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Earth’s First Week, February 7
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.
Exodus 20:11
.
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 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 indefinite and obscure that which
God has made very plain....
Infidel geologists claim that the world is very much older than the Bible record
makes it. They reject the Bible record, because of those things which are to them
evidences from the earth itself, that the world has existed tens of thousands of
years. And many who profess to believe the Bible record are at a loss to account
for wonderful things which are found in the earth, with the view that Creation week
was only seven literal days, and the world is now only about 6000 years old....
Without Bible history, geology can prove nothing. Relics found in the earth do
give evidence of a state of things differing in many respects from the present. But
the time of their existence, and how long a period these things have been in the earth,
are only to be understood by Bible history.... When men leave the Word of God
in regard to the history of Creation, and seek to account for God’s creative works
upon natural principles, they are upon a boundless ocean of uncertainty. Just how
God accomplished the work of Creation in six literal days He has never revealed to
mortals. His creative works are just as incomprehensible as His existence (
Spiritual
Gifts 3:90-93
).
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