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Have We Been Observing the

Sabbath At the Wrong Time

All These Years?

The centuries-encompassing debates over which day of the week God
rested from His labor of recreating the earth and made holy time for man-
kind, have not abated. Most of professing Christianity claims Sunday is
the day, while Jews and various of the Adventists and Churches of God
claim God set Saturday apart from the rest of the week. This article sug-
gests that both parties are in error and that we have no way of knowing
when God's Sabbath day falls in our Gregorian calendar. The fact is, time
has been lost! But God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, has planted
clues in His Word the Bible -- clues that those with an understanding
mind can uncover and use to reinstate God's TRUE SABBATH DAY!

John D. Keyser

For hundreds of years a controversy has been raging between those who advocate a Sunday
sabbath and those who keep a Saturday sabbath. Most people have been reared in a Sunday-
observing world and, naturally, have taken Sunday observance for granted. Nostalgic memories of
musty pews, church picnics, choirs and family togetherness are firmly lodged in the minds of mil-
lions. The idea of a different day for the Sabbath day strikes them as fanatical and absurd. Some
people believe Saturday is the right day and insist that Saturday is the only day the Bible anywhere
commands us to keep. They even go as far as saying that people are sinning -- that they have the
"mark of the beast" and shall suffer the seven last plagues -- if they observe Sunday instead of
keeping the seventh day on Saturday! To most Protestant Church Christians, these "Saturday keep-
ers" are legalistic, ritualistic and are decidely on the "fringe" of accepted mainstream religion --
out of step with the majority and perhaps a little strange!

Notes author Jonathan Brown:

In our day disputes between "Sabbatarians," (Saturday sabbath) and "Lord's Day" keepers
are of such a variety that they now even include the theories of whether a "day" includes
the "night" or dark hours where there is no sunlight; and whether sabbath begins at noon
because noon is actually the "evening." These arguments are all based upon the assump-
tion that our current seven-day cycle is something which has always been with mankind.
Indeed, the Seventh-Day churches fervently argue that Sunday through Saturday has run
continuously from creation. However, just because we grew up with this cycle doesn't
mean it always existed (Keeping Yahweh's Appointments. 1998. Pp. 40-41).
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