Objection:
You claim that the Sabbath was intended for all people in all places. However, it seems evident that it was explicitly meant only for the Jews living in the small region of Palestine. How could anyone observe the seventh-day Sabbath in the Arctic Circle, where there are six months of daylight followed by six months of darkness? Additionally, how would someone keep track of the days of the week while traveling around the world, since one loses a day when traveling west and gains a day when traveling east?
Answer:
Arctic explorers keep track of the days and weeks in their diaries, recording what they do on specific days. In that strange and almost uninhabited part of the Earth, it is possible to tell the passing of the days when the sun is above the horizon by observing its changing position. During the months when the sun is below the horizon, explorers can gauge time by the twilight at noon.
If a Sabbath keeper finds himself in that peculiar world of ice and fears he has lost track of the weeks, he can visit a mission for the Eskimos run by a Sunday-keeping church to compare his reckoning with theirs. They maintain a record of the days, of course, to know when the first day of the week occurs!
What about the issue of traveling around the world and keeping an accurate reckoning of the weeks? Do we lose or gain a day? Here are the simple facts: dropping or adding a day while circling the Earth is merely an apparent loss or gain, not a real one. If it were any different, absurd situations could arise. For instance, twins could stop being twins simply by traveling in opposite directions around the world, with one gaining a day and the other losing a day! This scenario would imply that one twin was two days older than the other, solely due to traveling around the globe in opposite directions.
Now, imagine if both twins were sea captains whose routes caused them to sail around the world in opposite directions. Would it not be inevitable that one would eventually be so many days older than the other that he could be considered a father rather than a brother?
“How preposterous!” you might say. We agree. But that illustrates precisely what would happen if it were true that a person could genuinely lose or gain a day by traveling eastward or westward around the world.
The objector may now argue, “Well, even if you don’t really lose or gain days while traveling, the fact remains that people in different parts of the world cannot keep the Sabbath at the same moment in time, because, for example, people in Europe begin their day several hours earlier than we do in America. What do you intend to do about that?”
We don’t intend to do anything about it, as there is no need. The Sabbath commandment says nothing about keeping the Sabbath at the exact moment in time worldwide. It simply commands us to keep “the seventh day.” And doesn’t “the seventh day” arrive everywhere around the world? It does.
Furthermore, we have shown in our examination of the lost-time theory that no time has been lost; instead, the cycles of the weeks have come down to us in unbroken succession through the centuries. That means we can be confident about which day is the seventh day of the week. Thus, we can have the same assurance in Hong Kong or Cairo as in Washington or London because these cycles have been preserved reliably in every location.
When we reach any country during our travels, we find that all the people—scientists and laypeople, Jews, Christians, and others—agree perfectly on the days of the week. In fact, this is one of the few everyday life facts that such a diverse group can concur with. Ask them individually or collectively, and they will all provide the same answer regarding when the seventh day of the week arrives.
Therefore, how simple is God’s command to keep “the seventh day”!
