Moderating. Folks, please cite who you are responding to, 1. so all know who are not caught up, and 2. so they get the notice and don't miss your response. Also, just a reminder. This needs to stay in the asking questions realm and not go to advocacy for unconfessional views from heat of debate, which advocating for eating out whilly nilly on the Lord's Day most certainly is.
People seem to think that electricity is like some big tank that someone is filling and if you turn the spigot at your house it's not really affecting anything or causing anyone to work more (or more people to work).
That's not true. There is a direct link between your usage, and more people needing to work. If only Sabbatarians didn't use electricity on the Sabbath, it would directly correlate to fewer people working.
It's like you're saying that the hospital cafeteria has to be open to feed people in the hospital. That's a work of necessity. But if everybody else wants to walk in there and eat, resulting in the hospital needing to hire triple the number of food workers, that's perfectly fine because they are already doing a necessary activity. That's what's happening with the electricity.
I don't understand the logic.
Well I wrote this before the last couple posts but I think it still may be helpful to the discussion.
The electricity and eating out comparison is an apples and oranges comparison. You assume no work is needed at the power plant if you don't use the electricity which is not true. The plant must be manned by someone and adjustments made if anyone turns something on OR off - also for maintenance, outages, etc. Keep in mind our emergency services, communications infrastructure, etc all need electricity. It is also not possible to shut a power plant down for a day and restart it the next. (I say this as one who has a degree in electrical engineering with a power emphasis - though I now work in telecommunications). In the home electricity is necessary for everything from HVAC to water. Having everyone run their own generator sounds like something the Pharisees would dream up (no I am not calling you one), its far from the intent of the law. You now have private electricity, the main grid is still on, the power to your house is still provided by the grid, you can still use your self generated power unlawfully.
For clarity - how does this differ from a fuel station stop? You can prepare by filling your tank the day before it is possible to store up fuel in your car as preparation for the day. The fuel station needs to be able to provide fuel to emergency and necessary services though so it is not sinful for it to remain open and depending on your situation it may or may not be sinful to use it. It is not possible to store up the electricity necessary to power a modern home in the same way.
When you eat out you require unnecessary work, you go out of your way to do transactional business for your own pleasure - see Isaiah. By your logic everyone would need to have their own well and turn off the water main to their home for fear of a dripping sink (personal wells are not even legal in many municipalities). The eating out on the Lord's Day is a violation of God's 4th commandment not just because of your action on the day. The command was actually violated earlier that week when one failed to properly prepare for the Sabbath.
Is this an arbitrary question or is there some unnecessary use of electricity bothering your conscience? If you feel your usage of electricity is not necessary then stop, to violate your conscience is sin for you. I'm not sure how you reason that because you find difficulty applying the command as it pertains to electricity that leads you to a more liberal view of it in other areas, like eating out? Should we not look at the scripture and determine how to handle eating out, then look at the scripture and determine how to handle electricity? Rather than looking at scripture to determine how to handle electricity and then looking at electricity to determine how to handle eating out?
As for the man running the plant - his work is as necessary as any other emergency 24/7 service. He cannot know or control how people use the service and his conscience should be clear. He should seek to have a rotation so as to gather with the saints and take up the day in worship regularly, just like a emergency medical technician/doctor, police officer, etc.
Exodus 20:8-11
8Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: 10But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: 11For 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.
Nehemiah 13:21
“Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came they no more on the sabbath.”
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 the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: