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.
God by His spoken word appointed the sun to govern the day and the moon with the stars to govern the night and to separate the light from the darkness. This was the joint work of the Father and the Son in calling the world into existence by creative energy. He saw that this ordering was good, for the earth came from His hand holy and exceedingly beautiful, adorned with plants and majestic trees and pure air. It was done in a literal day of the first literal week of six days of creation followed by rest on the seventh, which is the reason given in the fourth commandment for laboring six days and keeping the Sabbath holy. To make that day a vast indefinite period of thousands or millions of years to accommodate geology makes the commandment senseless and strikes at the foundation of the Sabbath.
Work Verse Describes
The verse records the joint work of the Father and the Son in the mighty work of creating the world. By His spoken word and by creative energy in that Word God called the world into existence, speaking and His words creating His works in the natural world. In that speaking He appointed rulers over the day and over the night and divided the light from the darkness.
He set the stars in their order in the firmament. He appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon with the stars to rule the night. Their office was to govern the day and the night and to divide and separate the light from the darkness.
God saw that this arrangement was good, for when the earth came from His hand it was holy and beautiful and exceedingly beautiful. It was like a noble palace, with pure and healthful air. Its surface was not one extensive plain but was diversified with hills, mountains and plains, with rivers and other bodies of water regularly dispersed. The hills and mountains were regular and beautiful in shape, not high and ragged as now, and bare high rocks were never seen upon them but lay beneath the surface as bones to the earth. The hills, mountains and very beautiful plains were adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees of every description, many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are, with everything lovely and filling the mind with thoughts of love. Angels beheld these wonderful and beautiful works and rejoiced.
The verse belongs to God's six-day work of making heaven and earth. Each day He generated or produced some new portion of His work, setting lights to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness, and at the close of each day saw that it was good. That six-day work He chose to do in six days though He could have spoken it all into existence in one day. By the sixth day everything He had made was very good and the heavens and the earth were finished, followed by His ending work of resting on the seventh day and blessing and sanctifying it because He had rested from all His work which He created and made.
What God made remains a reservoir of means made ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure, and nothing He made is useless. The tares and confusion now present were not in what He made but came through the curse, when tares were sown by the enemy. Sin marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are the result of disobedience. Yet the glad sunshine, the solemn stillness of the night, the glory of the starry heavens, the moon in its beauty, and every ray of light shed on the unthankful world still bear witness to the Creator and to His goodness, forbearance and love.
Literal Week Affirmed
This appointing of rulers over day and night and dividing of light from darkness belongs to the first week at creation, which originated the weekly cycle and has been preserved through Bible history. God Himself measured off that first week as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time, and like every other week it consisted of seven literal days just as every other week does. Six days were employed in the work of creation, with each day generating or producing some new portion of His work, and upon the seventh God rested and then blessed that day and set it apart as a day of rest for man.
The six days in which God performed the work of creation and His rest on the seventh day are the reason given when God spoke His law from Sinai, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, 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. The law given from Sinai recognizes the week and the facts on which it is based, giving man six days for labor because God employed the same period in the work of creation and requiring him to refrain from labor on the seventh in commemoration of the Creator's rest. The first six days of each week are given to man in which to labor for that reason, and the seventh day is reserved as a day of rest in commemoration of His rest.
This belongs to the plain Mosaic record of creation and the inspired record of that creation week, which alone gives an authentic, comprehensive and most instructive account of creation and unsullied history of the human race. It came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth with its purity preserved by a divine hand and divine Mind through all ages, and its bright rays shine into the far distant past where human research seeks vainly to penetrate. It is the only source for learning the time of things found in the earth, since geology without Bible history can prove nothing.
These great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers are pillars of the Christian faith, yet they are practically rejected, either wholly or in part, by a large share of the professedly Christian world. Geology is claimed to contradict a literal interpretation by requiring millions of years for the evolution of the earth from chaos, and to accommodate the Bible to that claim the days of creation including this day are assumed to have been vast, indefinite periods covering thousands or even millions of years. The world is now only about six thousand years old, and the wonderful things found in the earth that are used as evidence that it has existed tens of thousands of years do not prove a long age. They are accounted for by the much greater size of men, animals and trees before the flood and by the great changes that then took place in the earth.
