Walk in the Light by John Lipke

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 11, 1903

Walk in the Light

By John Lipke

JOHN LIPKE

The Lord works everywhere by his Spirit to develop the character of Christ in man. His ways of accomplishing this are manifold. If man submits entirely to the Spirit of God and walks in the light, God will make him a power for good wherever he is. This the Lord has demonstrated to us in the experience of a German brother, who lives near Blumenau, in the State of Santa Catharina, Brazil.

From his youth he sowed wild oats, living only to please self, and did not even believe in God. One of the results of such a life was sickness. On a journey overland he became very sick, and had to lie in a hospital far away from his home and family. As he saw there how death claimed its victims, he was reminded by the Spirit of God that this might be his fate also. He was aroused, and prayed to God for strength to reach home and see his wife and children once more. The Lord helped him to get home. There he treated himself with nature's remedies, and recovered his health. Later he opened a butcher shop, but instead of serving God, he served himself again.

He became acquainted with our people at this time, and said that if ever he became a Christian, he wanted to be an Adventist. But he could not get loose from his prosperous business. One day he read the parable of the unfruitful fig tree, and how the gardener had asked permission to dig around it another year. This caused him to remember his promise to serve the Lord if he would make him well. Then it came to him that if he would not serve the Lord, perhaps he would cut him down, like the fig tree. This led him to sell his butcher shop, and begin farming. Then he accepted one point of truth after another, and became especially intelligent in regard to health reform, as he read much on this subject in books and papers. To-day he is a strict vegetarian. How the Lord can change human beings!

Then he saw that his children must have a school. So he secured a teacher from our school, and though only a

farmer, he boarded her and paid her salary. Other children in the neighborhood came to the school. As he learned more of healthful living, he felt it his duty to treat the sick. He followed the voice of the Spirit of God, and the Lord gave him success. He first took one patient in his home, then another. But as soon as the people found that they could get help, they began to come, until he could not take them all in. In order to accommodate more patients, he enlarged his house. The writer has been often at his home, and has been made to wonder at the marvelous work the Lord can do through a humble instrument. He used only simple remedies, as air, sand, water, light, and a strict vegetarian diet. He has had success in treating even difficult, almost hopeless cases. For instance, he treated a crazy man, who had been nailed up in a woodshed for five months, then stayed at a hospital for about six weeks, and left it without being cured. Our brother treated him about two weeks, and he went home with a clear mind. Another man, who was paralyzed on one side, and who was confined to his bed, was treated about seven weeks, at the end of which time he could walk, and was able to work with a sickle in the field. When he returned to his home, which was about ninety minutes' walk from our brother's, he was able to go alone, walking the entire distance. A woman had been treated for three years by physicians, but became worse all the time. She was brought from the town, and grew better after a few weeks' treatment.

These are only a few cases. The result of the unselfish work of this brother is also seen in the conversion of souls to the truth. He is a shining light to all his neighborhood. His experience shows, first, what the Lord can do with a human being who walks in all the light that he has given, and, second, that the Lord wants to do a mighty work through every one of his children in these last days.

Think of it! If every Seventh-day Adventist would walk in all the light that the Lord has given, we should be a powerful people, and the Lord would come soon. O my brethren and sisters, let us walk in the light!

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.