Were the six clays o f creation solar days of twenty-four hours each, or were they longer periods o f time? I believe they were solar days of twenty-four hours each. However, there are those who think that Second Peter 3:8 implies that they may have been longer periods o f time: “ One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The insurmountable difficulty in believing that the Genesis days were ages is that the Word says that each day of the “ days” o f creation was di vided into two parts: The light was called “ day,” and the darkness was called “ night.” If the night had con sisted o f thousands of years, all vege tation would have died. All vegetable life must have light in order to sur vive. The motive of certain critics in es timating these six days of creation as longer periods of time is to seek to apply the theory of evolution to the creation story. Certainly the God o f all creation is able to do all things; and He could assuredly create all things in six solar days, or less time than that if He so chose to do it. And our God did not bring human life into the world by such a process as organic evolution. To accept such a theory, is to deny the infallible Word o f God. Please explain these words in Matthew tU'-SU: “ This generation shall not pass, till all these things he fulfilled.” The Greek word used for “ gen eration” means “ race, kind, family, stock, breed.” Matthew 24 and 25 refer to the end o f the age, and this verse must not be taken out of its context. I am a member of a Protestant church, but my intellect will not permit me to accept the miracles recorded in the Bible. Why do you insist upon a belief in such doctrines as the Virgin Birth of Christ and His bodily resurrection as essential to salvation? 1 think I am about as good as most Christians who profess to be lieve these things. Let me seek to answer your question by two passages of Scripture; there are many other passages which might be used. In the first place, “ the natural man [the unsaved man] receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned [that is, by the power of the Holy Spirit].” (See 1 Cor. 2:14; com pare 1 Cor. 1:17-2:16. In this entire passage we find a contrast between man’s wisdom and the wisdom which cometh from above.) My friend, the Christian faith is based upon the super- AUSUST , 1950
Dr. L. T. Talbot <
shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.” Here we find thirty days added to the 1260 of the tribulation peri od. During those extra 30 days, certain events will take place after the return of Christ to the earth, such as the judg ment of the living nations, and the bind ing of Satan. The third period is in verse 12: “ Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days” (1335). Here*is a still longer period, concerning which God says, “ Blessed is he that . . . cometh” thereunto. Why? Because he will then be in the millennium, with all tribulation past. How did we get our Old Testament? Who compiled it? The Bible does not tell us, but tradi tion says that Ezra and a company of men known as The Great Synagogue, devout Jews, compiled the Old Testa ment. Moses, we know, wrote the first five books of the Bible, as the Holy Spirit inspired him. These books are often called “ The Law.” At the close of his life, Moses wrote, saying that God told him to place the book of the law “ by the side of the ark of the covenant” (not “ in the side of the ark of the covenant,” as we read in the Authorized Version). (Read Deut. 31:24-26, R. V.) The ten commandments were kept in the ark; but the scrolls of parchment, or vellum, upon which the books of the Bible were written, were kept in the Holy of Holies “by the side of the ark of the covenant.” Later on, during the apostasy of Israel, the long-hidden Scriptures were discover ed in God’s House, opened, and read to the people. As, one by one, the inspired books were written, they were put with the books of Moses. Then it was that Ezra and his company of devout Jews compiled the whole Old Testament. Assuredly God overruled the work, and guided as to arrangement in the divine order. And certainly Christ ac knowledged it to be the inspired Word of God. Page Nine
natural, from beginning to end, and makes no attempt to satisfy man’s in tellect; rather it satisfies the heart. There is no place for rationalism. “ The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” In the second place, let me exhort you, in the words of the Lord Jesus, “Ye must be born again . . . Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, 7). Read all of the third chapter of John, in which Christ told Nicodemus that the sinner must let the Holy Spirit of God regenerate the heart, giving him new life in Christ, be fore he can be saved—much less grasp spiritual truth! Do not make a god of your intellect, my unsaved friend. Go to Calvary’s cross, and “behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). One other word; we are not saved by our own goodness. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renew ing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5). Good works should follow salvation; but they can never be the means of salva tion. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 2:23). Let no man trust in his own self-righteous ness to make him fit for the presence of a holy God; for all our righteous nesses are as filthy rags in His sight. (See Isa. 64:6.) What is meant by the “thousand three hundred and five and thirty days ” of Daniel 12:12? There are three time periods in Daniel 12: The first is in verse 7, where the length of the tribulation period is given: “ a time [one year], times [two years], and a half [one-half year].” this repre sents three and one-half years, and is the length of the tribulation period, equivalent to 1260 days. The second period is in verse 11 : “And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomina tion that maketh desolate set up, there
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