Chapter 9—Disguised Infidelity
I was then carried back to the creation and was shown that the first
week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and
rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week. The great
God in his days of creation and day of rest, measured off the first cycle
as a sample for successive weeks till the close of time. “These are the
generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.”
God gives us the productions of his work at the close of each literal day.
Each day was accounted of him a generation, because every day he
generated or produced some new portion of his work. On the seventh
day of the first week God rested from his work, and then blessed the
day of his rest, and set it apart for the use of man. The weekly cycle
of seven literal days, six for labor, and the seventh for rest, which has
been preserved and brought down through Bible history, originated in
the great facts of the first seven days.
When God spake his law with an audible voice from Sinai, he
introduced the Sabbath by saying, “Remember the Sabbath day to
keep it holy.” He then declares definitely what shall be done on the six
days, and what shall not be done on the seventh. He then, in giving the
reason for thus observing the week, points them back to his example
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on the first seven days of time. “For in six days the Lord made heaven
and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day,
wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This
reason appears beautiful and forcible when we understand the record
of creation to mean literal days. The first six days of each week are
given to man in which to labor, because God employed the same period
of the first week in the work of creation. The seventh day God has
reserved as a day of rest, in commemoration of his rest during the
same period of time after he had performed the work of creation in six
days.
But the infidel supposition, that the events of the first week required
seven vast, indefinite periods for their accomplishment, strikes directly
at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. It makes
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