As Americans continue to try to make sense of last week’s assassination of Christian champion and civil rights leader Charlie Kirk, videos are emerging of the outspoken Jesus worshiper issuing a challenge to fellow believers about what he calls “the most ignored commandment” of the Ten Commandments.
“I speak at hundreds of churches of all different denominations,” Kirk told the Wisdom Pearl, “and I will challenge the Christian church because I believe this is the most ignored commandment of the Decalogue to our own detriment.”
“We do a horrible job of honoring the Sabbath,” he explained. “We do a really bad job of that as American Christians.”
And what may come as a surprise to millions of Christians, the Sabbath he observed and promoted is NOT Sunday when many congregate to worship on the first day of the week, but rather the seventh day of the week, when Jews and some Christians cease from their work.
The founder of Turning Point USA indicated, “The Sabbath is one of my favorite topics to talk about honestly ’cause I’m so sick of talking about politics all day long, it’s all I do. So it drives me crazy. This is actually way more important than that.”
Kirk said he’ll go “a step further” than merely challenging fellow Christians about ignoring the instruction from God.
“I believe that honoring the Sabbath is the commandment that allows you to honor the other nine commandments, and that the enemy has gone after the honoring the Sabbath because then it is easier to weaken the other nine. And I’ll prove it to you,” he said.
“If you’re honoring the Sabbath, it’s definitionally easier to honor your mother and father because you’re not working that day and are with family. If you’re honoring the Sabbath, it’s easier not to covet your neighbor’s wife because you’re not around your neighbor’s wife. You’re with your family and you’re filled with gratitude that day.
“When you’re honoring the Sabbath, it’s easier to have no other gods before God because that day is built in time as a temple, as a sanctuary to put God first, to not have idols, to not take the Lord’s name in vain. The other nine commandments are made easier, are made more accessible for our broken fleshly depraved nature if we prioritize the Shabbat.”
Prior to his shocking assassination Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Kirk had completed a book on the subject titled “Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Change Your Life,” which is now set for release posthumously in December.
“It’s honestly how the Sabbath saved my life and helped preserve my family and helped preserve my career,” Kirk noted of the book.
Kirk was willing to talk about his personal religious background as he explained his awakening to resting on the seventh day of the week.
“I grew up in a Presbyterian background. We left that church, we went to what would be best called as a Bible-believing, evangelical church. So not quite Calvinist, not Pentecostal, somewhere in the middle,” he recounted.
“We believe in many of the same stuff, guys. I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture. I believe you need Jesus Christ. I believe in grace not works. I believe that there is heaven awaiting us.”
He indicated two prominent figures helped open his eyes to resting on the seventh day: Pastor David Engelhardt, a board member at Turning Point USA, and Dennis Prager, the nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and WorldNetDaily columnist who is also the founder of Prager University.
“I was exhausted, it was the summer of 2021. I sat down with [Pastor Engelhardt], I said, ‘I’m not sleeping well, I’m fatigued.’ And he asked me very bluntly: Are you honoring the Sabbath?’ And I gave him very weak theological arguments honestly [such as] ‘Oh, I’m not bound to that,’ or ‘No, I’m not really interested in that, I don’t have to do that.’ And he really challenged me and I didn’t have good responses to be perfectly honest with you.”
Of Prager, who is Jewish, Kirk said he “is the premier Torah teacher of this generation. He’s amazing, he’s a phenomenal mind.”
“He would always talk about the Shabbat, always taking about the Sabbath. And I found myself, after a couple of years of hearing this, getting really jealous of him, being like, ‘Wait a second! You’re just able to unplug for one day and not work and be with friends and family and worship God? I want that!’ And I would start to get really jealous in the worst possible way.
“And then I realized it’s not something that you go purchase at the store. It’s not something that you have to take out a loan for. It’s simply the prioritization of the question of: Who’s in charge? It’s that simple.
“And if you believe God is in charge and if you believe Genesis 1:1 – because Shabbat is a question of whether or not you believe Genesis 1:1 – and if you believe Genesis 1:1, then you honor the Sabbath.
