06/25/2026
This Sunday, June 28, our 10am service will address the question of the 4th commandment- keeping the Sabbath holy. Is Sunday a delight or an obligation or both? From Isaiah 58:13 we will address that question. Our second service at 5p.m. continues our treatment of I Peter with chapter 2:13-17. God addresses the calling of the believer in all the different areas of life with the focus here on our honoring those in authority. As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the USA we look at what it means to be God's Slaves who live in this world and honor those whom He has placed in authority over us.
In order to whet your appetite and get you thinking about the Lord's Day- here is the transcript of an excellent speech given at a TPUSA event at Calvin College in April by Prof. Brian Huizinga. Reprinted from the June 2026 Standard Bearer:
HONORING THE SABBATH:
OBLIGATION, DELIGHT, OR BOTH?
PROF. BRIAN HUIZINGA professor of Dogmatics and Old Testament in the Protestant Reformed Theological Seminary, and member
of Grandville PRC in Grandville, Michigan
The following article is the print version of an address
sponsored by TPUSA at Calvin University, Grand Rapids,
MI, and delivered on campus on Thursday evening, April 30.
Opening remarks and thanks…
INTRODUCTION
I want to tell you something important about myself
to help frame a context for you and so that you can
anticipate the direction of this address. I am Reformed,
and unashamedly so. I subscribe to and uphold the
Reformed confessions that emerged out of the great
Protestant Reformation. There are three: the Belgic
Confession (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563),
and the Canons of Dordt (1618-19). I believe that all
the articles and points of doctrine in these confessions
do fully agree with the Word of God, which Word is the
supreme authority for all matters of faith and life. My
address tonight is Reformed. I know that TPUSA is not
a Reformed organization, but I hope that there is some
respect for the Reformed confessions among students
here at Calvin because your university is an institution
of a Reformed church (the Christian Reformed Church
in North America—CRCNA), and because Calvin’s
faculty members are required to affirm the Reformed
confessions.
What a fantastic topic we have tonight! It is not
politics. I know that TPUSA is an organization that
focuses on politics. I appreciate the passion within
TPUSA for principles of conservatism. I appreciate and
have even been inspired by Charlie Kirk, particularly
his boldness to go to university campuses across the
country to try to pull down the seemingly impregnable
strongholds of deception. I love my country, the USA,
and appreciate the tremendous freedoms and privileges
that God has given to us Christians here—freedom to
worship, freedom of speech. I appreciate people who
lawfully defend our freedoms. It is irksome to me
when ungrateful Americans who have no idea how
good they have it bash their own country, dishonor
our flag and national anthem, and disgrace our law
enforcement, armed forces and veterans who sacrificed
for the freedoms we enjoy. Nevertheless, I am not here
to talk about politics, nor am I qualified to do so. I
am not even here to give a biblical presentation on the
Christian’s relationship and responsibility to America
and its government, though that would be a great topic.
I am here to address you on another very important
and relevant topic. It is one of the topics that was suggested
to me, and I did not hesitate for a moment to grab it—the
Sabbath. The founder of TPUSA thought the Sabbath was
so important, that in his frenetic life and work schedule,
he took time to write a book on it. In fact, it was his last
book, published posthumously, Stop in the Name of God:
Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life. I
have a fundamental disagreement with the author, Charlie
Kirk, nevertheless, much of what he writes is compelling
and convicting. Toward the end of the book, he writes,
“As I have stated previously and repeatedly throughout
this book, the Sabbath is the most ignored commandment
by modern Christians to our own detriment” (p. 209). If
the Sabbath is so important that it is worthy of a book, it
is certainly worthy of a speech.
This topic is so important because it is inseparably
connected to a strong spiritual life. My goal tonight
is to make an impact on your spiritual life. There is
something far more important than America, our
president, and the freedoms of religion and speech, and
that is faith in Jesus Christ and a spiritual life in Him.