To make this day a vast indefinite period makes senseless the fourth commandment of God's holy law and destroys its force and its claims. It makes obscure what God made very plain and strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Even with profession of belief in the record of creation, that view is infidelity in disguise, the worst kind of infidelity. It charges God with commanding men to observe a week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom.
Just how God accomplished that six-day work of dividing and ruling day and night has never been revealed to mortals, and His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence. The fact revealed is to be believed and accepted as stated in opposition to human reasoning, for God actually appointed the lights to rule day and night and to divide light from darkness. That work is not the result of natural causes and cannot be searched out by human science or explained from natural causes, and geological suppositions that contradict it must be rejected. It is inconsistent to declare what God has revealed too obscure to understand while accepting mere suppositions about what He has not revealed.
The plain record gives sufficient evidence for faith and shows the living God as maker of the heavens and the earth, a truth defined by the fourth commandment that Satan specially hates and seeks to obscure. He seeks to obscure it by leading men to rebel, to turn from plain precepts to infidel fables, and to receive human reasoning against plain Scripture facts. In the last days true faith in this work will be almost destitute as men on the merest pretense count God's word unreliable, eagerly receive the suppositions of geologists that dispute the Mosaic record while rejecting investigation of prophecy, and by vain reasoning make a wrong use of what God designed to establish faith in inspired history, turning a benefit into a curse as did the people before the flood.
Instruction For Daily Life
Because He made heaven and earth, set the stars in their order in the firmament, and appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night and to divide light from darkness, God is the true teacher and the One to choose as teacher. Those destitute of His divine enlightenment cannot have correct ideas of His plans and ways, so men are to be taught by God rather than trusting and exalting the opinions of worldly-wise men. Learning is not to be taken from infidel authors.
The world was called into existence by creative energy in the Word of God, and that same Word still imparts power and begets life. Every command is a promise which, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One, transforms the nature, and recreates the soul in the image of God. The life thus imparted is sustained by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God. Mind and soul are built up by that upon which they feed, and each person can choose the topics that occupy thought and shape character.
The Word alone gives the authentic account of the creation of the world, preserved in its purity through the ages by the divine Mind and Hand, and it is to be the chief study in schools. There patriarchs and prophets are met, and there is learned what redemption cost the One who was equal with the Father from the beginning and sacrificed His life that a people might stand before Him redeemed from every common, earthly thing and renewed in the image of God. Education is a failure unless the understanding grasps the truths of divine revelation about eternal life found there and unless the heart accepts the teachings of the gospel. Heart and mind are to be trained to preserve purity by receiving daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth, student minds are to be carried higher than now thought possible, and the mind must be trained to comprehend these important truths rather than becoming dwarfed and enfeebled by common ideas and trivial matters.
As part of His great work of creation God appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule the night and to divide the light from the darkness, and when the earth came from His hand it was holy and beautiful and good, with everything lovely and filling the mind with thoughts of His love. Sin marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are the result of disobedience to God. Yet the glad sunshine, the solemn stillness of the night, the glory of the starry heavens, and the moon in its beauty still bear witness to the Creator and His goodness, and every ray of light shed on the unthankful world testifies to His forbearance and love. Parents should describe this work to their children among the fields and groves during the sacred Sabbath hours to tell them the reason for the institution of the Sabbath.
God divided light from darkness to set day and night apart with their own regular hours, work belonging to day and sleep to night, and He saw that this division was good. Turning night into day and day into night is poor policy and breaks His order. Regular hours for sleep and work should be preserved and never departed from except in a case of life and death, stopping when nature says stop, which allows double-good, healthful labor with a healthy mind and strength kept in reserve. God's own example in taking six days to make the world when He could have spoken it into existence in one proves that unhurried labor, preserving health and strength and letting the rest go undone till it can be done without exhaustion, is duty. Working day and night to exhaustion spends strength that is never recovered and snaps the machinery by too great pressure, and rush and hurry to do everything at once is not led by God but is Satan's work that makes workers invalids and helpless and burdens others.
God by His spoken word appointed the sun to govern the day and the moon with the stars to govern the night and to separate the light from the darkness. This was the joint work of the Father and the Son in calling the world into existence by creative energy. He saw that this ordering was good, for the earth came from His hand holy and exceedingly beautiful, adorned with plants and majestic trees and pure air. It was done in a literal day of the first literal week of six days of creation followed by rest on the seventh, which is the reason given in the fourth commandment for laboring six days and keeping the Sabbath holy. To make that day a vast indefinite period of thousands or millions of years to accommodate geology makes the commandment senseless and strikes at the foundation of the Sabbath.
