God’s plan, something strange happened.

Some of his wealthy friends came to him and said, “We would like to take some of our vacations at the sanitarium that you built. The sanitarium really has quite a reputation and we want to be close by. But, you know we drink a little and we puff a little, and we like to play cards. We certainly don’t want to give up those things when we come and visit your sanitarium.

Would you consider building a few rooms, we’ll pay for it, where we can have a smoking room and where we can serve a little ale and then a place where we can play our cards undisturbed?”

Great Grandpa thought about that for awhile, and decided perhaps not to do it. But they prevailed on him and finally he thought, “Well it shouldn’t do any harm because they won’t be mixing with the other patients.” So he allowed them to do it.

One week later (now remember it took at least three to four weeks at that time for a letter to arrive from North America), but one week later after he made the decision a letter arrived from Ellen G. White telling him that she had been shown in a vision that he was not using his finances and his influence correctly. A second letter came. A third one came. The fourth one came, and after the fourth one he became quite perturbed and he said, “What does this little old lady over in America know about my business anyway? It’s my money. And I will do with it as I please.”
So he did.

Then something strange began to happen. At this time he had the monopoly on all the feed stores, supplying the farmers for their supplies, their grain, their implements, and their fertilizer. He had the monopoly in the whole country, but one by one he started losing his stores. He couldn’t figure out why. One day he went up north to sell one of his ranches because he needed to cover some debts.

While he was up there he received a telegram from his brother, who was the business manager at the sanitarium. The telegram was very short but very succinct. It said, “Sanitarium burnt down. Come home immediately.”

He took the first train that he could find and it took him 2 days to travel the 800 miles home. When he finally pulled into the Capetown Station, he was met by his brother Henry. There he told Henry, “It’s too bad that the sanitarium burnt down, but I’m sure glad we have insurance and we can recoup our financial losses.” Henry hung his head and said, “John, I meant to tell you this before but I tried to economize because of the bad turn that some of our businesses have taken and I did not renew the insurance. There was quite a bit of money owing on the expansion of the sanitarium.”

Great Grandpa had lost most of his business. He had two stores left and he had kept his favourite ranch, the one which he always said he would go to and retire. It was called, Beau Fountaine, meaning “Beautiful Fountain.”

Finally it came to the point when he decided that the only way out to cover his debts (because now those people who were his friends before were pressing him to get their money) was to sell his last ranch. So he went up north and he sold Beau Fountaine. 28 days after he sold that piece of property vthey discovered on that ranch, the richest diamond mine this world has ever known by the name of Kimberly. Twenty- eight days.

He went back to Capetown, literally a broken man. All of his friends had forsaken him, except his old neighbour Henry Van Druitten. As for his beautiful mansion with its gorgeous furniture on the side of the hill the creditors came and even took that. Under South African law at that time, there were only three things that he could keep: kitchen or dining room furniture, a sewing machine if they had one, and bedroom furniture.

Up to this time the letters kept coming from E.G.White. To date there were 69 letters of which 64 were unopened.
On the day that he had to move out to the outskirts of town where the poorest of the poor people lived, he found a little two-, room shack and Henry van Druitten brought an ox cart with two oxen. They took out the bedroom furniture, the old sewing machine, and the dining room furniture. As they turned the hutch in the dining room on its side to get it out the door, 69 letters fell from its top shelf.

Grandpa took those letters and he put them into his overcoat pocket, which he was wearing because it was a cold winter’s evening. There this despondent, broken man went to the outskirts of town, where the poor people lived.

By candlelight that evening he took out those letters all written by Ellen G. White. Only the first five were opened. They had postmarks on them from San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, New York, Boston, Frankfurt Germany, Sydney Australia, and Oslo Norway. He arranged these in the chronological order of their postmarks and he started to read them. In these letters he had read his whole life story. (Most are now filed at Andrews University) Ellen White had predicted that the sanitarium would burn to the ground. She predicted that three fire departments would come to the rescue, but there would be nothing that they could do. And that’s the way it happened. Three fire departments came, and nothing that they tried could stop that ravenous fire.

So when I visited the site 12 years ago before leaving South Africa, her quote came to mind, that “never as long as time shall last, will there ever be a building on that site…. The rains, the wind going through the trees and the grass will be a mute testimony to what might have been.”

What might have been? That’s not all she told him in those letters. She reminded him of his wealth, and then she made two significant statements. The first one was that if he had used his influence and Ms finances correctly the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa would never have been. Do you know what that means? That means that thousands of lives would never have been lost.

Then’she makes the most significant statement that to me, I’ve ever heard, and she said, “John, if you had used your influence and your means, which God entrusted to you, correctly, the Government of South Africa would be well disposed to the Seventhday Adventist Church and message.” Do you know what that means? That very well means that the Government of South Africa may have been, a Seventh-day Adventist Government. Today this country is in the news a lot because of hatred between black and white. If, at the helm, there were people who were “well disposed to the Seventh-day Adventist message”, just think, how the course of history could have been different! As he read the remainder of those letters, they told him so many things about incidents at the sanitarium, that he thought no one knew about. She wrote to him about the special favours to some of the doctors, the special favours to some of the patients, and his lack of getting money for the educational work. He vowed, as he read the last letter at just about sunrise the next morning, that if the Lord would give him another chance, he would do his best to live up to the counsel of the Spirit of Prophecy. He prayed for many months. Finally he was convicted, to start up his feed business again. He started with a small store and again the Lord blessed him. Pretty soon he had a good business going. Soon he developed that business and purchased more property and again the Lord blessed. At this time not only was there a diamond rush in South Africa, but there was also a gold rush. On one property of his they discovered gold, and today the family is still operating the mine, called The Wessels Gold Mine.

