January 2015 Letters

Question: I recall when all the stores were closed on Sunday but don’t really appreciate whether this was a good thing or not.

Editor: Here’s what God told us, ““Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shall thou labour, and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work…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)

At one time our Israel nations had laws on the books to prevent business from being contracted on the Sabbath, including sports and other events designed with a profit motive. You couldn’t even impose unnecessary labour on Israelites on the Sabbath. I read somewhere that at the World Exhibition in Paris in the year 1900, neither the British nor the United States would participate on Sundays. If you think back, they were the glory days, especially for the British Empire. Obviously, our government and church leaders better understood the power of Sabbath keeping in those days. Sadly, without the knowledge of our identity, we can’t possibly understand that what has happened with our Sabbath is but the sad outcome of the loss of our dominion (Genesis 27: 40). That, for the most part, the Sabbath has been set aside for profit by enemies of Jesus Christ who wish nothing better than to tighten their yoke of control. The portrayal of Israelites as sheep certainly captures a people who are so easily led astray.

So, from that moment we let go of the Sabbath, we have partaken of the bitter fruit of our disobedience.