If you know yourself as a terrible sinner saved by grace
alone through faith alone in Christ alone, then you have
the blessing of God and everything in your life works
for your advantage. But, if you do not know Jesus and
have no spiritual life, nothing in your life matters,
including fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited
government—the hallmarks of TPUSA.
The Sabbath is so important for a spiritual life,
and the relationship goes two ways. First, without
the Sabbath of rest and worship, you cannot have a
strong spiritual life. Second, honoring the Sabbath is
the evidence of a strong spiritual life. I believe the best
way to gauge the spiritual strength and maturity of a
professing Christian is to observe him or her for 52 days
a year, that is, every seventh day on the Lord’s Day. As
Jesus taught, it is very easy to say, “Lord! Lord!” as so
many professing Christians say. But what do they do
on the Lord’s Day? Jesus taught us to deny ourselves,
take up our cross, and follow Him. How many of us are
willing to deny ourselves on the Lord’s Day? The irony
is that those who do are the only ones full, blessed, and
happy.
I have entitled my address: “Honoring the Sabbath:
Obligation, Delight, or Both?” My answer is both.
First, I will explain the Sabbath, then the obligation of
honoring it, and then the delight of honoring it.
THE SABBATH
The Sabbath is simply a day of rest; the biblical word
“sabbath” means rest. More specifically, this day of rest
is the weekly Sabbath commanded by God in the fourth
commandment of His moral law. In the Old Testament
there were various Sabbaths. There were the different
Sabbaths that came once a year on a fixed calendar day
in connection to a specific annual feast. Or, there were
the Sabbaths of years, so that every seventh year the
land was to lie fallow and rest. However, we are not
referring to any of those Sabbaths tonight, but to the
weekly Sabbath commanded by God in Exodus 20:8-11
and Deuteronomy 5:12-15.
Every seventh day was a Sabbath, and the Old
Testament Israelites were commanded by God to stop
all their work of the other six days and rest. God gave
them two reasons. In Exodus 20, the ground for the
commandment is established in creation. Exodus 20:11
says, “For 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.” Even as God worked for six days in
creating the universe, and then rested on the seventh, so
Israel was to work six days and rest on the seventh day.
In Deuteronomy 5 the ground for the commandment
is established in redemption. Deuteronomy 5:15 says,
“And remember that thou wast a servant in the land
of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out
thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out
arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to
keep the sabbath day.” Because God redeemed Israel
out of cruel bo***ge in Egypt and gave them rest, they
were to rest every seventh day in remembrance of that
redemption and the greater liberty from sin and death
that was coming for the children of God’s covenant in
the promised Messiah.
In the New Testament, there is still a weekly Sabbath, one special day that is distinct from the other
six days of the week as a day of rest and worship.
It is Sunday, what the Presbyterian confession (the
Westminster Confession of Faith) calls “the Christian
Sabbath,” and what the Bible calls, “the Lord’s Day.”
In Revelation 1:10, the apostle John says, “I was
in the Spirit on the Lord’s day….” There is a certain
day called “the Lord’s Day,” and everyone knew what
it was. It was the day on which the Lord manifested
His Lordship as never before, the day He showed that
He is the firstborn of the new creation of God and that
He has accomplished the true spiritual rest of which
redemption from Egypt was only a picture! It was not
Saturday, the last day of the week when He was still
dead in the grave and giving no evidence of being Lord.
It was Sunday, the first day of the week, when He arose
triumphantly!
The church did not change the Sabbath from
Saturday to Sunday; no man or institution has that
authority. God changed the day of the Sabbath when
He raised Jesus from the dead. Then, the very next week
Jesus appeared to His disciples on Sunday, the first day
of the week and spoke to them the gospel of peace (John
20:19). Several weeks later, Jesus poured out His Spirit
on Pentecost and Peter preached to gathered crowds on
the first day of the week (Acts 2). Then the apostolic
church began gathering for public worship on Sunday
because they knew it was their Sabbath. Acts 20:7 is
representative, “And upon the first day of the week,
when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul
preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow;
and continued his speech until midnight” (see also
1 Cor. 16:2). This practice of the apostolic church is
prescriptive for us. While there is no example of a newly
established New Testament congregation worshiping
on Saturday, we do see Christians gathering on the first
day of the week, the Lord’s Day, our Sabbath.
