During Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s efforts to reinvigorate Germany’s economy, one vestige of the nation’s past has so far been largely untouched: Sunday rest. Unlike most other places in the world, most stores in Germany are closed on Sundays—by law.

• Bakeries and pastry shops are already a limited exception, open up to three hours on Sundays. A draft bill from the Federal Labor Ministry, published in early July, would extend that to up to eight hours.

Will Germany end this century-old prohibition due to economic strain?

• Wall Street Journal: “Stagnant Germany Considers the Unthinkable: Sunday Shopping” (July 18)
• Telegraph: “Germans Contemplate Working Sundays to Save Their Economy” (July 19)

Retailers are pushing to end the Sunday shop ban entirely, but Bible prophecy indicates the opposite will happen.

Timo Weber, the ceo of department store chain KaDeWe, said:

Germany needs reforms to help its economy. So every stone is getting turned over, or should be. And we’re saying, “Don’t forget our stone.”

“They face an uphill battle,” the Telegraph wrote. “Churches, trade unions and politicians from across the political spectrum stand in their way. And they’re fighting a tradition that goes back a long, long way.”

• Germany’s current constitution, like its 1919 Weimar predecessor, reads: “Sundays and state-recognized holidays remain protected by law as days of rest from work, and of spiritual improvement.”

Bible prophecy is clear: The Catholic Church will win this battle. In fact, there will come a time when “no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:17).

• As Herbert W. Armstrong proved in his booklet Who or What Is the Prophetic Beast?, this mark is Sunday worship, which was once enforced on threat of death in European history.
• Prophecy indicates that the German government, guided by the Catholic Church, may enforce a six-day workweek, with Sunday rest religiously enforced.

Not just in Germany: Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in 1992 that most of the world “is soon going to be forced to keep Sunday—or die.” Study this crucial biblical prophecy by reading Part 2 of Mr. Armstrong’s booklet.