Kiribati, an island nation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is the first nation to experience the new day. The international date line protrudes eastward around its border, bringing it a whole day forward with Australia and New Zealand. This means, if you took a short flight on Monday from Kiribati to the nearby Cook Islands across the date line, you would arrive sometime Sunday.

Of course, these lines were drawn by men; the sun rises and sets regardless of what time man says it is. But it raises an important question about the Sabbath day. You see, when the Sabbath begins Friday night in Kiribati, the nearby Cook Islands have only just started Thursday night. Then, when Kiribati ends their Sabbath, the Cook Islands have only just begun theirs! How does the Sabbath work around the international date line? Where does the Sabbath really begin?

When such questions arise, it’s always best to go to Herbert W. Armstrong, the end-time Elijah through whom God restored all things to the Church (Matthew 17:11). “All things” encompasses a lot. And Mr. Armstrong actually answered this very issue!

In his booklet Has Time Been Lost?, Mr. Armstrong wrote, “We live on a round Earth. A day is measured by the revolution of the Earth on its axis, in relation to the sun. Since the Sabbath day begins and ends at sunset, we observe it here when the sun sets here. … The answer to it all is, we keep the day when the day comes to us.”

If we fly from California to New York, we have lost some time and will have a bit of a shorter day. When we fly back to California, we get that time back with a slightly longer day. But what about crossing the date line, where a Friday afternoon abruptly turns into the holy Sabbath?

Mr. Armstrong continued, “Jerusalem is God’s headquarters for the Earth. That is where Jesus kept the Sabbath, and we know He had it right! Authorities believe it was by God’s guidance that men were caused to set the international ‘date line’ (where, because of a round Earth turning on its axis a day must be dropped or added in computation), in the middle of the Pacific where it affects virtually nobody and almost exactly opposite from Jerusalem.”

Maybe God left the middle of the Pacific mostly empty so as to avoid issues with keeping the Sabbath. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and as Mr. Armstrong pointed out, the Pacific is the perfect location: It is relatively uninhabited, and it is opposite of Jerusalem, where Christ kept the Sabbath and where the future headquarters of the universe will be.

Mr. Armstrong continued, “As time is now computed, Sabbath-keepers the world over keep the same Sabbath, when it comes to them, that is and always has been the seventh day of the week at Jerusalem.”

That is authoritative, direct clarification from God’s end-time Elijah. As Mr. Armstrong explained, the Sabbath begins in the middle of the Pacific, at the international date line. How wonderful to have an end-time Elijah to go to for answers! After all, he did restore all things, even when it came to something affecting only a few tiny islands in the Pacific.