When God changed the day of the Sabbath, He
marvelously changed the perspective. In the Old
Testament, the perspective was: work unto rest. Work for
six days and then finally on the seventh day, rest. Work
moved toward rest. Rest was always up ahead and in the
deepest sense Israel was always moving from one picture
of rest to another in anticipation of the reality coming in
Christ. However, in the New Testament, we work out
of rest. The week begins with the day of rest and then
we take our whole life as a living sacrifice of thanks and
joyfully give it to God in working for six days.
The Sabbath is Sunday, the first day of the week,
the Lord’s Day. Unfortunately, Charlie Kirk practiced a
Jewish, Saturday Sabbath. If I could have met Charlie
Kirk, I would have expressed my deep appreciation for
so many things he has done and then humbly but firmly
exhorted him to honor the risen Lord Jesus Christ by
honoring Sunday as the New Testament Sabbath.
OBLIGATION
Having explained the Sabbath, I will demonstrate
that honoring it is our obligation. Many professing
Christians today deny that honoring the Sabbath
is required. Besides widespread disregard for the
Sabbath, it is commonly taught that the Sabbath of the
fourth commandment was part of the Old Testament
ceremonial law that has been fulfilled and abolished in
Christ. Even as we no longer offer lambs for sacrifices,
so we no longer observe a weekly Sabbath as holy to the
Lord and a special day of worship. You may observe
a weekly Sabbath and go to church for worship, and
it is probably a healthy practice to do so, but it is
not required. To insist that one day out of seven be
specially consecrated unto the Lord is legalism, a yoke
of bo***ge. Nine of the commandments, 1-3 and 5-10,
are still binding, but the fourth was abolished by Christ.
It is commonly said that every day is a Sabbath of rest
in Christ, every day is the Lord’s Day for celebrating
His resurrection and confessing His name.
In his book, Charlie Kirk details how he wrestled
long and hard with this question, probably more than
any question in his life. And while he could not quite
bring himself to say that honoring the Sabbath is an
obligation required by God, neither could he distance
himself from that position. I read him as trying to
have both, so that while the Sabbath is not binding,
it is also true that not keeping a weekly Sabbath is
an “act of spiritual arrogance” and “leads us toward
pride, exhaustion, and ultimately sin” (p. 222). It is not
binding, but basically it is.
I will clearly state my conviction. We are obligated
to honor the Sabbath. First (and this is the most
important point), the command to keep the Sabbath is
part of the enduring, moral law of God. Charlie makes
complex what is simple.
To be sure, the fourth commandment is unique
in that it had a ceremonial element. The rest of
which it spoke had a shadowy, typological dimension
and was observed on the last day of the week. Then
that ceremonial element was fulfilled in Christ who
accomplished the true, spiritual rest for sinners in His
resurrection so that now the Sabbath is observed on the
first day of the week. There was a ceremonial element
to the fourth commandment, something about it that
does not apply to us today. However, it also contains
a positive, enduring, moral substance: one day out of
seven is to be set aside to the Lord. It does not have
to be Saturday, the seventh day as some insist. The
commandment does not end by saying, “Wherefore the
Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.” But
it does say, “Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath
day, and hallowed it” (Ex. 20:11).
God wrote the ten commandments on stone
to indicate their permanence. As much as the first
commandment endures (have no idols!) or the seventh
commandment endures (do not commit adultery!), the
fourth commandment endures and is binding upon
Christians. Jesus did not come with a hammer and chisel
to knock out the fourth commandment so that New
Testament Christians have only nine commandments.
There will always be ten commandments. If the
law of the Medes and Persians in Daniel’s day
was unchangeable, certainly God’s law in stone is
unchangeable. The fourth commandment makes the
weekly Sabbath an obligation for Christians.
By the way, to say, “Every day is a Sabbath for me,
or every day is the Lord’s Day for me” creates a practical
impossibility. It is like saying every ball on the billiards
table is an 8 ball. When every one of the fifteen object
balls in the triangular rack is an eight ball, then no ball
is really an eight ball. When every day is the Lord’s Day,
no day is the Lord’s Day.
Second, the obligation of the Sabbath is built into the
creation itself. As we already stated, the ground for this
commandment in Exodus 20 is God’s work of creation.
He created in six days and rested on the seventh (Gen.
2:2-3). Therefore, the Sabbath has abiding moral force
as a creation ordinance. Before there was ever sin, or
the mention of grace in the promise of a Messiah, or
a nation called “Israel,” or a law given at Sinai, there
was the Sabbath. When God made the universe in six
days and rested on the seventh, He built an inviolable
principle and unbreakable rhythm into the very fabric
of the creation: six days of work and one day of rest.
Charlie does a great job in his book explaining man’s
futile attempts to destroy this rhythm—at the time
of the French Revolution, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, in
Hitler’s dictatorial regime, and today in the American
consumerism. The results were and are disastrous. The
Sabbath cannot be broken, for the rhythm of six days
of work and one day of rest was created before it was
ever commanded.
Third, the obligation of the Sabbath is the official
teaching of the Reformed faith. Heidelberg Catechism
Lord’s Day 38 teaches: “What doth God require [still
require!] in the fourth commandment? First, that the
ministry of the gospel and the schools be maintained;
and that I, especially on the sabbath, that is, on the day
of rest [there is still a sabbath!], diligently frequent the
church of God, to hear His word, to use the sacraments,
publicly to call upon the Lord, and contribute to the
relief of the poor, as becomes a Christian. Secondly,
that all the days of my life I cease from my evil works,
and yield myself to the Lord, to work by His Holy Spirit
in me: and thus begin in this life the eternal sabbath.” I
will not read Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter
21, paragraph 7, but it is so clear and thorough (look
it up).
Fourth, the obligation of the Sabbath is not erased
by Colossians 2:16-17, as some suppose. It says, “Let
no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or
in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of
the sabbath days [lit. “sabbaths”]: Which are a shadow
of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” The
apostle is not teaching that the weekly Sabbath was a
shadow fulfilled and now abolished in Christ. In the
Old Testament, there were many sabbaths in addition
to the weekly Sabbath. They were all ceremonial, and
they were all fulfilled and abolished like other ritual
observances the apostle mentions regarding meats,
drinks, holydays, and new moons. Paul’s exhortation
is, “Let no man judge you in those things, as if they
are obligatory!” However, by “sabbaths,” he is not
referring to the weekly Sabbath; that Sabbath is still
binding, as is clear from the fourth commandment and
the apostle’s own practice.
Fifth, in Mark 2:27, Jesus does not say the Sabbath
was made for Old Testament Israel—those under the
ceremonial law, but for man, humanity, “And he said
unto them, the sabbath was made for man, and not
man for the sabbath.”
DELIGHT
Honoring the Sabbath is not merely an obligation, it is
a delight!
It was a delight to God! When Genesis 2:2, 3 tells
us that God rested on the seventh day it does not mean
inactivity but that God, as it were, stepped back and
delighted in His work: “Behold it is good!” Psalm
104:31 says, “The glory of the Lord shall endure
forever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works.”
Call the Sabbath a delight! Isaiah declares in Isaiah
58:13-14, “ 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: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord;
and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of
the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy
father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.” Call
the Sabbath a delight, even in the Old Testament before
Christ came!
