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1SP.078.002 Every species of animals which God had created was preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood, there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men.Here the critic jumps with glee— "AHH!!" they cry, "Is EGW saying that not all races are created by God?
Strange it seems, most learned men declare to the world that humanity came from apes and such, yet we hear little said in consternation of this terrible belittling of the dignity of the human race. Most Christians have no real problem with evolution, though it lowers mankind to the very image of beasts and yes, even lower, to squigglers and wigglers in the marsh.
No problem, we've been told, even by Christians!
Maybe God took 6000 years of evolutionary process to create the human race, they reason?
They it call theistic evolution or some such thing.
No matter the name— they teach that the human race is a descendant from the lesser creature and is progressing to ever more noble status.
No problem for Christians they say? What? No problem if God used death to create?
For them there is no problem if God used violent measures of survival of the fittest to create mankind?
For them there is no problem that we are made in the image of beasts, not the image of God?
These modern concepts are a direct and complete contradiction to the Bible. Yet all the opponents do is to lean back and yawn and smile and say it's all very possible.
Yet here comes a woman Ellen G. White, who uplifts the God of Creation and tells us that mankind was created in the very image of God--perfect, of sound mind and body. Sin has degenerated and obliterated this image till now we are beset by all manner of diseases and weaknesses.
Ellen White tells it as the Bible teaches. (For Genesis One reads "And God said, Let us make man in our image and in the image of God He made them!)
She tells us that
"God created man in His own image. Here is no mystery. There is no ground for the supposition that man was evolved by slow degrees of development from the lower forms of animal or vegetable life. Such teaching lowers the great work of the Creator to the level of man's narrow, earthly conceptions. Men are so intent upon excluding God from the sovereignty of the universe that they degrade man and defraud him of the dignity of his origin. He who set the starry worlds on high and tinted with delicate skill the flowers of the field, who filled the earth and the heavens with the wonders of His power, when He came to crown His glorious work, to place one in the midst to stand as ruler of the fair earth, did not fail to create a being worthy of the hand that gave him life. The genealogy of our race, as given by inspiration, traces back its origin, not to a line of developing germs, mollusks, and quadrupeds, but to the great Creator. Though formed from the dust, Adam was "the son of God." PP45
How much more noble is the origin of man as presented in the writings of scripture and EGW. Human beings were formed by the very hand of God in His own image.
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But now these same people, who had nothing much to say when the supposedly scientific evidences were presented which were in direct opposition to this marvelous truth; these people who didn't seem to care at all when it was proclaimed to us that we evolved from lesser forms, now jump up and down over this one statement by Ellen White that warns against amalgamation.
What is amalgamation?
It is mixing things that should not be mixed.
But, the opponents say, "There was no genetic engineering in Noah's day!
The trouble is, people are so sold on the evolution theory that even those who still believe somewhat in creation cannot conceive of the idea that people before the flood were very, very intelligent and advanced scientifically. Their knowledge and skill and understanding was WAY BEYOND OUR OWN.
Once the evolutionary picture of preflood people being primitive gets erased then these so called statements of EGW are no problem. THE PREFLOOD PEOPLE EXPERIMENTED WITH GENETICS just like scientists are doing today. Let this be a warning instead of a point of ridicule.
Modern people think they are at the TOP of the evolutionary chain and nothing before them was equal to them, they have no room to believe in anything outside their established evolutionary concepts.
Of course pulling just one sentence from Ellen Whites writings to prove something usually ends in misinterpreting her writings. Consider the full scope of what she says about preflood people and the puzzle starts coming together in a clearer picture.
How did man gain his knowledge of how to devise?--From the Lord, by studying the formation and habits of different animals. If men could only know how many arts have been lost to our world, they would not talk so fluently of the dark ages. Could they have seen how God once worked through His human subjects, they would speak with less confidence of the arts of the antediluvian world. MORE WAS LOST IN THE FLOOD, IN MANY WAYS, THAN MEN TODAY KNOW.
Looking upon the world, God saw that the intellect He had given man was perverted, that the imagination of his heart was evil and that continually. God had given these men knowledge. He had given them valuable ideas, that they might carry out His plan. But the Lord saw that those whom He designed should possess wisdom, tact, and judgment, were using every quality of the mind to glorify self. By the waters of the Flood, He blotted this long-lived race from the earth, and with them perished the knowledge they had used only for evil. WHEN THE EARTH WAS REPEOPLED, THE LORD TRUSTED HIS WISDOM MORE SPARINGLY TO MEN, giving them only the ability they would need in carrying out His great plan (Letter 175, 1896).
True knowledge has decreased with every successive generation.. . .There are many inventions and improvements, and labor-saving machines now that the ancients did not have. They did not need them. . . . IN STRENGTH OF INTELLECT, MEN WHO NOW LIVE CAN BEAR NO COMPARISON TO THE ANCIENTS. There have been more ancient arts lost than the present generation now possess. For skill and art those living in this degenerate age will not compare with the KNOWLEDGE POSSESSED BY STRONG MEN WHO LIVED NEAR ONE THOUSAND YEARS. Men before the Flood lived many hundreds of years, and when one hundred years old they were considered but youths. Those long-lived men had sound minds in sound bodies. Their mental and physical strength was so great that the present feeble generation can bear no comparison to them. Those ancients had nearly one thousand years in which to acquire knowledge. They came upon the stage of action from the ages of sixty to one hundred years, about the time those who now live the longest have acted their part in their little short life time, and have passed off the stage. Those who are deceived, and flattered on in the delusion that the present is an age of real progress, and that the human race has been in ages past progressing in true knowledge, are under the influence of the father of lies, whose work has ever been to turn the truth of God into a lie (4SG 154-156). BC 1089
Does this mean all mankind is not on equal bases before God?
Of course not!
Amalgamation does not mean cross species mating. It is introducing new genetic information into existing cell structures to alter some characteristic or other and come up with a slightly altered individual.
What happens when genetic engineering occurs and is then allowed to run natural courses thereafter? That we do not fully know, YET. We already have tomatoes and soybeans and other things, like mice, which have been genetically engineered.
Just lately, January 2001, a news story states:
A transgenic animal is one that carries a new gene introduced by man in a laboratory. The gene is 'micro'-injected into the embryo at the earliest stage--when it still consists of only one cell. As the animal develops and grows, the new gene is integrated into the DNA of all its cells."
There is a whole field of science dealing with genetic engineering--manipulating the genetic codes of living plants and animals.. Here is just one link. Redesigning our World
Obviously from Ellen Whites writings, this type of genetic knowledge was ONE OF THE BIG causes that God sent the flood. He stopped transgenic modification of the species . Who knows what kind of monstrosities would have resulted if God had not stopped it?
We are closer to the fulfilment of 2 Peter 3 then we think!
Why do We Need a Last Day Prophet?
The Message-- A Great Controversy between God and Evil
An insight into EGW's great critic-- D.Canright
Does EGW say There are People on Saturn
ELLEN WHITE and the health message
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As of Feb. 2003