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| The word “AND” is a conjunction and is used to connect words of the same part of speech, clauses, or sentences, that are to be taken jointly. |
| Example: |
| “bread and butter” |
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| An example of our modern day life: |
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| At the beginning of the day I woke up AND I got dressed, AND then I had breakfast AND checked the weather forecast. Afterwards, I caught a bus AND went to the town AND did some shopping AND I met some old friends. They were a man AND his wife AND their two children, AND we all had lunch together AND talked about the old times AND what we had since done. |
| After that I caught a bus AND went home AND put all my shopping away AND did some gardening – AND then prepared for AND had my tea; AND then I washed up AND also washed some clothing. After some time I sat down AND watched TV AND had a telephone call from a neighbour AND then the doorbell rang AND other visitor arrived AND their friend. Being rather exhausted, I prepared my breakfast AND then I got undressed AND went to bed AND went to sleep quite quickly. |
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| In the above example it is obvious that all the events did not happen instantaneously; there was a time frame for all the events to occur. |
| So what was that time frame? Did everything occur in the space of one hour? – or one day? – or one week? – perhaps they occurred over one year? – or one thousand years? – surely, the answer is that all these events took place [ or evolved! ] over many millions of years. |
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| Everyone knows the true answer – it’s so obvious. |
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| The use of the word “AND” links one event to the next over a short time period to form a diary chain of events that occurred on that day. |
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| So now let us look at the Biblical account of Creation as recorded in Genesis Chapter 1 – Chapter 2:1-3 : |
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| 1:1 – In the beginning God created the heaven AND the earth. |
| 1:2 – AND the earth was without form, AND void; AND darkness [was] upon the face of the deep. AND the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. |
| 1:3 – AND God said, Let there be light: AND there was light. |
| 1:4 – AND God saw the light, that [it was] good: AND God divided the light from the darkness. |
| 1:5 – AND God called the light Day, AND the darkness he called Night. AND the evening AND the morning were the first day. |
| 1:6 – AND God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, AND let it divide the waters from the waters. |
| 1:7 – AND God made the firmament, AND divided the waters which [were] under the firmament from the waters which [were] above the firmament: AND it was so. |
| 1:8 – AND God called the firmament Heaven. AND the evening AND the morning were the second day. |
| 1:9 – AND God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, AND let the dry [land] appear: AND it was so. |
| 1:10 – AND God called the dry [land] Earth; AND the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: AND God saw that [it was] good. |
| 1:11 – AND God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, [AND] the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed [is] in itself, upon the earth: AND it was so. |
| 1:12 – AND the earth brought forth grass, [AND] herb yielding seed after his kind, AND the tree yielding fruit, whose seed [was] in itself, after his kind: AND God saw that [it was] good. |
| 1:13 – AND the evening AND the morning were the third day. |
| 1:14 – AND God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; AND let them be for signs, AND for seasons, AND for days, AND years: |
| 1:15 – AND let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: AND it was so. |
| 1:16 – AND God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, AND the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also. |
| 1:17 – AND God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, |
| 1:18 – AND to rule over the day AND over the night, AND to divide the light from the darkness: AND God saw that [it was] good. |
| 1:19 – AND the evening AND the morning were the fourth day. |
| 1:20 – AND God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, AND fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. |
| 1:21 – AND God created great whales, AND every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, AND every winged fowl after his kind: AND God saw that [it was] good. |
| 1:22 – AND God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, AND multiply, AND fill the waters in the seas, AND let fowl multiply in the earth. |
| 1:23 – AND the evening AND the morning were the fifth day. |
| 1:24 – AND God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, AND creeping thing, AND beast of the earth after his kind: AND it was so. |
| 1:25 – AND God made the beast of the earth after his kind, AND cattle after their kind, AND every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: AND God saw that [it was] good. |
| 1:26 – AND God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: AND let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, AND over the fowl of the air, AND over the cattle, AND over all the earth, AND over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. |
| 1:27 – So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male AND female created he them. |
| 1:28 – AND God blessed them, AND God said unto them, Be fruitful, AND multiply, AND replenish the earth, AND subdue it: AND have dominion over the fish of the sea, AND over the fowl of the air, AND over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. |
| 1:29 – AND God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, AND every tree, in the which [is] the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. |
| 1:30 – AND to every beast of the earth, AND to every fowl of the air, AND to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein [there is] life, [I have given] every green herb for meat: AND it was so. |
| 1:31 – AND God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. AND the evening AND the morning were the sixth day. |
| 2:1 – Thus the heavens AND the earth were finished, AND all the host of them. |
| 2:2 – AND on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; AND he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. |
| 2:3 – AND God blessed the seventh day, AND sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created AND made. |
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| Within this portion of God’s Word we find a continuous supply of over 100 links [ i.e. the word “AND” ] . |
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| These form a Creation chain of events that HAD to have occurred during the time period of ONE WEEK. |
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| Using the logic that was employed in our earlier example it would be ridiculous to conclude anything else. |
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| Psalms |
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| 33:6 – By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. |
| 33:7 – He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses. |
| 33:8 – Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. |
| 33:9 – For he spake, and it was [done]; he commanded, and it stood fast. |
| 33:10 – The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect. |
| 33:11 – The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. |