Much of the funds that has been generated from that mine has gone into missionary work. But never again, would the Lord give him the equivalent of his first opportunity. Would you like to know how much money has been taken out of the DeBeers Consolidated Mine at Kimberly? In today’s money, 18.5 billion dollars. Could you begin to understand what that would have meant for the Lord’s work?

But Great Grandpa decided to do the best with what he had. He had sent one son, my grandfather, my mother’s father, over to Battle Creek to study. While there he wrote home and said, “We are building a church here, I’d like for you to help.” So Great Grandpa wrote a cheque for 10,000 pounds, today’s equivalent to $150,000 and he said, “Here use it for the church.” And Grandma, from her own funds, also wrote a cheque for 10,000 pounds and said, “Here install an organ.” So the first pipe organ in the denomination was installed in Battle Creek in the Old Tabernacle.

There is another sideline too that is interesting. Old Doctor Kellogg, when he started his Kellogg business, was aided by funds that were a loan from Great Grandpa to him. However, he and Great Grandma felt impressed that there was more that they could do. As they discussed their finances, they thought that they wanted to make another gift. Just the week before they had heard that Mrs. White was travelling to Australia and that she would be there for at least three or four months, so they decided to write a cheque for a certain amount and mail it to Australia. It took 26 days, minimum, for a letter to arrive from South Africa by ship to Australia.

Sister White was in Australia, working with the brethren, planning to establish a school. In a vision (which has been kept on record) she saw a clearing of land with trees on one side, and trees on the other and a six-foot long furrow – six inches wide and six inches deep – in the middle.

Without any trace of horses, oxen, tractors (which they didn’t have then) or any implements of any kind to have dug this furrow, there was just the furrow. In the vision the Lord told her, “This would be the place to establish the school.”

The next morning, Tuesday morning, as they were leaving to go and search for a piece of property they picked Sister White up with the buggy. They started off in a certain direction and she asked, “Where are you going?” “We’re heading out towards a place where we think we should look for property.”
“No, turn around go this way,” She insisted.

“No we can’t go that way. The property out that way is so poor.” In those days they called the soil in that area, ‘sour soil’. “You cannot establish a school there. The school must be established where you can have, agriculture.” Thus they argued with her, but Sister White would not give in.

“We’ve got to go in this direction.” She was adamant now. And they finally gave in and went her way.
After driving most of the day, they were hot, tired and hungry. As they were rounding a bend in the dusty little road, Sister White suddenly yelled, “Stop!” They helped her off the buggy and she walked into a clearing. There they found, a six-foot long furrow, six inches wide and six inches deep without a trace of human hands or implements, and she told them, “This is the piece of property we’re going to buy. Find out who owns it.” They threw their hands up in despair and said, “Number one we don’t have the money. Number two, this is a rotten part of the country.”

“Just follow those instructions,” she firmly replied. To prove her wrong, they took some samples of the soil very quietly that evening to the university, which is today the University of Australia, Sydney campus. They gave it to one of the agricultural experts and said, “Test this soil for us.” The next morning, when the conference office opened, there was a gentleman sitting in front of the office waiting for them. He said, “Where did you get this soil? I don’t know of any soil around here that is so rich and so good.” What they had found was that there was a pocket of land surrounded by this rotten ‘sour soil’. One hurdle was crossed and now they faced the biggest hurdle, the money. In the office, they kept asking her, “Where are we going to get the money?”

She knew her Bible well and simply replied, “The Lord will provide.” Wednesday came, then Thursday. Then Friday morning and still no money. The owners of the property had given them only until Friday to come up with the money. They were desperate, and very despondent. The mood at the conference office was very gloomy that day. Then in the mid-morning mail came a letter with a postmark on it from Capetown, South Africa. Remember it was mailed at least 26 days before. As they opened that letter they found in it a cheque in Great Grandmother’s handwriting made out to a bank in Australia (it was a cashier’s cheque) for the exact amount of money that they needed to buy Avondale College.

I do not like to moralize at the end of a story but if you ask me what I think of world events, I have an answer. If you ask me what I think of the fate in history, I may have an answer. If you ask me what I think about the counsel of the Spirit of Prophecy, it should be obvious to you that I have a very definite answer and that I believe in it.

Now I have a question that I have to ask you to think about. God gave Great Grandpa 18+ billion dollars that He entrusted in his care, and He trusted him to be an instrument through which He could work. Great Grandpa failed, but because He is a God of love, He gave him a second chance. This second chance was not the equivalent of the first.

You all have talents, whether they be talents of speaking, talents of leadership, talents of money (wealth is not a sin as many people may think) or some other talent. God expects you to use your talents, you are stewards of them, don’t waste them. You are not guaranteed another chance. God will help you if you ask him.