First John 5:3 states, “For this is the love of God, that
we keep his commandments: and his commandments
are not grievous.” The fourth commandment is not
grievous!
If you have been implanted into the risen Lord
Jesus, then you are alive spiritually. Then you know
you are a terribly rebellious sinner who constantly
falls for Satan’s temptations, who has broken all of
God’s commandments in thought, word, and deed,
who has made so many foolish decisions, who has a
mountain of debt that can never be paid back to this
thrice Holy God, and who deserves to be punished
everlastingly in hell, for the wages of sin is death! But
you also know that Jesus bled and died on the cross
for all your sins, reconciled you unto God, obtained
everlasting righteousness for you, and confirmed the
same by His resurrection! If you know this risen Lord
and the amazing, everlasting salvation you have in Him
by grace alone, then you have peace in believing and
you are so thankful for God’s love! Then, when God
says to you, “Every seven days you take one day and
consecrate it unto Me,” you say, “I want to, and by
the power of Thy Spirit, it is my delight to honor the
Sabbath!”
The delight of honoring the Sabbath is not
pharisaical legalism, by making all kinds of laws for
yourself and for others, trying to win God’s favor
by outdoing everyone else in extraordinary acts of
obedience. That is bo***ge!
But neither is the delight of the Sabbath found in
following antinomian impulses and making it your day,
for your work, and your pleasure, and your idol god of
mammon. That is also bo***ge! Listen to Charlie Kirk:
"Many sacrifice their Sabbath—that sacred day of
rest and worship commanded by God—for an extra
day of work, an extra shopping trip, an extra scroll
through endless online sales. Many sacrifice time
with their children to chase promotions, bigger
homes, and higher status…. This reality is part of
the reason I wrote this book. A true Sabbath—a
day set apart, a day of ceasing, a day of reorienting
our lives toward God—stands as a bold rebuke to
the worship of stuff…. It reminds us that man does
not live by bread alone, or smartphones alone, or
vacations alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God (p. 107)."
Again, he writes,
"Before you dismiss this as someone else’s problem,
take an honest look in the mirror. Are you more
excited for the next vacation or the next chance
to serve someone in need? Does the arrival of a
new Amazon package thrill you more than time in
prayer…. The solution is not to embrace asceticism
for its own sake. It is to return to the God who gave
us life, meaning, and purpose (p. 109).
The delight is, first, in stopping. God is so good!
This is amazing! He gives you 52 days a year to stop! Put
away your work, homework, work emails, schedules,
errands, drive for productivity, endless scrolling, sports,
and entertainment. Put it away and stop in the name of
God!"
Then, second, the delight is entering by faith into
that spiritual liberty, joy, and worship that Christ gave
you. What does that look like? It is going to church. The
Sabbath is not a day for isolation, but it was always a
communal day for fellowship with brothers and sisters in
Christ, especially in God’s house. The Psalms are filled
with expressions of delight in going up to God’s house.
All of you here tonight must have a home congregation,
a true and faithful church where you can worship our
great God, hear the gospel of Christ, partake of His
sacraments, read His Word together, pray together, and
give offerings to relieve the poor and others even as
God has relieved you from spiritual slavery.
Then outside of the worship services, the Sabbath is
a wonderful opportunity to be together for fellowship,
to take a walk and talk with friends or family, to get
together and sing and make music pleasing to the Lord.
It is the perfect day to have quiet time and read
spiritually edifying literature so that you are preoccupied
with the sweetness of Christ, and your mind and soul
are lifted out of the temporal and earthly into the
heavenly for a little while, and you get a foretaste of the
eternal Sabbath to come. What a delight!
The Sabbath is an obligation, but the Christian
views it as a delight. If any of you do not know the
delight of honoring the Sabbath for rest and worship,
may God plant it in your heart, and then you will be
spiritually stronger and happier in the Lord. Let us
honor the Sabbath and thereby honor the Son of Man
who is the Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28)