| 33:12 – Blessed [is] the nation whose God [is] the LORD; [and] the people [whom] he hath chosen for his own inheritance. |
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| So God did not need millions of years to perfect His Creation – at the end of the six days of Creation He said that “every thing that he had made … [it was] very good”. |
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| So why did God take a week when He could have “spake, and it was [done]” ? |
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| Christian Education [1893, 1894] |
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| Chap. 24 – The Literal Week. |
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| Like the Sabbath, the week originated at creation, and it has been preserved and brought down to us through Bible history. God himself measured off the first week as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time. Like every other, it consisted of seven literal days. Six days were employed in the work of creation; upon the seventh, God rested, and he then blessed this day, and set it apart as a day of rest for man. {CE 190.1} |
| In the law given from Sinai, God recognized the week, and the facts upon which it is based. After giving the command, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,” and specifying what shall be done on the six days, and what shall not be done on the seventh, he states the reason for thus observing the week, by pointing back to his own example: “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 20:8-11.] This reason appears beautiful and forcible when we understand the days of creation to be literal. The first six days of each week are given to man for labor, because God employed the same period of the first week in the work of creation. On the seventh day man is to refrain from labor, in commemoration of the Creator’s rest. {CE 190.2} |
| But the assumption that the events of the first week required thousands upon thousands of years, strikes directly at the foundation of the fourth commandment. It represents the Creator as commanding men to observe the week of literal days in commemoration of vast, indefinite periods. This is unlike his method of dealing with his creatures. It makes indefinite and obscure that which he has made very plain. It is infidelity in its most insidious and hence most dangerous form; its real character is so disguised that it is held and taught by many who profess to believe the Bible. {CE 190.3} |
| “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” “For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.” [Psalm 33:6, 9.] The Bible recognizes no long ages in which the earth was evolved from chaos. Of each successive day of creation, the sacred record declares that it consisted of the evening and the morning, like all other days that have followed. At the close of each day is given the result of the Creator’s work. The statement is made at the close of the first week’s record, “These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.” [Genesis 2:4.] But this does not convey the idea that the days of creation were other than literal days. Each day was called a generation, because that in it God generated, or produced, some new portion of his work. {CE 191.1} |
| Geologists claim to find evidence from the earth itself that it is very much older than the Mosaic record teaches. Bones of men and animals, as well as instruments of warfare, petrified trees, etc., much larger than any that now exist, or that have existed for thousands of years, have been discovered, and from this it is inferred that the earth was populated long before the time brought to view in the record of creation, and by a race of beings vastly superior in size to any men now living. Such reasoning has led many professed Bible believers to adopt the position that the days of creation were vast, indefinite periods. {CE 191.2} |
| But apart from Bible history, geology can prove nothing. Those who reason so confidently upon its discoveries, have no adequate conception of the size of men, animals, and trees before the flood, or of the great changes which then took place. Relics found in the earth do give evidence of conditions differing in many respects from the present; but the time when these conditions existed can be learned only from the Inspired Record. In the history of the flood, inspiration has explained that which geology alone could never fathom. In the days of Noah, men, animals, and trees, many times larger than now exist, were buried, and thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history; but men, with their vain reasoning, fall into the same error as did the people before the flood,–the things which God gave them as a benefit, they turn into a curse by making a wrong use of them. {CE 191.3} |
| It is one of Satan’s devices to lead the people to accept the fables of infidelity; for he can thus obscure the law of God, in itself very plain, and embolden men to rebel against the divine government. His efforts are especially directed against the fourth commandment, because it so clearly points to the living God, the Maker of the heavens and the earth. {CE 192.1} |
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| Maranatha [1976] |
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| Chap. 203 – The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast |
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| Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. Isaiah 8:16. {Mar 211.1} |
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| The living righteous will receive the seal of God prior to the close of probation. {Mar 211.2} |
| The sign, or seal, of God is revealed in the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, the Lord’s memorial of creation. . . . The mark of the beast is the opposite of this–the observance of the first day of the week. {Mar 211.3} |
| Sundaykeeping is not yet the mark of the beast, and will not be until the decree goes forth causing men to worship this idol sabbath. The time will come when this day will be the test, but that time has not come yet. {Mar 211.4} |
| No one has yet received the mark of the beast. The testing time has not yet come. There are true Christians in every church, not excepting the Roman Catholic communion. None are condemned until they have had the light and have seen the obligation of the fourth commandment. But when the decree shall go forth enforcing the counterfeit sabbath, and the loud cry of the third angel shall warn men against the worship of the beast and his image, the line will be clearly drawn between the false and the true. Then those who still continue in transgression will receive the mark of the beast. {Mar 211.5} |
| If the light of truth has been presented to you, revealing the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, and showing that there is no foundation in the Word of God for Sunday observance, and yet you still cling to the false sabbath, refusing to keep holy the Sabbath which God calls “my holy day,” you receive the mark of the beast. When does this take place? When you obey the decree that commands you to cease from labor on Sunday and worship God, while you know that there is not a word in the Bible showing Sunday to be other than a common working day, you consent to receive the mark of the beast, and refuse the seal of God. {Mar 211.6} |
| In a little while every one who is a child of God will have His seal placed upon him. O that it may be placed upon our foreheads! Who can endure the thought of being passed by when the angel goes forth to seal the servants of God in their foreheads? {Mar 211.7} |
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