Sabbath

When the Julian calendar was switched to the Gregorian, ten days were omitted from the calendar, and it was decreed that the day following Thursday, October 4, 1582 (which is October 5, 1582, in the old calendar) would thenceforth be known as Friday, October 15, 1582. Although ten days were removed, the proper sequence of days in the week remained unchanged and continuous. Only numbers of the month were changed, not days of the week.

The Jews always kept the Sabbath every week without fail throughout history. Yahshua never corrected them on the day they kept as the Sabbath, and in fact He observed it Himself with other Jews on that same seventh day, Luke 4:16, 31, so we need only go back that far in history for the proper seventh-day sequence.

We'll answer your points one at a time. Doing any work on the Sabbath violates the Fourth Commandment. We are each working out our own salvation and must never violate Yahweh's commands in order to please someone. Relatives can pose some of the biggest tests of our faith. Blessings will come if you put Yahweh first. We are indeed commanded to provide for our families, but not at the cost of lawbreaking. We could justify bank robbery with that logic. The Sabbath comes to us when the sun sets at our location on earth. Being thousands of miles away from Jerusalem on his missionary journeys, Paul had to keep the Sabbath at sunset where he was and not when sunset came at Jerusalem. Keeping it when the sun sets in Jerusalem today means we would observe the Sabbath around noon on Friday, which would violate the Biblically mandated end and start of the day at sunset. Besides, there is no Temple and thus no "Temple time" today. Living at either pole presents problems and we must wonder whether Yahweh even intended man to live there, given the extreme weather conditions. We live and act in the context of time and cannot separate actions from when they were done. How else can you keep the Sabbath holy except through your activities? This clearly is a test to see whether you will do your own will or Yahweh's. The Sabbath is indeed the test commandment both in entering the Truth and in staying in it. We have found through the years that the Sabbath is the first of Yahweh's laws broken when someone backslides.

You are right, the Sabbath has never changed and should be observed from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. Romans 14:5 is not speaking about the Sabbath but to days of fasting, which were not obligatory, but done on a voluntary basis. This is why Paul says it doesn't matter which day we choose. Fasting is a personal choice and is not limited to any specific day. However, this is not true for the Sabbath. Yahweh hallowed the seventh day and scripturally this has never changed. Yahshua the Messiah and the apostles observed the Sabbath in the New Testament (e.g. Mark 2:23; Acts 15:21; 16:13; 17:2; 18:4) and everyone will observe it in the Millennial Kingdom, Isaiah 66:23. Sunday is not biblical but was adopted by the Roman church.

We do not believe that exercise and sports are permitted on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is first and foremost a day of rest The word "Sabbath" comes from the Hebrew primitive root shabath and means, "..to repose, i.e. desist from exertion." Since exercise and sports causes a person to exert themselves physically, this activity would violate the Sabbath command.

We find a secondary reason from Isaiah 58:13: "If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of Yahweh, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:" We believe doing our own pleasure prohibits activities such as exercise and sports, in addition to other worldly and personal activities that don't focus on the Word. The Sabbath is a day not to focus on the mundane or the world, but on Yahweh's Word.

For the above reasons we would caution against any activity that causes exertion or may be seen as our own pleasure apart from Yahweh's Word.

While we certainly respect our law enforcement, believers should not be working on the Sabbath. The same would also apply to those in the medical field. The only option is to receive a waiver or look for a position that would allow you to correctly observe the Sabbath.

It's important to realize that the Sabbath is a sign between us and our Heavenly Father. In two places we find this confirmed:

"Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying, Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep: for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am Yahweh that doth sanctify you" (Exodus 31:13).

"I am Yahweh your Elohim; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and hallow my Sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am Yahweh your Elohim" (Ezekiel 20:19-20).

The Sabbath is not only a sign solidifying our relationship with Yahweh, but it's the only sign of this kind. In other words, no other command is called a "sign." This honor is given only to the Sabbath. Therefore, when we work on the Sabbath we are not only breaking an important commandment but diminishing the relationship between us and Yahweh.