Work Verse Describes
The verse records the joint work of the Father and the Son in the mighty work of creating the world. By His spoken word and by creative energy in that Word God called the world into existence, speaking and His words creating His works in the natural world. In that speaking He appointed rulers over the day and over the night and divided the light from the darkness.
He set the stars in their order in the firmament. He appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon with the stars to rule the night. Their office was to govern the day and the night and to divide and separate the light from the darkness.
God saw that this arrangement was good, for when the earth came from His hand it was holy and beautiful and exceedingly beautiful. It was like a noble palace, with pure and healthful air. Its surface was not one extensive plain but was diversified with hills, mountains and plains, with rivers and other bodies of water regularly dispersed. The hills and mountains were regular and beautiful in shape, not high and ragged as now, and bare high rocks were never seen upon them but lay beneath the surface as bones to the earth. The hills, mountains and very beautiful plains were adorned with plants and flowers and tall majestic trees of every description, many times larger and much more beautiful than trees now are, with everything lovely and filling the mind with thoughts of love. Angels beheld these wonderful and beautiful works and rejoiced.
The verse belongs to God's six-day work of making heaven and earth. Each day He generated or produced some new portion of His work, setting lights to rule over the day and over the night and to divide the light from the darkness, and at the close of each day saw that it was good. That six-day work He chose to do in six days though He could have spoken it all into existence in one day. By the sixth day everything He had made was very good and the heavens and the earth were finished, followed by His ending work of resting on the seventh day and blessing and sanctifying it because He had rested from all His work which He created and made.
What God made remains a reservoir of means made ready for Him to employ instantly to do His pleasure, and nothing He made is useless. The tares and confusion now present were not in what He made but came through the curse, when tares were sown by the enemy. Sin marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are the result of disobedience. Yet the glad sunshine, the solemn stillness of the night, the glory of the starry heavens, the moon in its beauty, and every ray of light shed on the unthankful world still bear witness to the Creator and to His goodness, forbearance and love.
Literal Week Affirmed
This appointing of rulers over day and night and dividing of light from darkness belongs to the first week at creation, which originated the weekly cycle and has been preserved through Bible history. God Himself measured off that first week as a sample for successive weeks to the close of time, and like every other week it consisted of seven literal days just as every other week does. Six days were employed in the work of creation, with each day generating or producing some new portion of His work, and upon the seventh God rested and then blessed that day and set it apart as a day of rest for man.
The six days in which God performed the work of creation and His rest on the seventh day are the reason given when God spoke His law from Sinai, Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy, 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. The law given from Sinai recognizes the week and the facts on which it is based, giving man six days for labor because God employed the same period in the work of creation and requiring him to refrain from labor on the seventh in commemoration of the Creator's rest. The first six days of each week are given to man in which to labor for that reason, and the seventh day is reserved as a day of rest in commemoration of His rest.
This belongs to the plain Mosaic record of creation and the inspired record of that creation week, which alone gives an authentic, comprehensive and most instructive account of creation and unsullied history of the human race. It came fresh from the fountain of eternal truth with its purity preserved by a divine hand and divine Mind through all ages, and its bright rays shine into the far distant past where human research seeks vainly to penetrate. It is the only source for learning the time of things found in the earth, since geology without Bible history can prove nothing.
These great facts of creation as presented by the inspired writers are pillars of the Christian faith, yet they are practically rejected, either wholly or in part, by a large share of the professedly Christian world. Geology is claimed to contradict a literal interpretation by requiring millions of years for the evolution of the earth from chaos, and to accommodate the Bible to that claim the days of creation including this day are assumed to have been vast, indefinite periods covering thousands or even millions of years. The world is now only about six thousand years old, and the wonderful things found in the earth that are used as evidence that it has existed tens of thousands of years do not prove a long age. They are accounted for by the much greater size of men, animals and trees before the flood and by the great changes that then took place in the earth.