“If you have questions about Genesis 1:1 – ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ … it’s the first truth-claim of the Scriptures, then on the seventh day you rest because God created the heavens and the earth. It is the longest standing celebration of time of the creation of the heavens and the earth. And so that realization changed my life.”
Kirk admitted when he first started resting on the seventh day, “it was really hard at first. But I just do it religiously regardless of where I am. No one can contact me. And I just read, I take notes, whatever, and it’s been an unbelievable blessing.”
Kirk stressed The Decalogue, which are the Ten Commandments, “says very clearly that we have to honor the Sabbath.”
“I believe truly that the Sabbath is the commandment that makes the other nine possible. And so, let’s think about it. If you’re a parent that is growing disconnected from your child, are you having a Sabbath dinner with them with no devices on?” he asked.
“Probably not. I believe the Sabbath dinner is one of the great traditions that mankind has always had. And whether we like it or not, Jesus had plenty of Sabbath dinners. We know that.
“And also He had a Passover dinner. I’m not saying you’re bound by it. But this is a thing that’s in the Bible that’s kind of like, ‘Wow! Am I doing that? Am I taking advantage of that?’
“So I call on every Christian, if you want your life to improve, maybe you don’t, maybe you want your life to remain awful and miserable, but if you want your life to improve, the happiest people, the least depressed people in the world are those that honor the Sabbath, or some form of a day of rest.”
“They live longer, they’re healthier, less disease and all of it. So for me it’s been a great blessing, and it’s a way just to totally tune out of all this kind of nonsense that’s happening around you.”
When traditional Christians told Kirk they were too busy to have a Sabbath rest, Kirk would respond: “I hate to pull rank on this, but if I can do it, you can do it.”
“Try it for a month, try it for two months and you’ll find your relationship with God and your loved ones will dramatically improve and that hardened hearty that you are worried about I think will soften very quickly.”
In another interview, Kirk lamented: “I think that to our own detriment and to our own failure, we as Christians have decided to cast away resting on one of the seven days. God rested after creation, that comes before the Hebrews, it comes even before the creation of the modern world and civilization as we know it.
Charlie&Erika Kept the Sabbath
Did you know that Charlie Kirk and his family kept the sabbath?
Did you know they kept the original Sabbath from creation?Those of us believers who keep the Sabbath are no less because we keep the commandments, starting with our faith and… pic.twitter.com/vgrCnrbq1m
— Terry & Candace Lightfoot (@CHURCHof_X) September 11, 2025
“And it says very clearly in the Scriptures: For six days you shall work, and the seventh day you shall rest. If you are feeling overrun by society, you might be feeling depressed or anxious, here’s this one way that you might be able to improve. Turn your phone off for one day. No contact. No social media. No work. Your mental health will improve dramatically.
“That is a day to go be with God, that is a day to read your Bible and be out of the busyness and the hurriedness and just the anger and the noise of this world. Go back to God’s natural rhythm. And it’s made our family much tighter knit. And I could be traveling for five or six days, but if I at least get one good Sabbath with my family, it charges all back up.”
He noted: “I want to be remembered for courage for my faith, that would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith.”
Charlie’s wife Erika Kirk was asked about the impact resting on the seventh day of the week has had on their family.
“As the wife, I have seen it transform him in a way that is so powerful that when he turns his phone off and it goes in that drawer, and he and I know that it’s, you know he’s all on for the family,” Erika explained, adding there were “no distractions and he finally gets to reset his brain. He finally gets to breathe.”
“And as a wife, there is nothing more precious than my husband’s sanity when it comes to the echo chamber and everything that he’s dealing with in his world. So I have seen it change him and impact our family in one of the most beautiful ways.”
Rachel Cohen Booth, a senior policy correspondent for Vox who happens to be Jewish, admits she was stunned by Charlie Kirk’s move toward observing a Sabbath as Jews do from from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.
“I found this surprising – he was an outspoken evangelical Christian. I also found it unexpectedly moving,” Booth wrote. “This famous Christian figure shared in the precious ritual that Jews like me all over the world have practiced for centuries.”
In 2008, WorldNetDaily published an in-depth report on when precisely is God’s Sabbath day to be observed, titled “Deception’: Christians war over worship day.”
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