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Verse:Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. —1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
The church was financially depleted.
Why should a third medical institution be placed in southern California? On October 10, 1901, Ellen White wrote in her diary that she saw a pleasant sanitarium in southern California with fruit trees on the grounds.
Some patients were in wheelchairs, and others were outdoors under shade trees with birds singing. The place seemed familiar to her, as if she had spent months there. In 1904, Seventh-day Adventists bought a property near San Diego where the Paradise Valley Hospital and the Glendale Adventist Medical Center would eventually be built. But neither of them was what Mrs. White had seen in vision.
Following Ellen White’s leading, Pastor John A. Burden borrowed $1,000 on a personal note for a down payment that he made on May 29, 1905, securing the Loma Linda Hotel and surrounding property. Two weeks later, on June 12, Mrs. White arrived at Loma Linda for the first time. “Willie, I have been here before,” she stated to her son. He responded, “No, Mother, you have never been here.” She added, “Then this is the very place the Lord has shown me, for it is all familiar. We must have this place. We should reason from cause to effect. The Lord has not given us this property for any common purpose.”44 On June 20, 1905, delegates of nearly all twenty-two churches of the Southern California Conference endorsed the purchase, which was finally settled at $38,900. The sanitarium opened in November of that year. But Ellen White envisioned the institution as more —she urged that it become a medical school. For her, “the healing of the sick and the ministry of the Word are to go hand in hand.”45 She added, “The medical school at Loma Linda is to be of the highest order” and should enable the students “to pass the examinations required by law of all who practice as regularly qualified physicians.” Over the years, Loma Linda University has been driven by this noble ideal of excellence.
Its history reminds us of what God can do for us if we follow His lead, even under adverse circumstances. God knows the future, though it is still unknown to us!