To make this day a vast indefinite period makes senseless the fourth commandment of God's holy law and destroys its force and its claims. It makes obscure what God made very plain and strikes directly at the foundation of the Sabbath of the fourth commandment. Even with profession of belief in the record of creation, that view is infidelity in disguise, the worst kind of infidelity. It charges God with commanding men to observe a week of seven literal days in commemoration of seven indefinite periods, which is unlike His dealings with mortals and impeaches His wisdom.
Just how God accomplished that six-day work of dividing and ruling day and night has never been revealed to mortals, and His creative works are as incomprehensible as His existence. The fact revealed is to be believed and accepted as stated in opposition to human reasoning, for God actually appointed the lights to rule day and night and to divide light from darkness. That work is not the result of natural causes and cannot be searched out by human science or explained from natural causes, and geological suppositions that contradict it must be rejected. It is inconsistent to declare what God has revealed too obscure to understand while accepting mere suppositions about what He has not revealed.
The plain record gives sufficient evidence for faith and shows the living God as maker of the heavens and the earth, a truth defined by the fourth commandment that Satan specially hates and seeks to obscure. He seeks to obscure it by leading men to rebel, to turn from plain precepts to infidel fables, and to receive human reasoning against plain Scripture facts. In the last days true faith in this work will be almost destitute as men on the merest pretense count God's word unreliable, eagerly receive the suppositions of geologists that dispute the Mosaic record while rejecting investigation of prophecy, and by vain reasoning make a wrong use of what God designed to establish faith in inspired history, turning a benefit into a curse as did the people before the flood.
Instruction For Daily Life
Because He made heaven and earth, set the stars in their order in the firmament, and appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night and to divide light from darkness, God is the true teacher and the One to choose as teacher. Those destitute of His divine enlightenment cannot have correct ideas of His plans and ways, so men are to be taught by God rather than trusting and exalting the opinions of worldly-wise men. Learning is not to be taken from infidel authors.
The world was called into existence by creative energy in the Word of God, and that same Word still imparts power and begets life. Every command is a promise which, accepted by the will and received into the soul, brings with it the life of the Infinite One, transforms the nature, and recreates the soul in the image of God. The life thus imparted is sustained by every word proceeding out of the mouth of God. Mind and soul are built up by that upon which they feed, and each person can choose the topics that occupy thought and shape character.
The Word alone gives the authentic account of the creation of the world, preserved in its purity through the ages by the divine Mind and Hand, and it is to be the chief study in schools. There patriarchs and prophets are met, and there is learned what redemption cost the One who was equal with the Father from the beginning and sacrificed His life that a people might stand before Him redeemed from every common, earthly thing and renewed in the image of God. Education is a failure unless the understanding grasps the truths of divine revelation about eternal life found there and unless the heart accepts the teachings of the gospel. Heart and mind are to be trained to preserve purity by receiving daily supplies from the fountain of eternal truth, student minds are to be carried higher than now thought possible, and the mind must be trained to comprehend these important truths rather than becoming dwarfed and enfeebled by common ideas and trivial matters.
As part of His great work of creation God appointed the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule the night and to divide the light from the darkness, and when the earth came from His hand it was holy and beautiful and good, with everything lovely and filling the mind with thoughts of His love. Sin marred that perfect work, and thorns and thistles, sorrow and pain and death are the result of disobedience to God. Yet the glad sunshine, the solemn stillness of the night, the glory of the starry heavens, and the moon in its beauty still bear witness to the Creator and His goodness, and every ray of light shed on the unthankful world testifies to His forbearance and love. Parents should describe this work to their children among the fields and groves during the sacred Sabbath hours to tell them the reason for the institution of the Sabbath.
God divided light from darkness to set day and night apart with their own regular hours, work belonging to day and sleep to night, and He saw that this division was good. Turning night into day and day into night is poor policy and breaks His order. Regular hours for sleep and work should be preserved and never departed from except in a case of life and death, stopping when nature says stop, which allows double-good, healthful labor with a healthy mind and strength kept in reserve. God's own example in taking six days to make the world when He could have spoken it into existence in one proves that unhurried labor, preserving health and strength and letting the rest go undone till it can be done without exhaustion, is duty. Working day and night to exhaustion spends strength that is never recovered and snaps the machinery by too great pressure, and rush and hurry to do everything at once is not led by God but is Satan's work that makes workers invalids and helpless and burdens others.